In which it is discovered that my lungs like Algor

So spent yesterday burning off the yard trimmings pile and the ditch and the canal bank (just in time for Earth Day!), and now my lungs, which are flaky in the best of times, have decided that they are all for this whole “limiting carbon emissions” thing, and are showing their support by forcing me to cough up what can only be described as radioactive space slugs.

I’d been doing so well so far this spring, in spite of all the dust and cleaning we’ve been doing at both home and down at Grandpa’s house.  Guess my number’s up, and now it’s time for my yearly spring allergy crash.

But at least the field and yard look nice.

Yep. April Snow Showers

Alas, spring, we hardly knew you

That’s a “1 – 2 inches of snow during the day” 80%, too, not your standard “Nature’s Dandruff” 80%.  Looks like no apricots or cherries this year…

Phoning it in

I think the weather geeks are taking the week off, or got froze out of their office.  This just shows no imagination on their part.  Frankly, I don’t think it would hurt them to throw in one or two “Tropical Vacation” days just to mix things up…

-9° F

Negative nine this morning, or so the weather service says. A might nippy, you could say. The cat’s water was frozen even though it was on it’s new, fancier, much warmer, heating pad that I bought last week since this seems to be par for the course this winter.

Sorry if it seems that all I talk about lately is the weather–but when the temperatures keep doing things like that it sort of dominates your mind…

Well, time to get ready to go to work and sit in an unheated building all day long…

I got nothin’

The whole world’s gone to hell in a handbasket, but what else is new? Molon Labe and all that. I guess all I can say about my life right now is that it appears that in the past week and possibly the rest of this week, we’re going to get more snow than we did all last winter combined. Keep it comin’, Algor. Between Christmas festivities, my brother being home, a puppy, and still going to work, there’s not a whole lot of time for me to find youtube videos for you to watch…

 

One of the following is a screen capture of the weather in my college town in Montana as of this morning, and the other is of here in balmy Western Colorado.  Can you guess which one is which?

If you said that here in the deep south it’s warmer than the cold white north, you’re 100% completely and utterly WRONG!  Although, to be fair, it does appear that we’re about tied for tonight’s low.

But still, I feel compelled to ask: Algor, WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?

what is this i don’t even

There was an article in the newspaper that explained that Antarctic sea ice is increasing is because of two things. 1) Global Warming, and 2) The ozone hole. Yes, it actually blamed the increase of sea ice on the ozone hole.

I thought we stopped caring about O3 fifteen years ago, about the time, say, that OMGLOBALWARMING became the trendy thing to kill us all. Guess it’s 90’s retro, now, like all the neon clothes going around.

Weirdness

I’m in the lab today to help my lackey finish up some stuff before he goes off to college next week, and boy did I pick a good day to have to wear real shoes again.  It’s almost down to 60 outside, which I think is the coldest it’s been here since May.   It’s like we got the hottest part of the year over with in June, and now we’re cooling off in August, when it’s usually hottest.
Global warming, don’t you know.  It’s the only reasonable explanation.

Why I don’t trust any “scientific studies” anymore

Borepatch tells the tale of a “Climate Change Denier” Professor who was fired without explanation.  He says, after reminding us all about how the progressives went on about the “ebil ReTHUGlican War on Science™,”

“I’d be willing to see your actions prove me wrong.  This is your moment.  Go ahead, dazzle me.”

It reminded me of something my roommate, who was a grad student in geophysics, told me one of his professors told him. The professor, sadly shaking his head, explained that if you were applying for a grant, say, to study the mating rituals of squirrels, if you could work in some angle like “The effects of climate change on the mating rituals of squirrels,” you would be much much more likely to get your grant approved. Didn’t matter if you cared about global warming, or if you actually thought it had anything to do with what you were studying.

The result of all this, for me, anyway, is that I no longer trust any scientific studies. Why should I? Why should I trust the fossil record? Why should I believe them when they tell me that I’ll live longer if I get 8 hours of sleep every night? Why should I? When the scientific establishment has proven to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they have a major deficit of basic integrity, why should I trust them at all?

british Climate Change fear mongers moving on?

“Well, at least we’ll be able to grow more crops if it’s warmer,” they say. 

Is this stage of the narrative “bargaining” or “acceptance”?

A change in the wind

As the Gormogons said: booyah.  “Global Climate Change” (or whatever they’re calling it this week) is dying, even in great britain.  Go and read the whole thing.

Remember how 2010 was the hottest year ever?

And how 2011 was even hotter because of all the CO2 that was released in 2010?

Yeah me neither. Actually this past summer was cooler than normal and we had a ton more rain than usual.

Forgive me if I don’t go into full PSH for you.

Straining credibility

Seen on the front page of the newspaper: an AP article about a Berkeley scientist who used to consider himself a climate change denier, then when the East Anglia shenanigans went down he looked over their leaked data and decided that they were 100% completely right.

Seen on the second page with the weather: Average high for this day: a lovely 60 degrees. Today’s projected high: an absolutely astonishing… 60 degrees. Record high for this day: a still pleasant 78 degrees, set in 1970.

Seen buried in the middle back of the newspaper: an article about the huge northeastern snow storms that went down over the weekend (2 feet?!? Man–you have my sympathy).

My conclusion: it’s no wonder the “old media” is losing readership. The only reason I read it is so I can make fun of the articles in the morning, and that’s not really how you want to build your business model…