Monday, June 23, 2008

Accelerating?

Hmm.

I'll just 'assume' it's all in the pipeline like Dr. Hansen says it is.

Lucia muses on this. She's not a skeptic. She's also one of my favorite sites. I don't comment daily but I visit every day.

One of Anthony's guest posters also muses on this. They are skeptics who believe the solar cycle should be given much more credit then what it gets. I think their idea that cooling is on the way based on a prolonged Solar Cycle 23 and two predicted future wimpy solar cycles is speculative at best so I'm skeptical of it. The Earth is most definitely warming. Of course if they're right then everyone that's bought into the current scientific consensus is wrong and hundreds of millions will starve (which they'll probably do anyway if the warming accelerates after 2010, since it's not, now.)

For what it's worth, the skeptics have latched onto the fact that there's a noted divergence in the temperature record between the satellite and land-based records, as seen in this graph. Now I'm pretty sure the world will get back to boiling sooner or later, but if you want to know why they are the way they are (since even the religious right and the mainstream Republican Party has had its buy-in to AGW/ACC) this is why. The graph was created here and you can do it yourself. It's a cool, cool site. I'm glad I found it.

I am more or less done with my adventure in the skepticsphere. It was an interesting run. However I'm not convinced that the Earth is NOT warming, as it clearly is. Thus, Congress should do something but probably not cap-and-trade, as it just allows polluters to just trade their "pollutants" around (pollutants in this case being CO2). Nothing will change. But people will get rich off of it. Hmm, perhaps I should get in on that. I much favor a nice carbon tax with instant rebate. A nice fat check every year like the one we got this year? I'm game! I want solar panels on my future roof!

As my colleague Andy Revkin reported, the influential NASA climate scientist James Hansen is now pushing for a new approach to cutting greenhouse emissions. Instead of the cap-and-trade approach pushed by some politicians and environmentalists — and rejected in the Senate last week — he’s urging a “tax-and-dividend”: a carbon tax whose revenues would all be directly returned to citizens. The money would be divided equally, so that people who use less energy than average — like lower-income people — would get back more than they spend.

Dr. Hansen and I are not exactly public-policy soulmates, but I’m with him on this one. I’ve advocated a similar tax on carbon generally and gasoline specifically, with all the money refunded directly to citizens, either through simple payments or by depositing the money in new individual retirement accounts. Refunding money directly removes the temptation for Congress to treat a carbon-reduction revenues as a chance to dispense trillions of dollars worth of favors — as proposed in last week’s bill, which was aptly dubbed “pork-and-trade.”



And Dr. Hansen , who told Congress today that the world is probably going to end as we boil off the seas and atmosphere, is for it too.

I, however, don't and rarely ever have responded to appeals to emotion. Emotionality is why nothing is getting done. Bjorn Lomborg (and despite what everyone screams, he is not a skeptic!) more or less said this in his book, "Cool It" and got pies in his face for it. Some bloggers would rather name call instead of doing real action. And to be honest, I wish those dudes would just chill the fuck out and smoke some pot, clear their heads, and then come back and be rational about their work instead of screaming "DELAYER, DENIER, I WANT TO LOCK UP THE OIL EXECS FOR DISINFORMATION." Cause then, I'm just going to say "good luck with that" and not care about your cause and work on things that are important to me, like solving hunger in the third world and curing AIDS which would have much better socio-economic impacts on planet Earth then screaming epithets at each other. And yes, the skeptics and cooling alarmists are becoming as histrionic as the warming alarmists. It makes me wish I had gone into psychology. I could make millions writing pop-psych books on you people! and people would buy it and buy into that bullshit!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Parking Lease dot Org now launched

Found this via the Pennlive Forums.

Check it out, and if you're a Harrisburg resident, pass it on!

Parking Lease

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Last Word on the Midtown Crime Spree

This is going to be my last word on the Midtown Crime Spree.

I''ve been thinking.

And I'm thinking---if you let these punks (thankfully, two of them are caught) terrorize you into being afraid at night, not meeting your neighbors, and so on, then they've won.

Don't let them fraking win.

Don't be afraid to walk down your street. If you are---they've won.

Don't be afraid to hang with your neighbors on your stoop. If you are---they've won.

Don't be afraid to meet your friends downtown or at the Midtown Tavern or the Taproom (well you do have to walk past Cafe 1400, and that can be a scary place)...otherwise they've won.

Hiding in your houses means they've won.

Not going out and enjoying life means they've won.

Don't let douchebags win! And that's just that!

But still, carry mace or a tazer or whatever if you need to. I met a guy tonight who has a billy club. That's hot. But don't let these douchebags win and terrorize our city.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Summer Vacation

Not really taking one(except to Austin, TX in just under a month), but this summer so far is kind of awesome.

Something I'll Expand On Soon

I'm having a bit of trouble with the "consistent With Chronicles" as defined at Dr. Pielke Jr's place

Read here.

The short version is now global warming has begun to accelerate (or not--I read an article it was "taking a break" till 2015) thus everything that happens in the weather is now consistent with the consequences of global warming, event the Midwest floods even though it was patently obvious in March that there'd be widespread flooding on the Mississippi and its tributaries due to the amount of snow and rain that fell there this winter and spring.

that and the misunderstanding as to what 100-year flood and 500-year flood means (they're probabilities, not statistical recurrence times.)

Sometimes a flood is just a flood. Although the White House said we could connect global warming to it...

i dunno we'll just have to see. /ramble

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Twitter rules

Just wanted to share that fact.

In fact you can follow me on there if you wish. I am shortstack81.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Midtown Crime Alert

First, from Jersey Mike

I also received the same crime alert email.

CRIME ALERT!


This is to inform you that last night, shortly after 10pm, there were two attacks in Midtown by a group of teens, 8 to 10 of them, which included 3 or 4 girls in this group. They were estimated to be between 17 to 20 years old.

The first attack happened to our neighbor on the 1500 block of Green St, between Boyd and Reily. This happened at approximately 10:10pm. He was out in front of his home watering his plants and flowers when this group walked by and without saying anything to him attacked him by punching him several times and throwing him to the ground. He called out for help, where two neighbors heard him and they went outside to help. The kids took off down the street and the Police were immediately called. The neighbor was left bloodied and shaken.

One of the attackers was described as a black male, approximately 5'8" to 5'10", wearing a black tank top, dark baggy shorts and corn-rows in his hair. One girl was also seen with a bright red shirt.

10 minutes later another person was attacked and robbed on Verbeke Street near Penn Street, at Shady McGrady's. It was the same group who attacked the first person.

Recently a few crimes have happened in our midtown neighborhood, such as bikes stolen, a basement break-in an attempted home break-in and an attempted car break-in to steal a car radio. Now with this latest attack, we would like for everyone to be aware of these incidents and ask that you take precautions to be safe.

In the incident of the attempted home break-in, a black male and white female were seen looking into a home windows with a flashlight. When a neighbor saw this he yelled at the people where the yelled back profanities and fled. Police were called immediately.

Please turn on your front and back porch lights. Call the police should you see ANYTHING that may be considered suspicious with a good description of what you have witnessed. And please get to know your neighbors so that you can call and support each other before any of these types of incidents happen to you or one of your neighbors.

Thanks and take care.

There was another incident Monday evening. I hate to think these will continue.

Midtown is my favorite neighborhood in the city. It's much less pretentious then Shipoke (where the old ladies look at me weird when I ride my bike down there), and it's full of all sorts of very nice, very interesting people of all classes, ages, ethnicities, and so on.

It would behoove people, however, especially if they're new to city life, that this is not the suburbs or the country. Be aware of your surroundings. Harrisburg is really not that dangerous a city but as the last couple nights have shown, never underestimate the stupidity and viciousness of a bunch of bored, heathen teenagers. I've never been a gun fan but if you've got a permit to carry, I say go for it. Just don't be stupid like these brats.

At any rate be careful out there. And to the punks doing this shit I say you'd better go find a new, legal activity like picking up trash or Playstation or something. You're going to jump the wrong person and get your dumbasses shot. And I can't say anyone will have much sympathy for any of you.

And I'll be damned if a bunch of thugs is going to make me feel unsafe in my own city. They can all eat my nuts.

Friday, June 13, 2008

You know, I Blog so my Mom doesn't think I'm Dead

She gets on me if I don't blog for awhile and she doesn't hear from me.

At any rate I have no idea, other then her and a couple others, if people are reading this thing. Does the comment engine suck? Leave me a comment every once and awhile. It may just push me to blog a lot more.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

First Heat Wave of the Summer

even though, astronomically, it isn't Summer yet. (Meteorologically, summer began a couple days ago.)

Not 2 weeks ago I was shivering as I stumbled home from yet another bar night out. If I wasn't so skeptical about everything, I'd say Mother Nature was fucking with us.

The heat has made everyone scarce (why do people in Pennsylvania fear the heat? cmon! Get used to it if the Earth warms drastically!) so I am forced to find my own entertainment today.

So: I watched all of the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. It's as intensely satisfying now as it was when it started in 2004.

I filled up some water bottles.

I turned on the Air conditioner.

I turned it back off because it made it too cold, and my AC unit is loud and irritating forcing me to put the TV up too loud. It isn't really that hot in here since I don't get sunlight after 11am in my apartment, except maybe between 6 and 7 in the bedroom at this time of year.

I looked at house listings in midtown again. A new prerequisite: I'm willing to give up the washer/dryer for a larger back yard for a pool.

Mark my words--I'm going to have a swimming pool. Just don't know how big it'll be.

I contemplated riding down to Philly on the train but nixed the idea when I discovered the latest train back was at 8:45PM. That kinda takes the sails out of your fun (and I didn't really want to sleep over at any relatives' houses, at least not this time.) There really needs to be a midnight train, even though yes I know money controls that and if Amtrak isn't making money on it, they won't do it.

FYI they USED to have a late train going in each direction. Wish they'd bring it back.

I'm climbing the walls. This is kind of the first Saturday in a while that I'm not doing something with someone and I'm very antsy.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

SI, SE PUEDE!

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama who will, within 3 hours of this post, clinch the nomination to be the Democratic Party's candidate to be president. And then, in a few months time, he will BE president of the United States of America.

Congratulations to Senator Hillary Clinton for her equally historic campaign. I think she'd make a great person to head up Health and Human Services, or even the Senate Majority Leader.

Now we can get on with it and crush that mean, nasty, bully of a Senator from Arizona (because seriously, no one who calls his wife a trollop and a cunt should be president, like ever.)

YES. WE. CAN!