How To Bloast!

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[Continued from the Volokh inspired “What To Call An Argument Between Two Bloggers?” post]

A “bloast” is, of course, when you write about some self aggrandizing achievement on your blog! 🙂

PS. I’ve gotten 63 comments so far from a post I wrote two days ago… I’m awesome!!!!

The Tea Party – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt?… Or How A Movement Gets Hijacked.

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The New York Times Has an article today describing the self actualized members of the Tea Party movement as conspiracy theory nutters.

The ebbs and flows of the Tea Party ferment are hardly uniform. It is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure. Not everyone flocking to the Tea Party movement is worried about dictatorship. Some have a basic aversion to big government, or Mr. Obama, or progressives in general. What’s more, some Tea Party groups are essentially appendages of the local Republican Party.

Awakened by the recession

But most are not. They are frequently led by political neophytes who prize independence and tell strikingly similar stories of having been awakened by the recession.

Crap.

OK, the New York Times published an article highlighting the fact that more than a few nutters are a part of the Tea Party Party thing. I was going to write a long essay on this topic, but I realized that all that needs to be said about the Tea Party movement, which started out as a protest against fiscal recklessness but has now morphed into… God, who knows what, has already been discussed…. brilliantly…. Right Here.

Full episode here.

Question Of The Day – What To Call An Argument Between Two Bloggers?

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Uber Law Blogger Eugene Volokh is contemplating the various terms we use to describe the process we call blogging. He notes that if you look back on other written records, such as a “ship’s log” something written into the record has been traditionally called an “entry”. I refer to a “blog entry” as either an article or post. In five years, I don’t recall using the term “entry”. It seems so… formal, and doesn’t feel right for what I do.

I find it interesting, that we are watching the creation of a whole new lexicon that revolves around a new technology. A number of years back, my band was practicing at an old semi-abandoned farmhouse that had been in my guitarists family for over a century, but had seen little use in many years. After practice, we were thumbing through some old books, some more the 50 years old. Two that caught my attention were among the oldest on the shelf, dating back to 1910-ish. They were first hand accounts describing the joy of owning an automobile, a very rare thing in the day. The books described not only the experiences of owning and driving the at-the-time unique machines, but also covered the technologies involve in the “gasoline powered internal combustion engine”, but also described various roadside repairs, which was vital knowledge as there were very few if any repair facilities, except maybe in the largest cities. There were so many terms for things we now include in our daily lexicon that simply didn’t exist in the day. There was no “gas station” or repair shop” as we know it. The term “car” appeared nowhere in either of the books – if you owned an automobile, you were called an “automobilist”.

Like that period, we are seeing new terms, or the adaptation of existing terms, that accommodate to the emergence of new technologies. My favorites:

Blogiversary – the anniversary of a blog publication (mine is January5, 2005).

Blog-Pal – a friendship that exists strictly through communication via blogs. See “pen-pal” for reference.

And my favorite…

The blargument!!!!

Blog Advise, As Music – Stop On By.

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Thanks To: Ben @ The Bass Blog.

My Car Sucks Better Than Yours!

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PS. I hope to finish my Subaru engine swap today… And NO, I won’t be installing a supercharger.

Headlines We’d Like To See – Iran Behind Funding of Blockbuster

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Iranian president Ahmadinejad, in a personal screening
of the James Cameron 3 – D movie “Avatar”.

TEHRAN, Iran – After the stunning revelation that the Iranian government had co-wrote the script and provided a major amount of money to fund the filming of the runaway hit “Avatar”, Iran’s president on Sunday ordered his propaganda agency to significantly enrich the country’s production of 3 – D films endorsing anti-capitalism and anit-Americanism, angering Western nations who want the Islamic republic to halt its propaganda program.

Speaking on state television, Ahmadinejad said “God willing, the new awakening will start. We ARE the Na’vi, fighting for survival against the American industrial devils” He then turned to the head of Iran’s propaganda energy agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, and said: “Begin production of 20 percent more films.”.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad maintained, however, that Iran was also still willing to follow a U.N. plan to export its films abroad for further cultural exchange. Refining the arts community produces great opportunities for an enriching cultural experience, but if carried out far enough can create tremendously powerful propaganda that can be used as a weapon.

Ahmadinejad also said Iran has acquired 4 – D filming technology for the further enrichment of the movie going experience, but added, “For now, we do not intend to use it.”

Real Story Here.

PS:  If I can get done putting the new engine into the car today, if intake manifold bolts will stop breaking and I have no further delays, I will build the new website dedicated to the most inaccurate news there should be, based on the most inaccurate news there is. Stay Tuned!

Huge Climate Story…. Honesty. UPDATE.

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[ Welcome once again Insta-P readers. It’s always nice to have company around here. I’ll be in the garage tinkering with my car for much of the day – tinkering = replacing an engine in my strange world – but I’l come in from the cold and respond to points from time to time. ]

Did anyone else just hear the “bump-bump” of the Jones bus running right over the infamous Hockey Stick?

Dr. Phil Jones, the man at the center of the Climategate scandal, has for the first time admitted that the Medieval Warm Period could have been warmer than the present day, flying directly in the face of the stupid HockeyStick Graph that caused so much of the Climate panic in the first place. From the BBC report, titled “Climate data ‘not well organised“:

Phil Jones, the professor behind the “Climategate” affair, has admitted some of his decades-old weather data was not well enough organised.

He said this contributed to his refusal to share raw data with critics – a decision he says he regretted.

But Professor Jones said he had not cheated the data, or unfairly influenced the scientific process.

He said he stood by the view that recent climate warming was most likely predominantly man-made.

But he agreed that two periods in recent times had experienced similar warming. And he agreed that the debate had not been settled over whether the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than the current period.

Here is why that is important. If there was a warmer Medieval Warm Period, then the current warming could be more likely due to natural variation, instead of CO2 and man-made. as the models don’t account for this earlier warmer condition. At the very least, the “certainty” and of doom and gloom warming predictions is overstated, as the world may have been warmer and the world didn’t end.

These statements are likely to be welcomed by people sceptical of man-made climate change who have felt insulted to be labelled by government ministers as flat-earthers and deniers.

Yes, in fact, it does.   Thank you Dr. Jones for finally being honest. I sincerely wish it didn’t have to come to this point where your life is in turmoil. Let this be a cautionary tale to others. Just be honest and open, and this kind of thing would be avoided.

PS. There have been some questions as to the source of the graphs in this post.

The first graph is Mann’s Hockey Stick. (if you don’t know this one, you have a lot of catching up to do on the research)

The second graph is the Hockey Stick temp presumptions vs the accepted temp record, pre-hockey stick, according to the IPCC 1990 and 1995 reports. (Link)

The third is from the cemetery where dead scientific ideas are laid to rest. Of course, this one seems to have the tenacity of a zombie, so it probably won’t be down for long.

UPDATE: Looks like the Jones bus has shifted into high gear and is doing donuts on the lawn of “consensus”.

Global Warming And Precipitation – Does Warmer = Wetter?

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I love a good blargument. Yesterday, me and another blogger were having a good back and forth about the the current blizzards in relation to Anthropogenic Global Warming. My friend argues that AGW will cause more blizzards such as this one, and therefore, Time magazine is right concerning the article they put out this week. My blogfriend says this:

Global warming theory postulates conditions that make storms like the recent one more likely, and stronger – by increasing the amount of moisture in the air, and also increasing the heat that drives storm intensity. That is why, if these storms are held up as some kind of evidence to confirm or refute alternative theories, then they do NOT refute global warming theory at all – they are, in fact, completely consistent with the type of events that the models say are more likely to happen.

This is not complicated. If it is 50 degrees, then X amount of water evaporates into the air, and will eventually fall back to earth as precipitation. If it is 51 degrees, then X plus a little more water will evaporate. And the air will be able to hold that extra water. You end up with more precipitation.

He later provides a link to the EPA to show that the U. S. has indeed had an increase in precipitation over the last one hundred years. I love info like that, even though it supports my debate opponent. Facts are cool. And the nice thing about new information is that you can take that and start asking other questions related to it. Something dawned on me during this exchange. When Steve McIntyre found an error in the North American temperature records that moved the warmest year on record from 1998 to 1932, the Y2K error, my fellow skeptics were rightly reminded that North America is only 7% of the globe and the adjustment doesn’t affect the global temps.

They were right of course. But doesn’t that follow for weather events too? And then I wondered – what is the precipitation levels for the world as a whole? From the EPA:

Precipitation has generally increased over land north of 30°N from 1900-2005, but has mostly declined over the tropics since the 1970s. Globally there has been no statistically significant overall trend in precipitation over the past century, although trends have varied widely by region and over time.

That would be a global redistribution of precipitation, not an increase, which should be the case in a warmer world. So, if you say this:

This is not complicated. If it is 50 degrees, then X amount of water evaporates into the air, and will eventually fall back to earth as precipitation. If it is 51 degrees, then X plus a little more water will evaporate. And the air will be able to hold that extra water. You end up with more precipitation.”

Then how is it we don’t have a wetter world? I know that is simplistic, and it doesn’t disprove AGW. But it does make you think, doesn’t it.

AGW – Why I’m A Skeptic.

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This is just one. What ever happened to “weather does not equal climate”???? Except when it does of course.

This is one of the major stumbling blocks of this arm of science. Seems no matter what happens, it can’t be disproved. Whether it’s col or hot, whether it’s drought or downpour, it’s always global warming that’s to blame. We were supposed to get more hurricanes. Then when it was shone that we weren’t getting more hurricanes, well then, we would get less hurricanes, but they would be bigger. When it was shown that they are only bigger because we, due to modern technology that hadn’t existed in the past, are measuring them more accurately than before, and have shown that past hurricanes have been bigger than we could measure, then it became, “Oh, they are more costlier” even though that has everything to do with an increase of more people living in hurricane prone areas, thus more damage to property, thus making the aftermath of the storms more costly (I swear some scientist really need to go back to school and study economics). Last year, when some climatologists were noting that, yes, warming has stalled in the last ten years. But this is not a problem. The globe IS STILL warming. Yes, global warming is still happening, even though we can’t feel it or even measure it.

Why can’t we….

Because it’s mysterious and hidden right now. It’s Masked!!!!!!

How convenient.

AGW Stupidity – Nip This One In The Bud.

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Sometimes, the Global Warming debate gets pretty silly. Right now, you are hearing many on the pro-AGW side crowing about how the record breaking blizzard is proof of Global Warming, not exactly a great PR move when you think about it, since they in fact are the first to argue that weather does not equal climate…. except when it does of course. You are also seeing many on the skeptic side scoff at this notion, since cold equals snow, and how can global warming make things colder. And then one pro AGW guy comes out of the woodwork and proclaims:

You idiots know that Vancouver has barely been getting snow this year, right? So if I were to follow your retard logic of MORE SNOW EQUALS NO GLOBAL WARMING, then doesn’t that mean LESS SNOW EQUALS MORE GLOBAL WARMING?.

Newsflash – No snow in Vancouver IS NORMAL!!!!! Part of my family live in the Seattle area, which is in the same Marine West Coast Climate Zone. They don’t get much snow due to warmer air from the Pacific Ocean. Here is an article from The Vancouver Sun written in 2003:
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