Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years

Have we really done this?

"As sea ice shrinks to record lows, Prof Peter Wadhams warns a 'global disaster' is now unfolding in northern latitudes

One of the world's leading ice experts (Cambridge) has predicted the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years."

Appalling.

'Wadhams has spent many years collecting ice thickness data from submarines passing below the arctic ocean.... "I have been predicting [the collapse of sea ice in summer months] for many years. The main cause is simply global warming: as the climate has warmed there has been less ice growth during the winter and more ice melt during the summer." '

Here is your link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/17/arctic-collapse-sea-ice

Politics and honesty

FACT CHECK: Convention speakers stray from reality

Wow, the cynicism of our current poltical leaders and candidates.

Why should they use facts and tell the truth, rather than tell the people what makes them sound best?

If the voters aren't going to call them out on the blatant lying (WMDs anyone?), why should they tell the truth or stick to the facts?  All they have to do is say the right things at the right time and do whatever they want once they're in office.

Actually, once they're in office, then they can continue to push the agenda of the multi-national corporations who have funded their election.

What a broken system.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j-oHGoQbH0RmoY7rNL47-I6BYziA?docId=dc7b2d4bcfab405989965fd9505a1aff

How many people live in Manhattan?

I guess the eyeroll here is the continued attention the press gives to global warming deniers.  Isn't it pretty obvious by now?  How large of a percentage of scientists worldwide need to agree before it is accepted?  And please tell me what percentage of scientists believe current theories in high energy partical physics versus those who have contrary views?

At least science continues carefully, as it should.  This from a rather contrarian and negative Washington Post editorial:

In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report released last week, researchers attempted to determine how much they could attribute six extreme weather events last year to human-caused global warming. Even now, months on, some experts worry that drawing conclusions is precipitous. Figuring out what caused a flood in Thailand or a drought in Texas is hard. Doing it quickly is harder.

And the planet is certainly warming. Humans releasing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere are almost certainly responsible for much, if not all, of that warming; the particular patterns of warming, comparison to the historical record, and the basic precepts of physics all indicate this.

The article that sparked this irritation, was this one about an iceberg the size of 2 Manhattans that has broken off of a glacier in Greenland.  Its pretty sad.

Why is this not a major political issue here in the States?  We're shitting our own bed so that a few old white guys can get rich.  But only a few.  If we're going to rape the planet, at least have it benefit all of the selfish and greedy people worldwide.  Yeah, that'll happen.

It's not Godzilla, but...

Giant mutant slug found near Fukushima
 [original post from Fukushima Diary]

Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low

The title says it all.  How long will our country (actually, the 99%) acquiesce to the capitalism-above-all-else mentality that is destroying us?  What is it about sane economic policies that make them so hard to enact?  Yes, I know that money rules and determines what Congress decides.

But how much more abuse will the middle class take?  How complacent can they be? 

"If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention."

Buy a Trayvon Martin target!

Wow.  There is no other possible response to this than your daily eyeroll.

The Hiller Armament Company of Virginia has been selling "Trayvon Targets" for shooting practice, complete with a black hoodie, Skittles, and an ice tea.

 And..., here's your link: LINK

Icon of environmentalism coöpted to market SUVs

I had forgotten about this piece that was one of the reasons I started thinking about this blog.  One of the green newsletters I get reminded me about it today. Link below.

I suppose the party that deserves the most blame is the Geisel Estate for allowing his creations to be used in this way.  I mean, gross marketing and advertising people really don't have a "floor" for how low they'll go.  It isn't like we should be surprised by them so completely twisting a thing's essence as a means of attracting attention, positive or negative.  The whole 1984 thing, but 18 years later. 

Speaking of, how about this?
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?...[B]y the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

In my eyes, the one thing Orwell got wrong was that rendering everyone unconscious is most easily achieved not by force and rigidity, but by just appealing to humanity's basic and inate sense of laziness and it's love of spectacle.  That's the part that Pixar got right in Wall-E.

And here is the link to the Washington Post piece on Mazda's use of the Lorax in marketing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/virginia-schools-insider/post/the-lorax-helps-market-mazda-suvs-to-elementary-school-children-nationwide/2012/02/28/gIQAQhRMiR_blog.html

Warner puts Maccabees movie on hold; Mel Gibson still anti-semitic

I have to admit to having been completely skeptical about Mel Gibson making a movie about one of Judaism's most inspirational stories.  It just smelled like a PR move.

Now, the screenwriter working on the project - Joe Eszterhas, writer of Flashdance, Basic Instinct, Sliver, etc. - has written Gibson a 9-page letter denouncing him for never really intending to make the film.  "Instead, Eszterhas said, Gibson announced the project “in an attempt to deflect continuing charges of anti-Semitism which have dogged you, charges which have crippled your career.”"

This isn't terribly surprising to jews.  It is a little surprising that Eszterhas really felt that Gibson was coming into the project unbiased.  "After encountering Gibson’s conduct, Eszterhas writes that he felt trapped, but then decided to ignore the racist remarks and write the script based on his own research."  All of this after Eszterhas wrote this in his 2008 book: "No doubt now.  Mel was a raving anti-semite who ... shared the mindset of Adolf Hitler." 

What exactly was it that made Joe think Mel had had a change of heart? 

A nice quote from his letter:

"You continually called Jews 'Hebes' and 'oven-dodgers' and 'Jewboys.' It seemed that most times when we discussed someone, you asked 'He’s a Hebe, isn’t he?' You said most 'gatekeepers' of American companies were 'Hebes' who 'controlled their bosses.'"
[Oven-dodgers?  Nice, really nice.]


 The article and the letter itself.

Murderer is ACTUALLY a victim

"Shaken Baby Syndrome" used in defense of Trayvon Martin's killer

 

Police have not arrested Zimmerman because the use of lethal force in self defense is permitted under the Stand Your Ground law approved by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush in 2005.

 ...

"He didn't commit any crime," Unrig said on CBS. "He was attacked, broke his nose, hit his head into the ground and he defended himself. That's not against the law." 

America is such a better country with the Bush family protecting us.  Here's your link to the Reuters article.

Just be sure you take a shower and wear presentable underwear.

Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip Searches for Any Arrest

 Really?  Really?  

"According to opinions in the lower courts, people may be strip-searched after arrests for violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support. Citing examples from briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip search” after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell.

A nun was strip-searched, he wrote, after an arrest for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration."

 Sigh.  Here is a NYTimes article on the ruling.

Study: Conservatives’ trust in science has fallen dramatically since mid-1970s

Well, this was already obvious from the direction that political discourse has taken in the last decade or so. 

A quote from the article:

“Today, conservatives perceive the scientific community as more focused on regulatory matters such as stopping industry from producing too much carbon dioxide. Conservatives often oppose government regulation, and they increasingly perceive science as on the side of regulation, especially as scientific evidence is used more frequently in the work of government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and in public debates over issues such as climate change.”

Article link.

I'm not sure this is worthy of this blog, but I like the idea of a $26, 1 lb, two foot long hot dog:

See: ESPN News Story

In surprise news, oil isn't good for coral beds.

The first sentence of this article from AP says it all:

After months of laboratory work, scientists say they can definitively finger oil from BP's blown-out well as the culprit for the slow death of a once brightly colored deep-sea coral community in the Gulf of Mexico that is now brown and dull.

Well duh.  Proof that greater than 200 million gallons of spilled oil devastated the ecosystem?  Who.  Knew.

Report: Oil spill culprit for heavy toll on coral