Here we go again: row, row, row, your boat – Arctic edition | Watts Up With That?

But calling that journey a voyage “across the Arctic Ocean”? Sorry, that’s a coastal voyage they have planned, and is hardly “across” anything but the Bering Strait. I can see why they neglected to put a map on their site showing their proposed route …

Stop Whining about Pepco (because it’s your fault)

Pepco’s biggest service territory is in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is one of the wealthiest regions in the country. It’s also exceptionally woody. Guess what rich people hate? Utilities cutting down trees in their neighborhoods, that’s what. Accordingly, Pepco operates under more stringent tree-trimming guidelines in Montgomery County than do utilities in neighboring service areas. According to the Washington Examiner, Pepco is allowed to cut trees within 10 feet of a power line. In Virginia, Dominion Power can trim trees within 15 feet of a power line. In fact, the utility actively has been lobbying the Transportation Infrastructure, Energy, and Environment Committee of the Montgomery County Council for expanded tree-cutting prerogatives.

Instead of corporate malfeasance, the true causes of Pepco’s crummy record on reliability are: (1) the Progressive-era incentive structure for utilities and (2) not-in-my-backyard-ism in one of the country’s richest counties. Both of these factors are derivative of Pepco’s customers, not its boardroom.

5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think | Climate Etc.

JC comment:  Ahhhh, the tribe, and the team!  The emotional/social costs of being ‘wrong’ in the climate debate have reached mammoth proportions. This is probably the scariest fallacy in terms of science, and we see ample evidence of this in the CRU emails.