Predictions of global warming hinge not upon proven scientific principles but, rather, upon climate models — in other words, computer programs.

Unfortunately, even modern advanced computers appear to be unable to accurately model the complexities of all the diverse natural and human related processes that do or may impact global climate.  Climate Change Reconsidered , the 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), states:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) places great confidence in the ability of general circulation models (GCMs) to simulate future climate and attribute observed climate change to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. It says “climate models are based on well-established physical principles and have been demonstrated to reproduce observed features of recent climate … and past climate changes … There is considerable confidence that Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental and larger scales” (IPCC,
2007-I, p. 591).

To be of any validity, GCMs must incorporate all of the many physical, chemical, and biological processes that influence climate in the real world, and they must do so correctly. A review of the scientific literature reveals numerous deficiencies and shortcomings in today’s state-of-the-art models, some of which deficiencies could even alter the sign of projected climate change.

The first chapter of the recently published NIPCC report is “Global Climate Models and Their Limitations

While we were traveling, though unintended, I only watched television a few hours.

If I subtract the time that the TV was on a food channel at my sister-in-law’s and watching Mama Mia at my brother-in-law’s, it’s down to less than an hour of TV for 27 days away from home — and that was primarily checking for weather forecasts.

It was a good break from television and some of the things that bug me about it.

Today, watching the evening news, it struck me just how much of what is presented as news really isn’t news, at least as far as I’m concerned.

I was watching a story about the shooting of two young soldiers  — one killed — in Little Rock at a joint Army – Navy recruiting office. The story is still new so there are a lot of unanswered questions and it’s understandable that the story is still rough and not fully fleshed out.

However, a couple of things about the story struck me the wrong way.

The alleged shooter was apprehended 30 minutes later and the story had to mention that their station was the only one that had a camera at the police station when the suspect was brought in.  That’s not news.  It’s gratuitous self-promotion.

As is fairly common, I guess, they found it necessary to get some local reaction from people at the scene.  They interviewed one young fellow who had driven down to shopping center that the recruiting office was in because his girlfriend works there, she gets upset easily and, besides checking on her,  he wanted to find out  what was going on.  I’m sorry, but local reaction is generally not news.

While the specifics may vary, local reaction to a shooting is going to be predictable, but it’s not news unless the reaction is something unexpected.

For instance, if the local reaction had been for citizens to have apprehended the suspect instead of the police, that would have been news.

Comments, anyone?

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho

It’s back to work I go — I think.

We should know something soon as the proposed date to start is June 1st.

The contract schedule will be a little different from last time.  I’ll be working about 6 weeks and will then have about 6 to 8 weeks off while the class is involved in activities that do not require my “expertise.” The entire contract for me will be 6 months of actual work.

During the 6 to 8 weeks that I am off — assuming the funding for the contract is actually approved — we’ll be traveling out in the western mountain states.  We had originally planned that trip for July and August, so it’ll be a little delayed, unless the funding  is not approved.

I really do enjoy the work that I’ll be doing under the contract.  It’s the best part of the job that I had before I retired.

The job will help us keep from dipping into our savings for the duration of the contract and we’ll try to pay down a debt or two so that the pension and other income will stretch further when I’m not working.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s off to work I go…, probably…, maybe.

We’re leaving Harper’s Ferry this morning, heading for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Representatives, Senators, the Executive Branch, the President, lobbyists? Tempting though the thought might be, could “Vultures on the Potomac” actually be something very different than politics as usual?

This photo was taken from a walkway on an old railroad bridge over the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  According to a map I looked at, the birds were probably in Maryland as the state line is along the river bank on the West Virginia side.

Comments, anyone?

We are now camped near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

I’ve been online for about 15 minutes. It’s 8:37 PM.

I logged off last Monday around 8:30 AM.  Looks like I have a lot of material to go through.

Needless to say, a lot of it will just be skimmed to see if there is anything that I am interested in reading thoroughly.

Some stuff in the reader and inbox is just info sources that I am following — y’know, the climate change news and sunspot info updates.  Most of that will just deleted, especially the ones that are just now repeating things I read about last week.

I can’t promise any comments, but if it’s something I’m interested in, I may try to leave a short comment.

More posts soon — with pictures!

We also have not looked at much TV at all this trip.  Even though we had over 10 TV stations sitting in a campground without electrical hookups, we watched 1o minutes of broadcast TV — just enough to find out what the weather was predicted to be for the days we were going to be there.  The only other TV has been 2 episodes from the first season of ER that Karen has been watching — I just listened to music on my ipod and read my book.

We will be away from the internet for about a week — unless we happen to run over it somewhere on our travels! 😉

A few images from Virginia:

Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello

Virginia Beach, Virginia

A miniature at The Maritime Museum in Newport News.

There are more images at Out ‘n About

We are currently camped near Staunton, Virginia. Tomorrow we will be camping in a small campground in Virginia Beach and will be visiting my Mom in Norfolk.

This hasn’t been the greatest week for a traveling and camping trip. When we are camping, we like to take hikes and we only got a couple in. It’s been raining every day and every night — not continuously, but heavy at times and often enough to make things a little difficult.

When we’re traveling, we stop every couple of hours or so and find some place to walk.

Sometimes, we are able to walk at rest areas. When we are able to do that, we make from a couple of “laps” on the walkways to several if the walkways are limited. It helps loosen us up and makes the trip go better. Today we were able to walk at three rest areas. One of them had a “pet trail” that turned into a half mile loop trail into the woods and we had already done the generous rest area walkways.

Off the interstate highways, rest areas are few and far between. We’ve found other places that work well for walks. Shopping malls, of course, are good. However, we’ll often stop at a “big box store” like Walmart, Lowes, or Home Depot, and make several laps around the inside of the store.

We also walk at campgrounds. Walking the entire campground that we were at in Great Smoky Mountain National Park was probably about a mile, which we did 3 evenings, I think. The campground we are at now is at least that, but also has a rather generous uphill section.

We did get several short walks in that on a couple of days when we were able to dodge the storms. Yesterday afternoon when we the campground, the rain had stopped, so we decided to do one of the closest trails, a 2.6 mile round-trip hike to Laurel Falls. It was nice. I’ll post pictures later.

So far as food, I generally don’t overeat too much when we are traveling. We’ve eaten out twice, McDonald’s and Subway. We’ve been eating sandwiches mostly for lunch and regular food for supper. I’ve been eating less snacks, I think.

See other participants’ results at Blog to Fit – Wednesday Weigh-In.

Wednesday Weigh-In – May 7, 2009, exit78.com

We are currently camping in the Great Smokey National Park.  We were hoping to do some hiking but the rain has made longish hikes something we’re not willing to try.  We have no desire to get thouroughly soaked.

There are more images at Out ‘n About

Stopped at a rest area on I40 in Tennessee

We left yesterday morning and got to the campground around 4 PM.

I’ll be posting a few photos from the trip on this blog, but will be posting about the trip — along with more photos — on my Out ‘n About blog.  The first post there is titled On the road in rainy Tennessee.

Tomorrow or the next day we’ll be traveling on to Great Smoky National Park where we’ll be camping several days and, hopefully, taking a few hikes.  With current weather forecast, that might be iffy.  With the recent rain, some of the falls in the mountains ought to be spectacular.

Traveler's Health Alert posted at rest area