Interesting Climate News

This comes from DailyTech.com:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

Furthermore:

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

If the period of Global Warming is coming to an end, this could be the start. Of course, temperatures could go up higher than normal this year for all we know. I don't want you to think that I am showing you this chart as evidence for any particular point of view, rather, I think it is an interesting trend in climate and I will be interested to see how it plays out. Here's the graph for you doubters who insist that it's hot:

An Interesting Film

By now, you may have heard of 'Expelled', a documentary film from one of my favorite people, Ben Stein.

This film deals with the touchy issue of creation vs. evolution, but, before you run away, let me tell you what this film is and what it is not.

What this film is not:

As far as I can tell from the trailers, this film is not, primarily, a defense of creationism or an attack on evolutionism. While these issues will, at some point, have to be a part of any discussion in this arena, it appears that this film has greater scope than simply feeding this debate.

What this film is:

Why can't anyone believe that God created the universe without being shunned? Why are creationist scientists denied tenure and ridiculed by their peers? Why can't we disagree on this issue and still get along? Ben Stein is investigating the lives of scientists and professors who aren't allowed to think outside the box.

Galileo faced the Inquisition because of his promotion of the Copernican view of the Solar System. Everyone regards this as a terrible crime, so why do non-believers feel they can justify such hatred against their colleagues, today?

There is a certain popular religion (which I will not name at this point) that teaches that the Earth is shaped like a triangle. A primary text from another popular religion (that many world leaders today are using to rule their countries) tells us that Genies populate the Earth. No one is attacking these high-profile religions for their non-scientific claims, but anyone claiming that the Universe was created by someone is completely shunned. How about a little tolerance?

Reader Mail.

I write 3-5 blog entries a week. Some are visited regularly by web surfers and some are almost invisible to the internet. Back in November, I wrote about the Possum Muhammad on my blog and it seems to draw one or two comments each week. I wanted to show you a few of these comments because I think they are interesting. I'm not sure why so many people come across that particular blog entry, but they do, and some of them react rather strongly. (Be warned, some of these are a little rough.)

Anonymous said...

i will kick any ones ass if there are making front of islam

Tough guy, he won't even give his screenname. And he didn't capitalize Islam, which is rather disrespectful in itself. I hope he doesn't think I am making front of him.

Anonymous said...

you are an arogant asshole......you dont know anything about islam....may allah guide you

I hope Allah guides him to push the shift button when typing the first letter of proper nouns.

Anonymous said...

islam is a reglion not a joke

And I thought Islam was a proper noun. Did I say Islam was a joke? Nope. Some people don't read, they just comment. My cat does that. He can't read but he meows a lot when he sees stuff. Maybe these people are cats.

Take a drink before reading this next one:

Anonymous said...

Please don't be abnormal to make a funny story like this. If you think it's funny, then what does make it funny? It's just totally a premature thinking result of a man who has something wrong with his head. I am so angry to hear that there is no respect anymore here. How can we build a peace society if there's still someone who has no ability to learn about respects. No peace on earth if you think the most principle belief of someone whose beliefs are different with you is only a way to have popularity in this very poor blog. May God guide you.

This one reads like those '80's video games that were poorly translated from Japanese. All your blogs are belong to us!

(There's more bad English at http://www.engrish.com/)

Does the American Dream Work?

"Alone on a dark gritty street, Adam Shepard searched for a homeless shelter. He had a gym bag, $25, and little else...His goal: to have a furnished apartment, a car, and $2,500 in savings within a year."

This guy actually is a college grad with connections, but he wanted to stress test the accessibility of the American Dream so he took to the streets to start from nothing to make it on his own. He had to cut his experiment short after 10 months, due to an illness in the family, but..."by then he had moved into an apartment, bought a pickup truck, and had saved close to $5,000."

Check out the whole article, it's a quick read and it's quite good. The bottom line is this: he made it. No one handed it to him and no one rescued him, he simply had to work for it. Here's the best part of the interview:

"One guy, who arrived [at the shelter] on a Tuesday had been hit by a car on [the previous] Friday by a drunk driver. He was in a wheelchair. He was totally out of it. He was at the shelter. And I said, "Dude, your life is completely changed." And he said, "Yeah, you're right, but I'm getting the heck out of here." Then there was this other guy who could walk and everything was good in his life, but he was just kind of bumming around, begging on the street corner."

He wrote a book about it, too.

Is Something Strange Going On?

On Thursday, it was this:

NEW DELHI: The booming Indian information technology sector, mainly business process outsourcing (BPO) firms, and some international long distance and Internet service providers have been affected due to a major underwater cable breakdown in the Mediterranean sea...Reportedly, more than 50 per cent ILD and Internet capacity remained down in the country following the cable damage.

Then, this:

Two days after the cable cut which "cut off Iran" and affected the rest of the Middle East and West Asia but left communications in Israel and Iraq "intact", another cable owned by the same British company is severed, once again plunging the region into "Internet darkness". Image: FLAG's Europe-Asia "FEA" undersea cable network.

And, this morning:

A third undersea fibre optic cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka was cut Friday, said a Flag official..."We had another cut today between Dubai and Muscat three hours back. The cable was about 80G capacity, it had telephone, Internet data, everything," one Flag official, who declined to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.

This is a bit suspicious. The first one is said to have been caused by a ship's anchor, I haven't heard about the rest. It's another ten days before the first cable is repaired and communications are restored.

Yesterday, some mentioned that having two cables in the same general region cut like this seemed highly unusual. With a third being cut, this morning, I may start to agree.