[rising sea level] blogosphere says it knows better

This Antarctic iceberg is not melting - truly it's not. The blogosphere tells us it's all a myth and they're oceanographic experts, every one of them. Similarly, this report is rubbish:

Combined global land and ocean surface temperatures over the northern hemisphere's winter were the highest since records began in 1880, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That included the hottest January on record.

Just a little fluctuation, the climate sceptics will tell you, caused by the carbon trading advocates. Similarly, the Tuvaluan people have asked New Zealand to accept their 11 000 people after being forced to evacuate their island:

Sea level is rising because of the melting of glaciers and the thermal expansion of the ocean as a result of climate change. This in turn is due to rising atmospheric levels of CO2, largely from burning fossil fuels.

… but Samizdata tells us this is not so. Samizdata are, of course, experts on oceanography, as distinct from the Earth Policy Institute, who know nothing about the earth.

[stop press] sargasso sea very mysterious

Rushed to you from the the offices of the Daily Higham, this special report from the Bermuda Triangle on the latest situation in the Sargasso Sea:

The Sargasso Sea is part of the North Atlantic Ocean, lying roughly between the West Indies and the Azores. Here, the heart of the Bermuda Triangle is covered by the strangest sea on the planet named for a kind of seaweed called sargassum, which lazily floats over its entire expanse.

Catching sight of these huge mats of seaweed have always marked the perimeter of this peculiar sea. Columbus himself made note of it. Thinking land was nearby, he fathomed the sea, only to find no bottom. The bottom is, in fact, miles below on the Nares Abyssal Plain.

The Sargasso Sea occupies that part of the Atlantic between 20o to 35o North Latitude and 30o to 70o (the horse latitudes), West Longitude. It is in complete contrast to the ocean around it. Its currents are largely immobile yet surrounded by some of the strongest currents in the world: The Florida, Gulf Stream, Canary, North Equatorial, Antilles, and Caribbean currents.

These interlock to separate this sea from the rest of the tempestuous Atlantic, making its indigenous currents largely entropious. Therefore anything that drifts onto any of its surrounding currents eventually ends up in the Sargasso Sea amidst its expansive weed mats of sargassum.

Because of the entropious currents, it is unlikely anything would ever drift out. The Sargasso Sea rotates slightly itself and even changes position as its surrounding currents change with weather and temperature patterns during different seasons.

This rivetting story continues here. For sargassfanats, click here.

[blogspot dot com] track them down and exterminate

I am angry, seriously angry, as in KILL angry.

Blogspot.com would have to be the worst programme/host/server, what ever you wish to call the cursed thing, which I have ever, ever, had the misfortune to have to deal with nad the idiots at the top the most incompetent set of prats ever to know nothing about programming whatsoever.

This morning I tried to post one post. Just one. It wouldn't let me even see the dashboard until I bombed it thirteen or fourteen times from different directions with clicks, closed it all, came back in, closed it, came back in, went out of the internet and back, did it all again and so on.

The bar graph thing which shows percentage loaded would shoot up to 50% and just stick there. Once I went to have a bath and a coffee, came back 20 minutes later and it was still stuck. After an hour and ten minutes, it finally let me post the Blogpower post but get this - it wiped out four of the links, including the Westminster Wisdom link, which made my stranded post nonsensical.

So just for that, Blogspot - Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom, Westminster Wisdom. There - let's see you try to wipe all those out, you bstds!!

Am I hot under the collar? Not at all - cool as a cucumber - not. Blogging is fun? Blogspot dot bloody com doesn't know the meaning of the word. I'm crazy, crazy to stay with these incompetents.

There, I feel much better now. Thank you. I'm off to see Dr. Michelle Tempest if she can find the time to fit me in.

[blogpower] still relevant for particular reasons

Some readers will have noticed I've ventured into MyBlogLog and the Praguetory community and I've noticed Westminster Wisdom has delicious and digg-it [neither which I understand] listed at the foot of each post. Tom Paine is also in Conservatives Abroad and the Witanagemot Club.

Is this treasonable to good old Blogpower?

This blogger says no, quite the opposite. Despite anything people say about stats not mattering, I think everyone would like to be read by a large and discerning community. Most Blogpowererers joined to expand their contacts and through a friendly but very loosely confederated community which is always outward looking, rather than inwards.

If I had to sum up how I saw Blogpower operating, I'd list the following:

# The 'big bloggers' all have some sort of national exposure which ensures them huge readerships, e.g. TV spots, Doughty and so on. The 'little bloggers', though linking to the biggies, usually don't get anything in return and so there is a case for a large collective of little bloggers who provide each other with larger readerships than would ordinarily be possible.

# The whole ethos of Blogpower is 'blogging for pleasure'.

# Members feed off other members' own expanding contacts, who in turn feed off those contacts and so on. A process of personal filtration then creates an ever-expanding community we'd like to be in.

# There is a definite sense of community here, which is Blogpower's main strength, given that it is open to all shades of opinion and strongly defends the right of those opinions to exist, even if we disagree, sometimes violently, with those opinions or affiliations. Members are free to use full or abridged versions of the blogroll, as they see fit.

# Compared to other web based communities, Blogpower is very human-based and low tech, without the snazzy little 'recent visitors' boxes, marauding marsupials and the like. It works on members of a slowly expanding community knowing one another and providing solid readerships which don't diminish on whim.

# We try to write testimonials, provide technical help and run various schemes to improve the blogs of fellow members. People are lways coming up with new ideas to improve our lot.

# Blogpower, being a completely free and voluntary collective, has no opinions of its own on any topic and endorses nothing but each other. If members wish to expand their blogs by joining other communities and schemes, Blogpower positively encourages that. It doesn't alter our blogfriendships.

# Blogpower Express will soon feature a blog of the week spot and be co-administered on a rota basis. It is our flagship homepage and Defending the Blog is our discussion page.

Anyone care to add anything to this?

[ides of march] don't visit the theatre today

Everything all right over your way today? Nothing untoward happen? No stabbed bodies in togas or anything? Just checking like.

Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in Pompey's Theater on the Ides of March, 44 BC for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, a few days before, the soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurinna apparently warned Caesar, "Beware the Ides of March." Caesar disregarded the warning.

Will you?

[old poll down] new poll up

The question was: "Who'll be Prez - Segie or Sarko?" You said:

Segie 91%
Sarko 7%
Dark horse 2%

54 votes total [pollcode.com free polls]. Can't help thinking there was some wishful thinking here.

The new question is: The 2012 London Olympics are way over budget. Should Britain:

# Pull the plug now
# Run them anyway
# Run cheap games
# Fourth alternative

Non-Brits equally welcome to vote.

[border fences] the new rage around the world

Some beefing up still required here on the England/Scotland border

Lord Nazh, our American colleague, draws a distinction between being against immigration and being against illegal immigration:

Illegal Immigration is the problem. In a running argument with a friend of mine, I support the border fence, he detests it. He says it will not stop the flow of immigrants, is too expensive, etc. I say the point is not it 'stopping' the flow, but slowing it. Trying to divert the people that want to come into this country into the places where they are EXPECTED to cross legally and to try to halt some of the 'not known' crossings we have now.

Actually, they're all getting into it now: Iran against Pakistan, Saudi-Arabia against Iraq and England against Scotland although clearly the English effort has some way to go before the rampaging Scots are finally fenced out [or in, depending on which side of the border you land].

[us election] lizard queen a fine politician

On the campaign trail

Sen. Hillary Clinton sidestepped a question about whether she thinks homosexuality is immoral Wednesday, less than two weeks after telling gay-rights activists she was "proud" to stand by their side.

"Well, I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," she said.

Sounds reasonable to me. She says one thing to the gay mafia when she's with them and another to the anti-gays when she's with them. Seems quite logical for an unprincipled wearer of the Phoenix brooch, which has now dislimmed into a Christian cross, to show her solidarity with both camps.

Incidentally, if you'd like to show some solidarity with the chameleon, you can get your Hillary Wear at I Love My Country [as one section of the greater American Union].

Yes indeed, girl, the door's over there ...

[guest blogging] some surprises in the pipeline

Great to see some guest blogging going on over at Ellee's and some common sense being written - read the comments section in particular.

I have two guest posts in the pipeline right now which could be unleashed at any time - quite frankly, I have no clue as to when these posts will appear but I'm mildly excited at the prospect, I can tell you.

[family gator] party pooper protectors purloin pet

State wildlife officials in Brattleboro, Vermont, have confiscated a two-metre alligator that had been living in a family's home for seven years. A bemused reptile expert warned: "They just don't warm to people. They don't ever become friendly. They don't make good pets."

Now is that fair? Just walking in without so much as a by-your-leave and nicking a child's pet gator. It hasn't snapped any one in two or deathrolled a child in all that time. Besides, two metres isn't so big. It'll get much bigger than that.

Curious, I thought I'd read up on the Gator from "How Stuff Works" and this is what they said about a pet gator:

An alligator's brain weighs only 8 or 9 grams and would take up only one-half of a tablespoon. This lack of brain power means there is no such thing as a "nice alligator". If it is hungry, an alligator will eat anything that moves. Pets and children who wander near an alligator pond are frequent victims of this instinctive behavior.

Wonder how the officers found out.