Turnabout Is Fair Play

A revised version of New York Post cartoon by Sean Delonas. I call it fair use, and anyone can use it if they like, as far as I'm concerned.

The Myth of Global Cooling

Source: Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux: Being the Narrative of an Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin in the Years 1860, 1861, and 1862 by Charles Francis Hall (1865), New York: Harper and Brothers.
Having not sufficiently refuted George Will's recent and recycled pundacity, "Dark Green Doomsayers" I tracked down a writer, climate modeler, and mathematician William M. Connolley, who has done great work in documenting, beginning in the '90s, the myth that "70s scientists predicted global cooling".

And it is essentially a myth. Only several articles were written, and these in popular publications, with sensationalistic headlines but much tamer and even-handed texts. At the time, no peer reviewed climatological journals predicted a "new ice age."

He started out here with an (excellent, not well organized, yet massively documented) website. This is what I stumbled upon when, in the early 2000s I attempted to debunk this persistent falsity.

BUT the dogged Mr. Connolley has a more up-to-date blog named Stoat. I have put it on my favorites list.

Also see an article about "global cooling." Also, one on climate change denial. And there was also talk of nuclear winter, (a continuing topic with more recent research and calculations). As well as examining nuclear winter, popular scientist Carl Sagan also once noted that massive burning of forests around the globe might cause cooling. And there was speculation that the massive amount of dust, smoke, explosive residue, and diesel exhaust during WWII may have cooled the globe somewhat. Perhaps masking the earliest effects of anthropogenic warming.

Sulfur and particulates from smokestacks have been reduced over the decades as well. The price for neglecting to do this would have been continuing worsening acid rain problems, accelerated forest die-offs, and seriously heightened health effects.

UPDATE: Feb. 23 2009 Here's an excellent summation -
The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus
by Thomas C. Peterson, William M. Connolley, and John Fleck

The Miracle of Wikipedia

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page is a modern miracle. And it keeps on getting better.

Years ago I pondered the future. One day, I thought, we will have gadgets in our heads that will simply answer any question we have, instantaneously.

Well, that day is here, and I didn't even need a gadget put in my head.

Like anything, Wikipedia is flawed, but recent research found it as reliable as Encyclopedia Brittanica. It is also much larger.

Click on the picture with a mouse click to view it full screen.
Click on this link with a mouse click to visit the site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Mindwalk

Horned Goat Monkey

Sqirlz morph

The Curious Case of the Missing Hat

'Twas back in around '72, I think, that I came up with an idea for an ultimate go-to-hell hat. I wanted a hat like Dr. Seuss's character the Cat in the Hat. Keep in mind this was years before the popularity or even the idea of making or wearing such hats outside the storybooks was known.

I was a problematical seventeen-year-old in those days, getting into all sorts of devilment, so it came as somewhat of a pleasant surprise when my mother agreed to whip up such a hat on her sewing machine. And so she did.

It flopped around too much until I just stuffed some newspaper in the top, and after that it rode on my pate half-falling over and half jauntily upright, just like the Geisel character. So I started wearing the crazy thing, and my goofy friends liked it.

One day I forgot it over at a friend's house. Well, out of sight, out of mind, and I didn't think about until about a week later. So I went over there to retrieve it but the door was locked and no one home. Every time I went by. And no one knew where my friend had gotten off to. He had vanished. I figured I'd get it back sooner or later.

I don't remember how much time went by. It could have been a whole year, or only a month or so. I finally ran into Mike and he told me the bad news: his landlord had kicked him out for nonpayment, and had held his clothes for ransom, including my hat.

So I never saw my hat again.

Years later I became aware that this same sort of hat became popular among a neo-hippie set particularly tied to the Grateful Dead traveling roadshows. Also known as Deadheads.

I still wonder what happened to that hat. Did it find its way to someone who appreciated it? A second-hand store? Or did it go pretty much to the trash when the Evil Landlord decided at some point to dispose of Mike's things? I like to think it found its way to some Deadhead, who started the whole trend. And for this, some say I owe the world an apology. But I'm not sorry at all.

Fractured Funnies

Click the strip to view larger.