Just A Link
I’ve spent the early morning handing in my grades and trying to explain to students that, no, you can’t make up 8 papers on the day after the term ends.
So I’m depressed.
Here, however
is an article by Cathy Young, one of my favorite writers.
7 Responses to 'Just A Link'
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Now I know what “Duck Dynasty” is!
I am getting very tired of groups such as feminist, atheist, gay, Christian, or whatever insisting that nothing should be said in public that offends them.
Perhaps no one should say anything to the media on any subject. Then there is no risk of offense.
jd
23 Dec 13 at 6:43 pm
I should have put in this link.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/free_speech_a_year_of_living_undangerously/14446#.Uri-f43hxiE
jd
23 Dec 13 at 6:56 pm
A good article, and she’s quite right to point out that an American conservative arguing for absolute free speech would be hypocritical. American conservatives believe country, family and (mostly) religion are good things, and bend the rules a bit at the margins to encourage them. But it’s worth remembering that that was the conservative position a century ago too. On the other hand, trendy liberal shrinks were denouncing comic books in my youth for sub rosa encouragement of homosexuality. (See Wertham, SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT.) Now they’re praising comics for openly homosexual characters. The first rule of liberalism is that moral rules are whatever they say they are–and always subject to revision or reversal.
As for “Duck Dynasty” when I saw those bearded faces on a poster at Wal-Mart, I looked for Bilbo and Gandalf.
robert_piepenbrink
23 Dec 13 at 8:14 pm
Not a hijack: a courtesy to those spared American “entertainment news:”
http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/a-e-reinstates–duck-dynasty-s–phil-robertson–bobby-jindal-and-more-react-010839023.html
robert_piepenbrink
28 Dec 13 at 9:05 am
Definitely a hijack this time.
This is priceless:
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/12/antarctic-ice-swallows-boat-media-spin/
If anyone ever takes these global warming wankers seriously again they need their heads read.
And with the news that Green Bay beat Chicago, the signs are good for an excellent New Year.
Mique
30 Dec 13 at 3:46 am
Mique is, again, confusing weather with climate.
On a larger scale, however, warming is quite certain. Consider Greenland, my annual checkpoint:
Total Ice Mass
GRACE satellite gravity data (Velicogna and Wahr 2006) are used to estimate monthly changes in the total mass of the Greenland ice sheet (Fig. 56). Unfortunately, GRACE mass loss estimates are not available for August and September 2013, when the K-band ranging system was switched off to preserve battery life. The next estimate, for October 2013, will be available in early 2014. Nevertheless, there are sufficient GRACE data to provide some information about the total mass of the ice sheet in 2013 relative to previous years.
Monthly changes in the total mass of the Greenland ice sheet
Fig. 56. Monthly changes in the total mass (in Gigatonnes) of the Greenland ice sheet estimated from GRACE measurements since 2002. The blue and orange asterisks denote April and July values, respectively.
From the end of April 2012 through the end of April 2013, which corresponds reasonably well to the period between the beginning of the 2012 and 2013 melt seasons, the cumulative ice sheet loss was 570 Gt, over twice the average annual loss rate of 260 Gt y-1 during 2003-2012. The 2012-2013 mass loss is the largest annual loss rate for Greenland in the GRACE record, mostly reflecting the large mass loss during the summer of 2012 (Tedesco et al. 2013b). The mass loss during the 2013 summer melt season is likely to be considerably smaller than during 2012, based on other evidence such as the reduced surface melt extent, surface mass balance and runoff described above. A lower mass loss during summer 2013 can also be inferred from the much smaller difference between the April (blue asterisks) and July 2013 mass values (orange asterisks), particularly relative to each of the three previous years (Fig. 56).
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland_ice_sheet.html
======
When the mass of the Greenland ice sheet at the very least actually stops decreasing every year – let alone regaining the mass lost since measurements have been taken — then tell me global warming scientists “need their heads read”.
michaelwfisher@cox.net
31 Dec 13 at 4:46 pm
Sorry, Mike, I missed this. You could take your straw man arguments and spread them as thickly as you like over the Greenland ice cap and it would not make the generally fraudulent activities of global warming industry one bit more credible. I’m a skeptic. Confusion of weather as climate is the sole preserve of true believers, not skeptics. When was the last time you read a skeptic arguing that global warming is causing an increase in the number and severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and other such phenomena?
Nobody is denying that the world is warming or that human activity has some role in that. What is at issue is the extent and the cause. Computer models, have persistently failed within any reasonable margin to hindcast, let alone forecast, observed temperatures for many years. Even the IPCC which for many years has published it’s highly politicised and totally unscientific Summaries for Policy Makers with scant regard for the underlying science has finally been dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledging that its “predictions” have been wildly over-estimated.
Finally, how do you explain why, if the Arctic is losing ice at a record rate, Antarctica (with the exception of the small western peninsula adjacent to South America) is adding significant ice mass? There are some other forces at work.
I come from a farm, and over my life, I have lived appreciable times from a degree or two north and south of the equator to the lower temperate zone. I do know the difference between climate and weather.
Mique
2 Jan 14 at 3:51 am