Beating last year's record-earliest snow by over 5 days! -HLG
Houston Braces for Earliest Snow as Storm Heads for Louisiana Share Business
By Brian K. Sullivan
Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Houston residents are bracing for the earliest snowfall ever today as a storm bears down on Texas and Louisiana, threatening to disrupt travel and holiday shopping.
The country’s fourth-largest metropolitan area is expected to receive about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow with isolated accumulations of 4 inches, according to Paul Lewis, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Dickinson, Texas.
“This will be the earliest snow ever in the city of Houston,” Lewis said by telephone. “And the first time ever we have had measurable snow two years in a row.”
Last year, the area’s 2.24 million residents received about 1.4 inches on Dec. 10, he said.
The weather service has issued the winter storm watch, which means snowy and icy conditions are imminent, until 8 p.m. Houston time. The watch extends into Louisiana.
Galveston, Texas, may also see trace amounts of snow dusting grassy areas, Lewis said.
The overnight temperature will fall to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-3.9 Celsius), freezing roads and creating hazardous driving conditions for a city that doesn’t have much experience with winter weather.
Harris County, which includes Houston, issued winter driving tips and urged motorists to be careful on the roads.
“Never break while driving on ice,” the statement said. “If you are approaching a patch of ice, brake during your approach.”
By tomorrow, all the snow should be gone because the temperature is expected to rise to 47 degrees. The normal high for Houston is 67 degrees at this time of year.
“So it is not going to last very long,” Lewis said.
Snow won’t be a problem for the city’s electrical grid, said Leticia Lowe, a spokeswoman for CenterPoint Energy Inc. Ice may weigh down power lines and cause disruptions, she said by telephone.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Should Uncle Al Give the Oscar Back?
Or at least get it nominated for Fiction category, and taken out of Dramumentary! At least he canceled his Copenhagen speach, I am sure at the request of the White House. Don't want to embarrss our other Nobel Laureate! - HLG
Hollywood Conservatives Say Gore Should Lose Oscar Over Climate-Gate
Just days ahead of an international climate change conference, global warming guru and former Vice President Al Gore has been hit by an inconvenient scandal -- one that's reverberated all the way back to Hollywood.
Two conservative screenwriters say Gore should be stripped of his Oscar in light of the global warming questions raised by leaked e-mails out of a British research center.
The former vice president earned the Oscar in 2007 for his climate change manifesto "An Inconvenient Truth." He later went on to earn a Nobel Peace Prize and become one of the world's leading authorities on global warming.
But Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, put out a statement Thursday calling for the Academy to take it all back in light of the controversy skeptics have dubbed Climate-Gate.
"I personally call for the Academy to rescind this Oscar," Simon said. "In the history of the Academy ... not to my knowledge has an Oscar ever been rescinded. ... I think they should rescind this one."
Though their demand will almost certainly not be met, it marks the latest effort by conservatives to draw attention to the controversy in the run-up to an international climate change conference next week in Copenhagen -- where Gore just canceled a lecture he was supposed to deliver.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are demanding hearings on the topic, after leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit showed scientists appearing to discuss manipulating climate change data.
Simon is the founder of Pajamas Media, whose Web site posted the Gore criticism Thursday. Chetwynd is a screenwriter.
The former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner had been scheduled to speak to more than 3,000 people at a Dec. 16 event hosted by the Berlingske Tidende newspaper group. The group says Gore canceled the lecture Thursday, citing unforeseen changes in his schedule.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider says the decision was made because of "all the events going on with the summit." Dec. 16 is a key date for the meeting because that's when the ministerial segment starts.
Chief editor Lisbeth Knudsen says it's a "great disappointment" that Gore canceled and that all tickets will be refunded.
Hollywood Conservatives Say Gore Should Lose Oscar Over Climate-Gate
Just days ahead of an international climate change conference, global warming guru and former Vice President Al Gore has been hit by an inconvenient scandal -- one that's reverberated all the way back to Hollywood.
Two conservative screenwriters say Gore should be stripped of his Oscar in light of the global warming questions raised by leaked e-mails out of a British research center.
The former vice president earned the Oscar in 2007 for his climate change manifesto "An Inconvenient Truth." He later went on to earn a Nobel Peace Prize and become one of the world's leading authorities on global warming.
But Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, put out a statement Thursday calling for the Academy to take it all back in light of the controversy skeptics have dubbed Climate-Gate.
"I personally call for the Academy to rescind this Oscar," Simon said. "In the history of the Academy ... not to my knowledge has an Oscar ever been rescinded. ... I think they should rescind this one."
Though their demand will almost certainly not be met, it marks the latest effort by conservatives to draw attention to the controversy in the run-up to an international climate change conference next week in Copenhagen -- where Gore just canceled a lecture he was supposed to deliver.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are demanding hearings on the topic, after leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit showed scientists appearing to discuss manipulating climate change data.
Simon is the founder of Pajamas Media, whose Web site posted the Gore criticism Thursday. Chetwynd is a screenwriter.
The former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner had been scheduled to speak to more than 3,000 people at a Dec. 16 event hosted by the Berlingske Tidende newspaper group. The group says Gore canceled the lecture Thursday, citing unforeseen changes in his schedule.
Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider says the decision was made because of "all the events going on with the summit." Dec. 16 is a key date for the meeting because that's when the ministerial segment starts.
Chief editor Lisbeth Knudsen says it's a "great disappointment" that Gore canceled and that all tickets will be refunded.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Thanksgiving Fun With Flying
Nightmare in the Skies: Two Planes Just Miss Collision
A United Express and Frontier Airlines Plane Came Disturbingly Close to Colliding
By LISA STARK, MATT HOSFORD and SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Dec. 3, 2009
Days before Thanksgiving, a United Express and Frontier Airlines plane came disturbing close to colliding midair, the Federal Aviation Administration says. The FAA is now investigating the incident during which the two jets were apparently so close to each other that they had to take evasive action to head off a crash.
Days before Thanksgiving, a United Express and Frontier Airlines plane came disturbingly close to colliding midair.
The incident happened on Nov. 23 around 7 a.m. as the two jets were approaching Denver International Airport.
One of the planes, United Express flight 6764 from Lincoln, Neb., operated by regional airline Skywest, was in a string of planes following a set path heading to the airport.
The other plane, Frontier flight 1539 from Omaha, operated by parent airline Republic, was flying along a parallel path. Controllers needed to put the Frontier jet into the same route as the United Express plane to line them up for landing.
That's when the mistake happened, an aviation source told ABC's Denver affiliate KMGH, which first reported the story.
Controllers gave the Frontier pilots an incorrect heading -- forcing them to make a U-turn, the source told KMGH. That put the jet right in the path of the United Express plane -- which was just 200 feet above it and only a little more than a mile-and-a-half away, closing quickly, just seconds apart.
"When you've got airplanes coming within 200 feet of each other or aimed at each other, it's a very dangerous situation," said ABC News aviation consultant John Nance.
On board the two regional jets, collision avoidance systems sounded in the cockpits, forcing the jets to take evasive action to avoid a collision, an FAA spokesman told KMGH.
"You need to follow that command right now," Nance said. "So your heart rate goes up and you're immediately involved."
A United Express and Frontier Airlines Plane Came Disturbingly Close to Colliding
By LISA STARK, MATT HOSFORD and SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Dec. 3, 2009
Days before Thanksgiving, a United Express and Frontier Airlines plane came disturbing close to colliding midair, the Federal Aviation Administration says. The FAA is now investigating the incident during which the two jets were apparently so close to each other that they had to take evasive action to head off a crash.
Days before Thanksgiving, a United Express and Frontier Airlines plane came disturbingly close to colliding midair.
The incident happened on Nov. 23 around 7 a.m. as the two jets were approaching Denver International Airport.
One of the planes, United Express flight 6764 from Lincoln, Neb., operated by regional airline Skywest, was in a string of planes following a set path heading to the airport.
The other plane, Frontier flight 1539 from Omaha, operated by parent airline Republic, was flying along a parallel path. Controllers needed to put the Frontier jet into the same route as the United Express plane to line them up for landing.
That's when the mistake happened, an aviation source told ABC's Denver affiliate KMGH, which first reported the story.
Controllers gave the Frontier pilots an incorrect heading -- forcing them to make a U-turn, the source told KMGH. That put the jet right in the path of the United Express plane -- which was just 200 feet above it and only a little more than a mile-and-a-half away, closing quickly, just seconds apart.
"When you've got airplanes coming within 200 feet of each other or aimed at each other, it's a very dangerous situation," said ABC News aviation consultant John Nance.
On board the two regional jets, collision avoidance systems sounded in the cockpits, forcing the jets to take evasive action to avoid a collision, an FAA spokesman told KMGH.
"You need to follow that command right now," Nance said. "So your heart rate goes up and you're immediately involved."
Climategate Hits NASA Now. Are NOAA & CNMOC Paying Attention?
If so, BURN THE TAPES!!! And yes, the edgy reporting from the Comedy Channel should be up for an Emmy. Very funny, AND informative! - HLG (Your crumudgeonly climate sceptic)
Global warming controversy hits NASA climate data
By Stephen Dinan
The fight over climate science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding the release of the same kind of information that landed a leading British center in hot water over charges that it skewed its data.
Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data dating as far back as the 1930s.
"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," Mr. Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."
The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed its data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for the hottest years, with 1934 listed as slightly cooler.
Mr. Horner, a noted skeptic of global warming and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism," wants a look at the data and the discussions that went into those changes. He said he's given the agency until the end of the year to comply or else he'll sue to compel the information's release.
Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center, which runs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) laboratory, said officials are working on Mr. Horner's request, though he couldn't say why they have taken so long.
"We're collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests," Mr. Hess said. "It's just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that's responsive."
Mr. Horner's fight mirrors one that has sprung up in Britain since the release of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, which appear to show researchers shaving their data to conform to their expectations. They also note efforts to try to drive global warming skeptics out of the conversation.
The center's chief has stepped down pending an investigation into the e-mails
Global warming controversy hits NASA climate data
By Stephen Dinan
The fight over climate science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding the release of the same kind of information that landed a leading British center in hot water over charges that it skewed its data.
Christopher C. Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data dating as far back as the 1930s.
"I assume that what is there is highly damaging," Mr. Horner said. "These guys are quite clearly bound and determined not to reveal their internal discussions about this."
The numbers matter. Under pressure in 2007, NASA recalculated its data and found that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year in its records for the contiguous 48 states. NASA later changed its data again, and now 1998 and 2006 are tied for the hottest years, with 1934 listed as slightly cooler.
Mr. Horner, a noted skeptic of global warming and author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism," wants a look at the data and the discussions that went into those changes. He said he's given the agency until the end of the year to comply or else he'll sue to compel the information's release.
Mark Hess, public affairs director for the Goddard Space Flight Center, which runs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) laboratory, said officials are working on Mr. Horner's request, though he couldn't say why they have taken so long.
"We're collecting the information and will respond with all the responsive relevant information to all of his requests," Mr. Hess said. "It's just a process you have to go through where you have to collect data that's responsive."
Mr. Horner's fight mirrors one that has sprung up in Britain since the release of thousands of e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, which appear to show researchers shaving their data to conform to their expectations. They also note efforts to try to drive global warming skeptics out of the conversation.
The center's chief has stepped down pending an investigation into the e-mails
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Global Warming and the Rise of the New Orleans Saints?
I bring this up because surely if the Saints make it to a Super Bowl, and possibly WIN a Super Bowl, the end is surely near, which much be because of run-away greenhouse warming, melting poles, shifting axis of the Earth, raining catsanddogs, etc., etc., etc. So, buy lots of canned food and batteries! - HLG
WSJ Says to "Follow the Climate Money"!
Climategate: Follow the Money Climate change researchers must believe in the reality of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God. By BRET STEPHENS
Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."
To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.0027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.
Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.
But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.
Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.
Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Doing well by doing good?
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.
And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC Bank estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.
Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.
Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.
None of these outfits are per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.
Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"
This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.
Last year, ExxonMobil donated $7 million to a grab-bag of public policy institutes, including the Aspen Institute, the Asia Society and Transparency International. It also gave a combined $125,000 to the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis, two conservative think tanks that have offered dissenting views on what until recently was called—without irony—the climate change "consensus."
To read some of the press accounts of these gifts—amounting to about 0.0027% of Exxon's 2008 profits of $45 billion—you might think you'd hit upon the scandal of the age. But thanks to what now goes by the name of climategate, it turns out the real scandal lies elsewhere.
Climategate, as readers of these pages know, concerns some of the world's leading climate scientists working in tandem to block freedom of information requests, blackball dissenting scientists, manipulate the peer-review process, and obscure, destroy or massage inconvenient temperature data—facts that were laid bare by last week's disclosure of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, or CRU.
But the deeper question is why the scientists behaved this way to begin with, especially since the science behind man-made global warming is said to be firmly settled. To answer the question, it helps to turn the alarmists' follow-the-money methods right back at them.
Consider the case of Phil Jones, the director of the CRU and the man at the heart of climategate. According to one of the documents hacked from his center, between 2000 and 2006 Mr. Jones was the recipient (or co-recipient) of some $19 million worth of research grants, a sixfold increase over what he'd been awarded in the 1990s.
Al Gore wins the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize: Doing well by doing good?
Why did the money pour in so quickly? Because the climate alarm kept ringing so loudly: The louder the alarm, the greater the sums. And who better to ring it than people like Mr. Jones, one of its likeliest beneficiaries?
Thus, the European Commission's most recent appropriation for climate research comes to nearly $3 billion, and that's not counting funds from the EU's member governments. In the U.S., the House intends to spend $1.3 billion on NASA's climate efforts, $400 million on NOAA's, and another $300 million for the National Science Foundation. The states also have a piece of the action, with California—apparently not feeling bankrupt enough—devoting $600 million to their own climate initiative. In Australia, alarmists have their own Department of Climate Change at their funding disposal.
And all this is only a fraction of the $94 billion that HSBC Bank estimates has been spent globally this year on what it calls "green stimulus"—largely ethanol and other alternative energy schemes—of the kind from which Al Gore and his partners at Kleiner Perkins hope to profit handsomely.
Supply, as we know, creates its own demand. So for every additional billion in government-funded grants (or the tens of millions supplied by foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts), universities, research institutes, advocacy groups and their various spin-offs and dependents have emerged from the woodwork to receive them.
Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.
None of these outfits are per se corrupt, in the sense that the monies they get are spent on something other than their intended purposes. But they depend on an inherently corrupting premise, namely that the hypothesis on which their livelihood depends has in fact been proved. Absent that proof, everything they represent—including the thousands of jobs they provide—vanishes. This is what's known as a vested interest, and vested interests are an enemy of sound science.
Which brings us back to the climategate scientists, the keepers of the keys to the global warming cathedral. In one of the more telling disclosures from last week, a computer programmer writes of the CRU's temperature database: "I am very sorry to report that the rest of the databases seems to be in nearly as poor a state as Australia was. . . . Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!"
This is not the sound of settled science, but of a cracking empirical foundation. And however many billion-dollar edifices may be built on it, sooner or later it is bound to crumble.
East Coast Snow Storm?
Very little input from the FWSAAB crew on the evolving winter storm. Will there be any measureable snow on the East Coast? We are all very proud of Dr BB's Hurricane Season 2009 forecast, but how does he do with snow?? Much trickier to forecast! - HLG
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