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Texas Deputy Sues 911 Caller For Not 'Adequately Warning' Him Of Potential Danger Or 'Making The Premises Safe'

Just a quick reminder to resolve any emergencies before calling emergency services.

The European Atrocity You Never Heard About

"In the largest episode of forced migration in history, millions of German-speaking civilians were sent to Germany from Czechoslovakia (above) and other European countries after World War II by order of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union." Estimated death toll: 500,000 people.

How one man turns annoying cold calls into cash

"A man targeted by marketing companies is making money from cold calls with his own higher-rate phone number." Time for me to get a 1-900 number?

Americans are Driving Less, and It's Not Because of the Economy

So the trend towards driving somewhat less in the US of late doesn't appear to be correlated towards variation in state-level economies. As the article notes, there's still a lack of a definitive answer to the impact of the economy on this. A slower decrease in driving in areas with weaker economies might be due to people making longer commutes to those jobs that they're actually able to get.

• The "moderates" engaging in "ethnic cleansing" of the Kurdish population (and possibly other groups as well)
• The "moderates" attacking and sometimes engaging in wholesale slaughter of the typically-neutral Christian population
• That, to quote a bit of this article, "historically speaking, intervening on behalf of rebels increases the number of civilians who are killed by increasing the desperation of government forces." (More on that research here).
• The money spent on this may be better spent elsewhere - e.g. "the same amount of American money [spent in Libya] could have saved almost 590,000 people from malaria, and the U.S. spending was only about one-fourth of total spending." (more details here).
• (I don't think the UN is all that useful, but none the less it seems noting that the US bombing Syria would also seem to violate international law)
• A Slate article asks whether people can "stomach all the dead Syrians" but, I wonder if historical precendents like anti-Soviet actions in Afghanistan might have left that country worse off - consider, e.g., what Afghanistan was like in the 1950s/1960s

Basically, in place of one bad leader odds seems to be good that you'll wind up with a different set of leaders who are no better and quite possibly worse. And you're likely to wind up with more deaths in the area as a result, instead of the spending that money in places where it might be able to do more good. Shipping gas masks there sounds to me like a good idea but I'm not sure I'd opt for much more.

(On a tangent, it's interesting to note that the "humanitarian hawks" mentioned in this article as advocating intervention here and formerly advocating intervention in Libya are disproportionately female - another indicator that more female leaders won't mean less war).

Food Is Tastier When Part of a Ritual

"A special occasion can often make food taste better, and the more you are personally involved in its preparation the better."

Illegal vodka pipeline discovered in Kyrgyzstan

That's a lot of vodka

Florida schools banning cheerleaders from wearing uniforms during school because they are ‘too vulgar’

So in other words they violate the dress code but they're required for participation in school-organized events?

Trudeau Liberals surge back into healthy lead in polls after leader’s pot admission

"Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau appears more likely to become prime minister after admitting to smoking marijuana while being a Member of Parliament, a new poll suggests, as more Canadians say they are supportive of relaxing drug laws." Perhaps a sign that politicians should indeed rethink some of these drug laws.

A while back I got directed to New peer reviewed paper shows only 36% of geoscientists and engineers believe in [Anthropogenic Global Warming] which was reporting a number of studies suggesting relatively low support of the hypothesis that global warming is primarily human-induced amongst those who should be well informed. Taking a look at the studies, here's what I found.

Study #1. This where the 36% figure came from. Which specific set of engineers and geoscientists does it address?

... we consider how climate change is constructed by professional engineers and geoscientists in the province of Alberta, Canada. We begin by describing our research context and the strategic importance of Canadian oil worldwide, to the economy of Canada, and the province of Alberta.

So in other words this particular study is only considering engineers and geoscientists in a region where oil forms a major component of the economy. What fraction of the respondents are actually well-researched on climate change issues and the specific fraction that might be due to human causes (or, in scientistese, anthropogenic)? I'd imagine that the vast majority of those surveyed would be oil company employees, a group that would seem logically largely self-selecting for disbelief in human-caused global warmin.

Then there's Study #2. Here's a brief excerpt of that article (emphasis mine):

According to American Meteorological Society (AMS) data, 89% of AMS meteorologists believe global warming is happening, but only a minority (30%) is very worried about global warming. ... This contrast exposes global warming alarmists who assert that 97% of the world’s scientists agree humans are causing a global warming crisis simply because these scientists believe global warming is occurring. However, as this and other scientist surveys show, believing that some warming is occurring is not the same as believing humans are causing a worrisome crisis.

The American Meteorological Society has the following to say about climate change on its website:

Warming of the climate system now is unequivocal, according to many different kinds of evidence. ... many of the observed changes ... are beyond what can be explained by the natural variability of the climate. It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases

So in other words the organization as a whole does seem to advocate very strongly for global warming, and considers it "clear from extensive scientific evidence" that it's human-induced. That said, the consequences of such a conclusion and the best step forward may be different. Often you can use the IPCC itself to support such assertations. In other words, there seems to be strong agreement on human-induced climate change but less so how to address it.

Then there's Study #3 where its claimed that amongst "meteorologists", e.g.,

Only 24 percent ... agree with United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assertion, “Most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced.”

Ask the question "which meteorologists?" and what do you find?

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) survey was limited to television weather forecasters who are also meteorologists.

I'd guess that the "television weather forecasters" aren't the most credible set of meteorologists out there - and this conclusion actually goes against the previously mentioned statement of the American Meteorological Society on climate change.

I'm guessing that " television weather forecasters who are also meteorologists" implies the TV reporters in question having done some sort of undergraduate science degree involving some general investigation of the topic but it's unclear if it implies anything additional. How many in this group are actually actively involved in investigating anything more than short-term weather reporting (rather than the long-term estimates climatology investigates)?