Where Does All That CO2 Come From?

NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory is sending home some interesting data. It seems that the Industrialized  White  Patriarchy isn't spewing CO2 at quite the advertized rate. In fact the champion CO2 outgasser seems to be mother Gaia herself. Whoops.

When will global warming/climate change/climate disruption finally be recognized as the internet hoax that it is? Well ok, climate does change; that's not a hoax. But the sky-is-falling anti-industrialists' vision of impending Armageddon; that's a hoax. It was predicted by computer models that have proven themselves inadequate.     

From an article by retired engineer Ronald D Voisin over at WUWT:

And just what would NASA have us believe about this first OCO product:

a) That shortly before this last October 1^st, industrial production shut down in the Ohio Valley, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. That as of October 1^st, U.S. industrial production has been concentrated in the lush Appalachian Slopes of the Carolinas, Georgia and Northern Florida.
b) That farming activities may account for the CO₂ plumes over the lush forests of South America and South-Central Africa. While Australian industrial activity may have pushed it’s CO₂ output upwind into the lush forests of Malaysia.
c) That the oceans are net absorbers of anthropogenic CO₂ contrary to this most recent observation.

Or…is there a different explanation from what NASA seems to believe? Like:

Insect and microbial emissions, each at 10X all anthropogenic emission, dominate in these lush forested areas while the historically mildly warming oceans are also net CO₂ contributors. And, anthropogenic emission is essentially irrelevant to atmospheric CO₂ concentration at an approximately 2% contribution to the natural flux.

Last Physics Joke of the Year

Merry Merry Christmas

I couldn't hire Al Gore to hand out presents this year so I settled for John "Reminiscent of Jean-gis Kahn" Kerry again. 

Merry Christmas

I Meant to Do That

That Time of Year Again

bizarro

Weeeee!

via - forgot where I got it

Mural Abuse

I found this here.  It looks to be somewhere in the US but I can't find it anywhere else on the intertubes so I have no story behind it. It might even be a photoshop, but in the absence of an explanation, I'm going to assume the wall decayed from within.

Just a BTW: I noticed that in the official government photos of Obama and Biden they're framed off center. In what direction? To the left of course.

Confused Baby Meets Twins

The baby on the left is obviously afraid that the giant baby is going to eat her. But giant baby is sooo confused.

A few years back the Malthusians tried to genetically engineer a line of "super giant" babies; maybe he's one of them. He's not a threat to the twins though. Like most super giant babies, he just wants to get along.

You should read the wikipedia article on Super Giant Babies; it's an interesting story. After waiting hundreds of years for the chance to say "see, I told you so," the Malthusians decided to help the process of societal collapse along by breeding a line of super babies; who, they reckoned, would eat twice the food and lead to wide spread famine and despair.

But their plan didn't consider the one major factor that has spoiled Malthusian plans for hundreds of years. It was: Hey, we're Malthusians. We're always wrong.   The babies turned out to be adorable and had no impact on the food supply. Apart from a few crib collapses and highchair entrapments, they were just the same as other babies.

Lawless Administration

This is what's wrong with electing Utopia seekers:

Senior officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation actively sought to crack down on legal businesses that the Obama administration – or the officials themselves – deemed morally objectionable, a new congressional report finds.

Released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the 20-page investigative report details how the FDIC worked closely with the Justice Department to implement Operation Choke Point, a secretive program that seeks to cut off the financial lifeblood of payday lenders and other industries the administration doesn’t like.
 
The FDIC is the primary agency responsible for regulating and auditing more than 4,500 U.S. banks.
Emails unearthed by investigators show regulatory officials scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business with by labeling certain industries “reputational risks,” ensuring banks “get the message” about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively driving enterprises out of business.
  

I, by the way, agree that payday lenders are scum. They take advantage of people in desperate situations. (and the stupid, and those with no math skills) They're bums, and put one at my table, I'll go sit somewhere else. But we have usury laws. And we are a nation of laws.

If a payday loan company is abusing consumers, you make laws to limit APR, or deceptive practices, or whatever. Then enforce those laws.

And by the way, I don't see the Government of the Light getting upset at banks whose Visa cards shoot up to the 20-30% APR range if a single payment  is late.

It's even more reprehensible for the Administration to wield the big nasty IRS club against its political "enemies", but these guys see themselves as above the law. Thank goodness we've started voting them out.

Season's Greetings

via

The Cost of Higher Education

via

The Squirrel is Recovering Well

She looks unrepentant, yes?

thanks, Lumberbrudi

Thanks Harrison

Sounds Like Our Government

News of the Weird:

-- Comprehensive Pentagon studies of America's nuclear missile infrastructure released in November (following disturbing reports of readiness failures) included the revelation that nuclear warheads had to be attached with a particular wrench, even though the Air Force owned only one with which to service 450 missiles housed at three bases. Consequently, one official told The New York Times, "They started FedExing the one tool" back and forth. No one had checked in years, he said, "to see if new tools were being made" -- typical of maintenance problems that had "been around so long that no one reported them anymore." [New York Times, 11-13-2014]