I believe I thought something like this

A couple of months ago, when musing about the multiple gun murder in Oregon, I suggested that there should be a "no gun" list.  In fact, that was the title of the post.

Here's what I considered to be criteria to get a name on the list:

"If someone is on record as a) making threats, b) attempting or indicating a desire for suicide, c) expressing a desire to harm or injure another person, d) being a professed member of a group or groups that advocate violence toward a different group, e) having a psychological condition or having a family member with a known psychological condition, and f) writing a rambling manifesto expressing threats, endangerment, or hate for other people or groups -- their name should go on a basic "no gun" list. It means they can't buy guns and they can't have guns. If they have guns, they get taken away until they can show that they or the individual associated with them (with the psychological condition) pose no danger to the community."

Well,  it seems like Speaker Paul Ryan is expressing a similar idea following the shootings in San Bernardino (which it appears didn't really have a mental health component, but look at my (d) above):

Paul Ryan: We Must Address Mental Illness To Curb Mass Shootings

"Ryan said U.S. mental health laws are outdated and that people with mental illness should not be able to buy guns.

Congress, Ryan said, is currently looking at whether there are gaps in enforcing laws that need to be filled. "We have to think these things through before we just have knee-jerk reactions," the speaker added, and noted that it was important for Congress not to infringe on the rights of citizens.

Ryan is a major proponent of the Murphy bill, which he said would address "people with mental illness that are getting guns and are conducting these mass shootings." Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Penn.) introduced the bill after conducting extensive research in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School."

So, yeah, there's some similarity of thought.

But here is the first unfiltered thought I had when I read Speaker Ryan's remarks:

I wonder how much funding the Republicans have cut over the past decade that would have funded better and more extensive mental health treatment programs, hmmm??

Wish I could ask the Speaker that one.

Holding pattern

Well, when I wrote the post "Just in time for (you guessed it) Christmas", I didn't know what the future held for the effect of El Niño on the temperature of the lower troposphere.  All I could do was compare the progression of this year's event to the progression of the previous mega-El Niño of 1997-1998.

What I didn't realize when I first did this back in October was that the progress of the event would be so parallel to what happened in 1997-1998, even down to its month-to-month evolution.  But that's what appears to be happening.

So I've plotted up the November TLT temperature from Remote Sensing Systems, and I averaged the weekly Niño 3.4 temperatures from the NOAA CPC (because I couldn't find a monthly value yet).  I checked my averaging for the previous month, and it was very similar to the monthly value I'm using for October, but I'll check back on that.

What is astonishing (and worth checking) is the extremely high sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 region.  If you look back at 1997-1998, it's never been this high before.  EVER.  Before this month, the highest anomaly was the last week of November 1997, at 2.8.  Two weeks ago, it went up to 3.1.

All that heat has to go somewhere.  The tropical tropospheric temperature, according to Rockin' Roy Spencer, is the same as it was last month (which is to say, very warm).  So if the atmosphere behaves like the atmosphere is supposed to behave, over the next month the warmth should start to spread globally.   Particularly if this ongoing event wants to maintain parallelism with 1997-1998.

Here's the plot. So is the global TLT going to start its upward ascent just in time for Christmas?  Soon into the New Year, we'll find out.

(I just noticed something about my little plot below.  Both temperature axes should correctly be labeled as anomalies, not just temperatures.  So mentally add the word 'anomaly' after "Niño 3.4  SST" and "REMSS TLT" and we'll be fine.)

Russian tracksters out of the next Olympics

I didn't think that following quickly on the heels of the news that Russian athletes were under suspicion for doping at recent Olympics, that the Russian Federation would accept a competition ban (for track and field).

It's good for the sport, though sadly the problem of doping will likely never go away. But it's tough on the Russian athletes who didn't do it, and especially those who weren't planning on doing it, but who now can't compete in the next Olympics.

Russia accepts IAAF ban for doping violations

But this is just for track and field.  Based on what has been recently written about the water offshore of Rio, the athletes who have to compete out there might wish they were banned.

Want to swim in this Olympic water?

The UK wins the Davis Cup

In this age of rampant professionalism (including salaries and bonuses) in sports, the Davis Cup of tennis stands out as an anachronism of amateurism.

The players don't play for money, they play for country.  Without appearance fees or anything else, just for their country.  And they also play real tennis, no tiebreakers, in any set.

(Which can lead to some true epics, like the 1982 match between John McEnroe and Mats Wilander, which went 9-7, 6-2, 15-17, 3-6, 8-6 and over six hours.  McEnroe, to his credit and at odds with his boorish behavior, always showed up for the Davis Cup.)

For many years and for many countries, the Davis Cup was their main sporting event.  It seems almost quaint now, but it used to be one of the premier sporting events on the calendar.

So winning it still means something, and this year, led by the heroics of Andy Murray, the Brits have captured the Davis Cup by defeating the team from Belgium.

Andy may not have won everything he could have or should have (though his timing is good, first winning the Olympics on the Wimbledon centre court and then following that up by winning Wimbledon), but he came through this time.

He won both of his singles matches (both in three sets).  He and his brother Jamie won the doubles match in four sets.  So this is very much Andy's Cup.

It happened to be the first time the UK won it since 1936 -- they also lost in the final in 1978,

Emily hits the beach

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about Arrow actress Emily Bett Rickards, known on the show as Felicity Smoak.

Pretty girl, Actress:  Emily Bett Rickards

Surprisingly, it's been a very successful post, with hundreds of hits (good for my little blog).  Now, Emily isn't such a big name that she's often in the public eye, so when the Daily Mail teams up with the paparazzi to bring us Emily on the beach in a bikini, we must acknowledge their effort.

Arrow star Emily Bett Rickards shows off her athletic figure and flat stomach in a black bikini as she hits the beach in Maui

She's got a wonderful womanly figure, not the freak-of-nature kind that models bikinis, but the fit and curvy kind that looks quite good.

Oh, and in case you missed last year when she and Oliver finally got busy, here's the top-drop GIF (from the back, because this is not HBO).

China and climate

From the Washington Post, a commentary from Eugene Robinson about climate and the climate conference in Paris, and the movement toward clean energy happening globally (though the U.S. is dragging its feet, of course).

In Paris, clean energy gathers steam

Here are two excerpts that caught my eye:


A: "Two important things have happened in China. First, the nation’s leaders have come to realize that the noxious, choking, particulate-laden smog that periodically blankets major cities — as is happening this week in Beijing — poses a real threat to the Communist Party’s legitimacy."

(I have said similarly in postings past.)

B. "The other big development in China is that its leadership — rather than deny climate science, as most Republicans do — is making a huge bet on clean energy."

Including NUCLEAR ENERGY.

China is leading the way, well ahead of us, on societal energy transformation. They have to. The question is, will the U.S. keep up, follow, or fall behind?

Lighthouse of the Week, Nov. 29 - Dec. 5, 2015: J.C.J. van Speijk, The Netherlands

I was checking back in my archives and discovered that although I have posted Lighthouses of the Week from several Scandinavian countries, I had not posted one from the Netherlands.  So I went happily searching for a lighthouse from the Netherlands, and I found one that doubles as a monument.

So this week's Lighthouse of the Week is the J.C.J. van Speijk lighthouse, which is on the North Sea, as are probably most of the lighthouses in the Netherlands.

It's located in Egmond aan See, which I'm guessing translates as roughly "Egmond on the Sea".

Here's a video with five facts about it (that's different).





Here's a short (translated) Web site about it: Lighthouse J.C.J. van Speijk Egmond - Lighthouse

Here's Wikipedia on Jan van Speyk:  Jan van Speyk

And here are three pictures: