Trump Lying About "The Greatest Economy In History"

Trump said he will again "build the greatest economy in history." It's a pure lie -- his first economy was nothing special at all:

and this is being generous and leaving out this year's crash that's occurred under his watch. What chutzpah.

Here's his economic growth compared to the last 30 years -- average at best:

 

The Capitulation to Manmade Climate Change Begins

 New York Times:

Two Climate Disasters At Once

It's beyond atrocious that the US is now suffering two disasters which are almost certainly exacerbated by manmade climate change -- the California wildfires and Hurricane Laura, with its rapid intensification to at least a category 4 -- and the Republican Party's Potemkin village convention can't even acknowledge the issue.

It's fundamentally unfair that the resulting property damage won't be limited to only Trump voters. Or at least that they be the only ones to pay for the damages.

Google, Blogger and Time Off

Google, who owns Blogger, the software platform on which this blog has been published since about 2005, just released an upgrade, and the upgrade is now mandatory to use. (It was voluntary for the last six months or so, during which I was avoiding it while using the old version.)

The new version is awkward to use -- it frequently takes more steps to accomplish the same simple tasks, for example -- and there are some simple tasks that are even no longer possible, like adding a link in certain circumstances. 

Once I might have hunted down a forum somewhere and registered and tried to make my voice heard and detailed what this circumstance was and when and how this software bug occurs so the Google developers could address it and, hopefully, fix it in a future release. 

But I feel that's a young person's game and I don't believe Google developers are interested anyway. My experience in using Google software -- Gmail, Chrome, Chrome extensions, etc -- is that they're clearly not a software company, they're an advertising company, and their software takes a definite backseat in their business model.

Blogger takes a seat even behind the seat of Gmail and Chrome.

Not only that, but I'm getting tired of blogging. What's the point anymore? The cause of climate change is settled. Its degree is settled. I'm no longer interested in writing long detailed posts about subtleties of the science -- if I was, I'd try to publish them somewhere for money, and I'm not even trying to do that. Not sure I want to do that anymore either.

The idiocy of Donald Trump is settled. I can keep pointing out what an idiot he is, and everyone but DinCal will agree with me, and he will quote Instapundit with some very unconvincing item and so what. I don't have anything new to say either.

I appreciate all your comments, I do.

I know I've said all this before and I said to myself I wouldn't say again that I"m quitting this blog, so maybe I'm only saying I'm only taking some time off. So I'm taking some time off. And if Trump wins in Nov I just might shoot myself in the head or move to Costa Rica.

Perhaps the ways I might move forward in my life right now mean I need to go a little light on the blogging.

Trump Stupidity.... And agh

I sometimes wonder if Trump has ever taken a single step off concrete.

I mean that seriously.

No, I don't mean walking on a golf course fairway or green, or to or fro the Presidential helicopter.

I mean walking somewhere in nature, on a trail in a forest, or even a few steps off the edge of a city.

Because he has weird ideas about forests and how to contain forest fires, like all you need to do is keep hundreds of thousands of acres raked clean and the fire potential will vanish.

He's said this before and he

During a speech in Pennsylvania, the president blamed the wildfires on "years" of poor forest management in California.

"And I see again, the forest fires are starting," Trump said. "They're starting again in California. And I said, you've got to clean your floors. You've got to clean your floors."

"I've been telling them this now for three years, but they don't want to listen," he added.

Trump made similar comments last year, prompting California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to hit back by saying the president was unqualified to weigh in on fire safety due to his past remarks calling climate change a hoax.

"The Governor of California, @GavinNewsom, has done a terrible job of forest management. I told him from the first day we met that he must 'clean' his forest floors regardless of what his bosses, the environmentalists, DEMAND of him," Trump tweeted in November.

Bush Jr at least flew over Katrina -- an image some think represented the functional end of his presidency -- but as far as I know Trump has never visited California during a forest fire -- why would he, he doesn't get their electoral votes so to him they don't exist -- just as for Iowa last week in their destructive derecho he only spent 30 minutes in an airplane hanger after their devastating derecho. We are not talking about an empathetic man here. 

Record Greenland Ice Melt in 2019

Returning to items that won't get any comments, Greenland ice melt, which has been on the wane for a few years, picked up last year and reached a record amount of 530 Gt for 2019, which works out to an average, as The Guardian puts it, to -1.01 million tonnes per minute. 

For July alone it was -223 Gt.

I wish a White House journalist would ask Trump about this on Monday. 

Yes, Russian Interfered in the Election For Trump

A committee led by Republicans found -- disproving again another monster lie from Trump. Grounds for impeachment if this lying criminal is somehow reelected. 

WASHINGTON — A sprawling report released Tuesday by a Republican-controlled Senate panel that spent three years investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference laid out an extensive web of contacts between Trump campaign advisers and Russian government officials and other Russians, including some with ties to the country’s intelligence services.

The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, totaling nearly 1,000 pages, provided a bipartisan Senate imprimatur for an extraordinary set of facts: The Russian government undertook an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 American election to help Mr. Trump become president, and some members of Mr. Trump’s circle of advisers were open to the help from an American adversary.

Condolences to the President

@realDonaldTrump - condolences on the death of your brother.

— David Appell (@davidappell) August 16, 2020

Mr President, Do You Regret All The Lying You Have Done to the American People?

Update 8/17: the reporter who asked this question was Shirish Date of the Huffington Post.

Reporter: "After 3 1/2 years, do you regret all the lying you've done to the American people?

Trump: "All the what?"

Reporter: "All the lying."

Trump: "That who has done?"

Reporter: "You have done."

Trump: "Uhhh." pic.twitter.com/gNcndCwZyA

— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) August 13, 2020

Anyone know who this reporter is?

Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Annual Minimum

 It's not clear if there's any kind of a trend....

2020 Likely to be the Hottest Year in NASA's Records

With July data in, we are still predicting a ~70% of a new record for the GISTEMP annual mean. Odds are a little less should a medium to strong La Niña develop in the fall.

It is certain to be a top 5 yr & to be the 6th year in a row more than 1°C warmer than the late 19th C. pic.twitter.com/1Toz41SwFw

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) August 14, 2020

Here, in short, is how they calculate this: 

it's based on the historical relationship between YTD and the annual mean, plus a conditioning for what Nino34 might be doing at the end of the year.

— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) August 14, 2020

Extent of Beirut Explosion

Climate Change Bites Back

Svalbard coal mine flooded by melting glacier 

"After days with record heat at Svalbard, the penetration of water from the above melting glacier is now flooding Norway’s only operating coal mine that supplies the country’s only coal-power plant.

"The day before, a record heat of 21,7°C was measured in Longyearbyen, the highest temperature ever measured so far north in the European Arctic.

"In the town of Longyearbyen is houses sagging due to unstable ground as the permafrost melts. About 250 homes will have to be torn down and new buildings are built on steel pillars and sensors are placed in the ground to measure how the steel constructions impact the permafrost."