Dangerous Disclaimers
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Madness, Media | Leave a Comment
Bluster and bullshit go hand-in-hand: Reportedly, there’s some kind of big game this weekend, don’t know myself, but a lot of hype out there about it — Sunday’s a good day to get some good sleep, though.
Of course, there’s so much chatter about that particular sporting event, but not much on really what’s happening in our country and the world — the future looks dumb: “Do you know the vice president of the United States?” Austin asks. “I don’t know who it it’s, it’s, it’s somebody….Bin Ladin,” one student responds.
Only gets worse as the days, months and years of tomorrow will only bring problems no amount of education can handle (with bad English).
(Illustration found here).
Despite the education, or maybe because of it, President Obama’s view of the earth’s environment has been toned down to the point even a Republican could understand — the words are less frightful and easier to swallow like a nice pat on the head.
In Obama’s state of the union last week, ‘climate change‘ was mentioned just once (not at all in 2011).
One must remember, the White House switched from ‘global warming,’ to ‘global climate disruption‘ because it’s much, much easier to pass on to the ignorant masses in the search for more politically palatable ways to put horrible news in a happy context.
From the Washington Post:
When he did utter the phrase, it was merely to acknowledge the polarized atmosphere in Washington, saying, “The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change.”
By contrast, Obama used the terms “energy” and “clean energy” nearly two dozen times.
That tally reflects a broader change in how the president talks about the planet.
A recent Brown University study looked specifically at the Obama administration’s language and found that mentions of “climate change” have been replaced by calls for “clean energy” and “energy independence.”
Graciela Kincaid, a co-author of the study, wrote: “The phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have become all but taboo on Capitol Hill. These terms are stunningly absent from the political arena.”
…
There is power in how language is deployed, and people setting policy agendas know this well.
In 2002, Republican political strategist Frank Luntz issued a widely cited memo advising that the Bush administration should shift its rhetoric on the climate.
“It’s time for us to start talking about ‘climate change’ instead of global warming. . . . ‘Climate change’ is less frightening than ‘global warming,’ ” the memo said.
And the GOP is into fear, but only in the fear itself, not the root cause.
A good view of the most-immediate future lies in the past.
The Green blog at the New York Times on the so-called “Little Ice Age,” which started at the end of the 13th century and lasted well into the 19th century and how this small speck makes a huge wad.
Money quote:
Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study and a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, suggested that the study has important implications for the modern-day climate change discussion.
“I think people might look at the Little Ice Age and think that all we need to save us from rising temperatures are some volcanic eruptions or the geo-engineering equivalent,” she said.
“But when you see what happened when global temperatures dropped by just one degree and you look at current predictions of six or seven degree increases for the future, you realize how precarious things are for life as we know it.”
“I don’t see a lot of hope that we can somehow compensate for the climate trajectory we’re on,” she said.
(h/t The Oil Drum).
On that big game, my store is way-looking forward to it — more booze!
In contrast, supposedly, or at least theoretically, every alcohol-drinking US person will consume at least seven beers on Sunday.
As we slowly die, we scream, ‘Drink Up!’
Potable Wine
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In an era of supposed enlightenment, marijuana still remains on the fringe — Dude, that needs to change.
Newt Gingrich, however, does appear even worse after a couple of tokes — some changes require way more.
Pot is the weaker sister — the big headline in this story was marijuana, but alas…
A Rhode Island lawmaker is due in court following his second arrest on marijuana possession charges.
…
Police say they found marijuana and a smoking pipe in Watson’s vehicle, along with an opened beer can and two unopened beer bottles.
Smoke gets blamed for shit that just ain’t so.
(Illustration found here).
Living in the very midst of the pot-growing center of the universe makes a discussion about marijuana as dumb as a stump — pack that in your pipe and draw hard.
The discovery of weed in the mid-1970s was the second greatest single event in my life, changing attitudes, outlooks and how life actually works — no, this ain’t Kansas no more.
Marijuana is not the evil, the bad guys are those who not only don’t smoke, but hate those who do and wish horrible things upon smokers are the culprit — marijuana needs legalization.
And a good chunk of US peoples feel the same.
From CBS:
President Obama’s live, online chat slated for Monday afternoon is intended to focus on issues raised during last week’s State of the Union address — but his online audience seems to be much more interested in marijuana policy.
…
Sorting the questions by popularity reveals that 18 of the 20 most popular questions, according to YouTube, have something to do with marijuana policy, including the legalization of marijuana use, the cost of the war on drugs and other related issues.
Questions about marijuana policy have dominated multiple online engagement efforts from the Obama White House.
In fact, the second-most popular question for today’s “hangout” comes from a retired police officer with the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) — just as it did in Mr. Obama’s 2011 YouTube chat.
And from Slate: In 1969, 12 percent of Americans thought pot should be legal. That percentage grew to the mid-20s by the late 1970s, passed 30 percent in 2000, and hit 40 percent in 2009, according to Gallup. A surprising October poll showed support at 50 percent, with just 46 percent against.
Lawmakers and other nefarious types are not paying attention, however.
Here in California, a ballot-box vote is on tap this November.
And about time:
A recent poll reveals that California voters, by a 62% to 35% margin, with 3% unsure, support a ballot initiative to regulate marijuana like wine.
…
Voters in California will have an opportunity to take that new approach this November with the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act of 2012 (RMLW), which will allow the state to regulate and tax marijuana and hemp.
The California Attorney General has projected “savings of potentially several tens of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments of the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders,” as well as potentially generating “hundreds of millions of dollars in net additional tax revenues related to the production and sale of marijuana products.”
Law enforcement buys it, too.
And why don’t you?
Talkin’ ‘Bout the Weather — Not!
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Media | Leave a Comment
Any half-sane person is by now sick to the bowels of the GOP — Mitt Romney won the Florida primary, but the question posed: Who gives a shit?
Although President Obama is most-likely the most-disappointing leader in US history, he’s leagues above Romney and the rest of his half-assed, ignorant Republican buddies, as the above-mentioned half-sane person surely won’t pull the lever on any of these guys.
All this nasty, way-negative political bull-hockey overshadows the most-pressing concern — the weather.
Part of an e-mail yesterday from my youngest daughter, who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota: Oh yeah, It’s like 50 degrees and sunny today. crazyness, right? I was sweating like crazy riding my bike to work this morning. Global warming man…
The kid’s got some sense — just talkin’ ’bout the weather.
(Illustration found here).
A warm winter, duh!
From Climate Central:
This week, it’s likely that warm temperature records will be broken throughout the eastern U.S., with forecast highs in New York City approaching 60°F on Tuesday and Wednesday, and reaching the mid-60s in Washington, D.C. According to the National Weather Service (NWS), record highs may also be set today in Islip, N.Y., and Bridgeport, CT.
It has also been unusually warm in the mid-section of the country.
As Paul Douglas wrote for the Minneapolist Star-Tribune, the Twin Cities missed setting a record high by just four degrees on Monday, topping out at 44°F, about 20°F above average for the date.
Douglas wrote that there have been just three subzero nights so far this winter in Minneapolis-St. Paul, down from the average of 19 to date.
“It’s been one of the mildest winters on record; at the rate we’re going this will easily be a “Top 10 Warmest Winter” in the Twin Cities,” Douglas wrote.
And it’s only gonna get worse — Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderblog: But it strains the bounds of credulity that all of the extreme weather events — some of them 1-in-1000-year type events — could have occurred without a signicant change to the base climate state. Mother Nature is now able to hit the ball out of the park more often, and with much more power, thanks to the extra energy global warming has put into the atmosphere.
No one seems to be much concerned, however.
Despite all the warming, the US MSM still doesn’t connect the dots, or put two-and-two together, or use any other glib phrase to describe how Americans are walking around in January bundled up in a Slayer t-shirt seemingly without a care in the boiling world.
These warm countrywide temperatures ain’t no flash in the pan.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress:
Our science-based institutions, like the National Center for Atmospheric Research, have no difficulty straightforwardly explaining the connection between human-caused global warming and these monster heatwaves.
If only our news-based institutions could do the same.
Now as I’ve said many times, every story about extreme weather does not need to mention global warming.
But if you are writing about a heatwave that is so uniquely extensive in space and time — just the kind of heat wave climate scientists have warned would become increasingly likely — and you are devoting an entire science article to explaining why it’s been so warm, then, yes, it is incumbent on you to at least mention global warming.
And political irony from Craig Ferguson: “It was so hot in Washington that Congress had to install a fan on the debt ceiling.”
Beyond just talkin’ about the weather, we should be screaming, crying about it.
Blog Thyself
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Musings | Leave a Comment
Evening into morning — and everything is still dark.
Some overriding health issues have caused me to have not a good night, thus, creating less-ability to compose coherent thoughts, and way-harder to transfer to blog lines (was about to write paper, but that’s so 1970s).
There’s plenty out yonder in the big, wide world to write about, but there’s a small imprint in the brain that wants to scream ‘Who Gives A Shit!’ except for those under barrage of that particular shit found in all corners of the globe.
Ugly unrest is on the peppered lips of today — the Occupy protests are getting not pretty, from the mess in Oakland, to a drive-in plunge in London, to more stun-gun episodes in Washington, DC.
People are only going to get even-more pissed.
(Illustration: “Extrangement of Vision — Edgar Allan Poe’s Optics” via M.C. Escher’s ‘Hand with Reflecting Sphere‘ found here).
One item did catch my blurred, Poed eyeball — in one of those Internet video “hangouts” yesterday on Google’s social network, Google+, also streamed live on YouTube, President Obama talked about a rare subject — the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Via the BBC:
Asked about the use of drone strikes, which have increased in intensity during his presidency, he said “a lot of these strikes have been in the Fata”, or Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
The strikes target “al-Qaeda suspects who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Mr Obama added.
“For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military action than the ones we’re already engaging in.”
A shitload of innocent people have been killed and wounded during these strikes, and folks in Pakistan are pretty-much getting pissed about the whole operation.
Obama, though, bypassed some important questions:
In a previous town hall-style event hosted by Facebook, the White House was criticised for ignoring one of most popular questions: Mr Obama’s stance on legalising marijuana.
He did not answer questions on drug policy in Monday’s event.
Dude, what’s the deal?
Poe knew.
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Poem found here.
Tomorrow Is Not Just Another Day
Filed Under Cloud gazing, Environment, Everything | Leave a Comment
Monday morning, and getting close to the end of another month — time flies when all kinds of shit are hitting the fan.
Including this horror show in Florida — and I don’t mean the upcoming GOP primary:
“As it was happening on the northbound side, it was happening on the southbound side as well,” he said.
“There was nowhere to go. It was just cars hitting cars and cars.”
He called the scene “horrendous.”
“Everybody was crying,” he said. “You still can’t see anything.”
Some motorists were stuck in their vehicles, he said, calling it “mass chaos.”
Mankind should take another look at how we move ourselves around on this earth.
(Illustration found here).
Even as more than 300 people have been arrested in Oakland in an Occupy throw-down, the problem of inequality is been seen as worldwide, an in vestment in a trouble future and if ignored problems will keep popping up everywhere.
A UN report — “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing” — displays the growing trouble of cash flow.
From the BBC:
Ms Halonen (co-chair of the report, Finnish President Tarja Halonen) emphasised the theme of equality that runs through the report, in terms of gender and redressing the burgeoning gap between people on high and low incomes.
“Eradication of poverty and improving equity must remain priorities for the world community,” she said.
…
“We undertook this report during a period of global volatility and uncertainty,” it says.
“Economies are teetering. Inequality is growing. And global temperatures continue to rise.
“We are testing the capacity of the planet to sustain us.”
To turn this around, it says: “We need to change dramatically, beginning with how we think about our relationship to each other, to future generations, and to the ecosystems that support us.”
Even as the US turns skeptic, just north of us is calling bogus:
Some of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s newly-appointed senators are emerging as global-warming skeptics in the wake of aggressive government positions to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, slam environmentalists and downplay potential damage caused by Canadian oil and gas exploration.
“I felt like it is kind of an insult to be a denier for a long time,” said Sen. Bert Brown, last month at a parliamentary committee studying energy policies.
“It feels pretty good this morning.”
Laugh at the tomorrow, cry for the future.