atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#4124: Well, that about wraps it up for global warming.

Borepatch has another post up with an excellent graph demonstrating that better than 95% of the predictions made by models are, well, wrong.

Of all the traces in that graph, only one projection is a reasonable match to the observations. When that happens in a real scientific discipline, the guys who made the incorrect predictions have to defend their predictions or admit they're wrong. But climatology isn't a real scientific discipline.

To make things even more entertaining, the trend in the surface temperature measurements (which are flawed for various reasons) has leveled off, meaning that warming has stopped. The satellite measurements are more accurate but show a very slight positive trend in the same time period...all the while remaining 0.3° below the average of the predictions.

* * *

How does the Treasury have the authority to do this? The Treasury is going to force employers to certify, on pain of perjury, that they're not letting people go because of Obamacare.

Is there anything in Obamacare saying that it's illegal to lay people off because you can't (or won't) pay the exorbitant new fees for health insurance? Or is the Treasury Department just unilaterally coming up with a new law, extra-constitutionally? Will a law like that hold up in court?

Further:
Although Treasury and HHS insist that employers are not reducing full-time workers because of Obamacare's obvious and perverse incentives, the beleaguered agencies have decided to require employers to certify that they aren't taking perfectly sensible decisions to preserve and protect their businesses.
So Treasury is emplacing a measure to prevent something they claim isn't taking place?

Obamacare is a clusterfuck, and it's only going to get worse.

* * *

More proof that you can get away with just about anything if you're rich and vote the right way. Woody Allen--like Roman Polanski--is a big-name Hollywood director, and so he has all sorts of people coming to his defense.

The thing is, if Woody Allen actually did molest a 7-year-old, he ought to be in jail, exactly the same way convicted rapist Roman Polanski ought to be--yet we see all sorts of excuses and obfuscations being thrown up by all sorts of people unconnected to the case.

* * *

I'm seeing from the extended forecast that we're supposed to get a few days' worth of thaw next week. This is typical for February in the midwest.

It gives me mixed feelings. To be perfectly honest I have enjoyed this winter, even with all the nonsense, because this is the kind of winter I enjoy. But "permanent winter" means ice age and we can't have that, so we'll have to go through the mucky thawing and crappy part where it's not really winter any longer but not quite spring, either.

*sigh*

* * *

Last night I finally hooked the VCR up to the entertainment system. I've only been wanting to do so since October, but now the integration is complete.

I celebrated by digging into some of the boxes of videotapes under the bed, realizing that I really don't need to keep a lot of my tapes, and setting a big double-handful into the "toss" pile. I had intended to dig out something to watch but that's not how it worked out. Anyway I found two tapes that I'll donate; the rest of them are episodes of Tenchi Muyo! that I taped from Cartoon Network about fourteen years ago and never watched, or eps of Gundam W, same source and vintage.

I'm going to have to dig through the Babylon 5 tapes to make sure I don't need them, but they'll probably go out, too. Star Trek: Voyager is also on the chopping block.

On the "keep" list are most of the fansub tapes I bought. Only "most", because I'm going to get rid of things I didn't like (such as Love Hina) and/or have no interest in rewatching. I have an enormous stack of videotape and I can probably be safely rid of not less than 50% of it. I mean, I like to look at the old commercials from TV shows I taped decades ago, but it's not worth keeping all that junk around, particularly when I haven't even wanted to watch Star Trek: Next Generation off BBC, where it takes no effort but changing the channel.

Furthermore, I taped those shows off antenna, and the Fungal Vale is sufficiently far from Chicago that 90% of them were taped in "super-grainy-static-o-vision". "Wow, I'm watching a twenty-year-old tape of static on a HDTV! Isn't technology wonderful?" *sigh*

If VHS wasn't so bulky I could see keeping them. I suppose I could transfer the stuff to DVD, which would take an approximate eternity since I'd have to duplicate it in real time, and I'm not too sure I want much of that stuff anyway.

No, it's much better if I just scrap as many tapes as I can. WTF.

I had wanted to throw in You're Under Arrest! but I couldn't find it, so I threw in a tape I'd made from laserdisk of the first two eps of that (subbed) and a couple eps of Tenchi Muyo! OVAs...and I discovered that I can't stand to watch the Tenchi dubs any longer. It may only be that it was a "filler" ep (which tend to have rather crummy writing) and I wasn't in the mood to see it.

Anyway, I was trying to watch it, but the video wasn't coming through and I couldn't figure out why--I was just getting the sound--and of course I had to swap patch cords before remembering that there's a software switch on the DVD recorder which lets the user select between S-video and standard composite. Once I'd corrected that, mirabile visu I could see the video and hear the sound.

Little by little I am slowly getting the entertainment center back together, though, which is a good thing. At work I saw a really nice entertainment center stand which is ostensibly for gaming rigs, but which features a cubby right in the center which is the perfect size for El-Hazard while also containing suitable nooks and crannies for other devices (cable box, DVD recorder, etc). It was on sale for $130, and looked really nice, but I'm not entirely sure it would have fit where the cable drop is. Well, it'll be on sale again, and I can worry about it then.

Last week's project was to hook the stereo up, and I celebrated by playing a couple of CDs on my old Toshiba CD player. Next up, getting El-Hazard added to the mix so I can watch some freakin' anime. Cripes.

* * *

Anyway, it's getting on towards dinner time, and Mrs. Fungus wants tacos. Guess what that means?
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