More Evidence of Changes To Come

"In late March 1944 a rebellious US Army Major is 'volunteered' to train twelve convicted military criminals for a suicide mission - to parachute to a heavily-guarded Nazi general staff officers' retreat to try and assassinate German officers on leave. To get his unorthodox assignment done the Major must convince Army brass to grant pardons to the men, then try to mold the twelve recidivists into a functioning unit."

That's the synopsis for The Dirty Dozen, at least as synopsized by the IMDB (Internet Movie Database). One recidivist, played by Donald Sutherland, ended up masquerading as a general inspecting a band of well polished troops. I've included the YouTube clip below. The money scene starts around 2:30.

For those of you not fond of embedded video, I've screen capped it for you.

Where you from, son?

Madison City, Missouri, SIR!

Never heard of it.

[Crushed]

I had never heard The Register web site before a followed a link to it today.  I assume they won't be crushed. I had to search around a bit to find out who they were and what they were all about.  Here's what I found.

The Register is the one of the world's biggest online tech publications, with more than five million unique users worldwide. The US and the UK account for more than 1.5 million readers each a month.

Most Register readers are IT professionals - software engineers, database administrators, sysadmins, networking managers and so on, all the way up to CIOs. The Register covers the issues they face at work every day – in software, hardware, networking and IT security. The Register is also known for its "off-duty" articles, on science, tech culture, and cult columnists such as BOFH and Verity Stob, which reflect our readers' many personal interests.

They posted an interesting and alarming article yesterday.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

Physicists say sunspot cycle is 'going into hibernation'

They include the following plot. The "Spots" / "No Spots" text makes the plot pretty much self explanatory. An unidentified magnetic field has been getting smaller in unidentified units. Once the unidentified magnetic field drops below 1500 unidentified units, we go from spots to no spots. That may happen around 2013, if the sun obeys the straight line extrapolation of the guy who plotted the data.

See!  I told you. We could soon be sunspotless, and you all know what that means.

In case you forgot what I wrote, here's what the Register wrote:

The big consequences of a major solar calm spell, however, would be climatic. The next few generations of humanity might not find themselves trying to cope with global warming but rather with a significant cooling. This could overturn decades of received wisdom on such things as CO₂ emissions, and lead to radical shifts in government policy worldwide.

I think government policy on global warming is going to change much more slowly than the Sun's magnetic field, but it might change. They may eventually be requiring all of us to spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Walking, rather than driving, will be treasonous and result in forcible tatooing or strangulation in your sleep. Farting cows will be honored. [I never thought I would write that.]

I'm inching up to the point where I'm going to relate all this to my thoughts on how we as a country can get our groove back.

Stay tuned.

Tattoos, Treason, and Strangulation

Richard Glover knows that the Earth is warming. In fact, he is so confident of it he believes those who disagree with him should be tattooed, Hester Prynne like.

Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.

Not necessarily on the forehead; I'm a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ''Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?''

On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy. So how about they are forced to buy property on low-lying islands, the sort of property that will become worthless with a few more centimetres of ocean rise, so they are bankrupted by their own bloody-mindedness? Or what about their signed agreement to stand, in the year 2040, lashed to a pole at a certain point in the shallows off Manly? If they are right and the world is cooling - ''climate change stopped in the year 1998'' is one of their more boneheaded beliefs - their mouths will be above water. If not …

OK, maybe the desire to see the painful, thrashing death of one's opponents is not ideal. But, my God, these people are frustrating. You just know that in 20 years' time, when the costs of our inaction are clear, the climate deniers will become climate-denial-deniers. ''Who me? Oh, no, I always believed in it. Yes, it's hard to understand why people back then were so daft. It's so much more costly to stop it now.''

That's why the tattoo has its appeal.

AccuWeather recently posted an article: "Coolest March Since 1994." (How can you not trust something from a source with "Accu" in its name?)  I know it's hot out there right now, but based on satellite temperature readings, March turned out to be relatively cool. The fine folks at AccuWeather even put a chart at the bottom of their article. Unfortunately, they failed to label their axes. I presume we're simply supposed to notice the trend line is still sloping upward and we're supposed to conclude that we are doomed to melt, assuming we don't first drown or return to our pre-industrial ways.

The article did, however, link to the data used to construct the plot. I commend the fine folks at AccuWeather for that. (Seriously, I commend them for that.) I refer you to their article if you would like to fondle the data yourself. I have used the data to create two plots which I present below. Click on either to have the pair appear enlarged in a separate window.

The upper plot is a reproduction of the plot provided in the AccuWeather article. Mine differs only in that I cluttered them by labeling the axes. I also colored the data a scary red to indicate things are getting hotter and hotter.

In the lower plot, I split the data roughly in half. It seemed to me that something significant happened near the beginning of 1998. As before, the first half of the data shows the temperature to be increasing, though the increase is not as steep as in the upper plot. I colored it scary red anyway.

The second half of the data represents the global temperature trend for the last twelve years, since 1998.  In honor of Richard Glover, I'll call these the boneheaded years. The data may come as a shock to you, and to Richard Glover if he would bother to look at them, but those data suggest we have not had any global warming for the last twelve years. I therefore colored those data in a comforting, earth-friendly green.

I don't know what the temperature will be next month, next year, next decade, or next century. Some people claim to know, and those people want to make energy more expensive. They want to further restrict our liberty. At least one of them wants to forcibly tattoo those of us who might disagree. Others take a more aggressive position.

NASA's James Hansen has argued that we should imprison oil company executives for denying the Earth is warming.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. wants global warming deniers to be treated as traitors.

Clinton Administrator Joe Romm suggested that deniers be strangled in their beds.

Not only do these people know, they know with such confidence that they will inflict harm on those who do not.

Our Fickle Sun

A professor stands before a large audience explaining that in 5 billion years, the sun will be a red giant  so large that it will engulf the Earth. A hand shoots up from the rear of the class.

"How long did you say?"

"Five billion years."

"Whew! I thought you said million."

We know an awful lot about the sun, but we still have a whole lot more to learn. Not surprisingly, it turns out that its future behavior might have an impact on us.

The sun is going to do what it's going to do. On its way to being a red giant, it will spot, eject, brighten, dim, spin, precess, and wobble. It will warm us too much or too little for our liking. Its ejecta will attack our magnetic field and threaten our well being. We certainly can't live without it and there is no guarantee that living with it will be a cakewalk.

I just explained in my last post that Solar Cycle 24 looks as if it will have substantially fewer sun spots that Solar Cycle 23. History may give us cause for concern. From the much maligned Wikipedia I offer:

Now I offer A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs by Abraham Hondius.

The picture was painted in 1684. If you take a quick peek again at the sunspot history plot, you'll see that 1684 was smack dab in the midst of the Maunder Minimum, when sunspots were on hiatus.

Now quickly, look again at the painting. The Thames is frozen solid. Six of the coldest winters in British recorded history were in the last 16 years of the 17th century, during the Maunder Minimum, when there were no friggin' sunspots.

The Maunder Minimum corresponded with The Little Ice Age.

Perhaps it was only a coincidence.

I'm certainly not predicting another little ice age. I am, however, skeptical that we are staring at a world of man made global warming. For now, I'll simply leave you with another painting of London, The Frozen Thames, by artist unknown.

It was painted in 1677.

Solar Cycle 24

Kevin knows a lot about sunspots. A lot. He's a little more specific than I am about his reason for posting. Not only does he limit his writing to solar cycles, he limits his writing to one specific solar cycle: Solar Cycle 24. To give you a sense of how serious he is about his work, I give you screen shot of just one portion of his home page.

I'll let Kevin tell you in his own words why he is so worked up over Solar Cycle 24.

In 2006 Cycle 24 was initially predicted to be 30-50% stronger than the previous cycle 23 and the strongest in 50 years. Being that I am a Ham Radio operator and very active on VHF and interested in Aurora, I thought that starting a website dedicated to VHF and the upcoming Cycle would be a great idea. Since then my site has grown into my second full time job and the predictions of Cycle 24 has changed depending on who you talk to.

SolarCycle24.com will be your one stop source for everything Solar and Aurora as it relates to Cycle 24. You will find Real Time data, News, Charts, Images, Multimedia and much more. My goal is to put all important information from various sources into one spot. As soon as something important is happening on the sun, you will see it here first.

My main goal is to track and monitor Aurora openings on VHF including my favorite band 6 meters. I plan on logging all my personal contacts online and capturing the great aurora moments as they happen.

Here's an image of our sunspots as of today.

Here's a plot showing the sunspot frequency of the current solar cycle (24) compared to the previous solar cycle (23).

It looks as if we're going to have fewer sunspots. That's good to know. We might want to consider it as we decide how solve some of the serious problems we face as a country. In fact, I think it will be quite handy.

Stay tuned.

The Road Not Taken

My intent regarding Weinergate had been to write about how it is a knowble story, that the truth behind the matter was out there, that some people were trying to bring the evidence to the forefront while others were trying to keep the evidence suppressed. The desire to expose or reveal evidence, usually based on bias or preconceived notions, is by no means limited to cases of sexual impropriety.

Information is power. It is frequently used as weaponry. I prefer to use it for enlightenment.

Other than the philosophical discussion outlined above, I have nothing unique to add to the story. I'm therefore going to default on my previously announced plans of writing further about it. Given that I have upwards of zero readers at this point, I'll take a pass on apologizing to any of you who may be disappointed.

Instead, I'm going to write about some serious problems our country faces. I believe I have a grand solution for some of them. We'll see how it goes.

Human Sunspot

Thanks to Dani Caxete, the astounding photographer posting at Paranoias Nocturnas, we can see Space Shuttle Endeavor docked with the International Space Station during the half second they passed between his camera and the Sun.

Wow.

Introductions Are In Order

You may call me Ig.

Elsewhere, under a different pseudonym, I blog about a serious societal issue. Though I frequently wish to add my $0.02 on various other issues, I have long refrained from doing so on my other blog. This blog will allow me express my thoughts in a public forum that won't detract from my serious work.

I prefer to write about questions that have, at least in theory, definitive answers. I refer to such  questions as knowble. I realize the more commonly accepted word is "knowable," but I don't care for that word. It doesn't roll smoothly off the tongue, and I hereby banish it from this blog.

Examples of questions that are theoretically knowble are:

• Is the Earth warming?
• Can we afford Medicare as it stands?
• Can catfish predict earthquakes?

As a corollary, I prefer not to write about questions that do not have definitive answers. I refer to such questions as igknowble. I realize this isn't even close to the more commonly accepted word "unknowable," but I care less for that word than I do for "knowable." It's even less smooth. I hereby banish it from this blog.

Examples of questions that are igknowble are:

• What is the meaning of life?
• Is abortion a good thing or a bad thing?
• Why was Pauly Shore ever popular?

Since I intend to write about that which is knowble and ignore that which is igknowble, it seems as if I have misnamed my blog. I have an explanation. It's amazing how many clever Internet names that cannot possibly be already taken, are. And since I've always had an unwholesome penchant for the word "ignoble" (I've actually used it in my writing) I simply went with Igknowble.

In my posts, I may occasionally rely on arcane cultural references, such as the YouTube clip I've embedded below. It's from The Great Race. I justify its inclusion simply because I used the word "banish" twice already, and the clip includes the sentence:

"I don't care. I don't care. You're banished. I'm getting a new tucker-inner. Banished, banished, banished."

That's some great writing, that's for sure. The clip also includes Natalie Wood running around in a corset, but that's beside the point.

Now, I surprise myself. My next post will be about Weinergate rather than anything substantive. Hopefully, future posts will be about matters more noble, but for now I will plumb the depths of sex and politics.

Perhaps I have named this blog properly.

Stay tuned.