Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for September 20, 2013

There are still people who believe in horoscopes?

Trudeau has been kidnapped by Tea Party, aka GuardSgt. He is currently being held in a cage on a remote island, dressed in a soiled orange jumpsuit, with Faux News blaring out 24 hours a day, interrupted every hour on the hour for Guard Sgt to explain yet again why it is that Obama is not a natural born citizen. Only when Trudeau really and truly BELIEVES this will he be allowed out.*Once he is released, the planned story arcs include Mel becoming Boopsie’s BFF, leaving the army and opening a nail bar; an alternate reality where Romney became president and the US economy recovered overnight; and a horrific fate for Alex and the twins in a Starbucks, all because Toggle wasn’t allowed to wear his gun.Alternatively, if you look at the comments on virtually any of the strips in the past few weeks, or google it, you will find the real answer.“(If the brainwashing doesn’t work, there’s always the rats…)

Thanks, Night-Gaunt49. It’s difficult for some to readjust to a different reality, especially when in one reality one must know and live the truth, while in another reality it is full of the artificial and the petty. Been there 45 years ago and still partly there.

I’m a Libra.We’re too balanced to believe in astrology.

So the truth comes out finally, eh Astolat?

Never sweat the petty stuffAlways pet the sweaty stuff

Y’all have me LOL today, thank you!

That’s clever, Dr Dave; I like that, thanks!

I guess the Arctic is so chock-full of sea ice, it’s sunk too low for the starving, weary polar bears to find.

I’m liking Night-Gaunt49’s work. Couldn’t be truer.

Well, if Al Gore’s wrong about anything, he MUST be wrong about everything?

We haveWe humans havewe humans have weaknessesStart with the basic subject and verb then add words and phrases

Is it true that Dylan Thomas is permanently banned? I thought he was just taking a break, as he had done before. His was always a quiet voice of reason, unlike the partisans screaming at one another; looking for his contributions kept me reading this.

When and why did nutsosarge change to t-bagger?

Sarge: Record Arctic ice is NOT a fact – 60% increase over the previous record low years in 2012 is. And one year does not a 35 year trendline break – especially when it is a 60% increase over a record low sea ice extent – it’s still below the average! Beyond that, sea ice extent in a single year is not disproof of global warming – the Arctic ice sheets, in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, as with Antarctic continental ice, continue to decline at breakneck pace – wherein lies possible explanation for the more extensive sea ice this season – the salinity of the sea surrounding the Arctic and Antarctic seas being diluted by the massive freshwater runoff from the continental ice sheets, thus raising it’s freezing point. But that the ice sheets are melting there is still no doubt – record warm seasonal temps continue to be the trend at both poles. Greenland recorded record high temps this summer.

So a one-year 60% increase in sea-ice coverage over last year, the lowest ever, does not constitute breaking the trend to lower ice coverage, and just as importantly, thinner ice coverage.Your source, such as it is, repeated and distorted repeatedly on the internet, was likely the Daily Mail tabloid paper, on September the 8th. Here is a response from DiscoverMagazine http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2013/09/09/with-climate-journalism-like-this-who-needs-fiction/#.Ujy3bT_vbcs to the rubbish reporting in the Mail that could at best be described as misleading, more likely as intentional distortion. This year is a substantial increase over last – and yet, as the graph of the last 6 years shows, still below the long term average. And the trend line, illustrating how climate change deniers view one-year increases as “trends” illustrates how even though the long-term average ice extent is declining at an accelerating rate, as shown by the second-order polynomial function mapping the averages.

But I’d be startled if you read, let alone understood any of that article, or applied any sort of critical thinking. You just expect the rest of us to listen to your bluster, and to believe it is so because you say it is so.

Wasn’t sure if you were being serious or sarcastic. After checking you profile I see you are serious – and seriously off your rocker. Record sea ice??? Yeah record LOW sea ice.Get thee to an institution stat!

Whoa, I want to smoke what his is smoking.It must be good sh**.

You sir, are and will always be an idiot. I and what’s left of the polar bear population feel great pity for you. Now leave and don’t come back til you grow a brain.

Beats me. I flagged him and called him an idiot.

No. Personally, I think you have no clue what you’re talking about so you lie to cover it.

You DO realize if the Govt. shuts down, it’s the GOP’s fault.

Et tu? the whackos are really coming out of the woodwork today.

Sarge, I don’t contradict myself, I’m saying you can’t do basic math, and you rely on sources that exploit the gullible and uninformed – not that you’ve ever posted a source for any of your misrepresentations and lies. Oh, wait, yes, once you suggested we all look at a “Sheriff Joe” for why Obama’s birth certificate is fake, which was laughable in its idiocy.As for your failing to follow my argument, that doesn’t constitute a failure on my part, but on yours. I conceded that Arctic sea ice coverage was up 60% over the all-time record low of the year before – which still made it a below average ice year. In other words, a large part of the reason it was a big increase (mathematically speaking) in coverage is because the previous year was SO LOW. If the ice coverage this year had been even the long term average amount, there would have been even more ice than there was – but the fact is, even with the year-over-year increase, it was a below average ice year. In other words, this year still continues the trend to lower levels of ice coverage – it does NOT reverse the trend, or indicate global cooling in any way.I also went on to explain the dynamics of sea ice coverage are not an isolated variable in the rapid warming that is affecting the polar regions in particular – and that there is no question that both continental ice-sheets at both poles are melting down quickly – and possibly even contributing to increasing sea ice coverage even as temps rise.

However, I doubt you read my post past the second line before you (incorrectly) decided I had somehow agreed with you, rather than pointed out that you had taken a single data point without context, or indeed fully correct as you presented it, and tried to build a “global cooling” story around it. I’m quite sure you also made no attempt to read the article I linked – it was written in fairly plain language, and itself had links to the original scientific works, but I’m pretty sure you’re pretty careful to isolate yourself from exposure to information that would contradict your strange fantasy world.Show me that you actually read other people’s posts before commenting on them, and deciding for yourself what they wrote: provide me some links to where “more and more real scientists are saying global warming is a myth”. I’m betting you won’t – because you probably haven’t read this far, and because you can’t, because such information only exists on sites linked to organizations like the Heritage Foundation and other front groups for the big oil barons like the Koch brothers – like the Tea Party, as a matter of fact- an idea they dreamed up in the 90’s to help them further their aims of replacing government with corporate rule.

See Sarge, that’s part of how you got yourself banned before – you try to put words in my mouth (twice today in fact!) – in this case, making out that I somehow banned you, or even suggested it. I merely noted that it had happened. The reasons wouldn’t even be your persistent lies and trolling – well, yes the trolling, in the sense that your rudeness and accusations against anyone who disagrees with your outlandish perspectives are probably why the site decided you had pushed even the wide bounds of this site beyond the Terms of Service. It’s funny how you call everyone who calls you out a liar – yet you never back up what you say with sources, or even some semblance of logic. The truth is whatever you say it is, because you say it. That’s the extent of your logic.

Everyone being called a “liar” is getting a little old again.

Silly me, I thought this arc was about the problems Ray is having adjusting to life at home as he prepares for another deployment.

Thank you for your reply. I seem to remember that he withdraws periodically, perhaps for health issues. If there isn’t any strong evidence for his being banned, I’ll go on hopiing. His comments were never incendiary.