Category Archives: Weather/Climate

University is the opposite of diversity, Part II

Thus, you have one Oregon professor proclaiming that skepticism about climate change (previously known as global warming until the warming stopped about fifteen years ago) is evidence of a mental disease requiring treatment.

Meanwhile, an Arkansas university “research team” has concluded (very scientifically I’m sure) that political conservatism is a sign of low intelligence or other “cognitive impairment.” No treatment suggested. Conservatives just have to try harder to meet the liberal “norm.”

And, of course, there’s the University of California system’s echo chamber:

“Political activism has drawn the University of California into an academic death spiral. Too many professors believe their job is to ‘advance social justice’ rather than teach the subject they were hired to teach.”

Yep.

Via Drudge Report and Instapundit.

Engineered microbes turn CO2 to gasoline substitute

Now here’s an idea that, if it’s really as promising as the initial claims suggest, could not only solve the so-called energy crisis (promoted by the radical Greens who want to stop drilling for available oil and gas), but global warming (to the extent it’s really a problem) and, gasp, climate change.

If Obamalot really is serious about alternative fuels (as opposed to just trying to help their his cronies make a bigger buck), let’s see them him give the big federal taxpayer grants to help drive this to market.

Tornado memories

As a recovering journalist, my memories of the job come and go, some quite indistinct—like this tornado recollection I left at JD Allen’s place not long ago:

“I ‘chased’ one in the Panhandle one time so the photographer I was working with could get a decent shot of it. He was driving. We were about a mile from the thing and it was very big and very black and moving very fast on the ground. I was very tempted to bail out, but he was driving too fast. Fortunately he took his shot and [we] got the hell out of the way.”

It’s so flat up there, just miles and miles, as someone has said, of miles and miles. But my favorite spot still is Happy, the town without a frown. One grain elevator, though. And a cookbook.

Another good book

It was a pleasure to meet the real Rough Rider and Bull Moose in his most difficult moments, in The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey. Although it was very disquieting to learn the harsh fate of his sons.

This is quite a good book, which deftly shows the value of civic virtues we have long since left behind, for better or worse. It also keeps the advertised suspense going all the way, though I felt at times the author was padding the story. Still, it’s primarily an intensely interesting bit of little-remembered history that’s well worth your time and money.

My Tinnitus rises a notch

I’ve had Tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, since I came home from the Vietnam War in 1970. Although it can have several medical origins, I’ve always attributed it to months of being in close proximity to the staccato noise of machine guns and automatic rifles.

Last night I was awaked by what sounded like the steady release of compressed air, or maybe steady rain on the roof. It was so loud that I got up and walked around the dark rancho to see if I could find the source. It wasn’t raining so perhaps it was a break in a water pipe or the natural gas line that feeds the water heater and the stove? Apparently not.

I finally realized it was probably my Tinnitus acting up and I went back to sleep. When I awoke the noise was still there, still sounding like sleet through the limbs of trees or a broken gas line. As it probably will be from now on, an escalation in the old problem that is more of a curiosity to me than anything else.

Climate Czar of Mars

The usual shrill babble and punchy trailer clips are flogging John Carter, Disney’s remake of Edgar Rice Burrough’s 1917 novel Princess of Mars, but it looks like a kiddie combo of Hercules and Avatar.

The bad guys burn coal, you see, and are damaging the Martian atmosphere. Uh oh. John Carter is a Confederate soldier mysteriously transported to Mars. There he engages in a lot of sword play, some love scenes steamy enough for 14-year-old boys, and I’ll bet more than a few ecology speeches about sustainability and global warming. Face palm.

Freezing this morning

First freeze of the year for us out there at the moment, which will probably blacken the nice green elephant ears in the rancho’s front flower bed.

But this is mild (only 30 degrees) compared to the one that walloped Tulia, Texas this morning back in 1899. Forty thousand cattle dying overnight? Yipes.