DC: Delightfully Comfortable

After some high clouds this morning, the Washington DC metro area is enjoying a beautiful late spring afternoon with sunny skies, northerly breezes, temperatures in the low 70s, and low humidity (dewpoints mainly in the mid 30s). As the high pressure currently dominating the Mid Atlantic region gradually slides eastward, temperatures will continue to warm and there is a chance for some much-needed showers tomorrow afternoon or evening.

Photo of yesterday's brilliant sunset by CapitalWeather.com photographer Kevin Ambrose

Tonight and Tomorrow

For tonight, increasing clouds will be accompanied by lows in the upper 50s in town to the low 50s in the colder 'burbs. Despite variably cloudy skies, tomorrow's highs should be near 80 with a 50% chance of showers by evening.

For the outlook Friday through the weekend, scroll on down to Dan's earlier post.

Political Science

The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" opens today in New York and Los Angeles and around the country through June. This documentary on climate change is based heavily on a presentation developed by former Vice President Al Gore to spread the word about this important topic.

Given the high visibility of the main actor and the polarized state of current politics, reports indicate that the slime machine has already geared up to trash the messenger. Fox "News" weighed in with a counter-documentary this past Sunday which featured only the very small minority of scientific skeptics. However, reporting from the Cannes Film Festival in today's NY Times, movie reviewer A.O. Scott says,

Appearances to the contrary, Mr. Guggenheim's movie is not really about Al Gore. It consists mainly of a multimedia presentation on climate change that Mr. Gore has given many times over the last few years, interspersed with interviews and Mr. Gore's voice-over reflections on his life in and out of politics. His presence is, in some ways, a distraction, since it guarantees that "An Inconvenient Truth" will become fodder for the cynical, ideologically facile sniping that often passes for political discourse these days. But really, the idea that worrying about the effect of carbon-dioxide emissions on the world's climate makes you some kind of liberal kook is as tired as the image of Mr. Gore as a stiff, humorless speaker, someone to make fun of rather than take seriously.

The movie gets good marks for its scientific accuracy from the RealClimate blog. Wonkette Ana Marie Cox has a review of the D.C. premiere in the online version of Time Magazine.

In DC, the film will be shown beginning June 2 at the E Street and Georgetown theaters. It will also be playing in the metro area at the Bethesda Row, Gaithersburg Rio 18, Shirlington, and Cinema Arts Fairfax. The AP reports, via USA Today, that the White House movie theater is not scheduling any showings.

The book tied in to the movie won't be released until June 13, but it has already risen to number 129 (up from 240 yesterday) on the Amazon.com bestseller list.