Warmer Oceans, Decreasing Sea Ice, Warmer Oceans, etc.

"Hey! Where the hell has all the sea ice gone?"

• Oceans have been hiding a lot of Earth's warming by burying it in the deep sea. The deep waters are now surfacing and melting ice on the Western Antarctic Peninsula. The trend means that we're already locked into long term melting and sea level rise.

Graphs are from a "Real Climate" update of model - data comparisons.

Guns, guns, everywhere, and not a stop to think

Here in Washington State, if you’re 21, don’t have a felony conviction yet, and no one has bothered to certify that you’re crazy, you can pretty much get a gun, even a concealed pistol license (CPL). Notice I didn’t say you had to be a citizen -- you don’t. Granted, you may have to wait a while longer to get your license to carry as an alien, but what’s another 30 days? And if you’re a known terrorist? Well, there’s still hope. A government study showed that over the last 6 years, 1,119 people on the U.S. Government’s terror watch list were still able to buy firearms or explosives from licensed U.S. dealers.

But what about that extensive background check requiring you to wait an agonizing 5 days for your weapon? Not to worry, since 2007, Congress has allocated only $20 million of the $375 million authorized in the law requiring the background check. The poor schmuck in the basement of the ATF building must be doing 10,000 background checks a day just to stay up with demand, especially after the Tucson shootings.

So the next time you’re enjoying an outing in a wildlife refuge or national park, or even in your local park, and you see someone packing (and I don’t mean backpacking), don’t get all bent out of shape -- it’s perfectly legal -- just get the hell out of the park. God only knows who the nut with the gun is.

Forbes’ rich list of nonsense

An international study done by 18 scientists concludes that Arctic sea ice levels
are shrinking at a rate not seen for thousands of years.

While it is no longer surprising, it remains disheartening to see a blistering attack on climate science in the business press where thoughtful reviews of climate policy ought to be appearing. Of course, the underlying strategy is to pretend that no evidence that the climate is changing exists, so any effort to address climate change is a waste of resources.
Forbes’ rich list of nonsense