Troy

Oh I wasn't even aware that there were three centuries of weather data to collect. SO that is news to me. Granted you invested more time that I have in analysing the data, but that is not saying much because other than the data that you've shared i have not attempted to double check the findings of the world's climatologist. No scientist can predict the weather 24 hours from now with absolute certainty; nor will they say that they can. Predicting the Earth's climate 50 years from now is obviously much more difficult. @Del, we have hurricane Irma, the second strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, for which current models disagree where this monster of a storm will hit. They don't even say with certainty how strong it will be when it does hit. No one in their right mind will reject the storm potential impact. As a result people are preparing for it's impact--even though it might not hit them. Of course there are people who say that weathermen, suck at predicting the weather and that they have previously prepared for storms that they were warned about but never came. So why should they bother this time? Needless to say many people have lost their lives with the reasoning. In my mind Del your absolute rejection of global climate change is no different that the folks ignoring Irma's forecast and failing to prepare for it. However in this case it is not us who will suffer the consequences of failing to act, but our children.

@Pioneer1, I hear you Bruh. While I feel people should marry anyone they want... I still feel you

I don't think Daren's views are so unique, it is just that most folks, especially Black folks, who share this perspective are not inclined to make it widely known. Of course, I don't see Black people are inferior to white folks; subconsciously or otherwise. I don't see why embracing Black culture implies or means rejecting American culture. Black culture, here in America, is part of American culture--the two are inextricably linked. Now there are things I find wrong with American culture, that need to be fixed. But there are things that are wrong with myself that need to be fixed. So I'm not rejecting American culture any more than I reject myself; both need work. To dismiss the legacy of slavery as having an adverse impact on Black people is tantamount to putting one's head in the sand. There are always exceptional people who succeed despite the odds, but are just that "exceptional." Exceptional people are great role models, but they cannot be used as proof that we can all achieve in the way they have, because the vast majority of us are not exceptional. I don't have the numbers but I'm quite sure Dr. Sowells books don't generate as much profit a Bruno Mars download or as much as a professional athlete ("entertainer").

The following is a conversation I've been having with some on my blog under the post Only 54 Black Owned Bookstores Remain in America. It is one of my post popular posts. If you have not read it check it out and share it with others . Recently someone made the following statement in reaction to my article: “The individual who wrote this article did a disservice to the real truth as to why black book stores are so few and far between - it is simply the fact that over 80% of blacks do not read books as much as their contemporaries...whites and Asians. If you do a study which has been done, blacks are the less likely to have a library card, a newspaper subscription - whether online or a physical paper, and blacks are less inclined to have a private library of books in their home.” —Daren Williams That comment led to the exchange shown below. I've invited Daren to carry on this conversation here. He seems to have the right temperament, opinionated, articulate, and not afraid to have his ideas challenged. Troy Johnson Thanks Daren please share a link to the study you referenced–thanks! Daren Williams I will find the study and forward it to you. Dr. Thomas Sowell has the study in one for his books. I need to research my library of the book. But here is a story this year that illustrates what I’m saying. http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/05/75-of-black-california-boys-dont-meet-state-reading-standards/ Troy Johnson Hi Daren I’m familiar with Sowell’s work. All of his books are on this site: https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Thomas+Sowell I’ve read two or three myself. But I don’t recall him drawing any conclusions about the dearth of Black owned bookstores. Still, do you think Black people are reading fewer books than we did just 15 years ago when the number of Black owned bookstores numbered in the hundreds? Can you not think any other exogenous factors that might contribute reduction in the number of independently owned bookstores? Daren Williams Sowell doesn’t make the conclusion of the death of Black owned bookstores is due to blacks not reading…I make the conclusion. Education and reading is not a top priority for blacks in general. Sports is more of a priority to blacks….entertainment by way of rapping and dancing….social activism is more of a priority to blacks than education and reading. Though education and reading will move blacks and anyone closer to their goals a lot quicker. Give you a great example to ponder. Name me five black scientist or inventors of the late 20th, 21st century…but you can name me 20-50 black NFL and NBA players off the bat. The Black owned bookstores have of course been in predominately black areas…if those black areas are not reading then the book stores have no customers to sell to in the immediate area. Troy Johnson Sure there are some in the Black community do not view education as a priority. However this is not condition limited only to Black people; it is a function of culture and class. I bet if you asked anyone to name 5 NBA players and five scientists they would find it easier to name the professional athletes, but our culture celebrates athletes for it a lot easier for corporations to profit off them. Poor people could work their way out of poverty with a good education, but they are the one denied this opportunity for the schools in the neighborhoods are often terrible. Sure the parents should compensate for bad schools, but they are often ill-educated themselves and are too busy trying to survive to to be of much assistance. As a bookseller I know first hand people have been trained, for example, to buy books from Amazon. I offer can autographed copy of a book priced less than what Amazon sells an autographed copy for and people will still buy from Amazon. Plus the fact that Amazon can sell books at a loss while indie bookseller much generate profit is also a major factor. The issues are more complex than you have portrayed them. However I will grant you that if reading valued more, or at least as much as swiping through a social media feed, there probably would be more viable bookstores and we’d be richer culturally. Daren Williams Troy if you live in the Washington DC metro area we should meet for coffee…I have completely different views about blacks in America than say 90%-95% of most people. As you and many others would like to see blacks as inferior, subconsciously of course, I view blacks as being completely able to compete with all their contemporaries; white, Asian, Hispanic, and other wise. It is the embracing of the “black culture” (which was made up out of the 1960’s) and the rejection of “American culture” that has caused blacks to be in this current state of failure as a group….whites or institutions have nothing to do with the Negro problem going on right now. Every group of people that comes to America and embraces the American culture, within 5 to 10 years, progresses forward in education, and financial prosperity. Blacks fail to do so because they dont want to follow the order of American traditions. Of course current day blacks will attempt to state the reason for their shortcomings is slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. But I would turn every living black Americans’ attention to Booker T. Washington, who did more in his short life with insurmountable odds against him than most blacks will ever do with all the luxuries and creature comforts at their fingertips. And Professor Washington is not a one-off…there are countless examples of blacks in the past that have accomplished great and mighty things under slavery, JC, and segregation. So there is absolutely no excuse for current day blacks. Institutional racism existed back then, but there is no institutional racism or racism period that can keep a black from being whatever they desire in life….Barack Hussein Obama being the best example. If there was institutional racism, Obama would have never been elected – for whites are 73 percent of the American population…blacks are too small of a voting pool to elect anyone in or out of office. Racism is just an excuse blacks use for their complacency and laziness. And about corporations profiting off of athletes…do you think John Hopkins profited off the great neurological doctor Ben Carson? Or are publishing houses profiting off of Dr. Sowell’s and Condoleezza Rice’s books? Just a thought. Blacks can make all the excuses in the world as to their current plight, but this will only keep them in their situation forever.

Del the last paragraph in the executive summary says: "In general, there is no direct means of translating quantitative measures of past performance into confident statements about fidelity of future climate projections. However, there is increasing evidence that some aspects of observed variability or trends are well correlated with inter-model differences in model projections for quantities such as Arctic summertime sea ice trends, snow albedo feedback, and the carbon loss from tropical land. These relationships provide a way, in principle, to transform an observable quantity into a constraint on future projections, but the application of such constraints remains an area of emerging research. There has been substantial progress since the AR4 in the methodology to assess the reliability of a multi-model ensemble, and various approaches to improve the precision of multi-model projections are being explored. However, there is still no universal strategy for weighting the projections from different models based on their historical performance." Which is a long winded way of saying they can't predict the weather with a high level of certainty, which is not exactly a revelation. Is it? I was interesting to see just how many factors they incorporated, many of which are man made, including land use, methane (farming), aerosol particles, carbon, etc into their models. The report is over 100 pages long and full of terms I'd need to look up to fulling understand. But skimming the graphs of the actual measurements collected they all have an upward trend. The report is not new and is missing most of the past decade. It is possible a similar report with up to date information might draw slightly different conclusions. Would you agree? It is not clear to me why you reject man made climate change based upon what you've read in this report. But if you have read the entire thing and understand it perhap you can shed some light based upon what it actually contained in the report and how it informs your decision to reject man made climate change as "fiction," in the same category as Santa. Thanks.

Yes, race is a social construct and as such it is open to manipulation. We had phenotypically and culturally white people being forced into the "Black bucket" against their will in America due to the "one drop" rule. The whole concept of being able to live a better life by denouncing your family and "passing" is absurd. Race is a tool of our oppressor and a very effective one. I also agree that cultural and ethnic identities exist, but these have little to do with so called racial differences. Hispanics are phenotypical as diverse as so called Black people are. But since we are fixated on skin color, hair texture, and other things we have an additional level of racism to contend with, because of colorism in the Black community, not just here in America but all over the world. These so called racial differences create strife both within our community and from outside our community. This is both unnecessary and detrimental to our community. To be sure, racists will hate brown people no matter what we are called. They can't be appealed to based upon science, facts, logic or reason. Because racists are irrational does not mean we have to be, by embracing the same faulty reasoning they use to justify their hatred of what they define as Black people. For example, the fact that Barack Obama has a lilly white mother and is about as far from being culturally Black as you can get, makes no difference to a racist. My fight is not against white people, but the systems that create white racists. One of the hardest and fastest lessons I learned when I started this business is that people will not buy from me simply because I'm Black. They will not pay a premium, go out their way, or show any difference to AALBC.com because it is Black owned and supports Black authors. It is no different that it was in corporate America where one had to between better than one's peers just be be treated half as good. Of course their are people who buy books through the site and support Black businesses deliberately, because they see it as investing in the Black community, but these folks are the exceptions, not the rule. I have a fighting chance because of these people--in fact some of them are white. Often what is mistaken as bad service is really just a struggling business doing the best they can. I recently began promoting a bestselling book seal, in an effort to encourage AALBC.com bestselling authors to embrace the site they would any bestsellers list published by white folks. I've been publishing a bestsellers list, continuously, for over 19 years. I'm not aware of any bestsellers list, focused on Black books, that has been published consistently for so long. Using an AALBC.com bestseller seal would seem like a no-brainer, especially for authors who are not recognized by any other entity. I got a designer to create a few different bestseller seals on a barter deal. I solicited feedback on the various designs and selected the winning seal. An author, a conscious sister, pointed out a typo on the seal that had gone unnoticed and unreported for months! Now this author could have slammed me and refused to ever us a seal, but instead she told me to let her know when the seal was corrected because she wanted to use it on her marketing materials. I wish every author was this conscious. To date, 698 authors have been AALBC.com bestselling authors since 1998. Will 10% promote the fact; will half do so? Whatever that figure turns out to be will will be less, far less, than it would be if a white entity established them as a bestseller. Now of course one will argue will that NY Times bestsellers list, for example, actually "means" something. At that is my point. The meaning we attribute to making the NY Times list is really the meaning we give it. We allow--no, we seek the validation of other cultures (white folks) to give our bestsellers lists meaning. White folks determine which authors have merit and which books deserve to be read. Damn, we don't even profit from the sales of Black books. I'd like to see that Black entities have some say in which Books are important and I'd like to see us profit more from the resulting commerce.

I hear you man. It is human nature to believe something that makes us feel good or better. I was raised a racist I grew up believing white folks were evil and could not be trusted. How could it be otherwise. Everybody I knew, that was Black, lived in a ghetto, white people lived in fine homes had cars and did not have to deal with crime. At least that is the way it looked on TV... For some religion help deals with the evil we've been dealt, for others it is some brand of Black superiority, for me it is science and ideas which is why books are important and forums like this where people welcome their ideas being challenged are vauable. I used to buy more into the Black superiority thing, but not so much any more--it is no longer necessary. I never did buy into religion--even as a child..my brain simply does not work that way. I should not have said most hispanics are white. I was trying to make a point using sloppy terms. Your statement: Illustrates why I don't like using race. Scientifically there is only one race. When we talk about who is Black and who is white we really are left to our own subjective devices. As a result there is no definitive answer for who is white or Black. There is not genetic test for this either... Hispanics come in every color imaginable. Many brown hispanics self identify as white. Here in this country some people we would describe as white self identify as Black. Walter White and Jean Toomer look like white boys to me, but we embrace them as Black. Those racist terms have as many definitions as there are people. I shouldn't use them but it depends on who I'm talking to and the situation. I run a site celebrating Black culture as reaction to how we are treated. It would be nice if sites like ours were not necessary but as far as I'm concerned we need more.

Del what do you want the model to predict; the next superstorm, when NY City will be below sea level, when the planet will rendered incapable of supporting human life? What things are you looking to see correlated, rainfall, CO2, temperate (global averages, atmospheric, at sea level water temperature), population, ...?

Well that is great news! Please share something you think will appeal to readers of Black literature, that is on your site, and I'll see if I can work it into my newsletter. Welcome back and keep us posted on what new.

Since May of this year, I've been sharing this bestseller seal. I this time I simply never noticed the type it contained! This morning I read an email from a bestselling author alerting me about the typo. They did so almost reluctantly not wanting to bother me in the event I was already aware of the error. I was not and just the day before I began using the seal throughout the site--an effort that I now have to invest valuable time to correct. Of course as soon as the error was pointed out it jumped out at me like some sick magic trick. Oh brother...

Seriously, one of the reasons I don't do much on Facebook is that it gives you a distorted perception of humanity, reality even. I've spoken to too many people who have told me that they feel worse about themselves simply because everyone else's life looks so much better on Facebook. If you judged humanity by our collective activity on Facebook, or any social media platform, you would become a misanthrope. Your ramblings interest me @Cynique, like any good memoir it tells me as much about myself as it does about you. I've come the conclusion that we are all just human, flawed creatures, susceptible to manipulation, and doing the best we can with the cards we've been dealt

Del asking you if Santa Claus had an impact is a patently silly question. But your outrageous and nonsensical analogy with Stana makes your answer clear. I was attempting to gauge how fixed your opinion was on climate change was. I thought the massive storm Harvey might have an impact, but you are far more rigid and fixed than I expected. This issue is a religious one with you. Again, I see the beliefs of the scientific community, new information, another unprecedented weather calamity will not change your position one iota. This is tantamount to trying to tell a Christian that Jesus was not raised from the dead or even telling you that Astrology is bunk. Now I understand, thanks.

@Del, your request is not clear to me. Tell me what you are looking for specifically; Are you looking for a visual or a mathematical model. Do you want graphs or charts. I suspect you are just as good as I am at hunting down information on the WWW as I am. Given the history of you shooting down every other form of supporting information I've provided; I'm not keen for looking for something that you will only dispute with your spreadsheet.

@NubianFellow, neither of these articles spoke to a reduction of sperm count in white men compared to Black men The Dailymail's (a tabloid) article is based upon information published in the Washington Post (virtually plagiarizing them), the Washington Post cited this study; http://www.nber.org/papers/w22849#fromrss, which speaks to in increase in mortality due to trade with China. The Pew Center's article discussed birth rate and the increase in crease of hispanics and their increase cover whites and Blacks. Since many hispanics are white, it is not clear why you would select this article to support you point. As an aside; the Pew reports says that in 2009 73% of black birth were to unwed mothers!. That is a staggering statistic and speaks volumes to the nature of Black families....

Cynique height is not subjective, eye color may be depending on your vocabulary, hair texture is subjective for the same reasons eye color is. People can group other people into different groups to their heart's content. You just can't group them into difference "races" because their is only ONE RACE. Del you can mix some races; Neanderthals and Sapiens mixed. I understand Europeans to this day have some percentage of their genome which can be tracked directly to the Neanderthal man.

Del sit is plain to see you will not answer my direct and simple question. Instead you cloud the issue will irrelevant points that we've already gone over. All I asked was, Do you believe the scientists who tell us that this very bad storm was made worse because of manmade climate change? Again, if you don't want to answer one question, which at this point you made abundantly clear that you don't, that is fine, but you can save the other stuff, as you said before. You've also demonstrated a prodigious propensity for shooting down anything I might have to say on the subject. So again if you won't answer my question you can rest your finger muscles.

Wow, so you won't answer the question regarding the recent statements of the scientific community. This is deep. Just and hour ago you accused NubianFellow avoiding a question due to ignorance, but here you are doing the same thing yourself. Given your statement it is indeed curious why you won't simply say "No." Instead you go back to the strawman of an argument and accuse everyone of not thinking for themselves. If you want "new" or additional more data you can look at rainfall in Houston over time. But something tells me it won't mean anything to you. Kationa, Sandy, Harvey, statistically anomalies?! Del these are not anomalies these are and emerging and predicted trend in more severe weather. The really sad part is that many people on the political right here in America share your viewpoint and are not doing anything to prepare for the increasing number of severe weather events. As a result people are loosing everything and dying as a result.

The actual study may be found here: https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/doi/10.1093/humupd/dmx022/4035689/Temporal-trends-in-sperm-count-a-systematic-review I did not read the whole study, but I read enough to know that the study was conducted using men in the "West" which includes; North America, Europe Australia and New Zealand and excludes, South America, Asia and Africa. (obviously this excludes the majority of Black people). The study itself simply says they did not have enough information about trends about people in Africa or South America, but it does not look like the declines are as steep as they are in the West. Quote from the study: "...we saw no significant declines for studies from South America, Asia and Africa, which may, in part be accounted for by limited statistical power and an absence of studies in unselected men from these countries prior to 1985. However, we note that the modification of the slope by geographic group was significant. Thus, based on the results presented here, while it is not possible to rule out a trend in non-Western countries, these data do not support a decline as steep as that observed in Western countries." However, @NubianFellow since the study only talks about men in the "west" and Black people in America are part of this group, why have you concluding that Black men in America are not impacted with a lower sperm count? The study itself did not attempt to compare phenotypically Black and Phenotypically white people in the west, so I assume you have another source.

Yes Del that is my point because these stereotypes ( and they are indeed stereotypes) are true sometimes, does not make them true all the time. But again the reasoning is nonsensical because there is only one race. The differences we use to describe people are purely subjective. Someone who is white to one person is Black to another depending upon the time and the place, How you self describe is irrelevant to the way those around you define you. There is no objective or scientific way to describe ones race. If pressed I was say everyone is Black.

Quantifying the difference is very hard if not impossible because their are many factors including the way the City of Houston was designed. But that does not mean there is no impact from man made climate change. Are you going to answer my question?

Pioneer the differences you are attributing to race are a function of culture or evil. White people marched across Europe during the crusades killing other white people, directed by the leadership of the Catholic Church. Shoot, white folks killed 600,000 of each other here in the United States, duped into believing they were fighting for states rights when in fact the were fighting for rich people. Evil people think very differently than kind people. Middle class educated Black people in Harlem think differently than poor uneducated people in Harlem. Black people whose families have been wealthy for a few generations have more in common with rich white people than you or I have with each other. This makes sense if you understand there is only one race. Now that does not mean that people, like you, who attribute meaning to race, that has no foundation in reality. I also understand that people who subscribe to these "Inherent" racial difference and go so far as to believe Black people are an inferior "race" can create serious problems for me and other Black people. Indeed it is one of the reason I fun this website. It is people misunderstanding of race that is problematic. Maybe if people really understood that there is only one race they would also understand how silly their beliefs are. White people are not inherently evil, Black people are not inherently less intelligent, Jews are not inherently stingy, Black women are not inherently good in bed, Asians are not inherently good at math... right?

@Pioneer1, you are being coy. Do you believe that 45's family are qualified to do anything substantive in the West Wing of the White House? Did you know that more than 40% of Harvard undergrads have a family member that attended the school, more than 30% have a parent that attended the school 30%! Do you really think all of those legacy admits are more deserving to be admitted than all the Black kids who are not legacies and were rejected?

In my research of top Black websites, I stumbled across a video on The Root, in which Idris mentions he is directing a film on a book that "everybody read," called Yardie. by Victor Headley Well I did not read it, and I figured some of you all have not read it either. If you are into Urban fiction it really sound like something you'd want to check out. The film is in post production and is scheduled to be released in 2018. I'm sure I'll publish a review.

No problem keep us posted on your book reviews.

OK gotcha I have a question I've been meaning to ask you a question about climate change, I'm sure you may have had a feeling it was probably coming