From 2010 to 2011, the FBI Crime Clock shows a decline in the rate of crime in the United States:
So what’s the FBI to do? How about turn its statistics fiery red?
At some point over the next few months, the FBI will release another year of crime statistics and sum it up with another Crime Clock. If the crime rate falls further still, will they add muskets and hand grenades to the picture?
Last night, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies released new data on its global temperature anomaly readings. Those readings, which stretch back to 1880, show that around the globe 2012 was the 9th hottest year on record. The top ten years of heat are:
#1: 2010
#2: 2005
#3: 2007
#4: 1998
#5: 2002
#6, #7, #8: 2009, 2006 and 2003 (tied)
#9: 2012
#10: 2011(tied)
Not a single year before 1998 makes it into the top ten hottest years since 1880, and every year in this century has been in the top fifteen. The last year in which the globe was cooler than the 1951-1980 average was 1976. Every year from 1880 up to 1937 was cooler than the 1951-1980 average.
Take a look at the data for yourself and you’ll see the trend is clear: within in any decade there may be some minor variability, but from decade to decade across the last century and a third there has been a clear and consistent global warming trend.
NASA’s record of global temperature anomalies stretches back 133 years with readings from around the planet, on land as well as over the ocean.
NASA updates its global temperature record every month. The release of November temperature data this week shows that on a global scale, November 2012 was the second hottest November on record. Only 2010 had a hotter November, and each one of the 10 hottest Novembers has occurred since 1997.
NASA measures the months of September, October and November as its “fall” for reporting purposes. The fall of 2012 was the second hottest November in NASA’s record. Only 2005 had a hotter fall, and each one of the 10 hottest falls has fallen after the year 2000.
The trend has become so obvious that even the anti-empirical conspiracy theorists have largely fallen silent. The only people left using the the phrase “global warming is a hoax” on Twitter, for instance, are people mocking the idea of a hoax.
No more Barack Obama as a presidential candidate.
No more of Mitt Romney’s talk about 47% of the American people.
No more of Todd Akin’s pop-gynecology or Richard Mourdock talking about the miracle of rape babies.
No more Democratic operatives insisting that with the most important election of the millenium in the balance, now is not the time to be bringing up Issue X.
The election of 2012 is over.
What matters to you outside of elections? What are the great threats of our time? What are the great problems to be solved?
Yesterday, I promised that I’d start making public what the Americans Elect corporation has not made public: its August 2012 Mission Report. Appreciation goes to Americans Elect Board of Advisors member and Harvard Professor David King for sending me a paper copy when asked. It’ll take me a while to scan the whole report in, but eventually I hope to share the whole report with you.
This morning, let’s look at the first 9 pages of the Americans Elect Mission Report. What do you read here? What’s interesting? What’s telling? Post a comment here with your observations, and feel free to download the pdf file and post it to your own website.
“Yen mort, Tim? Mitt Romney!”
That one’s simple. Can you do one better? Write up your best Election 2012 palindrome.
The St. John Valley Times shares the text of on an October 17 speech given by outgoing Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, praising the work of the 501c4 corporation Americans Elect:
“And I want to leave you with this thought – that we do have a foundation today for rebuilding a government that works. The recent proliferation of groups dedicated in one form or another to civility in politics gives us tremendous impetus for hope. We have this extraordinarily important Civility Series. We have organizations like Third Way, which is working to bring Democrats to the middle, as is the Republican Main Street Partnership from the other side. We have No Labels, seeking to move American politics from ‘point scoring’ to ‘problem solving.’ Americans Elect has been trying to change ‘the way we elect our leaders.’”
Americans Elect has produced a great deal of talk over the last two years, but most of what it’s done has been utterly inconsequential. It looked as though Americans Elect was going to try run a presidential candidate this year, but it cancelled its presidential efforts after hardly any American voters came out in support of the idea. Americans Elect even sent out letters to secretaries of state to cancel its ballot access, worried that some Americans Elect delegates who weren’t from the DC corporate headquarters might try to help out candidates all on their own. This was a long, protracted episode of inaction.
The only actual, consequential political action taken by Americans Elect since its formation has been to:
A) take $1.75 million in cash from three Wall Street tycoons,
B) flood the state of Maine with TV advertisements opposing U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Summers,
and
C) flood the state of Maine with mailers and TV advertisements promoting U.S. Senate candidate Angus King.
Interfering in the Maine race for U.S. Senate is the only consequential political action Americans Elect has taken. And Olympia Snowe was correct when she remarked in last week’s Connecticut speech that “Americans Elect has been trying to change ‘the way we elect our leaders.’” But do you think that swamping a small-state campaign with unregulated Wall Street dollars is the right way to “change the way we elect our leaders?” Who is Olympia Snowe speaking for?
