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[smjjames]

You laugh, but ambulocetus was pretty bearlike.

I'm not laughing.

[martinuzz]

The Ohio attack has been claimed by IS, at least according to a press agency linked to IS. It is unclear if the claim is true. The alleged assailant that wounded at least 12 people with a butcher knife after hitting them with his car is said to have left a message on Facebook saying that the US is provoking terror attacks by not leaving muslims in peace.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/is-claimt-aanslag-ohio-maar-wanneer-is-het-echt-een-is-aanslag~a4424712/

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Same case as the Pulse shooting: They can claim any and all attacks ex post facto. Without a preexisting connection and material support, I'm not 'counting' it as anything other than a lone wolf.

[smjjames]

Yeah, they're saying that this one was self radicalized and then the guy just, snapped, I suppose.

Anyways, Trump is picking Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary.

I don't know much about him other than that he has worked at Goldman Sachs for many years, is in the film industry, and according to wikipedia, something about buying out a failed housing lender in 2009. Does the name indymac strike anybody as familiar? Seems like I've heard that somewhere. edit: Yeah, it was one of those banks that failed during the 2008 financial crisis, that's likely why it seems like I'd seen the name before.

edit: Oh, and some are saying that Mary Fallin is a major candidate for Interior Secretary. I looked on wikipedia and she is just as 'Drill baby, drill!' as Palin is, without the derpyness of Palin, also strongly anti-environment.

editwhiletyping: He's also picking Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary.

[Loud Whispers]

congrats on 15000 replies guys

I get the rest of your point, I just felt the need to point out how beautifully self-contradictive this issue sounds if you remove the context. "The arctic ice is melting, so we need more arctic icebreakers!"

Yeah, you do get that stuff. Sorta like how we invade for defence

Ah, what might have been.
Also, page #1000 (for me). Wasn't it only last month I was talking about us being on page 666 (in a joke relating to that Pizzagate stuff)? We've really been chundering along since election night.

50ppp is best, we 301 pages

[Rockphed]

Causes are suspected to be global warming because everything is suspected to be global warming these days. In fact we had the PDO and AMO peaks coincide to lead to low extents, there is no death spiral, as various high profile shmucks like to predict, and polar bears aren't starving to death either.

I was quoting, mostly, my remote sensing professor.  He put up some data about the north polar ice-cap.  Then we discussed how it is fairly evident how much multi-year ice there is based on the data.  Then he drew a nifty pair of conclusions: multiyear ice has been declining for the last 10 years, but total ice cover has been fairly constant.

[Frumple]

... which is rather terrifying if you have even a pretty shallow understanding of what's going on up there. Coverage is only part of the problem, and arguably a smaller part.

What's causing that isn't actually in much contention, last I paid attention, though. The mechanisms involved in the ice up there are decently well understood, and though I don't recall the details, the coverage and multi-year disparity stuff is more or less expected and not really causing much in the way of metaphorical head scratching. The (relatively) drastic shit (or at least part of it) is going to kick off once that multi-year stuff hits a tipping... well, point isn't quite the right word but it's close enough.

[misko27]

congrats on 15000 replies guys

I get the rest of your point, I just felt the need to point out how beautifully self-contradictive this issue sounds if you remove the context. "The arctic ice is melting, so we need more arctic icebreakers!"

Yeah, you do get that stuff. Sorta like how we invade for defence

In the US this was called "Preventative War" and was a popular position among some influential people until the Soviet Union detonated their first nuclear weapon (and for a while after the detonation of the Hydrogen bomb). President Truman (and later Eisenhower) had to step on it and keep their foot on it to prevent first strike with nuclear weapons from becoming official US policy.

[Rockphed]

... which is rather terrifying if you have even a pretty shallow understanding of what's going on up there. Coverage is only part of the problem, and arguably a smaller part.

What's causing that isn't actually in much contention, last I paid attention, though. The mechanisms involved in the ice up there are decently well understood, and though I don't recall the details, the coverage and multi-year disparity stuff is more or less expected and not really causing much in the way of metaphorical head scratching. The (relatively) drastic shit (or at least part of it) is going to kick off once that multi-year stuff hits a tipping... well, point isn't quite the right word but it's close enough.

Oh, let me get my textbook.  I am fairly certain the graph is in there.

...

And looked at the graph.  I suppose I could pull out his scatterometer data and figure out the levels of first year and multi-year ice for every day from 1990 on, but that would be a lot of work.  I'll just use his graph from 2002 - 2009.  Over that period, total ice area during the winter was unchanged.  Multi-year ice went from about .22 million square kilometers in 2002 to about .15 million square kilometers in 2009.  Total ice area peaked at about .65 million square kilometers every year.

[smjjames]

... which is rather terrifying if you have even a pretty shallow understanding of what's going on up there. Coverage is only part of the problem, and arguably a smaller part.

What's causing that isn't actually in much contention, last I paid attention, though. The mechanisms involved in the ice up there are decently well understood, and though I don't recall the details, the coverage and multi-year disparity stuff is more or less expected and not really causing much in the way of metaphorical head scratching. The (relatively) drastic shit (or at least part of it) is going to kick off once that multi-year stuff hits a tipping... well, point isn't quite the right word but it's close enough.

Oh, let me get my textbook.  I am fairly certain the graph is in there.

...

And looked at the graph.  I suppose I could pull out his scatterometer data and figure out the levels of first year and multi-year ice for every day from 1990 on, but that would be a lot of work.  I'll just use his graph from 2002 - 2009.  Over that period, total ice area during the winter was unchanged.  Multi-year ice went from about .22 million square kilometers in 2002 to about .15 million square kilometers in 2009.  Total ice area peaked at about .65 million square kilometers every year.

So, basically, as long as the winters above the polar circle dip below freezing (actually, a bit below freezing, saltwater freezes at a lower temp than freshwater), there will always be sea ice during the winter. There just won't be any multiyear ice as it'll always thaw in the spring.

[Reelya]

So Betsy Devos, new secretary of education wants to abolish public schools, and has a right-wing foundation she funds, who wrote an article originally entitled "bring back child labor work is a gift our kids can handle". the first part of the title has been redacted but lives on in the URL:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/89837-bring-back-child-labor-work-is-a-gift-our-kids-can-handle.html

You can talk about the dangers of coal mining or selling newspapers on the street. But let’s not pretend that danger is something that every young teen wants to avoid. If you doubt it, head over the stadium for the middle school football game in your local community, or have a look at the wrestling or gymnastic team’s antics at the gym.

You heard it here: the sec. of education funds a group that promotes sending kiddies down the coal mine. They're writing about this as if a child who's sent to a coal mine is making an informed choice about the dangers vs rewards, and that this is equivalent to the risk/reward in school sports. Goddamn crazy stuff.

[uber pye]

So Betsy Devos, new secretary of education wants to abolish public schools, and has a right-wing foundation she funds, who wrote an article originally entitled "bring back child labor work is a gift our kids can handle". the first part of the title has been redacted but lives on in the URL:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/89837-bring-back-child-labor-work-is-a-gift-our-kids-can-handle.html

You can talk about the dangers of coal mining or selling newspapers on the street. But let’s not pretend that danger is something that every young teen wants to avoid. If you doubt it, head over the stadium for the middle school football game in your local community, or have a look at the wrestling or gymnastic team’s antics at the gym.

You heard it here: the sec. of education funds a group that promotes sending kiddies down the coal mine. Because hey, if they can be a linebacker, surely we can send them to the coal face for $3 an hour?

yeah, child labor can be pretty shitii. On the other hand though, (read: if they do it right) it would allow more high schooler to get cash and work experience earlier, so less would go in to dept come college and they could be more hire-able right out of high school.

[Max™]

So Betsy Devos, new secretary of education wants to abolish public schools, and has a right-wing foundation she funds, who wrote an article originally entitled "bring back child labor work is a gift our kids can handle". the first part of the title has been redacted but lives on in the URL:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/89837-bring-back-child-labor-work-is-a-gift-our-kids-can-handle.html

You can talk about the dangers of coal mining or selling newspapers on the street. But let’s not pretend that danger is something that every young teen wants to avoid. If you doubt it, head over the stadium for the middle school football game in your local community, or have a look at the wrestling or gymnastic team’s antics at the gym.

You heard it here: the sec. of education funds a group that promotes sending kiddies down the coal mine. Because hey, if they can be a linebacker, surely we can send them to the coal face for $3 an hour?

yeah, child labor can be pretty shitii. On the other hand though, (read: if they do it right) it would allow more high schooler to get cash and work experience earlier, so less would go in to dept come college and they could be more hire-able right out of high school.

We can work in most states from like 14 to 16 as is, I think these folks are talking about bringing back the whole elementary > factory work transition.

So, basically, as long as the winters above the polar circle dip below freezing (actually, a bit below freezing, saltwater freezes at a lower temp than freshwater), there will always be sea ice during the winter. There just won't be any multiyear ice as it'll always thaw in the spring.

Good lord, I was just trying to work out what would be necessary to keep it from dropping that low over the winter, aside from like knocking the planet so the polar tilt settles at 0º or 90º(and the pole winds up locked towards the sun) it would require a pretty crazy bump in temperatures to get through half a year without sunlight and remain above freezing. Much higher than you might think, since a simple boost up there is just going to cool it faster as it loses heat like a mofo, I'm not sure if it would be necssary to boil the equator to get year-round above freezing temperatures at the poles, but I figure it would at least be sufficient to do this.

... which is rather terrifying if you have even a pretty shallow understanding of what's going on up there. Coverage is only part of the problem, and arguably a smaller part.

I'm curious what exactly the implications of less ice up there are, aside from clathrate barrages. Less ice in the summer does what to the albedo up there?^* What about ocean <-> atmosphere heat exchange? What does that much melt/refreeze do to the energy budget up there re: latent heat?

Spoiler: * (click to show/hide)

I know open water looks pretty dark from directly above, and there isn't a heap of data on what happens when you change the viewing angle. Still, this was pointed out thirty years ago and revisited by various researchers since then, all seeking to quantify the effect of low SZA (solar zenith angle) on oceanic albedo. Generally though, still seawater gets pretty reflective from the 20 to 30 degree SZA range, as I'd imagine someone with sailing experience and a memory of curious sunburns under the brim of their hat could attest. The loss of heat through conduction > convection > radiation over the arctic is, difficult to find hard information on to say the least, and the latent heat of fusion is only 333 J/g vs the 2257 J/g for vaporization, so it's not going to be as dramatic as the big equatorial thunderheads, but it probably can't be ignored or treated as a set parameter.

So Betsy Devos, new secretary of education wants to abolish public schools, and has a right-wing foundation she funds, who wrote an article originally entitled "bring back child labor work is a gift our kids can handle". the first part of the title has been redacted but lives on in the URL:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/89837-bring-back-child-labor-work-is-a-gift-our-kids-can-handle.html

You can talk about the dangers of coal mining or selling newspapers on the street. But let’s not pretend that danger is something that every young teen wants to avoid. If you doubt it, head over the stadium for the middle school football game in your local community, or have a look at the wrestling or gymnastic team’s antics at the gym.

You heard it here: the sec. of education funds a group that promotes sending kiddies down the coal mine. They're writing about this as if a child who's sent to a coal mine is making an informed choice about the dangers vs rewards, and that this is equivalent to the risk/reward in school sports. Goddamn crazy stuff.

Oh good, I so rarely get a chance to use pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosises anymore.

[PTTG??]

So Betsy Devos, new secretary of education wants to abolish public schools, and has a right-wing foundation she funds, who wrote an article originally entitled "bring back child labor work is a gift our kids can handle". the first part of the title has been redacted but lives on in the URL:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/89837-bring-back-child-labor-work-is-a-gift-our-kids-can-handle.html

You can talk about the dangers of coal mining or selling newspapers on the street. But let’s not pretend that danger is something that every young teen wants to avoid. If you doubt it, head over the stadium for the middle school football game in your local community, or have a look at the wrestling or gymnastic team’s antics at the gym.

You heard it here: the sec. of education funds a group that promotes sending kiddies down the coal mine. They're writing about this as if a child who's sent to a coal mine is making an informed choice about the dangers vs rewards, and that this is equivalent to the risk/reward in school sports. Goddamn crazy stuff.

First, I suppose that in due diligence it must be said that the author doesn't want to send eight-year-olds into coal mines. Older children and aluminum mines, sure.

There is no argument in the piece that this would be of any benefit to anyone besides the people who employ them, however. It certainly wouldn't be good for the job market. It would be horrible for education. Oh, and who in the entire United States is hiring people with a 12th-grade education for anything other than picking crops? Is there even a single job?

What problem do they think they're solving?

[smjjames]

I did say that it was looking like a similar situation as in the Bush-Cheney admin with Cheney having a whole lot of power.

@pttg: Everything that doesn't require a college education? It does beg the question of 'what problem are they trying to solve?'

Besides, there's this whole raft of child labor laws that we have.

Oh, and btw, Betsy DeVos is married into the Ricketts family, one of the Republicans main bankrollers.