This sounds bad

Over 50 Turkish commanders held over coup plot

Police in simultaneous operations in eight cities detained 21 generals and admirals, including ex-deputy chief Gen. Ergin Saygun, former Air Force chief Gen. Ibrahim Firtina and Navy Chief Adm. Ozden Ornek. The rest were mostly colonels.

They are also accused of conspiring to plan shooting down a Turkish warplane to trigger armed conflict with Greece in a bid to destabilize the Turkish government. The military strongly denies the allegations.

Erdogan declined to comment Monday on the raids, saying they had been carried out on prosecutors' orders. However on Sunday, Erdogan said his government had not given "a chance to those who tried to fly a course for Turkey outside the law."

I have no idea what the reality is from this article, it's either the Turkish military planning on asserting control again or the Islamist government framing military members, but whatever is happening it sounds bad for Europe and for NATO.

E pur se muove

The Gormogons have a great post explaining the denialist position
for global warming:

Further, when we hear outlandish statements that cold waves are the result of GW, and that heavy precipitation is the result of GW, and that record snowfall is the result of GW, we really question whether you are stopping to think before you speak to the press. Yeah, some science makes no sense at first: all galaxies are moving away from the others, so that if you pick a random galaxy, every other galaxy appears to be moving away from it? But then you paint dots on a balloon and inflate the balloon...and suddenly the crazy concept is perfectly obvious. We are awaiting these analogies and demonstrations. Because until they arrive, you look foolish.

Maybe if your data checked out. But day after day comes another revelation of a flawed study, or that temperatures stopped increasing, or that something was incorrectly recorded. Maybe you should just stop and start over from scratch with a fresh approach. In football, this is called a punt. Science tries them all the time, but evidently only in other fields.

Hence, in a nutshell, here is what the average Denialist actually believes (and get ready to be surprised at how off-base your assessment of our concerns could be):

Denialists believe that climate science is a new and emerging field, with new discoveries and realizations frequently changing basic assumptions. We understand that observations (in the water, on the ground, in the air) conflict and often indicate a fluid and changing nature. We fully accept that some temperatures may be increasing, that atmospheric composition could be affected by man, and that these have long-term effects which may be disastrous for millions of people.

... and they continue on from there, go read the whole thing.

I'd also add that I agree with the Jerry Pournelle point of view, we don't have enough data, we
should be spending more on data. He often references Bayesian analysis, where as more
data arrives you get a better answer (we use it for decoding noisy communications from
downhole tools)

The warmists are still stuck on the precautionary principle, because there's a risk of something
bad happening we should panic and destroy our economies in the hope of preventing this
bad thing. Even as each drip drip drip of exposed bad data tells me that the bayesian
probability of something bad happening is less and less and the correct thing to do is
gather more data.

I'm not that worried about Co2, and though I think we are close to peak oil production there
are plenty more hydrocarbons available (maybe at higher prices). We should be working
on reducing imports of hydrocarbons and trying to find the economic green energy answer
that solves our energy import answer and not the global warming answer.

Go Saints!

I'm trying to stay awake to watch the superbowl. I have to get up and
work in a few hours but luckily the well has pushed a few hours and I can
at least watch the game at home.

Update 3:45 am: Saints Win! Hot damn. I know it's foolish to follow a
sports team over 4 decades, none of the players are the same, nor coaches,
nor owners. But I'm the same, and all the rest of the fans are still the same,
the fans and the city are what make a team, players come and go, but the
city is still there. Congratulations Big Easy!

Hell freezes over, the ghost of Buddy D. wears a dress

From the times picayune comes the story of the "Buddy D. Dress
Parade", the photos include one of Bobby Hebert wearing a dress
and a blond wig. A parade in honor of Buddy Diliberto who was
a local sports anchor who swore he'd wear a dress when the saints
went to the superbowl.





Image from Buddy's
broads.com












Hopefully Buddy Diliberto is smiling wherever he is. Old flannelmouth
was always a strong Saints supporter by doing strong news reporting and
not just rah rah. (there was plenty of rah rah too though).

He was the first sports reporter in the city to wear a bag on his head when
the Saints went 1-15 and officially became the Aints, and he and Hap Glaudi
were the original TV sports reporters I remember from the early '70's, the
ABC channel would bring in a different face every couple of years, but they
couldn't take the pain of reporting in a city with such crappy teams.

(update)From Peter Finney's column in the Times Picayune some malaprops:

Meaning to say "secondaries,'' he once announced "quarterback Dan Fouts retired today after 17 seasons of terrorizing NFL secretaries.''
And there were those throwaway lines:
"That's a mute point.''
"That's just the chip of the iceberg.''
"The Saints led in time of obsession.''
"If the Saints can make the trade, it will be a good one, like manana from heaven.''
"Old Dominion'' became "Old Dominican.''
When it came to injuries, a player was out with "a torn lee nigament.'' On another day, a shoulder operation might be called one to remedy "a torn rotary cup.''
A visit to Children's Hospital once prompted the observation about "those courageous boys and girls lying there, hooked up to their RVs.''
Buddy D sailed through his sea of squirrels, with passion, with frustration, with optimism, always with a smile.