Monthly Archives for November 2016

Open Letter to American Liberals

OffGuardian

by Thomas S. Harrington, via Common Dreams

I would love to share, my liberal friend, in your sense of incredulity about the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of United States. I would love to stand with you in the sense of woundedness that, while certainly painful up front, carries with it the secondary compensation of a warm and nurturing solidarity. I would love to sit with you and fulminate in righteous anger about the unparalleled vulgarity and cruelty of Trump and his followers.

As much as I’d like to do these things, I won’t.  Why?

Because I know you, perhaps better than you even dare to know yourself. I know you well because I have watched you with great and detailed care over the last three decades and have learned, sadly, that you are as much if not more about image and self-regard as any of the laudable…

View original post 486 more words

Giant supermoon will be biggest & brightest since 1948

Hopefully the skies will stay clear for once

Earth Extremities

© NASA Goddard
© NASA Goddard / YouTube
On Monday at 6:15 a.m. EST, it will be a mere 356,509 kilometers (221,524 miles) from Earth. NASA has dubbed it an “extra-supermoon” because of its proximity to the planet, and due to the fact it won’t appear again until until 2034.
 
The moon will look 14 percent bigger than normal when it reaches perigee, the point when the moon is closest to the Earth. It will be much brighter too, thanks to the planet being closer to the sun at this time of year and the supermoon’s radiance shining 30 percent more light on Earth.
 
Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, says the supermoon will be visible for a couple of days. “I’ve been telling people to go out at night on either Sunday or Monday to see the supermoon,” he said.
 
“The difference in…

View original post 115 more words

Pacific Sea Level One Year On

kenskingdom

I was reminded by Jennifer Marohasy of my post a year ago (Pacific Sea Levels- Warming, ENSO, or Wind?) in which I showed that “Sea level rise in Kiribati and the Marshalls has nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with the ENSO cycle, and winds in particular.”

I wonder how things are going after 12 months?

Back then I had a brief exchange with one of the commenters, MorinMoss, a Global Warming Enthusiast, part of which included the following:

Me:

So Morin, getting back to sea levels in the Pacific, what do you think sea level at Kiribati will be a year from now- higher, lower, or the same as now, and why? I reckon it will be lower- because of the ENSO cycle. The Pacific will be in neutral or La Nina phase by then, trades will be dominant, with less westerly wind bursts…

View original post 128 more words

Jamie Foster: #Brexit Gunpowder, Treason and Plot

Tallbloke's Talkshop

Reposted from the blog of Jamie Foster

gunpowder-plot

Remember, remember the 4th of November, it’s the day the legal profession took leave of its senses. Hopefully temporarily but certainly noticeably. It was perhaps unsurprising. It is not often that a constitutional law case which could help define our political future appears on the front of our national newspapers with such a barrage of fireworks. It is easy to be drawn in by the pretty explosions.

The 3rd November marked a win in the High Court for a wealthy fund manager, Gina Miller. This modern-day Guy Fawkes placed her barrels of gun powder directly under the Government, rather than Parliament this time. Her explosive case determined that the Government had no right to trigger Art 50 and inform the EU of the UK’s desire to leave without a vote in Parliament. The sparks from the case caused explosions across the press, with…

View original post 1,007 more words