Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Despite the hype, the current El Nino hasn't matched 1997-98

AP Obama reports here:

"[I]nitial figures for October-November-December match the same time period in 1997 for the strongest El Nino."

Well, so what?

The current El Nino took 9 consecutive periods to get to a 2.3 in OND whereas the 1997-98 episode took 7 periods. More importantly, the latter averaged 1.6 for the whole series up to that point while the current El Nino is averaging a less strong 1.3 so far.

What really counts is consecutive periods measuring 2.0 or above. There were 5 in 1997-98 but only 2 so far in the current El Nino.

The headline "METEOROLOGISTS: 'DARTH NINO' TIES RECORD FOR STRONGEST SEEN" is total bullshit.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch appears to have gained a lot of weight in the last year

January 2015
January 2016

Donald Trump gets 8,000 after dinner in liberal Massachusetts yesterday, Bill Clinton only 700 in New Hampshire before lunch

USA Today called Bill Clinton's crowd a capacity crowd "of about 700".

WaPo said Trump's venue was "filled to capacity or beyond".









It's cold, it's Monday night, it's just after New Year, and it's in liberal Massachusetts but Trump fills a stadium


Monday, January 4, 2016

Megyn Kelly pretends she would be on the cover of Vanity Fair, and on camera at FOX, if she looked like this

 “But every so often, as all [women] know, you have to stop and slap somebody around a little bit who doesn’t understand that we are actually equals and not second-class citizens.”

Sure Megyn.

Story here

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Pittsburgh's Salena Zito thinks shouting "Enough" is a right-wing racist mob phenomenon only because Hillary's not good at it

Inciting her own racist mob to little effect
In "Let Us Not Be Consumed by the Mob" under a nice big picture of Donald Trump:

'Every political movement has a tipping point. It goes too far, or it loses its original purpose — or it becomes so self-enamored, under the influence of anger and mob rule, that ugliness shades all the good of its original intent. Such is true of the populism that peaked this summer in America. Years of incompetency and a tin ear at the White House, along with a Republican-controlled Congress accused of not accomplishing much, drove people to figuratively or literally shout, “Enough is enough!” ... With Donald Trump's emergence, and with a chorus of talk-radio hosts suddenly behind him, the mob-rule crowd deems everyone who was ever elected to office (with the exception of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas) to be a Republican-in-name-only or part of a dark establishment cult intent on crushing the souls of average white voters. ... The mob-rule crowd gnaws on any piece of political red meat thrown out as truth, never checking to see what kind of flesh it just consumed. None of this represents true conservatism. All of it is pure populism, and it is radically contaminating conservatism's values.'

Larry Kudlow eyes Donald Trump's coattails

From the story here:

'Economist and political pundit Larry Kudlow says he is strongly considering challenging Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) for his Senate seat in 2016. ... Kudlow says he disagrees with Blumenthal on a variety of issues, ranging from the Iran nuclear agreement to the corporate tax rate. “Mr. Blumenthal was wrong on signing the Iran deal. He was wrong on pushing for the U.N. to bring Syrian hostages into the United States,” he said. “And . . . he’s a tax-and-spender. He was in Connecticut, and he’s a tax-and-spender in Washington at a time, frankly, with the economy at two percent [growth] or less, we ought to have a 15 percent corporate tax, not a 40 percent.”'

Kudlow has previously allied himself with Trump without saying so in so many words by coming out against the Iran deal and against letting in the refugee surge, but explicitly has come out in support of Trump's plan to slash the corporate income tax rate to 15 percent. Trump has repeatedly emphasized all three issues mentioned by Kudlow this weekend.

Kudlow clearly sees these as coattail issues on which he could succeed in a Connecticut US Senate run, emphasizing US and Israeli security after a period of increased terrorism as well as a pro-growth supply-side tax policy reminiscent of the era of Ronald Reagan as an answer to the moribund economy's ills.

It works both ways, Larry. Trump as president will need support within the Congress if he hopes to get passed anything he stands for as a candidate.

Tom Rogan on McLaughlin group illustrates how an English accent and three degrees from London can't mask basic ignorance

"Obsession with minutae" at 8:30 and "him in solidarity with I" at 12:50.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Grand Rapids MI December 2015 temperature anomaly was a staggering +9.9 degrees F

The December 2015 temperature anomaly for Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a staggering +9.9 degrees F, almost twice the size of the November anomaly of +5.4 degrees F.

Heading into December, the cumulative anomaly for 2015 through November stood at -11.7 degrees F, so thanks to El Nino the massive negative anomaly for 2015 is all but wiped out, erasing 92% of the 22.6 degrees of negative temperature anomaly in just four months.

The year 2015 thus finishes with a total anomaly of -1.8 degrees F. That's basically an undetectable .0049315 degrees F below normal on your average day in 2015.

Precipitation in December, unsurprisingly, was 33% above normal while snowfall was just 2.5 inches, 84% below normal. Mean snowfall for December going back to the beginning of the record is 15.7 inches. 

Friday, January 1, 2016

Hillary Clinton admits to one vodka drinking competition

"I haven't been in many of them, but . . .."

Video here.

Yeah, sure.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Forget the problem with Christians, the problem with Michael Savage is that HE'S too moderate

"I'm a sexual libertarian", he repeats today, after telling Christians they're too moderate yesterday.

Moderation for me, but not for thee. What a J.A.P.

Frankly, the passion for poodles is apropos.