Paltrow Seized With Stupidity

Gwyneth is worried. Apparently your shampoo will kill you and your children:

Gwyneth Paltrow has been branded ‘loopy’ by scientists after warning that products such as shampoo could be linked to cancer.

The actress and wife of Coldplay singer Chris Martin says she was ‘seized with fear’ after reading research about what she calls ‘environmental toxins’ – chemicals which are present in everyday items. [...]

She made the claims on her website goop.com, where she usually airs her views on her favourite restaurants and organic food recipes.

She said: "A couple of years ago I was asked to give a quote for a book concerning environmental toxins and their effects on our children. While reading up on the subject, I was seized with fear about what the research said. Foetuses, infants and toddlers are basically unable to metabolize toxins the way that adults are, and we are constantly filling our environments with chemicals that may or may not be safe."

Unfortunately not everyone (and by everyone I mean knowledgeable people) agree with her. Loopy Goopy Gwyneth's warnings are "rubbish" say scientists:

"It does annoy me when celebrities use their position to spout nonsense. They have a perfect right to their views, even if they are loopy, but they do hold a position of influence. You may as well ask someone on the Underground."

So said Dr. Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at Aberdeen University.

Oh, and Gwyneth? Dear, if you plan to continue this affected "British-ness" with your speech and spelling at least be consistent. If you spell "fetus" as "foetus" - then spell "metabolize" as "metabolise". The expert conclusion? Don't drink your shampoo by the gallon (sorry - "litre") and you'll be fine, Gwyneth.

Shampoo - It Isn't A Beverage

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Safety First? Not In Seattle..

Seattle Refuses To Use Salt; Roads "Snow Packed" By Design

To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.

But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.

"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."

The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.

The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.

"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."

Police officers are having to make calls on foot because their cars can't make it up the intentionally icy hills. I'd bet the EMT and fire services are having problems too. The environuts running Seattle have decided that human life isn't worth protecting if it means endangering the environment by putting salt into seawater. Not to mention damage to the economy because of delayed shipping and deliveries, and shoppers unable to get to the stores. I'm glad I didn't stay in that smelly, protest happy, hippie enabling, liberal hell hole. I wonder how much ice they'll have to be buried under before they give up the "global warming" mantra?

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Global Warming Bullsh-t

NASA Admits It "Blundered" By Declaring "Hottest October On Record"

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years. [...]

The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. [...]

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

Blundered? That's such a kind word... Once is blundered. Twice is bullshit.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. [...]

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Sing Along! (to the tune of Oh! Susanna)

Oh he came from down in Nashville, in a big stretch limousine,
He's going to the arctic, the melting ice to see
It rained all night the day he left, the weather it was dry
The sun so hot he froze to death; oh Algore, don't you cry.

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If The Facts Don't Fit Your World View...

Lie... Blow To Image Of "Green" Reusable Nappy

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.

The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

What report? We don't know anything about a report. Heh heh, how long until they find something that makes fluorescent bulbs or electric cars worse than the old fashioned technology?

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That Darn Global Warming

Global warming = coldest September in South Africa's recorded history!

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Man-Made Global Warming Makes It Cold

Anchorage's So-Called Summer Of '08

The coldest summer ever? You might be looking at it, weather folks say.

Right now the so-called summer of '08 is on pace to produce the fewest days ever recorded in which the temperature in Anchorage managed to reach 65 degrees.

That unhappy record was set in 1970, when we only made it to the 65-degree mark, which many Alaskans consider a nice temperature, 16 days out of 365.

This year, however -- with the summer more than half over -- there have been only seven 65-degree days so far. And that's with just a month of potential "balmy" days remaining and the forecast looking gloomy. [...]

So what's going on in Alaska, which also posted a fairly frigid winter?

LA NINA

Federal meteorologists trace a lot of the cool weather to ocean temperatures in the South Pacific.

When the seas off the coast of Peru are 2 to 4 degrees cooler than normal, a La Nina weather pattern develops, which brings cooler-than- normal weather to Alaska.

For most of the past year, La Nina (the opposite of El Nino, in which warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures occur off Peru) has prevailed. But that's now beginning to change.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web site, water temperatures in the eastern South Pacific began to warm this summer -- and the weather should eventually follow.

What!? You mean, the climate isn't controlled by humans!? It... it... changes al by itself!? Are you sure it's not caused by incandescent light bulbs and The Algore's idling limousines!?

Sing along with me!

Oh I come from a well lit mansion down in Tennessee,

I traveled out to see you on a jet flown just for me.

It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry

The sun so hot I froze to death; Now Gaia don't you cry.

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Environuts, Mavericks, & Bears... OH MY!

Offshore Oil Drilling Opponents On Defensive

The environmental movement, only recently poised for major advances on global warming and other issues, has suddenly found itself on the defensive as high gasoline prices shift the political climate nationwide and trigger defections by longtime supporters.

Opposition to offshore drilling -- once ironclad in places like California and Florida -- has begun to soften. Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida on Tuesday eased his opposition to new energy exploration off the coast.

"Floridians are suffering, and when you're paying over $4 a gallon for gas, you have to wonder whether there might be additional resources that we might be able to utilize to bring that price down," said Crist, a Republican.

At the same time, pressure to drill is mounting.

President Bush today is expected to call on Congress to lift the ban on new offshore drilling, and a House committee will consider a proposal to relax the moratorium.

Ten to one says that Ryan - the granola boy in the pic above - does not and never will own a car.

Never one to miss a chance to switch sides: John McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, opposed new offshore drilling in his 2000 presidential campaign. He said Tuesday that he now supported lifting the long-standing ban. Watch out polar bears, you're in the Maverick's sights! Of course, maybe he just wants a stuffed toy named after him like his Presidential fantasy lover, Teddy Roosevelt.

In related news: In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

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Humbling, Isn't It?

A tornado in Iowa

It also makes one realize how foolish it is to think we have even one ounce of real control over our environment.

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Yea For Turkey!

Turkish Tuna Fishermen Slam Boat Into Greenpeace Ship

Turkish tuna fishermen rammed their boat into a Greenpeace ship Friday and pelted it with lead fishing weights, the environmental group said. No one was injured.

The fishing vessel was among several that swarmed the Arctic Sunrise, which was carrying activists campaigning against overfishing in the Mediterranean. The boat rammed the Greenpeace ship at high speed, said Yesim Aslan, a spokeswoman for the group.

The barrage of lead weights damaged a helicopter that the activists had used earlier in the day to document the vessels' activities, Aslan [He's on the move! - QC] said.

Turkey and France. They know how to deal with environuts.

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Obama Wants You To Go Hungry And Sweat This Summer So The World Will Like Us

Obama Camp Spies Endgame In Oregon

Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

After I read this story, I went and turned my AC down to 68 degrees, even though it was barely 70 outside.

I'm gonna have an extra big lunch too, and drive the long way to get to the restaurant. And I really don't care what Burkina Faso or Paraguay thinks about it.

ht: SondraK

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Nuclear Bikini

Apparently nature is much more resilient than we think:

Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.

A team of scientists recently led a diving expedition into Bravo Crater and found an unexpectedly thriving coral community.

"I didn't know what to expect — some kind of moonscape perhaps. But it was incredible, huge matrices of branching Porites coral (up to 8 meters [25 feet] high) had established, creating a thriving coral reef habitat," said study team member Zoe Richards of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

"Throughout other parts of the lagoon it was awesome to see coral cover as high as 80 percent and large tree-like branching coral formations with trunks 30 centimeters [12 inches] thick."

A nearby atoll is likely seeding the coral recovery, the scientists think, and because the island is rarely visited, the coral is left to recover.

Richards said that the healthy condition of the Bikini corals was a sign of the resilience of corals after a major disturbance, if left undisturbed to recuperate.

Take that Algore...

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And We Aren't Tapping This Resource Because...?

Huge Oil Reservoir May Lie Under Northern Plains

The government estimates up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.

The U.S. Geological Survey calls it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

An assessment by USGS in 1999 found the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge had 10.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, said Brenda Pierce, a geologist for the agency.

God forbid we be able to tell OPEC to go to hell and cut the price of oil in half...

UPDATE: More info on America's potential oil wealth...

New data from Bakken (they've been studying it since 1951) suggests a conservative estimate of 200 billion barrels. That would increase our oil reserves by a factor of 10 putting us on par with Saudi Arabia which has 260 billion barrels. Keep in mind too, these are just current estimates. Then there's the Green River Formation in Colorado, Wyoming, & Utah. The Energy Department and private industry estimate that GRF holds a trillion barrels in Colorado — about the same amount as the entire world's known reserves of conventional oil. The entire Green River Formation might hold as much as 2 trillion barrels. Not to mention that estimates of our offshore reserves (hello California and Florida) and ANWR would add even more. And it's becoming economically and technologically feasible to go after that oil. So yes... piss off Saudi royals, get lost Iran, pucker-up and kiss our ass Chavez...

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Soylent Green Is People Ted Turner!

Ted Turner: Global Warming Could Lead To Cannibalism

There's at least one loud mouthed billionaire too many... that's for sure...

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Too Much Money, Too Little Sense

At Island Retreat, Branson And Friends Seek To Save A World 'On Fire'

A cold, wet world on fire.

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Brrrrr! Al, Could You Turn Up The Heat?

Al? Al are you here? Al? Hey it's cold in here! Al?

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

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.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. 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.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

The story goes on to say that "While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it." Which is what the more reasonable among us have been saying all along. So Al? What's up? This is really inconvenient Al!

Clarification: By "which is what the more reasonable among us have been saying all along", I did not mean that I or anyone else has been predicting what the climate will do; only that we realize that mankind has very little power over what happens in nature.

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Global Cooling?

So says Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences

A Cold Spell Soon To Replace Global Warming

Stock up on fur coats and felt boots! This is my paradoxical advice to the warm world.

Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases.

The real reasons for climate changes are uneven solar radiation, terrestrial precession (that is, axis gyration), instability of oceanic currents, regular salinity fluctuations of the Arctic Ocean surface waters, etc. There is another, principal reason—solar activity and luminosity. The greater they are the warmer is our climate.

Astrophysics knows two solar activity cycles, of 11 and 200 years. Both are caused by changes in the radius and area of the irradiating solar surface. The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.

It's what I've said all along: Mother Nature will do as she pleases, and man is just along for the ride.

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Icecaps Refuse To Accept Global Warming

Southern Hemisphere Ice Cover Remains Well Above Normal

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They Got It Wrong. Again.

2007 Hurricane Predictions Miss The Mark

Just before the season started on June 1, the nationally prominent Gray-Klotzbach team at Colorado State University predicted that 17 named storms would grow into nine hurricanes, five of which would be particularly intense, with winds above 110 mph.

A different team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to five intense hurricanes.

The actual results for the 2007 season: 14 named storms, five hurricanes, two intense hurricanes.

That turned a season predicted to be extremely active into one that was about average in number of storms and well below average in total intensity.

Even mid-season corrections issued by both teams in August -- somewhat akin to changing your prediction about a baseball game during the fifth inning -- proved wrong.

Their pre-season predictions in 2005 and 2006 were even worse.

But hey, that's no problem. If you don't have the data to support your belief...make it up!

Decisions To Name Storms Draw Concern

Some meteorologists, including former hurricane center director Neil Frank, say as many as six of this year's 14 named tropical systems might have failed in earlier decades to earn "named storm" status.

"They seem to be naming storms a lot more than they used to," said Frank, who directed the hurricane center from 1974 to 1987 and is now chief meteorologist for KHOU-TV. "This year, I would put at least four storms in a very questionable category, and maybe even six."

Most of the storms in question briefly had tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph. But their central pressure — another measure of intensity — suggested they actually remained depressions or were non-tropical systems.

Any inconsistencies in the naming of tropical storms and hurricanes have significance far beyond semantics.

The number of a season's named storms forms the foundation of historical records used to determine trends in hurricane activity. Insurance companies use these trends to set homeowners' rates. And such information is vital to scientists trying to determine whether global warming has had a measurable impact on hurricane activity.

Of course some of the inconsistency can be attributed to better satellite and tracking technology that allows scientists to find storms that may have been missed in earlier decades. Still, it raises interesting questions in this day and age when so many climatologists and meteorologists are desperate to "prove" that global warming is a man made disaster, or heck maybe just desperate to make themselves look busy so they can keep their jobs or big fat funding for their "research."

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Bad News...Kids Aren't "Green"

Meet The Women Who Won't Have Babies - Because They're Not Eco Friendly

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

That's right, she didn't just have herself sterilized to save the planet, she aborted her baby to reduce her carbon footprint! This has to be one of the most disgusting stories I've ever read.

Wouldn't the ultimate sacrifice be for these bastards to off themselves? It just seems selfish that they're willing to kill babies to save the planet yet continue hogging resources themselves. Good news...these dumbasses aren't going to spread their genes.

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Man-Made Global Warming Fails Us Again

2007 Yearly Tropical Cyclone Activity to Date

Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). However, the year is not over...

2007 lowest September activity on record since 1977

2006 and 2007 lowest October activity on record since 1976 and 1977

For the period of June 1 - TODAY, only 1977 has experienced LESS tropical cyclone activity than 2007.

There are currently two worldwide tropical cyclones: Tropical Storm Noel and Unnamed Arabian Sea TS...

On average to date (1970-2006), the Eastern Pacific season is 97% completed, Western Pacific 82%, North Atlantic 93% and overall Northern Hemisphere 87%.

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