Global Warming is a Crock of Shit - Part Two

The world's anti-growth socialists are panicking. They might not be able to fulfill their red agenda via Global Warming Regulations. I can hear Al Gore now. "Oops, did we say we need to kill global growth because of Global Warming... we meant Cooling."

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

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O Adobo

Applejack taught me this recipe a couple of weeks ago and I've made it four times since.

Chicken Adobo is one of the national dishes of the Philippines, and as is the case with most ethnic cuisines it relies on the cheapest cuts of meat. In this case thighs and legs are the best cuts to use. Chicken breast is too lean and dries out.

I like to make the dish spicier than they would in the Philippines, so this isn't the traditional recipe.

Ingredients:
4 lbs. chicken legs and thighs
1/3 Cup Regular old vinegar
1/3 Cup Soy sauce
1 Tbsp. Black Peppercorns
2 Bay leaves
2 Jalapeños chopped
5 garlic cloves smashed
Sesame Chili Oil (optional)
1 tsp. Sugar
1/2 of a large onion chopped

Toss all of the ingredients into a pot and let it simmer for about 2 hours.

That's it. Serve with rice. The leftover sauce is amazing.

All of the measurements are approximations, and you can adjust accordingly.

If desired, you can let the whole pot simmer uncovered for the second hour to really condense the flavors.

Cast Iron Is King

I don't remember if I learned this technique from Alton Brown, but I'll give him the credit anyway. The trick to a perfect steak house quality steak is cast iron. The beauty of perfecting the technique is that you can cook a steak to the desired "doneness" every time.

Here's how it all works. Let your steak warm up out of the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Get your broiler going. Get your cast iron skillet warmed up and toss in either butter or olive oil. Season the steak with salt and pepper. Drop your steak into the skillet and let it go for about 3 minutes. Flip the steak over for 2 minutes. Take the pan and steak and throw it in your broiler. Length of time will determine the "doneness" and it will take some practice. In my experience, Medium comes along in about 5 minutes. I like it a little more rare and go about 3 or 4 minutes.

Today I picked up a cheap steak and made this salad.

Global Warming is a Crock of Shit

I've read that GM exec. Bob Lutz has been under attack by bloggers. Let me be one to throw my support behind the crazy old coot. I would like to echo his sentiment that "Global Warming is a crock of shit." Go get 'em Bob.

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.

BBQ Pork Bun

Walked over to the Chinese bakery this morning and picked up this little jewel.


$.80 of Pure Pork Goodness, and Breakfast of Champions.

By Hook or By Crook

I'd like to refer the reader to a post made on this blog on January 30th:

"Mark my words on this one. If the Democratic Primary process doesn't anoint Hillary, there will be lawsuits about the Florida and Michigan voters being disenfranchised by being excluded from the Primary Process. This, despite her signing of a pledge that she agreed with her Party's position on the handling of the Florida and Michigan Primaries."

I will probably have to post these lines a few more times in coming weeks and months, and frankly am disgusted that I'll have to.

This just in:

Clinton Aide Changes Mich., Fla. Stance


Feb 16, 5:06 PM (ET)

By HOPE YEN

(AP) Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., speaks at a campaign stop at... Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - Harold Ickes, a top adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign who voted for Democratic Party rules that stripped Michigan and Florida of their delegates, now is arguing against the very penalty he helped pass.

In a conference call Saturday, the longtime Democratic Party member contended the DNC should reconsider its tough sanctions on the two states, which held early contests in violation of party rules. He said millions of voters in Michigan and Florida would be otherwise disenfranchised - before acknowledging moments later that he had favored the sanctions.

Ickes explained that his different position essentially is due to the different hats he wears as both a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting. Clinton won the primary vote in Michigan and Florida, and now she wants those votes to count.

"There's been no change," Ickes said. "I was not acting as an agent of Mrs. Clinton. We had promulgated rules and those rules said the timing provision ... provides for certain sanctions, automatic sanctions as a matter of fact, if a state such as Michigan or Florida violates those timing provisions."

"With respect to the stripping, I voted as a member of the Democratic National Committee. Those were our rules and I felt I had an obligation to enforce them," he said.

Clinton won after all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in either state because they violated the party rules. Clinton, who flew into Florida on primary eve but did not hold a public rally, tried to argue that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois had violated the pledge by airing a national ad campaign that also showed on Florida television stations.

Ickes' dual positions on the issue illustrate some of the internal division within the party as Clinton and Obama run neck-in-neck in the Democratic presidential race.

Some Democratic leaders have expressed concern that the tight contest might ultimately hinge on the positions of some 700 party insiders known as superdelegates. Civil rights leaders also have been somewhat split on whether seating the Florida and Michigan delegates would unfairly disenfranchise minority voters.

As of Saturday, the delegate count stood at 1,280 for Obama and 1,218 for Clinton. If the DNC were to award Michigan and Florida's 313 delegates based on the vote in their primaries, she would be ahead because she won both states.

On Saturday, Ickes reiterated the campaign's view that new "redo" votes in Florida and Michigan aren't necessary. He said many superdelegates are elected lawmakers or governors who are supposed to exercise their independent judgment to vote contrary to public opinion if they believe another candidate has a better chance of winning.

In response, the Obama campaign said Ickes' viewpoint runs counter to democratic principles.

"The Clinton campaign just said they have two options for trying to win the nomination - attempt to have superdelegates overturn the will of the Democratic voters or change the rules they agreed to at the 11th hour in order to seat nonexistent delegates from Florida and Michigan," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. "The Clinton campaign should focus on winning pledged delegates as a result of elections, not these say-or-do-anything-to-win tactics that could undermine Democrats' ability to win the general election."

Ickes, however, expressed confidence that DNC Chairman Howard Dean will work out a solution to Michigan and Florida's stripped delegates and that there will be no delegate fight at the Democratic National Convention in August, predicting that Clinton will have the nomination locked up shortly after primaries and caucuses end on June 7.

"We hope the national chairman will engage the Democratic leadership of both of those states and work out a suitable compromise," Ickes said, stressing that neither the candidates nor the Democratic party will be well-served by a "bitter fight" that lasts into the convention.

Does one need wonder what is meant by "suitable compromise" in the preceding paragraph? Say what you will about the absence of substance on the Obama campaign. At least they're playing it straight.

Frozen Pizza Review - California Pizza Kitchen

Today I picked up the "Sicilian Recipe" thin crust pizza by California Pizza Kitchen. They were 2 for $11 and there was a $.75 coupon. I don't normally jump on anything with California in the title, but the coupon got me. I really hate California on many levels, but it has real street cred as a place of innovation. I'll give it that. Plus, getting pummeled into the earth by a salt water wave is both humbling and exhilarating. There's nothing quite like having salt water run out of your nose three hours after being at the beach. But I digress.
I followed the directions and let the oven get up to 400 degrees before putting the pie in. As with the Palermo's pizza, I was impressed with the vacuum packaging. There was a generous layer of large pepperoni slices, but the sausage was barely visible.

Some people don't like thin crust because they think the crust is too "cracker" like. I have to admit that I'm not only a cracker but that I also prefer "cracker" to goo. Giordano's is total goo in my book. After 18 minutes in the oven this CPK pizza was looking pretty good.

They did a good job of spicing it up with oregano and basil, but honestly I would never buy this pizza again. The crust didn't firm up enough. Who needs a soggy cracker?

Ode to Applejack

It was ten years ago tonight that the then soon to be Mrs. Claude and I went on our first date to the Italian Village.
I knew for sure she'd be mine after we shared the Chocolate Mousse. Little did I know, she actually just wanted to share a Chocolate Mousse. No strings attached. Ladies can be so cruel, but things eventually worked out in my favor.

Then we walked over to the Skate on State to watch the people ice skate.


Finally, we made our way over to the Marquis Lounge (on a school night). I can't seem to find a photo of the place anywhere.

Frozen Pizza Review - Palermo's Rustico

I had a craving for pizza last night after watching a show about the history of pizza. Part of that history included the evolution of the frozen pizza. I've always considered the Tombstone a guilty pleasure (and great hot sauce vehicle), but do prefer the more modern varieties by DiGiorno and Freschetta. Over the last few years I've begun to prefer thinner crisper crusts, but don't object to a little extra dough either.

As anybody who's spent some time in the frozen food aisle knows, the choices in frozen pizza can be overwhelming. Everything from store brand, Tony's, Red Barron, Jack's, and Tombstone, to Reggio's and California Pizza Kitchen just to name a few. I wanted to go top shelf, but wasn't impressed by the 2 for $11 deal on the DiGiornos and Freschettas. Just next to them were the Palermo's varieties. I hadn't tried them before, mostly because of the cost, but yesterday they were 2 for $10. I could save $.50 and try something new. I got the supreme because I could see green olives on the box. Think about that for a minute. When was the last time you saw a frozen pizza with green olives? I don't think I ever have.

Aside from green olives, this bad boy had sausage, pepperoni, roasted onion, roasted green and red peppers, and black olives. I took the liberty of crushing some pequin peppers over the pizza before putting it in the oven.


One thing that gave me hope when I pulled it out of the box was the vacuum sealed wrap that was around it. I don't know why but it seems the better pizzas come in the vacuum seal rather than the regular old plastic wrap. Not to mention, I could see that the onions and peppers actually had been "roasted" before packaging.



I preheated the oven to 425 as directed, and actually waited for the heat to be reached. It looked like they took some care in packaging, so the least I could do was follow the instructions.

After about 15 minutes I pulled it out of the oven. It had a really nice dark golden top and the bottom was crisp. The only criticism I had at this point was that a lot of the crust around the perimeter still looked a little too white. This could have had something to do with oven placement.

Now for the taste. It was really, really good for a frozen pizza. The crust was both crisp and chewy. The toppings were very generous and tasty. This is probably my new favorite, especially among the rising crust varieties. It is the closest that I've had to a restaurant pizza out of the freezer. I can heartily recommend this frozen pizza.

Another Kuma's Corner Creation

I need to get to this place and see these burgers with mine own eyes.

Mother of God

Beauty on a Stick

I haven't been to the restaurant where this photo was taken, but stumbled across it while perusing the net for local ethnic places. Kahn B.B.Q., you have just made my short list.

$4.40 of Pure Pork Goodness

The other night I took a stroll over to a great little take out place near my apartment.

Our neighborhood (Uptown/Andersonville) includes an area known as Chinatown North and Little Vietnam. The latter is more accurate since the majority of the shops and restaurants are Vietnamese, but there is some good Chinese and a little bit of Thai in the area too.

One of the great Chinese outposts is a little walk-up counter named Sun Wah. Sun Wah has a great window display of Pekin Ducks and racks of pork ribs hanging from hooks for all to see. The ducks are all beautiful and golden brown, and you can take a whole duck from the window and have it chopped by crazy cleaver wielding Chinese men for $14.00. They have a giant menu on the wall listing over 200 items, but people really just go for the B.B.Q. pork, duck, and chicken. (I ordered a beef curry dish once and they gave me a funny look. They must have considered it girl food.)

The other night I thought I might try to redeem my standing with the cleaver wielders and order what I was supposed to order. I went with item #223 - Barbequed Pork on Rice. Grand total was $4.40. Take a look at this goodness.