Motus Mentis

54 Comments

1. The one eyed man says

   As the article notes, “the warming atmosphere is leading to greater sea ice coverage by changing wind patterns,” as the depletion of ozone continues to reduce the amount of ice on the continent of Antarctica and wreak havoc on “the entire Antarctic ecosystem.”

   Glad to see that you are posting links to actual scientific research, and not the easily refuted propaganda of energy industry shills like Anthony Watts and his coterie of science denialists,

   Posted September 14, 2014 at 11:18 pm | Permalink
2. ol coyote says

   better open the other eye- and maybe your ears, too. maybe discover how insane it is believe that “warming causes cooling.” and stop lying- your accusations of calling “deniers” paid shills of the energy companies could result in a libel suit (we can always hope). the thinly veiled label of “denier” conceals the word heretic, and the fact that the witch hunt underway by the zomboid gorebots is real.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 12:08 am | Permalink
3. ol coyote says

   by the way- if you think watts, et al, are publishing such “easily refuted propaganda” why dont you just hie your fancy grammar and all-seeing eye over their to his website and start refuting..? most of what appears there seems to be holding its’ own quite well agains the actual lies (admitted) and constant re-modeling of failed models which will fail yet again- because there is no current global warming. facts are facts, truth is the truth no matter how few believe it, and lies are still lies no matter how many people believe them (tip of the hat to mark twain).

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 12:14 am | Permalink
4. TheBigHenry says

   “…, the easily refuted propaganda of energy industry shills like Anthony Watts and his coterie of science denialists.”

   That sounds like a talking point from the anti-denialist propaganda mill.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 12:24 am | Permalink
5. JK says

   Good to see you here One Eyed. Been concerned you’d been dehydrated and/or wildfired (still of the opinion y’all Californians ought to quit worrying about them snail darters and get y’all some goats).

   Now admitting I don’t know a damn thing about sea ice – aside from carriers try to avoid the stuff – and I reckon just looking at averages from 1895 can be a little misleading but:

   Note: It was the 5th coolest (116th warmest) January through August on record dating back to 1895. The statewide average temperature of 60.0 degrees was 2.4 degrees below normal. This was determined by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.

   And, since long about a couple weeks ago here in Arkansas, feels like the beginning of the newest Ice Age.

   http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/?n=fyi0914.htm

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 9:42 am | Permalink
6. JK says

   Oh. By the bye One Eyed. I quit watchin’ (or pretty much anyway) C-Span and took to watching the Nat’l Geographic Channel.

   the depletion of ozone continues to reduce the amount of ice on the continent of Antarctica

   “But some deserts are always cold, like the Gobi desert in Asia and the desert on the continent of Antarctica. Others are mountainous.”

   http://education.nationalgeographic.com/archive/xpeditions/lessons/08/g35/antarctica.html

   Seems California in its Natural state has more in common with Antarctica than just the dearth of goats. Just deserts I reckon.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 10:01 am | Permalink
7. Malcolm says

   Most damning of all (aside, of course, from the decades-long lack of warming), is that this is completely at odds with what we have been told (with all the hellfire-and-brimstone and hortatory lather of an Appalachian revival meeting) was going to happen. As such it should erode any rational person’s confidence in current predictions, and in using such predictions as further justification for wily politicos, professional uplifters, unelected bureaucrats, evangelical opportunists, pie-eyed Utopians, orotund mountebanks, secular soteriologists, and moralizing busybodies to get their hands on our collars.

   Any proposition about X that is consistent with both X and ~X asserts nothing. Unfalsifiable science is not science, it is religion — and no amount of scurrying about retrofitting Ptolemaic epicycles onto failed predictive models is going to make the case any stronger.

   Mark my words: this whole thing is going to go the way of a previous example of ‘settled’ science: the luminiferous aether. It’s already happening.

   Meanwhile, get out your wooly socks.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 11:27 am | Permalink
8. the one eyed man says

   Anthony Watts has no background in climate science. He took a few meteorology courses before dropping out of college, then started a website funded by the Heartland Institute and other energy interests. Cui bono?

   Actual climate scientists — people who are trained in the subject, spend their lives studying it, and publish their research in peer reviewed journals — know him to be a nuisance and a charlatan. If you want to see quantifiable data from climatologists which refute Watts’s propaganda, you can find quite a bit of it here:

   http://www.skepticalscience.com/Anthony_Watts_blog.htm

   JK: good to see you too! Not dehydrated, just darn busy from work. Happy to report that my business is taking on a Jack-in-the-beanstalk quality, so there’s much less time for distractions. And I personally could not care less about snail darters. Fuck ’em.

   As for the idea that this is “unfalsifiable science,” or a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose proposition, a poster in the comment thread of the linked article helpfully explains:

   “The increase in the winter sea ice around Antarctica is exactly what global warming predicts. As land ice melts due to global warming it pours into the adjacent coastal waters thus decreasing salinity. Decreased salinity increases the freezing temperature of water (= ice is formed at relatively higher temperatures), hence in winter the amount of ice increases. Part of that ice then melts in summer. So, an advice to those climate change denialists drooling at the prospect that the winter increase in Antarctic sea ice is evidence of global cooling: No, it’s NOT! It’s actually evidence of global warming! The evidence for global warming is strengthened by the pattern in the Arctic, where ice is rapidly melting.”

   Your implication — that the expansion of ice around Antarctica belies the reality of global warming – is contradicted by reading the article you cite, which leads to the exact opposite conclusion.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
9. Malcolm says

   Pah. Hindsight. Epicycles.

   “The increase in the winter sea ice around Antarctica is exactly what global warming predicts.”

   Except it didn’t. All we ever heard was how the poles were soon going to be ice-free.

   Find me any ‘consensus’ from several years ago that predicted there would be record Antarctic sea ice extent in 2014.

   Posted September 15, 2014 at 5:13 pm | Permalink
10. the one eyed man says

    Easy.

    From 2003: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/302/5643/273.abstract

    From 2009:

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL037524/full

    http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/press.html

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 5:45 pm | Permalink
11. Malcolm says

    Sorry, but none of these citations predict Antarctic sea-ice increase. The second one is a reaction, in hindsight, to an awkward sea-ice increase. Epicycles.

    The third one, if you scroll down, is nothing but more Chicken Little stuff:

    Satellite and direct measurements now demonstrate that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea level rise at an increasing rate.

    Meanwhile, the much-ballyhooed 97% consensus is rubbish. And as for cui bono, do you seriously think there aren’t vested interests on the alarmist side of this as well?

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 5:58 pm | Permalink
12. Malcolm says

    Look, I’ll say it again: the Earth may indeed be warming. If it is, though, it’s taking a real breather for the past couple of decades, and at the very least — and this is the point here — the computer models, and the hair-raising predictions of folks like Al Gore, have been wildly inaccurate, to the point that they have in many cases predicted the opposite of what has actually happened.

    All we ever heard about was how the poles would soon be ice-free. Well, they aren’t.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 6:01 pm | Permalink
13. the one eyed man says

    Sorry, but the citations, in aggregate, confirm what the comment thread guy writes: global warming is causing the temperatures in Antarctica to rise; the high salt content ice on the Antarctic continent is melting; the sea around the continent freezes temporarily; and then it melts and raises ocean levels.

    1) Global warming causing rising temperatures in the Southern hemisphere: “anthropogenic emissions of ozone depleting gases have had a distinct impact on climate not only at stratospheric levels but at Earth’s surface as well” (the 2003 report)

    2) Causing the continental ice to melt: “Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea-level rise at an increasing rate” (the third link)

    3) And the resulting atmospheric changes leading to an increase in sea ice (“Model experiments suggest that the trend towards stronger cyclonic circulation is mainly a result of stratospheric ozone depletion, which has strengthened autumn wind speeds around the continent, deepening the Amundsen Sea Low through flow separation around the high coastal orography” from the second link, as well as “The ice is generated in what scientists refer to as “sea ice factories” or polynia – areas of the ocean surface where currents and wind patterns combine to generate sea ice” from the article you cite)

    What have we established? The temperature at the South pole is rising due to anthropogenic causes; it has caused continental ice to melt at both poles; this water re-freezes in the surrounding seas; the new ice then melts and raises sea levels at an increasing rate.

    The process by which this occurs is far less important than the end result of rising seas, and the cyclical increases in larger sea ice is irrelevant to the secular trends of continental ice sheets melting and shrinking.

    None of this is unexpected or unpredicted. It is one more datum in a plethora of quantifiable data showing that the earth is warming, disrupting the ecosystem, and causing sea levels to rise at an accelerating rate and potentially submerging coastal cities under water.

    Do I think that the scientific community – what you call the “alarmists,” perhaps because the data are so alarming – has vested interests?

    I do. There is a huge vested interest in avoiding professional and reputational disgrace by publishing false data in peer reviewed journals. Hence the vested interest of climate scientists is in disseminating accurate and objective research which can withstand scrutiny. There is also the interest in being a latter day Galileo who can refute the current scientific understanding. If there were actual data which contradicted global warming, it is in the vested interest of all climatologists to be the first to discover it.

    Cui bono? Among the scientific community, it is those who publish the most accurate, informative, and prescient research, so they can be the most respected voices among those who are experts in their field.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
14. Malcolm says

    Again: hindsight. Epicycles. I’m sorry you had to work so hard to produce so little.

    What you have done here is to parrot for our readers the cobbling together, in retrospect, of a story attempting to explain the record sea-ice extent we are seeing now. But the fact remains that nobody connected these dots predictively and publicly in the way that you are now doing in hindsight. We were never told to expect this sea-ice expansion. What we all heard instead was a steady, pounding drumbeat: there would be rapid, accelerating warming (which hasn’t happened), sharply rising sea levels (which hasn’t happened), and ice-free poles in a matter of just a few years (which also hasn’t happened, as we can see with our own eyes).

    In fact, according to NASA it appears that the continental ice sheet in Antarctica has been gaining, not losing, mass. Even such melting as has occurred may be due to geothermal, not atmospheric, causes.

    Aside from polar sea ice doing exactly the opposite of what the IPCC, Al Gore, the Democratic Party, the scientific ‘consensus’, and every mainstream media outlet and bien-pensant liberal schoolmarm told us it would do, the other glaring embarrassment has been the complete failure of climate models to predict the hiatus in surface-temperature increase since 1998.

    The plain fact is that the models, and the predictions, have been consistently, embarrassingly wrong, again and again. Even the IPCC and the climate scientists have had to admit this. Yet any skepticism on the part of, not just nobodies like me, but even dissenting scientists, is still treated as not only wrong, but morally wrong — and those of us who think a little foot-dragging might be justified on the sprint to the New World Order are mocked and smeared as being no better than flat-earthers and Holocaust deniers. It’s the same treatment that heretics receive in monolithic religious communities — because that’s exactly what it is. Freeman Dyson has called global warmism “the most notorious dogma of modern science”.

    As for who benefits: if you think that the climate-science peer-review community has only the noble pursuit of Truth on its mind, you’ve been living under a rock. The stakes are high — high enough that human nature comes into play — on both sides. On the one hand you have those industries that might be destroyed by harsh regulations, libertarians who don’t want to cede national sovereignty to unelected UN muckety-mucks, and those who are, like me, congentially suspicious of ambitious world-savers with a ‘crisis’ to sell. On the other are a motley alliance of interested parties: UN and other global-government meddlers who seek to increase their power and influence; lobbyists who wish to do the same; eco-industries that hope to have business directed their way by new regulatory impositions and ‘green’ government initiatives; idealist youngsters who, no longer having the option of a real religion, now seek salvation through Gaia-activism; resentful pipsqueak nations who see a splendid opportunity to shake down the rest of us; and of course well-funded academics who make a very nice living supporting the party line. To be so naive as to imagine that all the ordinary, fallen humans are on one side of this equation, while on the other are only the cherubim and seraphim, is a stretch, I should have thought, even for you.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 8:45 pm | Permalink
15. TheBigHenry says

    “…, a stretch, I should have thought, even for you.”

    As with Obama himself, Leftists have no limit on stretching incredulity. They are the personification of Silly Putty (in more ways than one).

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 9:41 pm | Permalink
16. Malcolm says

    Oh, and in the interest of balance: if you want to see quantifiable data from Anthony Watts in response to Skeptical Science’s heckling, you can poke around in here.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 10:30 pm | Permalink
17. JK says

    You recall Malcolm your befuddlement at how you managed to get on a “certain sort of mailing list”?

    Well. I’m befuddled too.

    Some feller name of Chris Turney has emailed inviting me to go on some sort of cruise.

    As I mentioned above – I’ve taken to watching Nat Geo on TV – if it’s whales I’m invited to go looking at I’m thinkin’ I can do that just using my TV remote. Surely Mister Turney is aware there’s whales on TV. You reckon there’s the possibility the feller’s got something else in mind?

    The pdf download does have some teeny tiny print something ’bout “extra rations.”

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 10:56 pm | Permalink
18. JK says

    Comment from Tim Blair’s blog (Australia)

    Popper said that one of the essential features of a scientific theory is that it be “falsifiable”.

    Perhaps the thinking is that AGW has been shown to be false so exhaustively that it must be true.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 11:06 pm | Permalink
19. Malcolm says

    Don’t go! The last one didn’t turn out so well.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 11:06 pm | Permalink
20. JK says

    Great Googly Moogly Malcolm Thanks!

    From your link Mister Turney seems to be implying the cruise promises to be resembling not so much looking at whales from the comfort of a warm stateroom rather – to go look at some old architecture or somesuch.

    One hundred years ago, Mawson and his team sailed to their Antarctic base at Commonwealth Bay. Today Mawson’s Huts lie behind 65 kilometres of sea ice … Climate change was part of our programme but the AAE is much more.

    That doesn’t sound so much a cruise as a hike, and a damned long one at that.

    Posted September 15, 2014 at 11:20 pm | Permalink
21. Musey says

    I’m out of my depth here, but I’ll still express my view. I believe that OEM is right, and you can mock, but nobody can predict exactly how things will turn out, the unforeseen short-term happenings which cause people to throw out all the science, because it was unforeseen. That doesn’t mean that it’s inexplicable, or that because every step along the way, was not predicted, that the whole thing is bunkum.

    The people who, in their eagerness to show the world how immediate our problems are, overreached themselves, withheld contradictory data, and did a huge disservice to science. In this instance, I refer to UAE, UK, where there was a blatant disregard for the truth which when revealed, gave great traction to the deniers.

    Malcolm, there is an element of being wise, after the events, but there is also a logical explanation. Science isn’t a hundred percent accurate in its predictions, but in this case, personally, I believe in the vast majority of intelligent people working in this field. Warming is happening even though, for a while, it may feel colder.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 1:30 am | Permalink
22. JK says

    Well hello there Musey, you gonna be on the tour I was invited on? Perhaps as crew?

    Warming is happening even though, for a while, it may feel colder.

    Yep, maybe.

    And certainly if so – those dastardly climate scientists from the UAE doing all that disregarding so blatantly have nobody else but themselves to blame for giving all that traction.

    I say we haul their UAE asses to the Hague.

    You?

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 9:46 am | Permalink
23. Malcolm says

    Musey, I’ll say this again:

    I have never said that the idea that the Earth might be warming is bunkum. It is an entirely uncontroversial fact that the Earth warms and cools all the time, and has done so throughout its history. Nor have I ever said that any warming that is occurring now might not be due, at least in part, to human activity.

    What is troublesome here is that a constellation of interested parties have used faulty models and dire predictions to whip up a sky-is-falling general hysteria. They have worked relentlessly to use this hysteria as a lever of power, and have harshly suppressed dissent. In all of this they have had the dependable assistance of their lapdogs and fellow-travelers in academia and the popular media.

    Yet the computer models all this was based on have failed spectacularly, and the dire predictions — that we were commanded to accept as a spur to immediate, radical action — simply have not come to pass.

    Also, as you say: the very people we’ve been told are infallible authorities (whom mere meteorologists, let alone the rest of us, may not be so impertinent as to question) have, “in their eagerness to show the world how immediate our problems are, overreached themselves, withheld contradictory data, and done a huge disservice to science.” Yet climate scientists in good standing who dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy (and there are thousands of them) are still held up as heretics, flat-earthers, and ‘shills’. Some have had their careers destroyed. Even the President of the United States Himself uses the nation’s highest office to mock and jeer at dissenters.

    The barely veiled totalitarianism here, and the injury to science for the sake of politics and power, is appalling. It is Lysenkoism. And some of us refuse to be intimidated by it.

    When skepticism becomes heresy, something is very, very wrong.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 9:53 am | Permalink
24. Musey says

    Actually, I should have written UEA. (University of East Anglia)

    The problem I have Malcolm, is that if these climate scientists are right we are running out of time. Also the big money is, in my opinion, with the polluters who want to carry on with the status quo. That is not to say, that individuals on the other side have not profited enormously as well.

    The crux of the matter is whether it is our activity which is causing the current problems. Skepticism is fine but if the result of it is inaction, then I’m not sure that is a good thing. All the reports that I have read suggest that the serious scientist are vastly on the side of climate believers, but of course, that could be spin.

    I saw an article the other day, probably in the SMH, which was quite depressing because it suggested that it’s already too late to stop the inevitable. It stated that children born today, will probably see some pretty dramatic changes in their lifetimes. The tone of the piece left me in no doubt of the writer’s sincerity.

    I’m not a hard-core climate change believer, in that I worry about other more immediate things. However, I do think we have major problems on the way and that there is a reasonable possibility, that we could have done something to prevent them.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 6:20 pm | Permalink
25. Malcolm says

    The problem I have Malcolm, is that if these climate scientists are right we are running out of time.

    Ah, but you see, so far the frightening predictions they have made have not been right.

    Yes, the point you make seems sensible enough; it’s like Pascal’s Wager. But Pascal’s Wager only makes sense if there is nothing to lose. But in this case we are not being asked simply to cultivate a faith in God; we are being asked to make tremendous sacrifices, destroy whole industries, spend vast sums, and cede great swathes of our sovereignty and liberty to the whims of globalist bureaucrats.

    So the appropriate questions are:

    1) Is long-term global warming actually happening?

    Let’s assume the answer to 1) is ‘yes’. (It may well be ‘no’.)

    2) What’s causing it?

    3) How fast is it happening?

    4) What will the consequences be?

    5) Do the positive consequences outweigh the negative ones?

    6) What level of scientific certainty do we have that anything we do can actually control the climate?

    7) Given our uncertainties about the previous questions, what response do we want to make? What cost is justified?

    In my opinion, the cumulative uncertainties in this series of questions — especially considering how atrociously badly the predictions have all gone so far, which shows how poorly understood this complex system really is, and how difficult it is to make simplified models of it — seriously undercut the case for the radical measures we’re being asked to commit to.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 6:47 pm | Permalink
26. TheBigHenry says

    “…, which was quite depressing because it suggested that it’s already too late to stop the inevitable.”

    Hi Musey,

    I do not wish to engage in this controversy, though I have already reached my own conclusions about it, because I couldn’t add anything that hasn’t already been beaten to death by others.

    Nevertheless, I am curious to know why you would be depressed about something that is inevitable?

    I am reminded of the old joke that relates to this issue:

    Two scientists are discussing the inevitable demise of our own sun in a matter of several billion years, when a very frightened man, who had overheard their conversation, approached them for clarification. When the scientists clarified their remarks, the frightened man sighed with relief and said, “I thought you said million!”

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 6:52 pm | Permalink
27. Musey says

    Henry, I get depressed about all sorts of things that are inevitable.

    Seriously, we have been warned for years about what is happening, and there is huge resistance to any meaningful change of lifestyle. Given that the article to which I referred was written by a man who has clearly given up, it seems likely that he has no ulterior motive. I tend to believe him, but I’m not a serious scientist. I live with a believer, but know and respect people who don’t believe a word of it.

    I’m just Confusey Musey. As usual.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:11 pm | Permalink
28. Malcolm says

    I think not nearly enough attention is given to questions 5) and 6) above.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:15 pm | Permalink
29. Musey says

    Malcolm, I wasn’t ignoring your questions. Okay, I was, but only because I don’t have any answers.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:23 pm | Permalink
30. Malcolm says

    But you see, Musey, if you don’t ask these questions, and don’t approach this thing methodically and logically, you’ll just get bamboozled by demagogues.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:26 pm | Permalink
31. Malcolm says

    In effect, we are being asked to buy an incalculably expensive insurance policy. To make the right choice we need to know:

    ‣  What is it that we’re actually afraid of?

    ‣  How sure are we that it will happen?

    ‣  How sure are we that the insurance will be effective?

    Given all that, what are we willing to pay?

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
32. Musey says

    Well, my husband is very sure that it will happen and he is fearful for the future. He also believes, that there is not the will to do anything, so he’s pretty fatalistic about what will happen. I give his views because he is very clear in his beliefs.

    For myself, I’ll answer your last question. We’re not willing to pay anything.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
33. Malcolm says

    Well, my sympathies to your husband.

    I’m not nearly as pessimistic about the prognosis, nor am I particularly certain that warming, even if it happens, will be so one-sidedly harmful. We’re a resilient species, and I’m sure we’ll just adapt. It seems to me that we have far bigger problems confronting us than this.

    I’m also very skeptical indeed about our imagined ability to control the Earth’s climate, even if we decided we wanted to do so: obviously we barely understand how it all works, and the enormous climate variation throughout Earth’s history make me think that natural influences would swamp anything we might attempt anyway.

    But that’s just me. I hope you can cheer him up.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:02 pm | Permalink
34. JK says

    Too Musey, if it’s “the inevitable” you worry yourself overly – there’re some far more likelys and likelier still, those’ll be more inevitable sooner.

    Don’t know “our Leaders” have any better grip on what must be done to arrest the sooner inevitable than the later inevitable but …

    Given the well understood results of the sooner inevitable – it just might be that’s the West’s “God’s Remedy” in order to put off (for awhile longer) the later remedy.

    Give what’s in store should the nearer inevitable occur – the direst result of AGW will be a breeze.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:17 pm | Permalink
35. TheBigHenry says

    “Given that the article to which I referred was written by a man who has clearly given up, it seems likely that he has no ulterior motive”

    Musey,

    Lack of ulterior motive, though an admirable quality and one that might bolster confidence that the expressed views are unbiased, is not a reliable determinant of correctness.

    It is likely that the vast majority of people have a (personally) unbiased view about most controversial issues of potentially global significance. It is concomitantly likely that their views have been shaped by those who do have a very big stake in how those issues are resolved.

    In our highly charged controversies about issues having global consequences, the average persons (myself included) have no better choice than to inform themselves as best they can and vote for the candidates whom they detest the least.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:25 pm | Permalink
36. Musey says

    Oh, he’s quite cheerful most of the time, just not on this issue, but I’ll pass on your sympathies.

    I think that we have far more immediate problems. ISIL lunatics, are on my worry list, fighting going on around the world, Russian aggression, financial instability. I could go on, but what’s the point?

    JK, as stated the “sooner inevitable” concerns me too. All the bad news, reported 24/7, makes me jittery. I don’t remember a time when so much frightening stuff was taking place. I’m thinking that a move to a cabin in Arkansas, might be a plan.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
37. Malcolm says

    I’m thinking that a move to a cabin in Arkansas, might be a plan.

    You might consider Wellfleet, MA. Lovely spot. Defensible, too: only accessible by a single road.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:42 pm | Permalink
38. TheBigHenry says

    You might want to reconsider your choice of Arkansas. No offense, JK, but they do speak a dialect of English that is linguistically closer to Greek. Also, it is my understanding that Bubba Clinton has operatives all over the state keeping tabs on vulnerable women, especially emigree’s from Australia.

    You’ve been warned.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 8:48 pm | Permalink
39. Musey says

    What’s all this about vulnerable? Anyway, I think that getting a green card would be difficult, so I’d better find a safe place here.

    We have some good friends who lived in NY for a few years and still own a place there. They spend all their holidays running back and forth so that they comply with the rules regarding residency. It sounds too hard.

    I’ll look into Wellfleet, but it could be a bit out of our price bracket.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 9:10 pm | Permalink
40. TheBigHenry says

    With Bubba, any woman who is not comatose is vulnerable. And I’m not sure comatose is a show stopper.

    Come to think of it, it might actually be an incentive …

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 10:11 pm | Permalink
41. JK says

    Henry?

    Provide an instance at all a Hillbilly Woman had shuck with any of what you’re assigning.

    All, so far as I know (with maybe the exception of the Fayetteville thereabouts) countenanced any of the “shenanigans” as were known the city folks did.

    Despite Henry, there’ve been …

    http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=122

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 10:25 pm | Permalink
42. Musey says

    JK, just had to go away and look up “shuck” but really, I could have had a good guess. I’m still not sure if you’re referring to specific incidents either. In fact, I haven’t a clue what either of you are talking about.

    Comatose is good. I should qualify.

    Posted September 16, 2014 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
43. TheBigHenry says

    “In fact, I haven’t a clue what either of you are talking about.”

    That makes two of us — perhaps three.

    Posted September 17, 2014 at 1:37 am | Permalink
44. Musey says

    Henry, you don’t have a clue either? Whatever next? I thought you were the all-knowing one, who would always have an answer.

    JK actually knows everything as well, but he’s very modest, and probably asleep by now. Henry, maybe even you are asleep!

    Meanwhile, Malcolm has been dead to the world for hours. He needs his beauty sleep so that he can tell us all off in the morning, before writing some more beautiful prose, and maybe posting another photo of himself, in a white suit, or maybe shirtless, for a bit of variety. I love it. Really I do.

    Malcolm, just in case you think I’m being sarcastic, let me assure you, that I’m not. Did I tell you that I think your wife is a lovely person? I have no desire to get on the wrong side of her.

    I may be back in a few months, after the dust has settled, to see how you’re all getting on.

    Okay, I may look in tomorrow, but I’m saying nothing. Take care people.

    Posted September 17, 2014 at 2:13 am | Permalink
45. Malcolm says

    “…and maybe posting another photo of himself, in a white suit, or maybe shirtless, for a bit of variety.”

    Um, no.

    Posted September 17, 2014 at 3:58 pm | Permalink
46. TheBigHenry says

    “Henry, you don’t have a clue either?”

    Musey,

    JK and I were just riffing on Bill Clinton’s penchant for womanizing and for smoking scented cigars.

    Posted September 17, 2014 at 7:14 pm | Permalink
47. Musey says

    I thought you might not go for that suggestion Malcolm. Never mind, I’ll live with the disappointment.

    Yes Henry, I know. Sometimes I just pretend to be really stupid so that Malcolm will feel sorry for me, and post another photo. It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try.

    Posted September 17, 2014 at 10:41 pm | Permalink
48. TheBigHenry says

    Here’s one Malcolm posted about a year ago:

    [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/3OI33kE92EFOxAcFQJm2FhJ717x4pBOv7CVsoB3yrXNK=s311-p-no[/img]

    Posted September 18, 2014 at 12:33 am | Permalink
49. TheBigHenry says

    Here’s another one:

    [img]https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/468460748310466563/M6JZMa0N_400x400.jpeg[/img]

    Posted September 18, 2014 at 12:48 am | Permalink
50. Musey says

    Malcolm and Henry, what lovely photographs. You have made my evening. JK, if you can send a photo, my life will be complete.

    Here in Oz, the silly season has arrived, so shirtless men abound. Tony Abbott our lovely leader is regularly spotted in his “budgie smugglers” and has been know to ask an interviewer if she likes his “love rug”. Very Prime-Ministerial. (Sorry, that doesn’t look right)

    Never mind, we were in Bondi last week, and our sons actually picked up the bill for dinner. That is news.

    Just prior to dinner, walking on the beach we encountered a few men, wearing “half-thongs”, which apparently is the latest fashion. How they stay on is a mystery to me.

    The fact is, they may as well have been naked. And guess who was annoyed? My husband, normally mild-mannered, telling some randoms to “put some clothes on lads”, was funny. There ensued a bit of a slanging match, and then my sons, who had been following us down the beach arrived, and we had a full-on altercation on our hands, along with some pushing and shoving. It was a great day.

    Henry, you have gorgeous eyes.

    Posted September 18, 2014 at 3:26 am | Permalink
51. TheBigHenry says

    https://twitter.com/mtpollack

    Posted September 18, 2014 at 10:26 am | Permalink
52. Musey says

    Henry, I’m slow on the uptake, but now I get it. If you look carefully, you can see the child in the man. Or vice versa.

    Henry, you of all people should know that I pay no attention to who posts what, making wrong assumptions at every turn. So I see a nice photo of Malcolm, and think that he posted it, then, for some reason I notice that the baby photo is from you. Another wrong conclusion.

    I really have to learn to look at the name of the commenter, which is clearly displayed.

    I get the distinct impression that Malcolm likes to stay on topic. I shall try to do that, because going from a serious discussion about sea ice, to anecdotes about half thongs, is possibly beyond the pale.

    Posted September 19, 2014 at 3:41 am | Permalink
53. Malcolm says

    That big-eyed pic isn’t me. Just something I found online.

    Posted November 23, 2014 at 12:15 am | Permalink
54. TheBigHenry says

    Somewhat slow in response, but thanks for the clarification, Mal.

    :)

    Posted November 23, 2014 at 1:22 am | Permalink