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Nate Silver, over at fivethirtyeight.com has an offer all you Global Warming Deniers can't refuse:

Because I'd like to see more accountability on all sides of this debate and because I'm tired of people who don't understand statistics and because I'd like to make some money, I issue the following challenge.

You are eligible for this challenge if:

1. You live in the United States and provide me with your home address and telephone number (I will provide you with mine) and,
2. You are a regular (at least once weekly) contributor to a political, economics or science blog with an Alexa traffic global ranking of 50,000 or lower.

The reason for the latter requirement is because I want to be able to shame/humiliate you if you back out of the challenge or refuse to pay, as I'd assume you'd do the same with me.

The rules of the challenge are as follows:

1. For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you owe me $25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit below average, I owe you $25.
2. The challenge proceeds in monthly intervals, with the first month being August. At the end of each month, we'll tally up the winning and losing days and the loser writes the winner a check for the balance.
3. The challenge automatically rolls over to the next month until/unless: (i) one party informs the other by the 20th of the previous month that he would like to discontinue the challenge (that is, if you want to discontinue the challenge for September, you'd have to tell me this by August 20th), or (ii) the losing party has failed to pay the winning party in a timely fashion, in which case the challenge may be canceled at the sole discretion of the winning party.

Any takers? You can reach Nate by going to his site and clicking on the "Contact" button at the top of his page...

Good luck!

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