malaise
malaise's JournalSea Ice Extent Is Near Record Lows--South as Well as North
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3490<snip>
It’s been a banner year for global sea ice, and not in a good way. After a record-smashing mild winter, the Arctic’s summer sea-ice melt culminated in a tie with 2007 for the second-lowest extent since satellite measurements began in 1979. The drama intensified this month, with Arctic sea ice extent now at a clear record low for late October as calculated by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (see Figure 1 below). This behavior isn’t really such a shock, given that Arctic sea ice has been declining for decades in the midst of sharp high-latitude warming. What’s more startling is the huge extent loss this year in the Antarctic, where sea ice extent had actually been increasing in recent years. This year’s Antarctic extent peaked very early, on August 31, and it’s now at its second-lowest value on record for late October, beaten only by 1986 (see Figure 2 below).
Together, these simultaneous drops have sent global sea ice extent--Arctic plus Antarctic--to its lowest level by far for this time of year since regular satellite monitoring began in 1979. The global extent as of October 25 was more than 1 million square kilometers below this date in 2011, the previous record-holder. In fact, it appears that the last few days are the first time we’ve seen a global departure from average in sea ice extent of more than 3 million sq km—which is more than four times the area occupied by Texas.
We shouldn’t pin too much on this record, because global sea ice extent is a much-abused and somewhat artificial metric. The Arctic and Antarctic have vastly different climate regimes, and what happens at one pole is far more important to its own regional climate than what’s occurring at the other pole. Still, the dramatic dip in global ice extent is worth noting if only because climate-change skeptics and deniers have pointed to global sea ice for years, and especially the Antarctic’s unexpected evolution, in an attempt to discount other evidence of a planet being warmed by increasing amounts of human-produced greenhouse gases. As Jeff Masters put it in this blog in 2010: “Diminishing the importance of Arctic sea ice loss by calling attention to Antarctic sea ice gain is like telling someone to ignore the fire smoldering in their attic, and instead go appreciate the coolness of the basement, because there is no fire there.”
Alice Cooper “I played with Donald Trump one time, that’s all I’m going to say.”
There are many tales of Trump bending the rules on the golf course. Last year, former Sports Illustrated managing editor Mark Mulvoy told the Washington Post that once playing with Trump in the 1990s he realized that Trump had placed a ball just feet from the pin that he had never hit. “Ahh, the guys I play with cheat all the time,” Mulvoy said Trump told him. “I have to cheat to keep up with them.”
‘Donald Trump had no idea what the Rumbelows Cup was. We didn’t explain’
The same story referenced an interview Alice Cooper did in 2012 in which the rock star – a regular golfer – answered a question about the worst golf cheat he had ever played with by saying: “I played with Donald Trump one time, that’s all I’m going to say.”
Trump wouldn’t be the first politician to massage the truth of his athletic prowess. Bill Clinton’s propensity for taking mulligans, golfing parlance for do-overs, which are not strictly permitted under the rules, is well documented. Runner’s World came away with one of the scoops of the 2012 election cycle when it caught Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan shaving more than an hour off his marathon time. When former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il played the first ever round of golf on the 7,700-yard championship course at Pyongyang in October 1994, state media reported that the Dear Leader finished with an 18-hole score of 34, including no less than five holes-in-one.
That said, Trump clearly has some talent as a golfer, as seen in this 2011 YouTube video. But his claim of a three handicap is hard to quantify, especially when his 20 most recent scores on his GHIN index are mostly from 2014 and stretch back to 2009. Even assuming he did not include his best rounds, it’s not the kind of record you would see from a 70-year-old with a reputation as a scratch golfer.
Argentinian activists pin blame on machismo as attacks on women rise
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/27/argentinian-activists-machismo-attacks-women-niunamenos<snip>
On the afternoon of 19 October, Claudia Arias and her aunt Susana Ortiz made their way to the centre of Mendoza, where they joined a crowd of thousands who had gathered to protest against a wave of violent attacks on women in Argentina.
It was one of half a dozen demonstrations across the country, organised on social media by a loose collective of activists and journalists after the rape and murder of a 16-year old schoolgirl, Lucía Pérez, in the coastal city of Mar del Plata.
Their message was #NiUnaMenos, which literally translates as “not one less”, but signifies “not one more woman” lost to violence, often committed by victims’ husbands, partners or close friends.
Four days after Arias and Ortiz protested in Mendoza, they were stabbed to death at their home along with Arias’s 90-year old grandmother, Vicenta Díaz.
Police arrested Arias’s ex-partner, Daniel Zalazar, a 30-year-old taekwondo instructor. Prosecutors say he murdered the women after an argument over the paternity of Arias’s seven-month-old daughter, Mia.
Zalazar also allegedly stabbed the baby and Arias’s 11-year-old son, Lucas, both of whom remain in critical condition at a Mendoza hospital. Arias’s younger son, Bautista, managed to escape from the house and hid in the boot of a car with his dog, Coco, police said on Wednesday. Officers said it took the eight-year-old several hours to reopen the boot from the inside and then call the police.
“It was a massacre,” Claudia’s father, Rolo Arias, told reporters. “We went to protest at the #NiUnaMenos marches – and then it was our turn.”
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Two earthquakes shake Central Italy 5.5 and 6.1
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37782320<snip>
Two strong earthquakes have hit central Italy, damaging buildings and sending scared residents into the streets.
A 5.5-magnitude quake struck at 1910 local time (1710 GMT) near Visso in Macerata province, officials said.
It was followed two hours later by a 6.1 magnitude tremor in the same area. One person was hurt, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.
The quakes come two months after a powerful earthquake struck slightly to the south, killing 298 people.
The 6.2 magnitude quake, on 24 August, toppled buildings in Amatrice and villages in the mountainous region around the town, which is just 70km (45 miles) from Visso.
Theresa May have a Brexit problem
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/26/theresa-may-under-fire-following-leaked-brexit-recording<snip>
Theresa May has come under intense criticism from politicians across the UK and Europe after it emerged that she had warned of the dangers of Brexit in a private talk at Goldman Sachs a month before the referendum vote.
The prime minister was accused by a string of MPs, headed by Jeremy Corbyn, of ignoring her own concerns about the risks of leaving the single market, as revealed in her remarks to City bankers that were leaked to the Guardian on Tuesday night.
In Germany politicians from both governing parties accused May of failing to show leadership. They said her remarks demonstrated that it would be impossible to leave the European Union without economic consequences.
Corbyn attacked May for failing to set out her plan for Brexit to the British people as clearly as she had once expressed her beliefs to her elite audience. “The prime minister has given her private views on Brexit to Goldman Sachs bankers, but refuses to give the British people a clear plan for negotiations,” the Labour leader said. “It shouldn’t take a leaked tape for the public to find out what she really thinks.”
Pssssssssssssst! Dakota Access pipeline company and Donald Trump have close financial ties
Trump’s financial disclosure forms show he invested in Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial pipeline, and its CEO donated to his campaign
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment-energy-transfer-partners
<snip>
Oliver Milman in New York
Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive.
Over 120 arrested at North Dakota pipeline protests, including journalists
Read more
Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. The information was disclosed in Trump’s monthly filings to the Federal Election Commission, which requires candidates to disclose their campaign finance information on a regular basis.
The financial relationship runs both ways. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, has given $103,000 to elect Trump and handed over a further $66,800 to the Republican National Committee since the property developer secured the GOP’s presidential nomination.
On 29 June, Warren made $3,000 in donations to Trump’s presidential campaign. The limit for individual contributions to a candidate is $2,700 per election and it’s unclear whether Trump returned $300 to Warren. Trump’s campaign was contacted for comment.
Warren made a further $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee among Trump’s campaign, the RNC and 11 state parties, on 29 June. A day earlier, the Energy Transfer Partners chief executive doled out $66,800 in two separate donations to the RNC.
We are Whining Folks - from n2doc's cartoon thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028252695
The spy who couldn’t spell: how the biggest heist in the history of US espionage was foiled
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/spy-couldnt-spell-how-biggest-heists-us-espionage-history-foiled<snip>
The classrooms and hallways of Farmingdale High in Long Island were deserted on the morning of Saturday 19 August 2001, when a van pulled into the school’s parking lot. Turning off the engine, the driver – a tall man in his late 30s – stepped out into the warm summer sun. He cast a sweeping gaze upon the institution he had graduated from two decades earlier.
Whatever nostalgia he might have felt for his old school was tinged with bitterness. It was here that he had suffered some of life’s early humiliations: taunted by classmates for his apparent dimwittedness; held in low esteem by his teachers. If they remembered him at all, they would remember him as the boy who had difficulty reading. The boy who was so bad with spellings. His bearish frame may have protected him from physical bullying, but combined with his severe dyslexia and his social awkwardness, it had also cemented his image as a dolt.
That image had stuck with him, despite a successful career in US intelligence, where he had been given access to some of the country’s most valued secrets. Being underestimated – by family, classmates and colleagues – had been the theme of his life, a curse he had borne silently since childhood. But for the mission he had now embarked upon, it was a blessing. None of his co-workers or managers in the intelligence community could have imagined that he of all people was capable of masterminding a complex espionage plot.
He had already pulled off what was then the biggest heist of classified information in the history of American espionage. In just a few days, he hoped to execute the final step of a meticulous plan to exchange those secrets for millions of dollars. If he succeeded, he would have enough money to pay off the mortgages of his brothers and sisters, settle his personal debts and secure the financial future of his children.
With fortune, he imagined, respect would follow. Those who had known him would no longer doubt his intelligence. Once and for all, he would shake off the image that had dogged him since childhood.
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A long but great read
Rachel about to break some news on Groper Don the 'I Con' after the break
Also - news tonight Rove and the Turtle found $25M to help ReTHUGs down ballot
Full metal panic - from Rachel 
A Selfish little Sleaze ball - Go Elizabeth Warren!!
Oops - not live - a clip from her ongoing rally
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