Pining for the fjords.

Fuck you universe

and fuck you advertising before the song.

Science as opinion

Dear Gaius Publius:

NOAA says:
Over the last three years, Seager said, unpredictable atmospheric circulation patterns, combined with La Niña, formed high-pressure systems in winter over the West Coast, blocking storms from the Pacific that would have brought rain to California. The result has been the second-lowest three-year winter precipitation total since record-keeping began in 1895. But that pattern doesn't match what models predict as an outcome of climate change, said Seager. In fact, the study's models indicate that as global warming proceeds, winter precipitation in California is actually predicted to increase, thanks to an increased likelihood of low-pressure systems that allow winter storms to pass from the ocean to the mainland.

You say: 
Common sense says climate, dryness of the entire Southwest via heat and lack of rainfall, is a consequence of global warming.
So me, I go with common sense. 

I say: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You don't get to pick and choose your science based on "common sense." That is exactly the same BS the right uses to deny global warming. NOAA may be wrong, but it is making the best scientific projection based on data, not "common sense." Just because it fits a narrative you want does not allow you to ignore it when the scientists don't say things you like. 

Sincerely,

fish

Response to reviewers

We would like to thank all the reviewers for providing their insights into our manuscript. The critiques have significantly improved the quality of our revised paper. We do appreciate how difficult it must be to generate criticism of our work which is clearly outside of their areas of expertise. 
It is now obvious that our explanations for certain experiments were incomplete, otherwise the clear misunderstandings of our results and their implications would never have occurred. In this revised version we have removed difficult to understand words and provided more detailed explanations as to how it was important that one sample was different from another by two orders of magnitude in our measurements. We apologize for failing to emphasize such subtle differences in the original manuscript, and we hope these changes will help prevent future confusion. 
We unfortunately chose not to do one of the additional experiments suggested by reviewer #1. While it certainly is true that this experiment would provide independent confirmation of the results, we felt that 12 people working for the next 5 years may delay the impact of our work a little too much for our comfort. We will certainly follow up on this important confirmation as soon as we have 12 people and 5 years to spare. We do not encourage reviewer #1 to hold his or her breath. 
It was very helpful for anonymous reviewer #2 to catalog all those citations we missed in our original manuscript. It is genuinely embarrassing that we somehow missed all 15 papers from one research group when we wrote our original manuscript. We have worked very hard to make all those citations relevant in some way in our revised manuscript. 
Reviewer #3 is quite certainly correct that other scientific research has been performed in that past, some of it actually in the same field as our work. We do not challenge this assertion. We are not entirely convinced by the argument that just because a paper using genetic analysis was published before ours means that all future manuscripts using genetic analysis are derivative and only represent a small incremental increase in understanding. We will certainly concede that the reviewer is making a valid and true statement that research has been done in the past, but we respectfully argue that uniformly applied, this argument might become somewhat limiting for the publication of many future scientific discoveries. Perhaps a slightly less stringent criteria is warranted in this case. 
It was also very helpful of reviewer #1 to remove all Oxford commas from our manuscript and alter the American English spellings to UK standard. His or her efforts have significantly clarified the text making it much more readable to the international community. As UK English is not the primary language for any of the authors, it is difficult for us to write it well. We have made every effort in the revised version to cling to UK standard so as to prevent our manuscript from having the odor odour of the colonies about it. 
The peer review process is an essential part of the scientific process and the reviewers have certainly provided us with detailed feedback. Our manuscript can now be described as significantly different that the original one, and despite the lack of changes in the data presented, the conclusions drawn, or the overall scientific impact of the work, the manuscript is obviously much improved. We hope it is now suitable for publication and eagerly await you, the editor's opinion on the suitability of our paper for publication. We know that  even though you are not as old as our first published paper, that you still have tremendous insights into what are the truly important questions in science and will recognize how important this work will be to your readership.  

Smut, don't drink it!

I am thinking the good doktor and I are owed some serious royalties.

Standards

-Its important to have standards, because without standards you can't be sure something is done properly. Standards are what separates quality individuals from anarchy.

-What do you mean? How do standards help us?

-Standards are when you expect to achieve a level of behavior that is considered acceptable or desirable. It is what makes us better than those low quality primitives that just do what ever they want. They have no standards at all. In a moral world, standards are absolutely essential. 

-How do I know if I have standards? I want to be a person of quality.

-Typically standards are set by individuals of quality. They debate and discuss what the standards should be. The discussions have very lofty goals and must be very detailed. Once they agree on the appropriate standards we can all live a better life because of the standards they set.

-So the standards make you a more moral person?

-Of course they do! Once you have standards, you know that you are perfect.

-Because you always use the standards to guide your actions, that way you know you are behaving properly. Right?

-Wait what?

-The standards. They tell you how to act when you have to make tough decisions.

Oh no. We don't actually use the standards. Why would we do that? That's just crazy. We just have standards. That is what makes us better than the other guys.

-How is it any different than not having standards? You still do whatever you want. The standards are totally pointless if you don't actually use them. You are no better than the guys without standards.

-I don't think I like talking to you, I have standards you know.

Here we are again playing "Smut, don't drink it!"

Some days it is better to lock the liquor cabinet just to prevent certain individuals (I'm looking at you Herr Doktor) from self destructive behaviors.