Posts by Terra Incognita

9

This forum triggered a weird dream for me...

by NomadSoul in

jw
friends

i just had to share this weird dream i had last night.

just because i rarely remember my dreams, and this one felt so real that i was really proud of my mind coming up with it!

lol and it's all thanks to the "word of the day" thread.

I have an ex friend still in the cult who snorts coke before he gives talks..

by foolsparadise in

jw
friends

we used to be friends.

hes to much of a hypocrite for me to be around anymore.

he hates that i left but its ok for him to use illegal drugs before he gives talks.

Terra Incognita

Perhaps if the whole congregation uses drugs the talks won't be so boring.

7

Muslims Can Either Convert ... or Die

by whereami in

jw
friends

bryan fischer says muslims in foreign lands have two choices: convert to christianity or die.. christians should be ashamed of this retard.. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yestq5gque4.

Terra Incognita

Berengaria:"Gee and the silly Muslims seem to think we have it out for them! Go figure!"

I think some nasty ear pinching school teacher needs to force Imbecilitas to write verses like this a thousand times on the blackboard:

1. How the former slaves of Israel treated their own slaves.

a. Non Israelites taken as slaves for life. (Lv 25:44-46)

b. A Hebrew slave was obligated for only six years of slavery but had to leave behind the wife his master gave him along with his children. (Ex 21:2-6; De 15:12-18)

c. An ‘eye for an eye’ did not apply when they took their slaves eye out. (Ex 21:26,27 compare to Lv 24:19-21)

d. They could beat their slave savagely with a stick so long as he or she did not die within a day or two. (Ex 21:20,21 compare to Ex 2:11,12)

2. Exterminate thy neighbors. (Lev 19:18)

a. All of them some of the time. (De 3:1-6)

b. Men only at other times. Women and children are plunder. (De 20:10-18)

c. Everyone except virgin girls when the mood strikes. (Nu 31:13-18)

3. How the Israelites treated their ladies.

a. They executed the victim of rape if she was engaged to be married. (De 22:23,24)

b. They forced the victim of rape to marry her rapist if she was single. (De 22:28,29)

c. She’s got some balls. Women get their hands cut off for defending their husbands. (De 25:11,12)

d. A man could sell his daughter into slavery. (Ex 21:7-11)

283

Osama bin Laden is Dead

by jamiebowers in

on abc special news bulletin now..

Terra Incognita

Designs:

"What next- Osama was the Nurse in the delivery room assisting in the birth of Obama knowing full well they would meet in mortal combat decades in the future........"

Designs, have you ever considered a career with Fokx News? You can make a lot of money.

3

Tornadoes Are A Taste Of God's Judgment

by whereami in

jw
friends

cal beisner tells bryan fischer that the tornadoes that killed more than 300 people are just a little taste of god's judgment that we have brought upon ourselves.. .

"is it a mere coincidence that tornado alley runs through the center of the babble belt?

clearly, tornadoes are yahweh's?

Terra Incognita

The real reason tornadoes are increasing in frequency.

http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/02/tornadoes-extreme-weather-and-climate-change/#more-48014

Tornadoes, extreme weather, and climate change

April sets record for tornadoes in any month and in any 24-hour period. But what caused "The Katrina of tornado outbreaks"?

May 2, 2011

UPDATE: It is unfortunate that NYT blogger Andy Revkin has chosen to inappropriately shorten and then take out of context the nuanced statements of a number of actual scientific experts, like Trenberth (cited bel0w). Ironically, Revkin supports a too-little, too-late energy technology development strategy can’t possibly avert catastrophic global warming — nor can it generate funds needed for adaptation. So it is hypocritical of him to attack others for not constantly saying how much we need to improve housing for those in tornado alley. Obviously we do, and that’s a great thing for blogs that don’t focus on climate to write about. Just as obviously we need an aggressive strategy for reducing GHGs that also supports real adaptation.

Revkin’s argument that we shouldn’t talk about the impact of global warming on extreme weather if we don’t propose efforts to reduce the devastation caused by extreme weather today would be like saying we shouldn’t talk about the impact of global warming on the poor unless we propose solutions to poverty today. It the Bjorn Lomborg two-step.

Stu Ostro, Weather Channel Senior Meteorologist, “The Katrina of tornado outbreaks“:

The atmosphere was explosively unstable with summerlike heat and humidity, interacting with a classic wind shear setup as a strong jet stream and upper-level trough crashed overhead….
The atmosphere is extraordinarily complex, and ultimately what’s happened the past month is probably a combination of influences, including La Nina, other natural variability, and anthropogenic global warming.

UPDATE: “Persistent, heavy rains have helped swell the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to the highest levels ever recorded,” CNN reports. And the rivers are still rising.

The Effect of Climate Change on Tornado Frequency and Magnitude: “There is an obvious increase in tornado frequency between 1950-1999. This could be due to increased detection. Also this could be due to changing climatic conditions.”

For decades, scientists have predicted that if we kept pouring increasing amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we would change the climate. They specifically predicted that that many key aspects of the weather would become more extreme — more extreme heat waves, more intense droughts, and stronger deluges.

As far back as 1995, analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (led by Tom Karl) showed that over the course of the 20th century, the United States had suffered a statistically significant increase in a variety of extreme weather events, the very ones you would expect from global warming, such as more — and more intense — precipitation. That analysis concluded the chances were only “5 to 10 percent” this increase was due to factors other than global warming, such as “natural climate variability.” And since 1995, the climate has gotten measurably more extreme.

Multiple scientific studies find that indeed the weather has become more extreme, as expected, and that it is extremely likely that humans are a contributing cause (see “Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment” and links therein).

Beyond that, as Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, explained here last year: “There is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms.” He told the NY Times, “It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.”

I have tended to focus on the extreme weather events for which the causal chain is clearest and which will do the most damage to the most people in the foreseeable future. Dust-Bowlification is probably at the top of that list (seeNCAR analysis warns we risk multiple, devastating global droughts even on moderate emissions path).

But tornadoes are among the most visibly and viscerally destructive events — though I do find it interesting how much media coverage these tornadoes have gotten compared to, say, Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’. So it was inevitable that scientists would be asked the obvious question of whether the two recent remarkable outbreaks are connected to human-caused climate change — and they were indeed remarkable.

NOAA and the National Weather Service reported yesterday the astonishing statistics:

NWS’s preliminary estimate is that there have been more than 600 tornadoes thus far during the month of April 2011.
The previous record number of tornadoes during the month of April was 267 tornadoes set in April 1974.
The previous record number of tornadoes during any month was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.

Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters notes that “t he period from 8am April 27 – 8am April 28 during last week’s outbreak has a good chance of breaking the record for most tornadoes in a 24-hour period, which is currently 148. “ NOAA’s preliminary report says that there were “ a total of 226 tornadoes” during that 24 hours!

Masters also points out “ remarkably, two of the top four outbreaks in history occurred within two weeks of each other.” Indeed, the other two were May 2003 and May 2004, which means the top 4 were in the past 8 years.

[Comparing fatalities over time is not germane for reasons that I would have thought obvious, and Peter Gleick rightly slams Roger Pielke, Jr. for "gross misuse" of that data on Pielke's website. My thoughts are with those who suffered through these storms and lost loved ones. As someone with a family member who lost his home during Katrina, I know it is an unimaginably traumatic event.]

Many scientists have weighed in on the climate-tornado link. Two of the people who have done more research and publication on extreme weather and climate change than most are Trenberth and Karl, now director of NCDC. I emailed Karl for his thoughts and here is what he wrote:

Best info we have on the relationship between a warmer world and severe convective storms that can produce tornadoes is in the 2008 Synthesis and Assessment Report of the US Global Change Research Program. Chapter three of that Weather and Climate Extremes Assessment indicates that several studies do show that environmental conditions favorable for convection are more likely with more greenhouse gases, but results are not conclusive.
We now have improved resolution models running at our Oak Ridge Supercomputer thanks to the Stimulus funding. We may be able to make more definitive statements (one way or the other)after these get analyzed over the next few years. Meanwhile, we know that La Nina years tend to have a greater chance of severe outbreaks. So as usual, there are natural factors that have to be considered, and any human made factors would be confounded within these naturally occurring events making our attribution much more difficult.
Joe, what we can say with confidence is that heavy and extreme precipitation events often associated with thunderstorms and convection are increasing and have been linked to human induced changes in atmospheric composition.

You can find that 2008 Report here. I wrote about it here (see Sorry, deniers & delayers, Even Bush Administration says human emissions are changing the climate).

Trenberth made clear to me a year ago in an extended interview that he was dismayed by the media coverage of extreme weather, especially extreme deluges, that made no mention whatsoever of global warming:

I find it systematically tends to get underplayed and it often gets underplayed by my fellow scientists. Because one of the opening statements, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard is “Well you can’t attribute a single event to climate change.” But there is a systematic influence on all of these weather events now-a-days because of the fact that there is this extra water vapor lurking around in the atmosphere than there used to be say 30 years ago. It’s about a 4% extra amount, it invigorates the storms, it provides plenty of moisture for these storms and it’s unfortunate that the public is not associating these with the fact that this is one manifestation of climate change. And the prospects are that these kinds of things will only get bigger and worse in the future.

I emailed Trenberth to check his quote in ThinkProgress. He stands by the quote with a little to clarification of the context:

It is irresponsible not to mention climate change in stories that presume to say something about why all these storms and tornadoes are happening.
The environment in which all of these storms and the tornadoes are occurring has changed from human influences (global warming). Tornadoes come from thunderstorms in a wind shear environment. This occurs east of the Rockies more than anywhere else in the world. The wind shear is from southerly (SE, S or SW) flow from the Gulf overlaid by westerlies aloft that have come over the Rockies. That wind shear can be converted to rotation. The basic driver of thunderstorms is the instability in the atmosphere: warm moist air at low levels with drier air aloft. With global warming the low level air is warm and moister and there is more energy available to fuel all of these storms and increase the buoyancy of the air so that thunderstorms are strong. There is no clear research on changes in shear related to global warming. On average the low level air is 1 deg F and 4 percent moister than in the 1970s.

Just because attribution is difficult doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes. Equally important, when discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforwardand better documented:

TP quotes climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who said:

It is a truism to say that everything has been affected by climate change so far and therefore this latest outbreak must in some sense have been affected, but attribution is hard and the further down the chain the causality is supposed to go, the harder this is. For heat waves it is easier, for statistics on precipitation intensity it easier – there are multiple levels of good modelling, theory and observations to back it up. But we have much less to go on with tornadoes.

I thought the NY Timesstory Thursday was pretty good. There are lots of posts on this. Michael Tobis pointed out Judith Curry’s post, which I wouldn’t normally link to given her general abandonment of science, but she pointed out the study I cited at the top, The Effect of Climate Change on Tornado Frequency and Magnitude:

A research project by Michael Pateman and Drew Vankat found that the frequency of tornadoes had increased between 1950 and 1999—though better detection likely played a significant role in those statistics. But if there’s strong evidence that climate change and tornadoes are connected, researchers have yet to uncover it….

The researchers themselves found:

There is an obvious increase in tornado frequency between 1950-1999. This could be due to increased detection. Also this could be due to changing climatic conditions. Looking at the raw data we have seen that there are generally less tornadoes in El Nino years compared to La Nina Years. But, since we were unable to get climate data, we were unable to see if the change in the frequency was due to climate factors.
Our data has failed to show a strong correlation in increase in tornado frequency and magnitude during El Nino and La Nina events.

The jury is out.

For more data on the increase in frequency, which is certainly due in large part to better detection, here is NCDC’s State of the Climate: Tornadoes Annual 2010:

A NYTblogger directs us to this chart:

There is no apparent trend in the strongest tornadoes (F5 is the most destructive). The NYT blogger quotes Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory:

The primary changes appear to occur ~1975, most likely as a result of the retrospective rating process that assigned ratings to tornadoes prior to the near-real-time ratings that began when the [National Weather Service] adopted the F-scale operationally in the mid-1970s, and ~2000, for reasons that aren’t completely clear, but are likely due to an increased emphasis on examining construction details and policies that changed the nature in how the ratings are created for the strongest tornadoes. Both have lead to a decrease in probability of a tornado being very strong, given that it’s strong. It’s possible that there’s a meteorological component, but the reporting practice changes are large enough that I don’t think we can pull a physical signal out, even if it’s fairly large.

So it may simply be that the data is simply is too confused by the reporting practices for analysis to draw any strong conclusions. That doesn’t mean the question shouldn’t be asked or that scientists shouldn’t give their best answer.

In general I do think it’s best to avoid statements like “global warming is to blame for” or “global warming caused” or “this is evidence of global warming,” especially in regards tornadoes.

Finally, while tornadoes will continue to grab the headlines wherever they flatten cities and take lives, it is virtually certain that other extreme events — and ultimately the permanently changed climate — will cause the greatest harm attributable to human emissions of greeenhouse gases:

Osama bin Laden is Dead

by jamiebowers in

on abc special news bulletin now..

Terra Incognita

Journey-on: "That idiotic pic you posted of dead Osama was believed by some posters because of the way you presented it."

I gave my apologies for that misleading picture but that's besides the point. The point I made is that people like Pam Geller, who are given credibility by Fokx News, represent the lowest point in what is already an abysmal situation. If it offends you that I post actual articles from what I unapologetically refer to as psychotic ideologues then that is not my problem.

Furthermore, as I just said in the last sentence of my previous post:

"You sure don't complain when NeckBeard posts images condoning political assasinations."

283

Osama bin Laden is Dead

by jamiebowers in

on abc special news bulletin now..

Terra Incognita

Journey-on:

"Quit posting b*llsh*t, Villa. These off the wall websites that parody and hype inuendo with absolutely no verifiable links aren't fooling anybody. I don't know what kind of hyped-up on Gawd knows what games you are playing, but Simon needs to be aware of your antics."

Journey; I don't know what your problem is but all I did was to post an article from the Atlas Shrugs website by Pam Geller. This nutjob has actually been interviewed in the Fox's lair previously on the Birther issue (She claims the certificate was photshopped).

I also fail to understand your statement about having no verifiable links since that is exactly the problem with people like Pam Geller and her Fokxian/Limbaughian/Beckian/Tea Partiers and their ilk.

So you can go ahead and cry to the moderators simply because I'm posting on topic articles showing how assinine these people are. You sure don't complain when NeckBeard posts images condoning political assasinations.

58

how would you interpret this wt cover?

by therevealer in

.

Terra Incognita

Reminds me of the last scenes in the movie 2001.

283

Osama bin Laden is Dead

by jamiebowers in

on abc special news bulletin now..

Terra Incognita

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Skulking Towards bin Laden: Obama Overridden by Military and Intel Officials in Takeout of OBL?

As Obama continues to politicize and mine the takedown of Osama Bin Laden and the outrageous "Islamic burial" that followed, new details emerge of his reluctance and refusal to sign off on the mission . It is the height of hypocrisy and crass opportunism to draw out the release of the death photos so as to prolong the news cycle on the story , and to neglect the tornado-ravaged parts of the country -- instead, Obama campaigns at Ground Zero on Thursday for an "O-victory lap," while it appears that in fact Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the OBL operation.

The story that follows is deeply disturbing, but hardly surprising. When news broke that Obama rejected bombing the complex last month, one had to wonder why. It was reported that Obama feared collateral damage, despite being assured that the walls of the complex were high enough so that no civilians would be killed. Instead, he risked losing Americans in a mano-a-mano raid.

A reluctant American president who was ultimately overridden by senior military and intelligence officials to finally take out terrorist Osama Bin Laden… Ulstermann (hat tip CO)
Note: This communication came from our long time D.C. Insider and details previous and ongoing conflicts surrounding the decision to assassinate terrorist Osama Bin Laden. This has been reproduced here as originally communicated to us.
__________
Please get this out ASAP. Want specific people to know we know.
RE Osama Bin Laden. Significant push to take him out months ago. Senior WH staff resisted. This was cause of much strain between HC and Obama/Jarrett. HC and LP were in constant communication over matter – both attempted to convince administration to act. Administration feared failure and resulting negative impact on president. Intel disgusted over politics over national security . Staff resigned/left. Check timeline to corroborate.
Now Intel already leaking to media facts surrounding how info obtained. Namely from enhanced interrogation efforts via GITMO prisoners. Obama administration placed in corner on this. Some media aware of danger to president RE this and attempting protection. Others looking for further investigation. We are pushing for them to follow through and already meeting with some access.
Point of determination made FOR Obama not BY Obama. Will clarify as details become more clear. Very clear divide between Military and WH. Jarrett marginalized 100% on decision to take out OBL. She played no part. BD worked with LP and HC to form coalition to force CoC to engage.
IMPORTANT SPECIFIC: When 48 hour go order issued, CoC was told, not requested. Administration scrambled to abort. That order was overruled. This order did not originate from CoC. Repeat – this order did not originate from CoC. He complied, but did not originate.
Independent military contacts have confirmed. Stories corroborate one another. This is legit.
The killing of Osama Bin Laden was in fact a Coup within Obama WH.
Speaking with additional contacts RE info.
Stay safe.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/05/skulking-towards-bin-laden-obama-overridden-by-military-and-intel-officials-in-takeout-of-obl.html

283

Osama bin Laden is Dead

by jamiebowers in

on abc special news bulletin now..

Terra Incognita

NeckBeard:

"Give me a fucking break. He can't produce more than a very bad fake birth certicate for years. Then you get the photoshopped layered "mockument" last week. His approval ratings were tanking."

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”
"IT IS EASY TO DESPISE WHAT YOU CANNOT GET"