February 18, 2017

At the Ice Walk Café...

DSC04652

... you can talk about whatever you want.

It was in the 60s here in Madison today. Great fun in mid-February.

Hope all is well with you. (And remember my Amazon portal!)

44 comments:

FullMoon said...

"Tuscon mayor carjacked at gunpoint.."

Does Dr. K have an airtight alibi?

Big Mike said...

Two cafes in one day? Cool!

tcrosse said...

Madison in the 60's ! Happy memories ! Meet me at the Three Bells.

Ken B said...

Walking on the lake when it's over 60? Darwin contenders.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Taking a bike ride this morning felt wonderful. During winter warm spells in Wisconsin, I always notice how generally cheerful people are - strangers saying hi and smiling at you on the street. Global warming makes cheeseheads a kinder, gentler people.

Big Mike said...

It's going to be 72 here in Virginia by Thursday! I'm taking credit because I got my snowblower checked out before the winter season began.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Given the temperature this might be good time to post this link.

This is also good for a quick overview.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Weather is not climate. Unless you're a Minitru stooge.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Trump's star turn in Florida today raised an interesting question. You're one of the Donk Senators from one of the states that Trump won and it's September of 2018. Do you want this guy campaigning against you in your state or do you want to play ball?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Bespoke is one of my favorite words, it's so incredibly pretentious. Chuck devised a bespoke solution.

Bay Area Guy said...

One commentator (I think Drago) used the word "Eleventy" in one of the threads - it's a very funny word. I've been giggling all day. What's the context? Is it from "Spinal Tap"? (Where Nigel says his super-amp goes to 11).

"Eleventy"

It has to be a dismissive sarcastic burn of some sort, but I find it humorous.

Curious George said...

"AReasonableMan said...
Given the temperature this might be good time to post this link."

That global warming sure comes on fast. Last week it was in the 20's.

David-2 said...

This is the latest insanity from Nicholas Kristof: How Can We Get Rid Of Trump - but precisely what kind of insanity?

Cameos by Dan Rather and Laurence Tribe.

Jon Ericson said...

Can't we get the black bloc™ to hold some sort of drum circle or something for a couple of weeks out there on the ice?
It would be so cool!

Robert said...

"An awestruck guy in a Donald Trump shirt (and shorts) comes up on the stage."

I think Althouse owes this guy an apology. It looked like he had long pants on to me! Even though he had been there all day long in the heat and had every excuse to wear shorts.

madAsHell said...

Norma McCorvey has passed on. She is the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade.

She was a useful tool.

jaed said...

Eleventy comes from the unfortunate tendency, when typing a whole line of exclamation points, to accidentally take one's finger off the shift key, so that
!!!!!!!!!!!!
turns into
!!!!!!11 !!
Thus, an unhinged rant might be sarcastically punctuated thus: "TRUUUMP!!!!!!11!!!eleventy!!!!"

Humperdink said...

"She was a useful tool."

A poor person used by left to achieve the result they wanted. What a shock.

Ann Althouse said...

"I think Althouse owes this guy an apology. It looked like he had long pants on to me! Even though he had been there all day long in the heat and had every excuse to wear shorts."

You must believe it's terrible for a man to wear shorts, otherwise why do you see a need for an apology?. I merely described what I saw (visible behind the "fence" when he kicked up a leg near the end). I never said it was bad, and I never talked about the heat problem (which made Trump sweat). Heat has always been one of my standard exceptions, when I've gone on about how I feel about men in shorts.

In short, I think YOU owe me an apology for telling me I owe an apology!

rhhardin said...

In a sudden opening to the west, I worked Hawaii and Guam this morning. Russia last night. 40m works towards darkness.

Every hour flip on the radio and see what's there hobby.

Michael K said...

"Bespoke is one of my favorite words, it's so incredibly pretentious"

"Bespoke" is a common brand name in Britain.

Michael K said...

""Tuscon mayor carjacked at gunpoint.."

Does Dr. K have an airtight alibi?"

That's a bit sketchy neighborhood near the University.

Besides, he's a Democrat and was driving, of course, a Prius.

I live up north near Oro Valley.

RBE said...

The ice loudly slid off my metal roof last night because it was so warm.

Rosa Marie Yoder said...

My eleven month old Winter baby is already complaining about the heat, now that lower Michigan broke it's high temperature record for February 18, reaching 68 degrees. (Tucker is a handsome Chocolate who napped on top of the air conditioning vents last Summer.) I miss real Winter with real snow drifts.

tcrosse said...

I wouldn't count on it staying like that.

Otto said...

Can't wait for Ann's eulogy for Norma McCorvey. Such a fine women.

Mr. Majestyk said...

Scott Pruitt gets confirmed and look what happens!

Michael K said...

" wouldn't count on it staying like that."

The great blizzard of 1967 in Chicago came after a warm spell that was a record, I believe. My father could not find his car for several days.

Jason said...

I would like to see a thread on the Washington State Supreme Court case that the Olympia florist lost.

How can they square that decision with Hobby Lobby? Any lawyers wanna weigh in?

If the SCOTUS can't uphold religious liberty and the right to be left alone when it comes to being forced to enter private contracts for bespoke services, then the concept of liberty is pretty much dead in this country. I'm about ready to burn it all down and let the libtards choke on the mouthful of ashes.

Michael K said...

How can they square that decision with Hobby Lobby? Any lawyers wanna weigh in?

This is all leftist virtue signaling. The Alliance Defending Freedom is taking her case and it will go to the Supreme Court when Goresuch is there.

The Ninth Circuit is useless and should be broken up.

wildswan said...

"David-2 said...
This is the latest insanity from Nicholas Kristof: How Can We Get Rid Of Trump - but precisely what kind of insanity?"

The article basically says there is no rational expectation that there is any constitutional way to get rid of Trump and why are we talking about it. But the argument is contorted by the need for a clickbait headline and the need to seem to conform to the crazed left.

Perhaps the ice of frozen disbelief in reality is melting underneath the still smooth surface of Trump Denial Syndrome.

wildswan said...

Perhaps the never-Trumpers will soon be teetering about on very small, separate ice floe of denial like stranded polar bears in climate change propaganda photos. But this climate change will be real.

wildswan said...

And man-made.

Jose_K said...

Emily Ratajkowski Icloud hacked photos published just one week after she spoke out .

Robert said...

"In short, I think YOU owe me an apology for telling me I owe an apology!"

All right, I'm sorry.

Jupiter said...

John McCain hammered Trump in a speech yesterday in Munich (!). When can we expect to hear the usual carping about how politics ends at the water's edge?

Jupiter said...

AReasonableMan said...
"Given the temperature this might be good time to post this link. This is also good for a quick overview."

Yes, if you look at the last 20K years, it looks as if something altogether unprecedented is happening to the Earth's climate. We have gone from a world in which ice covered the state of Washington to one in which most of Canada is ice-free. It's fairly obvious that what comes next is catastrophic warming.

But if you look at the last 100K years, you'll see that this has happened several times before, that the frozen intervals are much longer than the warm ones, that the average length of a thaw is 12k years, and that the current thaw has lasted just about that long. It's fairly obvious that while we may have a few thousand years of habitable climate left, what comes after that is 20k-30k years of mile-thick ice over Canada, Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and Russia. Unless we can do something about it. Burn more coal, maybe?

Jupiter said...

ARM's first link, although it only deals with the last 20K years, is a useful reminder that agriculture and civilization developed only during the current warming, even though humans have apparently been around a lot longer. It is not at all clear to what extent those innovations can be maintained when the ice returns. The lowering of the oceans will make additional land available, but not enough to match the land lost to the glaciers. And the frozen periods, known to paleoclimatologists as "glacial eras", were also very dry. What land there is won't get much rain. On the whole, a bleak prospect, although one can at least expect that the current southern invasions of Europe and the US will not only be halted but actually reversed. Perhaps the Sahara will bloom again.

wildswan said...

Can't Resist

The Deep State and Donald Trump [After The Kraken by Tennyson]

"Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Deep State sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge regulations of millennial growth and height;
And far away in a sickly light,
From many a strange archive and secret file
Unnumbered and enormous tentacles
Winnow with giant arms the regulated land.
There hath Deep State lain for ages, and will lie
Spewing entangled rules even in sleep,
Until The Great Donald shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and media to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die."

Well, I was an lit major.

jaed said...

Colder temperatures also precede lowered CO2 levels, leading to plant stunting (and some unable to grow at all). As for the Sahara, a drier climate with a lower sea level means the rivers under the Sahara can't come to the surface and turn it back into savannah.

Overall, glaciations are grim periods for life on earth. Interglacials like this one are an improvement, but they don't compare to the lush, varied ecosystems of periods outside an ice age.

Jupiter said...

jaed said...

"Overall, glaciations are grim periods for life on earth. Interglacials like this one are an improvement, but they don't compare to the lush, varied ecosystems of periods outside an ice age."

From your correct use of the terminology, I expect you know enough about this stuff to realize that the last time we were "outside an ice age", the Earth's topography was very different. Like, India was an island off the coast of Africa, and the Himalayas weren't there. That's why I think you should only look at the last half million years or so if you want to know what's likely to happen next. I suppose it is conceivable that a few hundred ppm of CO2 has completely altered the situation, and propelled us into an era whose climate dynamics are totally unlike what went before. I find that proposition unlikely. More precisely, I think that anyone who would claim it is a certainty, based upon some computer models of the atmosphere, is deluded, or lying, or both.

Jupiter said...

For those who have not studied this stuff, paleoclimatologists use the term "Ice Age" for any period in which there is permanent ice on the poles. So, we are currently in an Ice Age that has lasted millions of years. The advances and retreats of the glaciers within this Ice Age are referred to as "glacial eras" and "interglacial eras". We are currently in an interglacial, which we can only hope will be prolonged. It's end will be a catastrophe quite literally unparalleled in human history.

jaed said...

the Earth's topography was very different

Necessarily, if I remember correctly—ice ages are (in one scheme, anyway) defined by having permanent, year-long ice caps over the poles, and that generally only happens when the poles have land. In our era, there is a big honkin' continent parked on top of the south pole, and the north pole, while lacking a big honkin' continent, has a sea that's almost landlocked, so little circulation.

Furthermore, the lush, verdant planet of my dreams would likely have equally lush insect life, and I hate bugs. So perhaps just as well. I tend to agree interglacials are the optimal climate for human civilization. If this one ends any time soon and the ice returns, I'm sure it will be blamed on global warming somehow.

Jupiter said...

jaed said...

"I tend to agree interglacials are the optimal climate for human civilization. If this one ends any time soon and the ice returns, I'm sure it will be blamed on global warming somehow."

My understanding is that They have stopped decrying Global Warming, and are trying to transfer the alarm it once engendered to "climate change". Anthropogenic, of course. I don't quite understand how that is supposed to work. Either the climate is getting hotter, or it's getting colder, or there's nothing to worry about. So, which is it? I guess They prefer not to say.