The Japanese spider crab, (Macrocheira kaempferi), is a very leggy deep-sea arthropod, and it’s the largest known arthropod. The Japanese spider crab shown—nicknamed Crabzilla—measures “10ft from claw to claw – is still growing, and could live until it is 100.” According to the Daily Mail, Crabzilla will be “display[ed] at the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham.”
There’s no doubt that the Republican strategy is to make the Democrats and President Obama fail at governing. To date, it’s been a bold and effective strategy supported by special interests. For example, Big Coal loathes any attempts at climate change legislation or any energy policy touting renewable energy as the way forward. Fox News has been an essential ingredient in the aggressive plan to derail the Obama presidency, and Fox News has no problem peddling bad information or even lies. Another key ingredient has been the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement has backed the strategy to derail the Obama Administration’s agenda by consistently parroting disinformation (even though certain policies and reforms recommended by the Obama Administration could benefit members of the tea party movement). To date, these stakeholders in a failed Obama presidency have successfully thwarted health care reform and energy legislation. The only way democrats can remedy this aggressive political strategy is to turn out in significant numbers during the 2010 mid-term elections and with the same enthusiasm that got President Obama elected.
Image via McClatchy Newspapers
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It’s no surprise that Senator Inhofe (Republican, of course) is nourishing and steering his grandchildren’s development as shortsighted and ignorant members of society. Certainly, if Senator Inhofe appreciated objectivity and embraced knowledge, he could differentiate between weather and climate. Meanwhile, if the Inhofe clan want to play games, then they should consider that Vancouver is trucking in snow for the Winter Olympics. Also, parts of the United States have had a mild winter. January was the warmest on record for Seattle—blamed on El Nino—and globally, “satellite data report that this has been the warmest January in 32 years and is 3rd warmest month overall.” More via the Los Angeles Times:
So, is the massive dumping of snow from the Mid-Atlantic to New England proof positive that climate change is untrue, as doubters such as Sen. James Imhofe (R-Okla.) have taken the opportunity to trumpet? (His family built an igloo, declared it Al Gore’s new home and put up signs asking people to honk if they liked global warming).
Not if you read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report carefully.
First, the cold weather spells in the East have been linked with an “El Nino” year and a shift in the arctic oscillation that sent a jet of cold air down into the Eastern United States and elsewhere, all cyclically occurring events regardless of the overall trend in average planetary temperature, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pointed out recently.
Lost in the hype over the East Coast cold snap around the Christmas holidays was the fact that at the same time, parts of Alaska were unseasonably warm. And the record cold that descended as far south as Florida in January? Globally, January 2010 was the warmest January on record, based on satellite data that date to 1979, according to AccuWeather.com.
As for East Coast getting snow in February, the IPCC scientists, citing peer-reviewed studies, concluded that the severity of precipitation events (and snow is one of them) would increase in a warming global climate.
As climate change disbelievers cynically spin snowmageddon, the Earth’s climate, landscapes, and oceans continue to change due to anthropogenic climate change. For example, these data and observations point to a warming earth: (1) the earth continues to warm as CO2 rises, resulting in a greenhouse effect—in fact “the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts;” (2) the Arctic continues to warm and Arctic sea ice continues to melt and set records, as the U.S. Coast Guard is forced to patrol further north and the region is closed to fishing (consequently, observations are prompting policy decisions); (3) for people living in the Arctic region, such as the Inuit, coastal erosion is claiming villages and livelihoods as (4) sea levels continue to rise; (5) the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to melt faster than expected; (6) the Arctic tree line continues to advance north as the Earth warms; (7) tundra melting is increasing and consequently, the tundra is becoming greener, but a dangerous feedback loop is also occurring; (8) upward migrations of alpine species are observable, as are latitudinal migrations of animals such as birds and mammals; (9) glacial melting continues to increase; (10) oceans are becoming more acidic with time as atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase (in fact, “the oceans have absorbed about 50% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the burning of fossil fuels, resulting in chemical reactions that lower ocean pH”); (11) ocean acidification has negative impacts on calcifying organisms, thus ocean food chains; and (12) desertification is expanding as the Earth warms. Given the wealth of empirical data, cynics and politicians like Jim Inhofe continue to immerse themselves in willful ignorance by citing a snowstorm as evidence against global warming while ignoring a smorgasbord of facts.
Meanwhile, Rachel Maddow again called out Senator Inhofe for his blatant hypocrisy. Nationally, Senator Inhofe trashed the stimulus while simultaneously praising projects funded in his district. Perhaps, if Senator Jim Inhofe were more concerned with details, he wouldn’t go around making such tremendous gaffes. But, I’m sure he doesn’t care.
Via Facebook, “Senator Jim Inhofe’s Photos – Inhofe Family Pokes Fun at Al Gore, Global Warming During DC Feb Blizzard”:
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Apparently, the tea party movement doesn’t like what it sees in the mirror, but the controversial marvel comic below mirrors the tea party protests. According to the New York Times, “Marvel Comics, Captain America’s longtime publisher . . . said it would amend a recent issue of his comic-book series after it upset members of the Tea Party movement” More:
In issue No. 602 of Captain America, the hero and his ally the Falcon find themselves at a rally where protesters hold signs that read “Tea Bag the Libs Before They Tea Bag You!” and “Stop the Socialists!” Captain America remarks that the assembly appears to be an “anti-tax thing,” and the Falcon, who is black, says he probably would not fit in with “a bunch of angry white folks.”
The sequence incited complaints from Tea Party officials who say it is an unfair criticism of their movement. In an interview with FoxNews.com, Michael Johns, a board member of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, called the characters’ apparent jabs “juvenile,” adding: “The Tea Party movement has been very reflective of broad concerns of all Americans. Membership is across ethnic, religious and even political lines.”
Image found here
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UPDATE 1 (11 Feb. 10): Republican Jim Inhofe, still a hypocrite:
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