You're Getting Warmer

 Sometime each month I check on the data for the previous month to follow the trends in global warming data. Okay, I check the first week of the month to see what the satellite data reported from UAH say, then later to see what everyone else says. October was warm in the satellite data, 0.37 degree anomaly, up from 0.21 in September, with the linear regression unchanged at 0.14 degrees per decade. I find the comments on that site amusing because most who participate are convinced that there is no global warming and that any day now the temperature trend will reverse itself and prove that the climate alarmists were wrong all along. They don't address the rising linear regression (It has climbed by 0.02 in the last decade or so.)

Other data sources aren't out with numbers for October yet, but I say a site in my search about year-to-date average, so I clicked to see what it was. It was from January 2021, so there was no year-to-date data, just the number for January compared to all past Januarys, but there were lines for the rest of the years. I looked in the site to try to find something to click to get the most recent data, since we are well past January for this year. I couldn't find anything and there was no search function.

I tried a new search on my browser, using Google, and searching year to date average global temperature, and only got the same January site. I clicked on the September report from NOAA, and tried year-to-date there, because the graph I looked at used their data. I got nothing useful; it had no way I could find to reach the graph.

Finally, I went back to the January graph, looked at the details in the url, and changed a number in it that ended in 01 to 09. That worked, and I saw that 2021 is currently the sixth warmest year to date through September, and trending upward, so it might cross up to fifth or fourth, unless the La Nina drops the temperatures in November and December, as some ar.)e predicting.

I don't understand why the algorithms couldn't find the graph for me on the search. Doesn't NOAA want people to see the more recent graphs? Does Google's search algorithm get so bogged down with one site it can't find something that is clearly a better match (I put in September 2021 in my year-to-date search.)? Maybe the algorithms suffer from the same weaknesses as the general population of America; they don't know much, don't care at all, and can't be bothered with any kind of change once they have settled on something. I find it frustrating that no matter how carefully I tailor my searches, I don't find what I'm after even though I know it's out there. Maybe I need some training in how to better manipulate these lame algorithms that are supposed to be superintelligent and about to take over the world.

Congress passed an infrastructure bill. Not a big enough one, but it is a step. I expect Biden's approval will go up a point or two. Maybe it will lead to more success, which would be nice.

Predicted Outcome

 Ohio had two congressional districts with special elections this week. The results were predictable, and predicted, even by me. Gerrymandering won and representative democracy lost.

In my district, a Republican candidate with no government experience and no apparent qualifications won easily against a serving Democrat from the state legislature. The seat was vacated by our previous representative so he could become president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. He had held office in the state legislature before running for Congress, which he lost in his first campaign, but won a rematch in 2010, when Democrats were so disillusioned by the failure of the Obama Administration to solve all the world's problems in a few weeks, they didn't bother to vote. That gave Republicans complete control of the state legislature and also Congress on a national level. So Republican gerrymandered our district, which used to be somewhat competitive to a guaranteed win for Republicans.

So it seems I will have a useless and incompetent representative, at least until after next year's election. My guess is that gerrymandering will win again and I will still be in a Republican district. That saddens me because I believe, at least somewhat, in the democratic republican form of government.

I can't say how bad a representative I have now. I doubt he will be a worse embarrassment to Ohio than Jim Jordan, but he might. I think he was an energy company lobbyist, so he will probably oppose action on global warming, along with the rest of his party, despite decades of data and actual changes causing a great deal of harm in the world, which will continue to get worse as the warming continues, even if we take action. The best we can do is limit the severity of the damage. It is too late to prevent a lot of warming and damage because we haven't already taken the action the science suggested we should.

In the other election, a democrat who was in local government ran against a radio personality who has run for office before and always lost. The Republican didn't respond to media inquiries about her position on issues. She seems sadly typical of current Republican candidates; uninformed and uninterested in making the world better.

In Virginia, the Republican candidate for governor won based on a campaign of fear mongering and lies, stirring up racial resentment. I guess he and his party have nothing else to offer. It is a sad state of affairs.