Does the cold ease your fear of climate change? Not so fast

Does the cold ease your fear of climate change? Not so fast

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Chicago cold, as conveyed on an iPhone
COLD RELIEF — NOT. If Chicago’s cold snap eases your fears about global warming, not so fast. As NASA explained in 2010, weather like this is consistent with a global warming trend. And there’s still that record snowless run — something the Tribune‘s Eric Zorn rightly calls “downright creepy.”
* Chicago preps for permanent heat wave (from May).
* City has official “climate action plan.”
* 5 southern cities with more snow than Chicago.

‘A LOUD — AND, FOR THIS PRESIDENT, DAMNED NEAR DERISIVE — DENOUNCEMENT OF ALL … REPUBLICANS HAVE COME TO STAND FOR.’ Esquire‘s Charles Pierce says President Obama’s inauguration address is already bothering people like Scott Johnson at Power Line, who says it wrought “serious intellectual destruction.”
Obama speech’s most viral moment (as reflected by Twitter).
* Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall: “A map of human dignity.”
* Owner of Stonewall Inn: “It’s like owning Rosa Parks’s bus.”
* Romney’s no-show is a first in decades.
* Borowitz Report: Speech gives grateful Republicans “detailed list of things to thwart over the next four years.”

* White House staffer on online petition mania: “My God, what have we done?

MUCH APPRECIATED. Gawker‘s list of people injured or killed by guns on Gun Appreciation Day.
* Groupon puts gun-related deals on hold, angers gun-rights advocates.
* Carl Sandburg’s previously unknown poem about “A Revolver”: “When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court …”

FOOTBALL AND BRAIN DISEASE. New research to be made public today at 1 p.m. links the problem more conclusively to NFL players.
* Dave Zirin in The Nation: “Athletically gifted children see the NFL, with all its attendant dangers, as … their ticket out of poverty.”

TE-ALL INTERVIEW? Katie Couric’s sit-down with Manti Te’o and his parents about his imaginary dead girlfriend airs Thursday. How hard can she press when she and Te’o  share the same PR rep?
* Archive of tweets for Te’o’s fauxfriend and the other guy linked to her digital life (and death).
* Deadspin’s hate mail since breaking the story.
* Pulitzer winners analyze Deadspin reporting.
* Guide to avoiding Twitter scams.

A GREAT METROPOLIS. The official poster art for April’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) puts Chicago in the picture with the Man of Steel.
* … Which is appropriate, because much of the forthcoming movie was filmed here.

SOMEDAY, YOU’LL WORK FOR GOOGLE. Google founder Larry Page says his company could eventually employ a million people.
* Yahoo sends ex-employees “welcome back” packages.
* Job posting seeks “young journalists who don’t know better.”
13-year-old news blogger credentialed to cover inauguration.


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