The Guardian tries to claim global warming sank the Titanic – research says the exact opposite

Good grief, what are the “Global Warm-inistas” gonna blame on Climate Change/AGW next?  The Civil War, maybe?  The Black Death?  The Chicago Cubs?  …Why not?

Watts Up With That?

The photo of the iceberg that sank purportedly the Titanic. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office

Kate Ravilious makes this nutty claim at The Guardian:

But in fact the catastrophe may have been set in motion by a warm, wet year over Greenland in 1908, resulting in greater snow accumulation. Writing in the journal Weather, Grant Bigg and David Wilton of Sheffield University explain how the snow soaked through cracks in the ice sheet, encouraging excess iceberg calving over the following few years. Soberingly, global warming has increased iceberg hazard greatly in recent decades, making years like 1912 more the norm than the exception.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/apr/27/weatherwatch-icebergs-greenland-titanic

Yeah, but have a look at what this research actually says and you’ll understand why The Guardian is nothing more than agitprop.

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Election 2012: The DIVIDED States of America

I was looking for election coverage Tuesday night, but I kept finding movies instead. First, the sequel to ‘Titanic‘ was on, and before I turned it off it looked like they were gonna try to hit the iceberg from the other side this time. Also on was a remake of the classic ‘Pinocchio‘, but this time the little wooden boy decided to remain on Pleasure Island where he could eat, drink and smoke for free, despite the now obvious signs that it’s turning him into a donkey.

Oh, wait a sec…  all of that WAS the election coverage! Silly me, I got confused between the channels.

It was an easy mistake to make. After all, America has somehow decided it doesn’t care HOW many trillions of debt we rack up: we want our free food-stamps-and-phones, darn it, and we re-elected the guy promising them, and more.

You know, like this lady: 

Paul Ryan vs. the Titanic

I was reading my sister’s piece on the Titanic again, and it got me thinking. Me being me, I started thinking politics, rather than nautical disasters.

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Stick with me for a moment.

Paul Ryan has been warning of our dire financial situation for years now. You can say this about Ryan: he has the courage of his own convictions. He’s one of the few folks in Congress who can articulate the true nature of our financial plight, and he rarely wastes an opportunity to voice that concern. From his now-famous videos on the Path To Prosperity, to various exchanges with his political opponents about the disastrous Obamacare, the man exudes charm, sincerity and raw certitude of his subject matter.

Like the early warning system that the Titanic never had, Ryan continually exhorts us to address-and-avoid the impending financial doom that sits directly in our path. Dismissing his warnings by calling them “mean” is simply to misstate the obvious: we can’t spend money we don’t have. You also can’t do it by printing money (aka: monetizing the debt), and you can’t borrow money indefinitely. These realities are unpleasant to consider, but to avoid considering them BECAUSE they’re unpleasant brings a certain phrase to mind:

His most recent article (discussing Obamacare and its dangers) in The American Spectator is classic Ryan:

The President’s health care overhaul is emblematic of the wrong way to address the problems in health care and Medicare. The law raids Medicare by nearly $700 billion to fund a new, unsustainable, open-ended health care entitlement. It creates a government panel of bureaucrats with the power to impose price controls on providers in ways that would result in rationed care and restricted access to treatments. It vastly expands an already unwieldy administrative state by creating 159 new boards, commissions, and government programs. It is built around the flawed assumption that bureaucrats, if given power over the marketplace, can curb rising health care costs by expertly determining prices and dictating treatment options to doctors and patients.

Ultimately, this approach transforms the relationship between citizen and state, leaving individuals increasingly passive and dependent on their government. Further, it substantially diminishes the quality of and the access to care, as future policymakers cut costs to meet budgetary bottom lines rather than patients’ medical needs. There is no way for “experts” in Washington to know more about the health care needs of individual Americans than those individuals and their doctors know, nor should bureaucrats second-guess how each individual would prioritize services against costs.

Read the whole article. Ryan is worried that Obamacare takes a bad situation and manages to make it even worse. However, he also consistently says that his approach is not the ONLY way out; it’s simply A way out. If we can use it to have an actual discussion about HOW to address our financial ship, perhaps we can avoid our iceberg better than a certain ship did a hundred years ago.

A Titantic Insult …

Now I think I’ve heard it all.   Luxury liner MS Balmoral embarked on April 9 for a twelve-day cruise that will trace the route of the doomed ship RMS Titanic which hit an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland 100 years ago today.  Aboard are 1,309 passengers, the exact number (not including crew) from the original ship.   History buffs and some descendants of Titanic victims are reported to be among the guests on board, who will experience a voyage much like that of the fated ship–minus the actual collision.

I understand that there is a certain awe and significance in round numbers.  Centennial celebrations or memorials make sense.  We should acknowledge a terrible maritime tragedy, in an “on-this-date-in-history” way.  We should even do all we can to learn from it.