Latent Heat Of Fusion

I opened my latest copy of Chemical & Engineering News and saw an intriguing "letter to the editor." [The letter is behind a pay wall].

The writer offered a simple reason why the oceans and ambient seas have failed to warm during the past dozen years: the latent heat of fusion of water.

The calorie is historically defined as the energy required to raise the temperature of 1g of water by 1 degree C. The energy required to convert 1g of ice to water is about 80 calories.

No one can argue with the fact that glaciers and polar ice masses are shrinking dramatically. That consumes a staggering quantity of energy and could well explain the recent flat change in surface temperature. 

He could have added that the energy added to melt ice does not raise the temperature of the water -- it all goes into tearing down the rigid structure of ice -- but his audience already knew that. Did you?

Here's a visual that every chemistry student is exposed to:

original

The author is drawing attention to the first flat red line labeled "latent heat of fusion."  Melting the polar ice caps will not raise the temperature of the seas until the last ice is melted. We know that the arctic ice cap is melting rapidly, but what about the antarctic ice mass?  What is the overall balance?

[added]:

The difference between melting and freezing is infinitely small in degrees Fahrenheit and is measured instead in degrees of freedom.  link

Another Day, Another ObamaCare Delay, Announcement Expected

The Hill: "The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats."

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

The administration is further delaying the delay announced last November. At this rate, ObamaCare is going to be delayed smack dab into the middle of 'Hillary for president' campaign season. Clintonistas must be wondering.

The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day.

What cancellations? I thought Harry Reid said... Didn't Harry Reid say cancellation stories were lies?

The White House is intent on protecting its allies in the Senate, where Democrats face a battle to keep control of the chamber.

Keep tight control, is how I would describe it.

“I don’t see how they could have a bunch of these announcements going out in September,” one consultant in the health insurance industry said. “Not when they’re trying to defend the Senate and keep their losses at a minimum in the House. This is not something to have out there right before the election.” read more

The Hill

CBS Sacramento: "Illegal Pot Grows Adding To California’s Water Woes"

"Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman has a new mission: catching illegal marijuana growers for stealing water."

“We’re now becoming the water police,” Allman said.

He estimates thieves will use up to five million gallons of water a day in the fall — and that’s water Mendocino County simply doesn’t have.

“People will just be taking water out of the shared, you know, out of a creek or other water source so it’s having a really negative impact on our forest lands, on our streams,” said Willits Mayor Holly Madrigal.

In Calaveras County more than four hours away, one rancher told CB13 that he’s got pot growers with cartel ties living on his property – stealing water. He’s discovered a half-dozen grows on his vast land by looking for the signs.

“Yup there’s a scale in here.”

Frank Zappa: “The emperor isn’t wearing any clothes and Common sense is contagious”

Interview with Trooper Charles Ash (November 3, 1981)

 

That's not funny!

Male brains above, female brains below. 

"By analyzing the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22, scientists at the University of
Pennsylvania found that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres.

...By analyzing the subjects’ MRIs using diffusion imaging, the scientists explored the brains’ fiber pathways, the bundles of axons that act as highways routing information from one part of the mind to the other. After grouping the image by sex and inspecting the differences between the two aggregate “male” and “female” pictures, the researchers found that in men, fiber pathways run back and forth within each hemisphere, while in women they tend to zig-zag between the left, or “logical,” and right, or “creative,” sides of the brain."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Conclusions?

NYT Oped: "The Downside of Inciting Envy"

"THE Irish singer Bono once described a difference* between America and his native land. “In the United States,” he explained, “you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill, and you think, you know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, one day, I’m going to get that bastard.”

Alexis de Tocqueville phrased it a little differently, but his classic 19th-century text contains the same observation. Visiting from France, he marveled at Americans’ ability to keep envy at bay, and to see others’ successes as portents of good times for all...

In 2008, Gallup asked a large sample of Americans whether they were “angry that others have more than they deserve.” People who strongly disagreed with that statement — who were not envious, in other words — were almost five times more likely to say they were “very happy” about their lives than people who strongly agreed...

Unfortunately, in the wake of the Great Recession, such a shift may well be underway, given the increasing anxiety about income inequality and rising sympathy for income redistribution. According to data from the General Social Survey, the percentage of Americans who feel strongly that “government ought to reduce the income differences between the rich and the poor” is at its highest since the 1970s. In January, 43 percent of Americans told the Pew Research Center that government should do “a lot” to “reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else.”

Why the shift? The root cause of increasing envy is a belief that opportunity is in decline. Read More

NY Times, Sunday Review (* link)

WLEM AM

Where shiny objects distract us.

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,

    Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

    Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,

    Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,

Say I’m growing old, but add,

    Jenny kiss’d me.

-Leigh Hunt

Gaslighting

Jay Carney said, "Time and time again we've heard these stories trotted out and time and time again they've been proven not true." He was backing up the effrontery delivered by Harry Reid earlier. Jay Carney is spokesman for the administration, no? Then the administration follows Reid's lead and proclaims their reality at odds with reported reality, that their version is the real one.

Not so.

Bozo. I feel abused. Abused by government. Disputes about basic things like Constitutionally protected rights, enumerated powers, misappropriation of resources, Departments run amok, racism kept alive and fanned, borders, federalism and the like, truth, reality.

I don't care to be an expert on psychological disorders, nor misled with bad information, but what does wikipedia say about gaslighting? It's different from limelight isn't it? Neon is a gas. Maybe gaslight is neon.

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse. False information presented to make victim doubt thier memory, perception and sanity. Ranges from simple denial to staging bizarre events to disorient.

... the term was further popularized in Victor Santoro's 1994 book Gaslighting: How to Drive Your Enemies Crazy, which outlines ostensibly legal tactics the reader might use to annoy others.

Clinical examples

Sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics.
Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, exploit others but are typically charming convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing.

Gaslighting involves the projection and introjection of psychic conflicts from the perpetrator to the victim. This imposition is based on a very special kind of transfer of painful and potentially painful mental conflicts.

Projection and Introjection, not just rivers in Egypt. So there you go. I have come to understand more clearly now with this little dip into how the disturbed mind operates, yes, wikipedia has helped this time.

avalanche

More awesome muted.

8 Great Philosophical Questions (Which The Author Believes) We'll Never Solve

"Never" is a long, long time on which to place a bet that something will not happen.  Never presupposes time without end; an infinitely long time.  The nature of philosophy is work through difficult questions and cause them to be solved.  That will most certainly happen within the time assigned to "never." 

Or will it?

The 8 questions are described in this article.   What do you believe, and based on what philosophical proof?  Several of the questions, in my opinion have been (or can be) answered.

Question  4, for example: Does God exist?  Thomas Aquinas developed a philosophical way for demonstrating God's existence in  Summa Theologiae.  Aquinas begins with the idea that every effect requires a cause, and that nothing that exists in the physical world is the cause of its own existence.  This is known as the principle of sufficient reason.

When we encounter a chair, for example, we know perfectly well that it did not come into existence spontaneously.  It owes its existence to something else: a builder and previously existing raw materials.  An existing thing Z owes its existence to cause Y, but Y itself, not being self-existing, is also in need of a cause.  Y owes existence to cause X.  But now X must be accounted for, and X owes its existence to cause W.

We are faced with the following problem: Every cause of a given effect itself demands a cause in order to account for its own existence; this cause in turn requires a cause, and so on.  If we have an infinite series on our hands, in which each cause itself requires a cause, then nothing could ever have come into existence.

Aquinas explains that there must, therefore, be an Uncaused Cause - a cause that is not itself in need of a cause. Aquinas says this it God.  God is the one self-existing being whose existence is part of His very essence.  No human being must exist; there was a time before each one came into existence, and the world will continue to exist after the last one perishes.  Existence is not part of the essence of every human being.  But God is different, He cannot not exist.  All humans and all things ultimately track back to God.  And He depends on nothing prior to Himself in order to account for His existence.

Which of the author's eight great philosophical questions can you tackle?

Jonah Goldberg: 'Best dog video I've seen in a while'

“Warren Buffett: Supposed Increase in Extreme Weather 'Hasn't Been True So Far'”

"Buffett told CNBC March 3, that extreme weather events haven't increased due to climate change, saying that weather events are consistent with how they were 30-50 years ago. Buffett, who is heavily invested in various insurance markets, said that climate change alarmism has simply made hurricane insurance more profitable, driving up premiums without increasing risk."

"Buffett said the supposed increase in extreme weather "hasn't been true so far, Joe. We always think it's cold. We always think it's cold in Omaha. But, it was cold in Omaha 50 years ago." CNBC's Becky Quick asked Buffett on March 3's "Squawk Box" if extreme weather events have increased, affecting insurance markets. Buffett responded that "the effects of climate change, if any, have not affected our - they have not affected the insurance market." Read more

CNSNEWS.COM (video at the link)

ADDED: Instapundit DRUDGETAPOSITION: at the jump

shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture

The brunette nails it. Look for "out the do-o-o-o" The other interpretations leave out "for sure" they simply know, but do not know for sure, and there is no door, they leave but do not walk right out the door. So there is no rhyme with sure and door, the whole attitude of the song is missing, I became discouraged, hardly worth the effort of recording and uploading, but this brunette here is different from the rest, she adheres to the lyrics while retaining their full meaning, maintaining the dance beat and interpreting the whole attitude of the original song. She knows what she is doing.  I wouldn't doubt she taught the blond.

WND: "Racial mobs blamed for collapse of London night clubs"

"Black mob violence is ruining their business, say the owners of a popular nightclub. Just like it ruined the businesses of 15 other nearby night spots which recently closed."

Except this is not in America. These hot spots are in London.

This declaration of racial violence came from the owners and managers of the Fridge Club, an iconic three-story venue where as many 300 people can be found staying up all night to dance, drink and often use drugs. But lately violence is ruining the buzz:

“The absolute majority of people who have disrupted these venues are black men and increasingly some black women,” said the owner and managers in a Facebook posting. “There, I said it. It is true, I have witnessed it and there is both anecdotal and empirical evidence that what I say is true.”

The post lists 15 South London clubs that recently closed because of black mob violence: “Almost every single venue has closed because of violence, the threat of violence, disrespect to their staff and coming to the inevitable conclusion that it is better to close than putting up with that bull—,” they said. “Unless and until young black people (18-35) learn to conduct themselves in a civil manner then the night time economy will be closed or severely restricted to you. Read More

WND (formerly World Net Daily)