It's over. The wheels have come off the AGW bandwagon.
Why?
Because CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have continued to increase the entire time, and temperature is not following suit, that's why.
Predictably, now the econazis are telling us that a new Ice Age is coming! Solar Cycle 25 means the end of the world!
...[L]eading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.Wait, what happened to the vaunted computer models? This article says that actual data was consulted to come to this conclusion. Everyone knows that the data is wrong and warming is occuring; the models say so!
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’So: higher sun output means warming, but lower sun output doesn't mean cooling? Do I understand you wankers correctly?
Sorry; it's not a one-way street. The Laws of Thermodynamics say so.
AoSHQ on this story.
Vox Day.
DPUD.
Arse Technica.
...oh, wait! Arse Technica says NOTHING! about this story! Instead, this site which professes to be dedicated to science talks about ocean acidity already being beyond natural levels due to GLOBAL WARMING!
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So let's make with the DOOM!, shall we?
Epic economic recovery, baby! GDP grew by a whole 1.7% in 2011! Obamanomics FTW!!!
Illinois ranks last in the country for decreases in unemployment thanks to Governor Pat Quinn and his huge tax increase of last year. Unemployment in IL went up 0.8% last year. It went up 0.3% in Mississippi, 0.3% in Hawaii, and 0.1% in North Carolina; everywhere else unemployment dropped.
Thanks, Pat Quinn! Thanks, Illinois Democrats!
(Of course I actually doubt that unemployment decreased anywhere in the US, but even if you un-fudge the numbers Illinois is still on the bottom.)
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Did you know that the nursing home industry is more highly regulated than the nuclear power industry? I didn't know that until I had taken a job as a CNA and was sitting in the HR guy's office, doing the new employee orientation. But it's true. That's why stories like this don't surprise me. It is very, very hard to make money running a nursing home because of all the regulation.
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Sales of new homes dropped unexpectedly!
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China is importing less. This is not a good indicator for China's financial health.
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How'd you like to get foreclosed on for a house you no longer own? It's all about robosigning! This kind of thing is why the biggest banks are so eager to pay the federal government a combined $25 billion in exchange for immunity from prosecution or even investigation.
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Vox Day talks about Greece and its Hob's Choice: default or give up sovereignty over its budget.
Hint: the people of Greece are not going to agree to let their taxes be set by people in Berlin, Paris, and Brussels.
And even if Europe manages to avoid catastrophe with Greece, there are still Portugal, Italy, and Spain to contend with.
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The burn on my finger is now entirely pain-free, and has been for a good 12 hours. In fact, the redness from the 1st degree burn has all but disappeared, leaving only the blistered spots, and it seems as if the nail may actually be just fine after all.
I'll be making beef burgundy again; but the next time I make it, I'll put the beef in the frying pan with a spoon rather than toss it in.
$8 worth of beef, $1 worth of broth, and perhaps $0.75 worth of wine; assuming $2.25 worth of assorted spices, bacon, onions, and carrots--that means it cost me $11 to make. I've gotten 3 meals from the batch and should get one more. That's $2.75 per meal, which is damned good.
The Culver's double deluxe combo I get is $7.70, for one meal. This is why I've been trying not to get takeout as much.
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Last night, while watching the anime playlist, I cleaned Cephiro's keyboard.
I had to remove an inordinate number of screws to get it apart, and it turns out there are more screws under the wrist wrest. Once I had it apart, I started popping out keys and stripped the top plate completely.
Gadzooks there was a lot of crud under the keys. Even after I had cleaned it with a dental pick there was still a lot of crud left. I took it to the kitchen and scrubbed it clean; and once it had dried, I began--one by one--cleaning each key with a Windex wipe and reinserting it into the top plate.
The result is a keyboard that--but for the WoW wear around the cursor rosette--looks virtually brand new. I can't really tell that it feels any better, but at least it's no longer unendurably crummy.
Well: this machine is nearly 5 years old, and this keyboard has seen daily use since I got it--and I frequently eat meals at the computer. I don't know how many times a piece of General Tao's chicken has bounced across it (or worse) and whenever you eat a sandwich there are always crumbs. Further, with two cats in the house--
One really annoying bit--well, two:
I had to unplug the circuit board in the lower half of the keyboard case in order to reseat the cable which had come out of its run. When I reassembled the thing, I forgot to plug the cable back in to the board, which meant that after I'd booted the computer and had no keyboard, I had to disassemble the keyboard again to reseat the cable plug.
More annoying, though, is that the computer doesn't have a hot-pluggable keyboard port. If you unplug the keyboard, you have to reboot the computer or it won't see that you've plugged the keyboard back in.
That latter might be due to the fact that I've got the Logitech USB wireless keyboard and mouse in parallel with the wired ones. Maybe the system sees the USB one and says, "Ah, I'll ignore that new PS2 device since I've already got a USB device connected." It's still irritating.
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Nice warm day today, but I'm not going to ride the motorcycle. The roads have been salted, and road salt is not kind to aluminum.
Besides, it's already past 5. I was playing WoW with Sailor V and Lemonzen until 3 AM; when I saw what time it was I made my excuses and logged. Then I couldn't get to sleep until I took a Xanax at 5-ish and fell asleep around 5:30. And thereafter I slept until 2:30 because the phone didn't ring and the cats didn't bother me.
Seeing as the prior couple of days featured poor and/or broken sleep, I was about due, but it's still kind of troublesome for me.
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In ep 105 of Fairy Tail we're given this view of Lisanna:
99.997% of the fan service in Fairy Tail is teh boobzorz. This doesn't bother me because they're frequently magnificent and I'm male. But it's nice to see a well-rendered ass once in a while, and as I've said before I'm beginning to think that Lisanna is the most physically attractive woman in the series.
(Erza is still the best because she's strong and heroic and fierce and what a body, but she's not necessarily the prettiest one.)
Best part: Lisanna and the other members of her family (Mirajane and Elfman) are all experts in "take over" magic, which is essentially shapeshifting. Lisanna has several attack forms; this is her "tiger" form--which is basically a catgirl with extending claws, like a cat. It is made of awesome. The rest of her attack forms are some variety of childish-cutesey, but the cat form is cute and teh sexay.
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I'm still waiting for the big moment between Hanazono and Fujiko in Yawara! Long ago, in an issue of Mangajin, I saw a scene where Hanazono was apologizing to Fujiko's parents for getting her pregnant; they were using it as an example of a very formal apology ("moushiwaki ga arimansen" or "there is absolutely no excuse", delivered from a kneeling position with hands on the floor and forehead on the hands) but I know that the anime follows the manga pretty closely. Besides, when I saw the final movie, it showed Fujiko at Barcelona with Yawara while Hanazono was taking care of a baby at home.
At the end of each episode there's a title card showing how many days remain before the opening of the Barcelona Olympics. The last ep I watched, there were 369 days remaining. Since it takes nine months for gestation, and since the baby I saw was not a newborn, there's probably about a 7-episode window for Fujiko and Hanazono to go all the way from where we are right now.
(Assuming they haven't already and it just happened off-camera. But they still seem to be in the "ga-ga eyes" phase rather than the "hot and heavy" phase.)
I identify too much with Hanazono. He's a big and goofy-looking guy; when I look at him I think that's probably about what I'd look like if drawn anime-style. (Well, if I got my hair buzzed to my scalp, anyway.) Like him I've got a tall, narrow head and thick lips. Despite his foolishness about some things he's a really good guy, as becomes obvious before he and Yawara graduate from high school. So that's probably why I desperately want to see him achieve happiness with Fujiko; if there's hope for him, there's hope for me.
It's easy to see, however, what the story complication will be: Fujiko is turning out to be a world-class judoka, but if she's pregnant she can't train. Yeah. So I'd wager that the pregnancy won't happen before she and Yawara go to Saikai University and join their judo team.
(Coach Yuutenji--the head coach of Saikai's judo program--has a huge face, and every time I see him I think "Rush Limbaugh" even though they look nothing alike. Besides, Limbaugh is a lot more trim these days.)
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Finally, you really have to watch out for the mascots in magical girl series, because sometimes they go bad. Here is a recent photograph of Pokota from Hime-chan's Ribbon, taken as he was exiting a meeting of the Aryan Nation:
Himeko must be so disappointed.