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Signs That Show Man Made Global Warming is Definitely Still Happening

As your boiler breaks down, your pipes freeze, your car won’t start, your Ocado delivery fails to arrive, your train is cancelled, your neck is broken after slipping on black ice and you lie in an emergency ward waiting for a doctor to turn up only to learn that they’re all off today because of the weather, you might be forgiven for thinking that all this has something to do with global cooling, changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the decline in sunspot activity perhaps auguring a new Maunder minimum. But you couldn’t be more wrong. “It’s all actually a sign that man made global warming is very much a live issue and that there’s more of it happening than ever,” says a top scientist, who holds the British record for securing grant-funding for global warming research projects so he must know what he’s talking about. “Look at the Met office,” the scientist goes on. “They’ve just told us that 2010 is the hottest year since records began in 1850 and even though the stupid Central England Temperature record tells us something quite different and even though the year hasn’t actually finished yet they must know what they’re talking about and they definitely can’t have fiddled the data because the Met office is part of the government and they wouldn’t lie or get things wrong which is why that barbecue summer was such a scorcher.” The big problem is, the scientist said, is that the public are really stupid. They think just because Dr David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit said in the Independent in 2000 that soon there’d be no snow because of global warming, when what he actually meant was that soon there’d be lots of snow and that this would be “proof” of global warming. The interviewer just missed out the word “proof” that’s all because journalists are lazy that way. Then the scientist issued a cut-out-and-keep guide of Signs That Show Man Made Global Warming Is Definitely Still Happening And That Cancun Won’t Be An Almighty Flop. 1. Warm weather 2. Cold weather 3. In-between weather. 4. Dark skies at night 5. Light skies in the morning 6. An unpleasant moist/damp/wet sensation when it rains 7. Ice appearing when the temperature drops below zero 8. Clouds rolling across sky in all sorts of funny shapes, some days like cotton wool, other days in streaks, and on some days not there at all. 9. Ursine subarboreal toilet activity 10. Strong new evidence of ultramontane sympathies at the Vatican added by: rodstradamus

Senate Repubs Defeat Jobless Aid, Tax Cuts

Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats Saturday defeated a bill to reauthorize unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and a plethora of tax provisions for the middle class not because of the bill's trillion-dollar deficit impact, but because it did not include tax cuts for the rich. “In economic times like these, 9.8 percent unemployment, you should not raise taxes on anyone,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told HuffPost. … After Saturday's vote, it seems the only way Democrats will be able to overcome Republican opposition to the benefits will be by attaching them to a reauthorization of tax cuts for the rich. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said after the vote that he expected a tax cut deal to be reached by Thursday. … Republicans and conservative Democrats have opposed reauthorizing the benefits without offsetting their deficit impact by cutting spending from elsewhere in the budget. But those same lawmakers have not insisted that tax cuts for the rich, estimated to cost nearly $700 billion over 10 years, be offset in any way. A yearlong reauthorization of unemployment benefits would cost roughly $60 billion. During debate on the Senate floor before the vote, Schumer asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about Republicans' different positions on deficit reduction. “Could he please explain to me why it is OK to take $300 billion of tax cuts for those at the highest income levels, above a million, and not pay for it,” Schumer said, “and yet we have to pay for unemployment insurance extensions?” added by: tverdell

Quality of Life is for Corporate Owners, not you.

“We're producing almost as much as we did before the recession, with 7.5 million less people,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. “The difference is going into the productivity numbers and corporate profits.” The latest reading on productivity, which measures the economic output of each hour Americans work during a quarter, was up 2.5% from a year ago in the third quarter, the Labor Department reported this week. It's the sixth straight quarter of gains of that level or higher. But that level of productivity can't go on forever, said Achuthan. “There is a limit. Workers do start to push back,” he said. “But business managers don't hire because they're nice guys or girls, they hire because they're scared that they'll lose business to someone else. That'll be what gets hiring done.” http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/03/news/economy/employers_doing_more_with_less/?ire… added by: Swisher

The Warming of Antarctica: A Citadel of Ice Begins to Melt

The fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern Antarctic Peninsula warming faster than virtually any place on Earth. These rapidly rising temperatures represent the first breach in the enormous frozen dome that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice. by fen montaigne In 1978, when few researchers were paying attention to global warming, a prominent geologist at Ohio State University was already focused on the prospect of fossil fuel emissions trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere. His name was John H. Mercer, and when he contemplated what might be in store for the planet, his thoughts naturally gravitated to the biggest chunk of ice on Earth — Antarctica. “If present trends in fossil fuel consumption continue…” he wrote in Nature, “a critical level of warmth will have been passed in high southern latitudes 50 years from now, and deglaciation of West Antarctica will be imminent or in progress… One of the warning signs that a dangerous warming trend is under way in Antarctica will be the breakup of ice shelves on both coasts of the Antarctic Peninsula, starting with the northernmost and extending gradually southward.” Mercer’s prediction has come true, and a couple of decades before he anticipated. Since he wrote those words, eight ice shelves have fully or partially collapsed along the Antarctic Peninsula, and the northwestern Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than virtually any place on Earth. The question as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly. The melting of Antarctica’s northernmost region — the Antarctic Peninsula — is already well underway, representing the first breach in an enormous citadel of cold that holds 90 percent of the world’s ice. Much attention has rightly been paid to the precipitous warming of the Arctic, where Arctic Ocean ice is rapidly shrinking and thinning, Greenland’s large ice sheets are steadily melting, and permafrost is thawing from Alaska, to Scandinavia, to Siberia. But none of the earth’s ice zones, or cryosphere, can compare with Antarctica, which is 1

Jon Stewart Mocks McCain for Hypocrisy During DADT Hearings !

How lame can this flip flopper McCain get? Really what a poor excuse for a Senator! added by: kennymotown

Before They Were Oscar Nominees: Frank Langella

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Before They Were Oscar Nominees: Frank Langella

Darren Aronofsky Talks Black Swan

The writer/director of Black Swan explains his combo of documentary-style shooting, horror, and ballet.

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Darren Aronofsky Talks Black Swan

I Learned It From Movies: <br> How to Be a Man

Ellen Fox teaches Brett Erlich a thing or two about manhood, with a few lessons from this movie. THE BIG LEBOWSKI TONIGHT 9pm ET/6pm PT

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I Learned It From Movies: <br> How to Be a Man

That’s Gay: Rubbing Shoulders With The A List

Bryan Safi continues his campaign to join the next cast of Logo’s The A List by interviewing Derek Lloyd Saathoff of The A List: New York .

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That’s Gay: Rubbing Shoulders With The A List

Week in Media: <br> Wolf Blitzer Boogies & Victoria’s Secret Wings

Conor Knighton explains why Kim Kardashian has “died” (for a good cause), Wolf Blitzer is no longer the whitest man alive, and what a Victoria’s Secret model wants most in the world.

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Week in Media: <br> Wolf Blitzer Boogies & Victoria’s Secret Wings