LCS. TANJ

Poor Littoral Combat Snip. It can't even get down the river without something interfering with its mission, whatever that is. It seems the latest of the Snip class is iced in Montreal and won't be able to leave until Spring. I'm sure, come Spring, we'll find it somehow spot welded itself to the pier and won't be able to leave until cited by the Canadian Maritime Mounted Police. These poor ships just can't seem to do anything without drama.

Forced to spend the winter after being trapped by completely unanticipated ice

I'm sure the crew will find plenty of things to occupy their time trapped in the ice.

This may be the first USN warship to earn the award of the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon before it ever enters it's own home port. It will almost certainly be the very first USN ship to get the award for making a Great Lakes cruise enroute to its home port.

LCS, making history every single day. Oddly enough, the ships have yet to deploy to the littoral seas in the Persian Gulf or Red Sea where it appears they're not up to standard for taking on either pirates or well armed Iranian speedboats.

CLIMATE DENIERS

It looks like the message is starting to filter out and the 'proofs' that the global warming klan offered up to show that their weather models were working out just as predicted are starting to show the cracks and flaws they have been papering over and ignoring for the last 20 years. The bloom is rapidly falling off the climate change rose and they have noone to blame but each other and Dr. Curry and the dirty rotten NOAA turncoat who let the cat out of the bag and proved that they have all massaged the data like its never been massaged before.

They got caught lying some more.

Two Global Warming Frauds Chained to NOAA Bouy and Abandoned at Sea

CHANGING THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Astute readers may have picked up that I based much of my 30 years in the navy out of San Diego with some time off in the Bay Area before moving back to Solana Beach. I was never a Chargers fan. My team has been the Redskins since very long ago but I don't really pay all that much attention to the sport.

When I returned from the Bay Area a couple of years before the new millennium, the Chargers had signed a sweet deal with teh citie whereby the citizen/taxpayers of San Diego agreed to spend umpteen million on improvements to Jack Murphy stadium and guarantee 100% ticket sales even if that meant that the citizen/slave/taxpayers paid for the unsold tickets and let politicians of the citie hand them out to their cronies and ward healers. And so it was done. For year after year as the Chargers got worse and worse and ticket sales plummetted.

The threat by Spanos was always, 'do this and do it my way or I'm taking my team and hitting the highway.' We always knew the day would come. That family has as much of the milk of human kindness and respect for decency as a rattlesnake. Today, the rattlesnake bit and told the world that the Bolts were moving to LA.

I would just like to say, good riddance! San Diego doesn't need a team so awful and so worthless that it alone lost to the Cleveland Browns this year. The only team the Browns beat was the San Diego Chargers. Can you say, 'hit the road Dean?'

I knew you could.

Now we get to see some real grovelling as the citie leaders haul out their daughters of marriageable age and promise them to any NFL owner who will move to the city for anything up to $400 million in cash and a brand new, built at 100% taxpayer expense, downtown football stadium they'll build on spec.

I blame global warming.....................and Bush.

THE DARK FUTURE OF CALIFORNIA

I can see clapping their hands madly in appreciation for Tinkerbelle and other tiny myths but if the cities of San Diego and San Francisco really do go to 100% renewable power by X date, it will be a future of hot dark nights and no hot water, or even, water. Some things only move in the dark when they're propelled by something other than ignorance.

Ignorance is bliss. We sure got a lot of bliss coming at us in the future though.

IT'S A SIGN!

What did mankind do right to the damned and blasted hellish global climate that it is now gifting the Sierra and Californiastan with a snowpack? I mean, we must have done something right, right?

Just asking the questions that everybody else is too afraid to ask.

READINESS AS A STATE OF BEING

Are you Ready Now?

Destroyer Division 8 response to RN in WWI, "We are ready now"

Do you find it interesting that we remember this date every year but we never 'stand to' for it like we do for each anniversary of 9/11? The country is still at war even if the president and Congress no longer are. We have come to expect that the State will do nothing to prevent further attacks except engage in painful and absurdly useless theater.

In war there should be no surprises. No unexpected dawn attacks. No ordinary day.

The link at the top contains an interesting report on the damage and loss of many of the United States Navy's destroyers during World War II. Tough little ships.

The front of the ship is about a mile away, straight down.

Not that long ago, the duty section of any US Navy warship was expected to be able to get the ship underway and proceed out to sea immediately. It might take time to get steam up but the fires could be lit and the ship underway with six hours notice. A diesel or gas turbine ship could get underway in under an hour. I doubt that any duty section today could get the ship underway.

The unspoken corollary was never spoken of. It was never even mentioned. Could any duty section get the ship's main battery into action to repel an armed attack? Would you like to see the effect of small arms and machine gun fire on a ship? Below is the ex USS O'BANNON DD 987 after being hit with Harpoon missiles and 5 inch gunfire. It is now being fired at with the weapons warships use for self defense against terrorists.

Readiness is not just a state of being, it is a state of mind.

UPDATE:

This was released today and shows that forces were available for instant deployment to Benghazi on the anniversary date of 9/11. This is no surprise since we spooled up every year for a number of anniversaries that our adversaries believed should be celebrated by flooding the streets with American blood. This was sent from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff and 2 other high level drones at State Department then being mismanaged to death by Hillary Clinton. You can see the date and the time below.

The following is wikipedia entry on Jeremy Bash. Some Harvard Law grads don't 'test' as well as others....

ANOTHER TYPICALLY MODEST DEFIANT PROPOSAL

All those Syrian migrants that President Obama wants to bring over in order to enhance our security by importing a better breed of peaceful muslim could be easily accommodated in world class beach resort facilities at Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure they'll fit right into the President's Socialist Paradise and that way everybody will be happy. If Cuba is good enough for the Mayor of Chicago and his family, it has to be good enough for Obama and the muslim army headed this way across the Atlantic. If we give the JV ISIS from Syria a few bucks I'm pretty sure we could arrange with Castro to have them turned loose in Havana.

FIELD SAFETY TIP

Muslim Terrorists are notorious for being anal retentive. In their manual for employing terrorist attacks it really emphasized the importance of conducting surveillance of the target. Therefore, an alert observer will take note of the same vehicle that circles the block and slows down each time it goes by. A keen observer will note who enters a meeting place or restaurant, scopes it out and leaves without comment. A wary observer will note who appears at a party and then, inexplicably, leaves a few minutes later.

A wise observer will note every time a muslim terrorist does that and take the opportunity to leave immediately or stand to, check the weapons and prepare to counter an imminent attack.

You know the only reason that scumbag went to the party and then left immediately was to verify the time and place and presence of his enemies.

WHITHER THE GREAT SCOTTISH HAGGIS HUNT

Will there be a Great Scottish Haggis Hunt this year? The world wonders. We missed it last year because they were looking for a new host that can handle 8 million page hits.

BETTER RED

GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA

Those loopy climate frighteners, convinced that the Al Gore is not scary enough insist on locking up scientists who are skeptical of the bogus global warming crew.

A Skeptical View Doesn't Include Fairies 

A Skeptical View of the Massaged and Tortured Data of the Warmists

World's Remaining Global Warming Skeptical Scientists in UN Refugee 'Camp'.

ANTHROPOGENIC DENIAL SYNDROME

The latest update on where the world stands with regard to Global Warming at Watts Up With That.

Denialism is defined as “the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.” In climate the problem is those who label others deniers are the real deniers. They don’t even acknowledge there is a debate to deny. 

Even the Pope denied the deniers by excluding them from his climate conclave while he ordered priests to forgive those who had abortions. Apparently there are limits to Papal forgiveness. Sadly he doesn’t know enough to know who the real deniers are, which tends to dent infallibility. There is a long list including the President of the US and his cabinet, most world leaders, a majority of the world’s politicians, all environmental groups and their followers, and most with a left political leaning. Sadly, most have no understanding of the science, but typically they have very definitive positions; it is emotional and politically fuelled ignorance.

and much more.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE EAGLES GONE

H/T theo,

MELLOWING THE HARSH

While perusing Watts Up With That I got to wondering how many other blowhards had predicted the irreversible tragic end of life on earth if global warming wasn't halted by 2012. I realize we're all now doomed to a horrible grisly death but it looks like any number of apparatchiks have been proven to be nothing but opportunist alarmists, liars and data fiddlers. You know the anti-free speech folks always cite the 'crime' of shouting Fire! in a crowded theater as behavior that must be punished with jail. How about we do the same to the global warmists who keep shouting Fire! and demanding a handout for pointing out the untreatable, intractable, irreversible tragedy of climate.

THE SCIENCE OF APOCALYPSE

Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor writes a damning indictment of global warmingology.

Man made climate change is in the same situation except that there are no lab experiments; but their models do no predict the past, so why should we believe they will predict the future? We know it has been warmer (in Viking times, and probably in Roman times), and rather than ex[plain that they adjust the data. I don’t know how to measure the temperature of my city block to a tenth of a degree; when they can do that reliably I will believe they know the Earth temperature to that accuracy. When you can take the conditions of 1950 as input to a model and run it and it gives today’s conditions, I will take the model seriously; but I cannot see any reason to spend billions of dollars on measures there is no real evidence to show we need. I like Los Angeles without smog. I don’t worry a lot about CO2 “pollution”. But then I don’t invest in green technology.

As I read the news about witchfinders in climate science I am struck by the hysteria with which the warmists approach the apocalypse they alone predict. They are not people I would trust with a gun because I have no doubt they would use it to compel all the rest of us to obey the hysterical nonsense they spout.

A GAS BAG GETS BLOWN AWAY

There is an interesting review of Steyn's latest book posted at wattsupwiththat. I highly recommend hitting the link and reading the entire review. I found it amusing but disturbing that Mann's friend decided to write his own review even though the book hasn't shipped yet and I doubt Steyn or his publisher would send him an advance copy.

This is the final nail through the coffin lid of the Global Warming Scam and it's little sidecar of deceit. Al Gore made it a war on warming but I think we have all seen how the failure to win that war lead to the war on climate change. It looks like a war nobody can win because whatever kind of weather we experience in the future the fools and morons will rush to shriek, "Climate Change!!!!" and demand our billions of dollars to "fight it."

Anyway, if you enjoy a rousing debunking of a myth manufactured out of pseudo-science, lies and deceit, you won't find better.

THE NEW PRINCE OF DARKNESS

Our evil overlord and his dimbulb EPA enforcers have set their tiny little minds to shutting down power, light and industry in the United States. These guys really are the most sanguinary evil bunch to come down the pike since communism and they are ready, able, willing and empowered to screw us all in the name of global warming. Some people elect to believe the great lies like communism and others merely pay lip service to those beliefs for the graft, corruption, money and power it will bring them. Isn't it funny how it all started here in America with that phony charlatan Al Gore.

Prince of Darkness*

Lord of the Flies

*I know, many people confuse the Prince of Darkness with Satan or Lucas electric systems.

GLOBAL WARMING

All day as I was out on the roads in heavy snow flurries. I heard the prognosticators and news voices telling me that the snow was just a passing thing and that there would be no 'accumulation'. I've got at least an inch of accumulation.

I so wanted to be done with winter. Us southern Californians don't take well to accumulation.

RESPONSE TO CONGRESSIONAL SCUMBAG

It gives me pleasure to read this man's response to the attack on him by a congressional scumbag.

In recent weeks I have been the target of attacks in the press by various radical environmental and politically motivated groups. This effort should be seen for what it is: a shameless attempt to silence my scientific research and writings, and to make an example out of me as a warning to any other researcher who may dare question in the slightest their fervently held orthodoxy of anthropogenic global warming.

I am saddened and appalled by this effort, not only because of the personal hurt it causes me and my family and friends, but also because of the damage it does to the integrity of the scientific process. I am willing to debate the substance of my research and competing views of climate change with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It is a shame that those who disagree with me resolutely decline all public debate and stoop instead to underhanded and unscientific ad hominem tactics.

Let me be clear. I have never been motivated by financial gain to write any scientific paper, nor have I ever hidden grants or any other alleged conflict of interest. I have been a solar and stellar physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics for a quarter of a century, during which time I have published numerous peer-reviewed, scholarly articles. The fact that my research has been supported in part by donations to the Smithsonian Institution from many sources, including some energy producers, has long been a matter of public record. In submitting my academic writings I have always complied with what I understood to be disclosure practices in my field generally, consistent with the level of disclosure made by many of my Smithsonian colleagues.

If the standards for disclosure are to change, then let them change evenly. If a journal that has peer-reviewed and published my work concludes that additional disclosures are appropriate, I am happy to comply. I would ask only that other authors-on all sides of the debate-are also required to make similar disclosures. And I call on the media outlets that have so quickly repeated my attackers’ accusations to similarly look into the motivations of and disclosures that may or may not have been made by their preferred, IPCC-linked scientists.

I regret deeply that the attacks on me now appear to have spilled over onto other scientists who have dared to question the degree to which human activities might be causing dangerous global warming, a topic that ought rightly be the subject of rigorous open debate, not personal attack. I similarly regret the terrible message this pillorying sends young researchers about the costs of questioning widely accepted “truths.”

Finally, I thank all my many colleagues and friends who have bravely objected to this smear campaign on my behalf and I challenge all parties involved to focus on real scientific issues for the betterment of humanity.

Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

I have nothing but contempt for ranking member Grijalva (Democrat, Arizona)

IT'S LIKE WE DON'T EVEN CARE

Cartoonist Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle

h/t WATTS UP WITH THAT

I dare to say I don't care.