Should "Global Warming" Be "Warmer"?

According to an article in Der Spiegel (a name that always cracks me up, as does most of the German language in the post-war, Mel Brooks era), many climate scientists are "baffled" that the catastrophic global warming they've been hysterically predicting doesn't seem to be showing up in the actual...uh, how do we say?...temperatures.

Among the nuggets as stunned climatologists try to reconcile the data with their nonsense predictions:

The Earth's average temperatures have stopping climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.

Now, this is Der Spiegel's statement rather than that of one of the scientists, but read that statement over a couple of times. Surely there's a government entity involved here somewhere. Let me rephrase what that sentence appears to be saying: "Global warming stopped a long time ago. And this year, it looks like global warming might stop in its tracks!" I'll assume it's a problem in translating from the German.

Some more (entirely predictable) fun:

Just a few weeks ago, Britain's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008, and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius -- in other words, a standstill.

And:

Despite their current findings, scientists agree that temperatures will continue to rise in the long term. The big question is: When will it start getting warmer again?

Yes, that is the big question. Because it's empirical science, you see? It has to start getting catastrophically warmer. Didn't you see An Inconvenient Truth?

Around The Horn

Hey, 'dya forget about me? Sure you did. However, all is forgiven because it's November and that means it's time for another post! Some quick hits:

• I see that Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano (still single as of this writing) is on the lookout for any potential anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre:

  Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday's rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan

  Here's kind of a crazy thought, but how about we start worrying about the frontlash? You know, where people are actually getting killed.
  
  Recent deaths from Muslim extremists in U.S.:
  
  --9/11: 3000 killed in hijacking attacks
  --John Alan Muhammed: 16 shooting deaths
  --Nidal Malik Hasan: 13 shooting deaths
  --One daughter run over in Arizona
  --Two daughters "honor-killed" in Texas
  --Three shot, one killed in Arkansas recruiting office
  
  Recent deaths from "anti-Muslim backlash":
  
  --Still zero
  
  Glad you're on the case, Janet.

• Great to see Brett Hull inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last night. I covered the "Golden Brett" in St. Louis for a few years in the early '90's, and though he had a reputation for sometimes being a bit cantankerous, I never found him to be anything other than great fun. I once handed him my then-infant (now 17-year-old) son John for a photograph. John began instantly crying, and Brett held him like he was a pillow full of smallpox. (We still have the picture in one of our photo albums.) "Get used to it," I told him. "Your time is coming." Within four years, Hull had three of them. (Children, not smallpox pillows.) Always honest, always a great quote, the best hockey scorer I've ever seen, and a smile that kept you from being offended when he called you a "puke" (which he called everybody). The Blues should have never let him go.

• When I last posted, it seemed like the St. Louis Cardinals could be on their way to the World Series. I got a little busy...how'd that turn out, anyway?

• As insane as he usually drives me (which is documented here, here, and here, among other places), it is good, proper, and right for the Cardinals to bring Tony La Russa back for another year. Is he an excruciating over-manager? Without doubt. Is he loyal to a fault? If it were up to him, Chris Duncan would still be playing left field and Juan Encarnacion demonstrating taking one-eyed at-bats. But I know this: the Cardinals have been a contender almost every year since La Russa got there. Don't mess with success. It will also be interesting to have Mark McGwire around next year. This needs to happen. The steroids thing is over; good heavens, Andy Pettite and A-Rod were having statues carved of them during this post-season. Big Mac needs to come back, talk about it, put it behind him, and go to the Hall of Fame where he belongs. Even in the juiced era, the guy left everyone else in awe. Time to move forward.

• Speaking of the aforementioned John Allen Muhammed, he is scheduled to be executed tonight in Virginia. No word yet as to whether Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, or Danny Glover have chained themselves to the jailhouse yet. The events in Ft. Hood brought back to mind the coverage of the night that Muhammed was caught after his weeks-long terror spree in the D.C. area. The entire evening, the networks tried to avoid using his adopted (and legal) name "Muhammed" and instead kept calling him "John Allen Williams." And they scrambled to cite his Gulf War I experience, abuse as a child, and hatred for a spouse as possible motives for the shootings. CBS's Vince Gonzalez reported the next day, "About the same time he joined the army Muhammad converted to Islam, but authorities say religion was not a motive." Subsequent evidence proved definitively that the shootings were carried out as an act of jihad. Surprise! Keep that in mind as you watch the media's Ft. Hood coverage.

And that, ladies and gents, is how we play "Around the Horn." After my last post, I jokingly added, "Have a nice autumn." And here I am in November. So considering the way these postings are actually going, I'll refrain from saying, "Have a happy new year."

Janet Napolitano Nidal Malik Hasan Ft. Hood Radical Islam Brett Hull St. Louis Cardinals Tony La Russa Mark McGwire John Allen Muhammed