Melting Paint Stripping Sex Robots and then some

Video suggesting what Earth would look like if all the ice melted.

Remembering what Republicans would like to forget about Reagan.

Gut-punching article on the mass incarceration of blacks and what it has done to the family.

Trumpets across Jakarta?

Having to follow ALL the rules not to get raped.

Why day dreaming, science fiction, and libraries are necessary.

Paint-stripping chemicals like methylene chloride are deadly.  Fatal.  Fatally deadly.  Deadly fatal.

Would sex robots help misogynists stay out of the dating pool?

Mathematician suing to get Kansas election records because suspicions of election fraud.

Hacking, Porcupines, and Robocalls

Why hacking and invading privacy matters.

Porcupines like salt.  Really like salt.

We're boiling our oceans.  As well as melting all the sea ice.  And killing all the fish.

Jeb Bush is meaner than he looks.  And things are going to get serious.

Since Sandy Hook there have been 72 mass shootings.

Christian pastor stunned by secular Scandinavians.

How to be polite. (It may save the world.)

A petition to sign to end robocalls.

How long can you tread water?

Not long? Maybe buying that mountain cabin makes more sense now...

Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice. Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million--the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago. Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet, according to research results published today in the journal Science.

[snip]

Such a sea level rise would permanently inundate low-lying lands like New Orleans, southern Florida, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. Already sea level rise has increased to an inch per decade, thanks to melting ice and warm water expansion, according to Overpeck. And evidence that the Arctic is exponentially warming continues to accumulate. Indeed, in another paper in the same issue of Science, Goran Ekstrom of Harvard University reported a marked increase in so-called glacial earthquakes (seismic events recorded throughout the world when Greenland's glaciers slip past rock) since 2002. In fact, last year alone saw twice as many quakes as in previous years, with most of that increase coming during the summer months.

"We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade," Overpeck says. "If we don't do something soon, we're committed to [13 to 20 feet] of sea level rise in the future."

In other news, Bush says "whatever" to global warming:

President Bush this week called on the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases warming the world to set a "long-term goal" for reducing such pollution, but was vague on how to complete the task.

"By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem," President Bush told representatives of 17 nations attending the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change held in Washington, D.C., this week.

"Whaddya want?" demanded Georgie as he pouted during his speech,"I'm gonna be outa here in a buncha months. You expectin' anything more? Givin' speeches is hard work!"

I'll repeat my lolcat pic:

Screw the polar bears!

Think of all the oil we can get to now!: (FYI: for those who are reading only this post, this is sarcasm.)

Arctic sea ice is expected to retreat to a record low by the end of this summer, scientists have predicted.

Measurements made by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed the extent of sea ice on 8 August was almost 30% below the long-term average.

Because the region's melting season runs until the middle of September, scientists believe this summer will end with the lowest ice cover on record.

Researchers have forecast ice-free summers in the Arctic by 2040.

NSIDC data showed sea ice extent for 8 August as 5.8 million sq km (2.2 million sq miles), compared to the 1979-2000 August average of 7.7 million sq km (3.0 million sq miles).

The current record low was recorded in 2005, when Arctic sea ice covered just 5.32 million sq km (2.09 million sq miles).

[snip]

A team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the University of Washington, and McGill University, found that "positive feedbacks" were likely to accelerate the decline of the region's ice system.

Sea ice has a bright surface that reflects 80% of the sunlight that strikes it back into space. However, as the ice melts during the summer, more of the dark ocean surface becomes exposed.

Rather than reflecting sunlight, the ocean absorbs 90% of it, causing the waters to warm and increase the rate of melting.

Scientists fear that this feedback mechanism will have major consequences for wildlife in the region, not least polar bears, which traverse ice-floes in search of food.

On a global scale, the Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, potentially accelerating climatic change across the world.

The dry valleys of Antartica

Stunning shots from this site:

Lake Vanda in Wright Valley, with extremely salty water underneath thick layer of incredibly clear ice:

Riiiiiiight

Just keeping to the agenda:

WASHINGTON, March 9 The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said protocol is the reason employees going to meetings about the Arctic are not to discuss climate change.

The New York Times reported that agency Director H. Dale Hall said memos stating that two employees traveling to international meetings on the Arctic would not respond to questions about climate change, polar bears and sea ice are consistent with staying with our commitment to the other countries to talk about only what's on the agenda.The memorandums stating that the employees would not to discuss climate change were reported Thursday in the New York Times and on the Web site of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Just don't mention these:

Or this:

Or this:

I suppose they aren't allowed to respond to the question, "What weather we're having!" or "Hot enough for ya?" either.