gregladen | April 13, 2013You know about celebrity swatting? It's when 4chaners trick the police into arriving at a celebrity's home under the assumption that there is a hostage situation or something like that. It is incredibly stupid, obnoxious, dangerous, and a famous 4chaner-er (whom you probably know of but whose name I will not mention or he'll do bad things to me) told me he has done several times.
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Nice going, assholes.
gregladen | April 12, 2013I think the primary political framework for climate change denialism is Libertarianism, with a lot of overlap with Tea Partiers, who are essentially Libertarians Without Brains. Libertarians can't live with the fact that their philosophy guarantees the misery and horrors of climate change so most of them (but not all) exist in full denial. At the same time, christian fundies are against climate change science because they are against science. Fundamentalist and Atheist Libertarians overlap in the area of climate science denialsim, and it is often strange to see that. We even see climate…
gregladen | April 12, 2013The famous climate scientist James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, has just retired from his senior position at NASA. I'll be the climate science denialists are breathing a sigh of relief to have Hansen, who has been instrumental in developing our current understanding of climate change and who has been repeatedly attacked by those denialists, out of the way. Here's what he says about his retirement:
Oh. So, they are not getting rid of James Hansen after all. Oh well!
More information on Hansen's retirement, future plans, and related things HERE.
gregladen | April 12, 2013Maine is my favorite state. If you've not visited then your life is an empty shell and you don't even know it. But it is also true that I've seen and heard some of the strangest things I've ever encountered there. So strange I can't even tell you about it. The story that recently emerge from the Pine Tree State, about a man who became a hermit nearly 30 years ago, is not as strange as all of that, but you will enjoy it:
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I hear he's a very good prisoner.
gregladen | April 11, 2013Climate sensitivity is the number of degrees C that the earth's average temperature (of the atmosphere air and water on top of the "earth" per se) will increase with a doubling of "pre-industrial CO2" in the environment.
This is an important number ... and it is a number, and to save you the suspense, the number is about 3 ... because it tells us what the direct effects of the release of fossil Carbon (mainly in the form of CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels would be.
Here's the thing. Climate change denialists would like the number to be 1, or some other number lower than 3. Well, we…
gregladen | April 11, 2013They always say they won't spill the oil. Then they spill the oil. And we seem to not mind. We should mind
From here, this:
This was a slow month for oil spills, compared to those moments when a tanker hits the rocks or a retreating army opens the spigots.
gregladen | April 11, 2013Minnesota's 6th congressional district is represented by Michele Bachmann, who moved from the Minnesota Senate where she was one of the first legislators in the US to introduce academic freedom legislation to silence professors at the University of Minnesota who were lecturing on climate change and evolution, to the United States Congress a few terms back. Bachmann rode on her national popularity as a major co-founder of the Tea Party to secure re-election against a series of reasonable opponents. But last year, four things happened. First, Bachmann's unrelenting over the top craziness…
gregladen | April 11, 2013Here's the trailer:
The web site including information on screenings, is here.
gregladen | April 11, 2013Have you seen The Corporation? It is an excellent documentary that runs through the list of psychiatric disorders that seem to be endemic to corporations. It came out in 2004, but is still very relevant. If you've not seen it, you should.
The film has a website, here. In some countries you can watch at least part of the film there (it may also be on YouTube, I've not checked lately) and The DVD costs about 20 bucks to buy or a few dollars to watch on Amazon. It is not on Netflix streaming, but it is available as a DVD.
gregladen | April 11, 2013Usually I don't mention books unless I've read them, but I thought a lot of my readers would be interested in a volume I have only heard about: Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism, Animals, and the Sexual Politics of Meat.
Here is the description:
When The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams was published more than twenty years ago, it caused an immediate stir among writers and thinkers, feminists and animal rights activists alike. Never before had the relationship between patriarchy and meat eating been drawn so clearly, the idea that…
gregladen | April 10, 2013A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explores the question of penis size and female preference in humans. The study involved making a set of 3D models of human males of various relative body sizes, and fitting them out with various size flaccid penises. These were shown to a sample of Australian women to get their reactions.
The assumption of this study is that at some time in the past humans did not wear clothing, so that information about penis size in men would be available to women who could observe flaccid penises and then choose sexual…
gregladen | April 10, 2013Probably.
The Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University makes annual predictions of hurricane season activity, and they released one of these predictions today. This particular group has a good track record, although I would worry that they tenaciously hold to the idea that global warming is not a factor in hurricane development despite the fact that some of the factors (a disrupted ENSO and high SST) that are most affected in the Atlantic by global warming actually drive their predictions. Still, their predictions seem to be based on good empirical data and are probably…
gregladen | April 9, 2013There is a new outbreak of a bird flu in eastern China, referred to as H7N9. The first thing you need to know is that human populations have not been previously exposed (to any degree) to H7 or N9 type virus, so if this virus were to mutate in such as way as to spread human to human, the result could be very serious. Moreover, the "H" component of the virus is thought to have a genetic sequence that is known to readily mutate into form that would be target (bind to) human rather than bird cells.
The virus has been found in chickens, pigeons, and ducks in markets where live birds are sold…
gregladen | April 9, 2013A lecture by Professor Paul Valdes, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.
gregladen | April 9, 2013Time to shut down comments on older posts, as we are having a blizzard of spam on those posts. I'll reopen commenting in a few days. Sorry for any inconvenience.
gregladen | April 9, 2013There is a new Gallup poll that together with earlier data from Gallup provides some interesting information about attitudes in the US about global warming.
Earlier polls have shown increase and decrease in concern about global warming, and changes in what people think of news about climate change and the severity of the problem. Recently, there has been a shift towards greater concern which follows a low point, which, in turn, follows a period of global concern.
One question involves reading off a list of specific concerns related to global warming and asking participants to rank their…
gregladen | April 8, 2013The Cult of Lego is a thing ... a cult ... a past time, a cultural phenomenon. But it is also a book called, as you might guess, The Cult of LEGO.
The book is written by John Baichtal, of Make Magazine and Wired GeekDad blog and Joe Meno, the founder of Brick Journal. The publishers describe the book thusly: "The Cult of LEGO® takes you on a thrilling illustrated tour of the LEGO community and its creations. You'll meet LEGO fans from all walks of life, like professional artist Nathan Sawaya, brick filmmaker David Pagano, the enigmatic Ego Leonard, and the many devoted AFOLs (adult fans…
gregladen | April 8, 2013Time to start watching the Arctic Sea Ice breakup. This happens every year, but as you know, the total amount of ice left each summer has been reducing, and the "old ice" which forms a basis for the arctic ice refreeze is disappearing. The result of this change in arctic ice patterns has been a shift from one form of "arctic oscillation" to another which has resulted in changes in Norther Hemisphere weather.
Here's a new video by Peter Sinclair bringing you up to date on sea ice as well as sea ice melt denialim:
The National Snow and Ice Data Center keeps track of the Arctic ice and…
gregladen | April 7, 2013I hear they keep them on leashes so they don't rush into the audience and kill innocent bystanders.