Sunday roundup

Russian conscripts dread being deployed to the Ukraine.

Andrew Weiss on the new Kremlinology.

Please don't thank veterans for their service.

Please don't donate to the Komen Foundation or perpetuate the cult of the pink ribbon.

Please do eat tofu.

Wow, this climate change denialist "scientist"...

Though often described on conservative news programs as a “Harvard astrophysicist,” Dr. Soon is not an astrophysicist and has never been employed by Harvard. He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering. He has received little federal research money over the past decade and is thus responsible for bringing in his own funds, including his salary.

Though he has little formal training in climatology, Dr. Soon has for years published papers trying to show that variations in the sun’s energy can explain most recent global warming. His thesis is that human activity has played a relatively small role in causing climate change.

Many experts in the field say that Dr. Soon uses out-of-date data, publishes spurious correlations between solar output and climate indicators, and does not take account of the evidence implicating emissions from human behavior in climate change.

Gavin A. Schmidt, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, a NASA division that studies climate change, said that the sun had probably accounted for no more than 10 percent of recent global warming and that greenhouse gases produced by human activity explained most of it.

“The science that Willie Soon does is almost pointless,” Dr. Schmidt said.

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, whose scientists focus largely on understanding distant stars and galaxies, routinely distances itself from Dr. Soon’s findings. The Smithsonian has also published a statement accepting the scientific consensus on climate change.

What she said (about STEM majors and a liberal arts background).

 

Please don't write thinkpieces based on what you think other people are feeling.

It's been a rough winter in Boston.

This assessment of how well Washington-based shows reflect reality almost make me want to get cable, now that I have a TV (except cable is expensive, and a year and a half of it would cost about as much as a vacation).

Oil in water in Siberia.