Airbrushed (Climate) Models?

So I stumbled across yet another "sky-is-falling" Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) headline:

Has warming put 'Dirty Dozen' pollutants back in the saddle?

Apparently, the Arctic ice is melting and releasing nasty chemicals into the atmosphere, right?.  But then I stumbled across this little gem, buried in the middle:

The scientists indeed found a long-term downward trend in primary emissions after the Stockholm Convention banned production and trade in the "Dirty Dozen."

But a more complex and disturbing picture emerged when the same data was crunched through a simulation of the effect of global warming on POP concentrations.(emphasis mine)

So...I guess you could say that the picture is not only "complex and disturbing," but also "imaginary." Let's not even discuss the fact that apparently this model starts with the assumption that global warming exists, something still in dispute. (Before you go all Gore-ish on me, keep reading...) It's a computer model. It makes predictions. And if it's anything like most global warming models, it does it poorly. (Again, keep reading.) So, what this article is really saying is "we see a decrease in bad chemicals, but our made-up projections from our handy-dandy doomsday computer are saying we're all...well, doomed." And I'm not even going to get into the fact that many people out there, including scientists, think that banning DDT in the first place cost millions of lives due to malaria that could have been prevented. What I will say is that it's very hard to take this article seriously when one of the other "related headlines" on the page was this one:

New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism

The article states that NASA satellite data (which many consider to be more accurate than ground data and definitely more accurate than made-up-doomsday-computer data) indicates that:

the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Yeah, that's right--Your computer models SUCK. If that sounds familiar, you've probably been reading my blog for a while, since I posted on this way back in 2008.

So what does this mean? Well, we can say that...wait! Shhh! I think if you listen carefully, you might hear the stake being driven through the heart of the AGW Alarmist Movement....

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

Can we finally take back Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar (although maybe he should get one for acting, since he's fooled so many people)?

Why I Tell People I Live In NJ

 “The speaker’s plan is on life support,” added New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. “It is time for him to pull the plug.”

Pulling the plug. Something Schumer has never done, lest he miss a chance to see himself on television. Hey, Chuck--where's your fucking plan?

And along those lines, I see that you and the other Senate Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Boehner saying that you wouldn't vote for his plan if it passed the House. Remind me again which party it is that's to blame for no deal?

Epic Fail

If the President continues to trot out the "blame Bush" excuse (as he did the other night during the prime-time speech), then I think he has to also, logically, concede that his presidency has been an incredible failure anyway. Follow my logic here:

1) He ran, and won, knowing the state of the economy. It sounds obvious, I know, but it is the key to the rest of this. If the Bush administration was so horrible, it must have been fairly obvious to a member of the senate, running for POTUS, just how bad it was.

2) Knowing the state of the economy at the outset, he certainly wanted to improve it. I think we can all agree on that. I don't think he's an evil guy. And besides, he's far too full of himself to do anything but try to create a legacy for himself by, among other things, fixing that economy.

3) Despite spending exorbitant amounts of money, spending the likes of which we've never seen, despite promising better employment rates, despite promising he was going to "drive us out of the ditch," despite promising to bend the medical cost curve down, despite promising to be a "uniter" and to better relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world, despite all of that, he's accomplished...well, none of it, really. By any significant measure, we are worse off than when he took office. He's even had to resort to some mythical "jobs saved" measurement to not look completely incompetent. That's like saying I saved millions in child support because of all those women I didn't sleep with. With the execption of Bin Laden, which was a result of policies that he would have voted against as a senator, name me one success he's had. Anybody? He even won the Nobel Peace Prize (which I feel was completely undeserved), and then preceded to add one more war to the books (although given past winners, that shouldn't surprise anybody).

4) Objectively, he has failed in nearly every aspect of his presidency--foreign policy gaffes, ineffective, costly economic plans, you name it. Since he knew what he was getting into, ran for the job, welcomed the job, performed the job, it doesn't really matter whether he "inherited" problems or not. He hasn't fixed them, and has therefore failed. I'll use the analogy that he seems to be fond of lately--that of the American family. If a family is struggling and I come into their lives as a financial planner, with the objective of getting them back on track, and three years later their finances are worse than when I started? I've failed. And by the way, it certainly would do me no good to blame the household, except to make me look slightly pathetic. I came in to do a job, and didn't do it.

So there you have it. If he truly believes he "inherited" our current mess, then he is also a failed president. QED. Now would President McCain have failed as well? I don't really know. That answer is of the "jobs saved" variety. But I suspect two things--he wouldn't have failed quite as spectacularly, and he wouldn't have taken every opportunity possible to blame someone else.

Plus What?

Okay, so I'm on Google+ now. Thanks to Ken for the invite.

If You Do It Too Long, You Could Go Blind

Stare at the sun, that is. What did you think I meant? This diagram, from USA Today, is serious business. One shouldn't fool around with sunstroke. After all, it's really just a form of self-abuse. You get all hot and bothered and yet you keep on grinding away at your task, hard and fast, until finally you feel like your head just burst. That's a stiff price to pay. If you feel yourself getting all hot-blooded, the best thing to do is to take a cold shower.

And think about baseball.