Mar 20 2007
Flyby 03/20/07
A quick Flyby this morning before a full day of work. Here is an interesting account in the BBC from someone who has taken two trips into Ramadi – the heart of al Qaeda’s dream caliphate and a center of terrorism and insurgency in Iraq. A snippet:
This city of some 400,000 people has been an almost permanent battleground since the US invasion. A beacon of defiance for insurgents, a constant thorn in the side of the US military.
…
But while US forces succeeded in subduing nearby Fallujah – at great cost – Ramadi has appeared un-winnable. At times last year, it accounted for half the insurgent attacks in Iraq. Al-Qaeda controlled whole districts and declared its own Islamic state.
But American commanders say things have started to change. Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups are now on the back foot, they believe.
Several of the key tribes of the area have turned against them.
This account, from an organization well known for its liberal anti-war, anti-Bush stances, is an eye opener. It means the changes on the ground must be so striking even the myopic media cannot miss them.
There is another great article in the NY Post on all the things that are working in Iraq – a must read if you prefer success over surrender.
I guess with Al Gore up on the Hill today to do his Chicken Little dance Global Warming will be the subject of the day. The first piece I saw of interest lay out the futility in trying to develop a average Global temperature and how little it means – scientifically. Again, a snippet:
The Globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average. That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless. Or talking about economics, it does make sense to compare the currency exchange rate of two countries, whereas there is no point in talking about an average ‘global exchange rate’.
If temperature decreases at one point and it increases at another, the average will remain the same as before, but it will give rise to an entirely different thermodynamics and thus a different climate. If, for example, it is 10 degrees at one point and 40 degrees at another, the average is 25 degrees. But if instead there is 25 degrees both places, the average is still 25 degrees. These two cases would give rise to two entirely different types of climate, because in the former case one would have pressure differences and strong winds, while in the latter there would be no wind.
That is why the West is having a very warm winter and the Northeast is having a very cold one this year. But what is important to note is someone has to ‘weight’ all the measurements so as to extrapolate the isolated measurements to try and come up with regional temperatures. That is a unproven process, why open for manipulation by people looking for the next large government grant.
And in “the public is too stupid to understand” category we have this clown up on Capitol Hill saying non-scientist are confusing the issue. Of course he is claiming it is the non-scientists on the side of the debate who are still waiting, after over a decade, for a definitive scientific model that shows the clear and unambiguous man-made factor on Global Warming. No word the non-scientist Al Gore, who knows as much about the environment as he does the internet – which is next to nothing. BTW, the loose cannons at the Goddard Institute (not to EVER be confused with the Goddard Space Flight Center in MD – and the center of all Earth Observing Missions) are just that – loose cannons. NASA data has never shown a clear indication of severe warming, let alone man’s role in it. People should know the folks at the institute do not fly spacecraft of any kind.
Want to know how honest these jokers are? Turns out that poor censored man at the Goddard Institute only got 1,400 media interviews. What a bunch of self-promoting BS. I will leave you all with this quote on man-made Global Warming from one of those who still believes in his econ-religion, but yet is starting to see the futility of the cause:
Man-made climate change is, of course, real, and constitutes a serious problem. Yet the current cut-emissions-now-before-it-is-too-late mindset neglects the fact that the world has no sensible short-term solutions.
This seems to be why we focus on feel-good approaches like the Kyoto Protocol. Yet the agreement’s fundamental problem has always been that it is simultaneously impossibly ambitious, environmentally inconsequential, and inordinately expensive. It required such big reductions that only few countries could live up to it.
And there is no proof, whatsoever, it would do a damn thing about the problem. None.
Hope everyone has a great day on this Global Warming Tuesday!
The GW skeptics in the scientific world are frequently characterized as political hacks and industry whores by the alarmist side, whereas “serious” scientists like James Hansen are much more credible. In addition to the 1,400 media interviews that you note in your post, Hansen was, not only a science consultant for the Kerry campaign, but also received a $250,000 grant (he refers to it as an “award” but it’s still $1/4 million clams any way you slice it) from Teresa Heinz Kerry’s foundation. Meanwhile, highly credentialed scientists like Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen are demonized for receiving $20,000 fees for speaking before energy industry conferences. Typical of the Left — don’t like the message, destroy the messenger.
RS
There you go with those pesky facts again. Didn’t you get the memo?
What memo? Ooooooohhh, you mean THAT memo. Nope, didn’t get it, heh.
The New York Post is the city’s republican paper. And, since you can link to it at Drudge, it’s pages are read globally. They also always run Ralph Peters articles.
Yes. The mess in Iraq is being cleaned up. And, hopefully, some of the mess at the pentagon is getting reviewed as well. Men like Wesley Clark don’t deserve to wear our uniform. And, when that idiot bid to become a nominee, it’s interesting he was eaten by his own kind.
Still, we’ve got a lot of stuff to address. Not helped by Bush’s protensity towards picking weakness. And, then? Going back and “depending” on the turds that caused his father’s four years to collapse into one term.
This guy? It seems he has no choice. The garbage piles up. And, then the garbage is removed. (AG Gonzales. Harriet Miers. “Brownie” at FEMA.) There was too much of a inner-circle of incompetence surrounding that man.
As to the “improvements” in Iraq, we wouldn’t be noticing this if Maliki was still sitting on his hands.
And, you have no idea what a wonderful enema our presss corps have turned out to be. They flash the photos of the scum that collects in DC, when George Soros pays their way. And, this gives Maliki the fears that Iraq will be abandoned like vietnam.
Who sez you can’t learn new lessons from old tricks?
And, General Patraeus is going to be the one who can claim victory. He saw the mess made by his predicessors. Starting with that garbage: George Tenet. And, then letting Paul Bremmer loose.
At least there’s one obvious fact on the table. Bush, who can’t give a speech from the heart for beans, really hates it when people mess up his “fine” reputation. Makes him a mean old coot behind closed doors.
Yet, there’s more opportunities out there, as these messes happen, than you think.
There’s also “rumors” flying about that somehow the inner sanctum in Iran has been breached. And, “with the Mossad’s help,” a few of the generals in Iran’s “revolutionay” army; have been removed. Or co-opted. So, revolutionary takes on the meaning of “spinning.”
All the arabs function in the same way. No one on the bottom is allowed to make a decision. They’re always looking “for the man in charge.” So when you interfere with that, you’ve actually cut the heads of the snakes.
But don’t expect miracles from people, who by nature, are group-infested. They tend to kill those who show initiative, even now.
And, we’re still beset with the garbage coming out of the House of Saud.
While to add to the nothingness of the media; you get the diplomatic pants dancers from Turtle Bay. Too few people with still too much bribe moneys, around.
I will give a very brief example of how complex climate is. Last year Atlantic sea surface temperatures were way down and so were the number of hurricanes. Want to know why? Pretty simple, really. Dampen your hand and blow on it. What do you feel? It gets cool. Last year’s Bermuda High, a high pressure system that sits in the Atlantic off the East coast of the US was stronger than normal. This caused a deeper “pressure gradient” which resulted in stronger trade winds. The stronger trade winds blowing across the ocean cooled the surface. When you have a weak Bermuda High, you have lower winds and higher surface temperatures.
It gets even more complex. This increase in evaporation from the ocean surface dumps billions of tons of a greenhouse gas that is much more powerful than CO2 into the atmosphere. That is water vapor. So you have an increased greenhouse and decreased sea surface temperature and hurricanes. Water vapor is a very powerful greenhouse gas. If you don’t believe me then check the difference in nighttime low temperature in August between, say, Houston and Albuquerque. Humid air acts as an insulating blanket and prevents heat radiation into space at night. A drier climate allows much more radiation into space, resulting in more cooling at night.
If you want to measure greenhouse impact you are wasting your time following AVERAGE temperature changes. What you want to plot is the average LOW temperature over time. Increased greenhouse gases can actually lower daytime high temperatures because in addition to blocking infrared radiation from the Earth into space at night, they also block infrared radiation from the Sun in the daytime. Additionally, a warmer atmosphere means more water vapor from evaporation meaning increased cloud cover decreasing impact of solar heating even more. The one place where greenhouse warming will have its maximum impact is pre-dawn temperature. That is going to be the only measurement that will be driven mostly by an atmospheric greenhouse preventing radiative cooling during the night. And I have yet to see a single paper with the average, say 4am, temperature plotted over time.
You can have greenhouse impact with no change in average temperature of both the nighttime low and daytime high temperatures are moderated as a result. But note that you can still have impact on glaciers and plant life with no change in AVERAGE temperature because you while you can have fewer really hot days, you will also have fewer nights below freezing allowing more overall melting (number of hours above freezing per year). You will also get greater crop yields and possibly Northern migration of plant species because you have more frost-free nights … even though the AVERAGE temperature might not change.
Someone please give me a plot of low temperatures over the last 100 years and even then, I will argue that the plot is probably reflecting changes in humidity more than changes in CO2. Forget the Urban Heat Island effect in Phoenix … it is more like the Urban Lawn Sprinkler effect. As the Phoenix area greens, you have more irrigation, higher nighttime humidity, less radiative cooling at night, higher pre-dawn low temperatures.
These people have no idea what they trying to find except their candidates in office.
What’s going on in Iraq?…….
….Victory. Yes, that’s right. Victory.In late February and early Mar……