Watts Up With That?

Pass the water please

From the “You’ve got to be freakin kidding me department” comes this proof positive that EVERYTHING is caused by global warming. Yessirree folks, my cat coughed up a hairball last night, must be global warming causing him to lick off too much fur.

From the Thaindian News and here it is on Science Daily so no, I’m not making this up.

Washington, May 15 (ANI): Global warming may lead to an increase in kidney stones disease, says a new study.

Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, mainly in warmer climates, and global warming will worsen this effect, according to the researchers.

As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition.

Using published data to determine the temperature-dependence of stone disease, researchers applied predictions of temperature increase to determine the impact of global warming on the incidence and cost of stone disease in the United States.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates a 1-20 C increase in temperature by 2050 for much of the United States. These findings place a greater significance on the harmful effects of global warming, an ongoing economic and political issue.

The southern United States is considered the stone belt because these states have higher incidences of kidney stones. Rising global temperatures could expand this region; the fraction of the U.S. population living in high-risk stone zones is predicted to grow from 40 percent in 2000 to 50 percent by 2050.

This could lead to an increase of one to two million lifetime cases of stone disease. The impact of climate-related changes in stone disease will be non-uniformly distributed and likely concentrated in the southern half of the country (linear model) or upper Midwest (non-linear model).

The cost associated with treating stone disease could climb as high as one 1 billion dollars annually by 2050, representing a 10-20 percent increase over present-day estimates.

The study was presented at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association. (ANI)

And those fools in San Franscisco city government just banned bottled water – ouch, that hurts.

REPOSTED FROM THE UK TELEGRAPH BLOG

I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Irena Sendler, whose obituary appeared in this morning’s paper. Hers is an awesomely humbling story, even by the standards of her heroic generation.

Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize

A Polish Catholic, she spirited some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, displaying casual and extraordinary courage. She kept a list of the children she had saved, hoping one day to reunite them with their parents – although, in the event, almost all lost their families in Treblinka. In 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured. Her legs and feet were broken, but she refused to give up her list. She was sentenced to death, but rescued, whereupon – almost unbelievably – she went back to work.

Here, though, is the sentence that leapt off the page at me: “Last year she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, eventually won by Al Gore.” Al Gore! I mean, nothing against the old lardbutt – it’s nice to see ex-politicians doing something they believe in rather than giving themselves over wholly to the getting of personal wealth – but making a film is not the same thing as donning a yellow star and smuggling babies past enemy soldiers.

Our generation, as Danny Kruger put it in the best tract of 2007, is moralistic rather than moral. We are better at holding opinions about what governments or multi-nationals should do than we are at doing the right thing by our neighbours. Having formed our opinions, we become self-righteous in a way that the Irena Sendlers of the world couldn’t understand.

“We who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes”, she said towards the end of her life. “That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true – I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.” There is a haunting sincerity to that statement. You can’t imagine Al Gore saying any such thing, can you?

The sun is active with cycle 23 (near equator) cycle 23 sunspecks. I have decided againts calling them “Tiny Tims” as I think “sunspecks” is more true to the phenonmenon.

Click HERE for the full sized original image

The magnetogram shows a bit more than the MDI image:

The Cycle 24 engine still hasn’t gotten juiced up.