August 18, 2005. Winter Garden, Florida. Photographer states :: "Rain again. Sorry about the spots on the lense!" this is a storm? That is more than a storm. Like, Holy Smokes !!! I don't know when I have ever seen anything like this for all the photographs over time I have looked at. this is unique. 

McCain, Clinton probe melting Arctic

GLOBAL WARMING: High-profile contingent says evidence mounting.

By LIZ RUSKINAnchorage Daily News

Published: August 18th, 2005
Last Modified: August 18th, 2005 at 02:25 AM

Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, touring Alaska this week to view melting permafrost and shrinking glaciers, said the evidence is mounting that global warming is real and human activity is significantly to blame.

"The question is how much damage will be done before we start taking concrete action," McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters at the Hotel Captain Cook Wednesday morning. "Go up to places like we just came from. It's a little scary."

Clinton, D-N.Y., said the scientists and Native people she's spoken to on this trip to Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory make the case with convincing and moving particulars.

"So I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science," she said. "There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."
Among those holdouts, though, is Alaska's entire delegation to Congress -- Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski and Congressman Don Young -- who did not accompany the senators on their tour.

The Alaskans have opposed mandatory limits on the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, saying they're not convinced that humans are largely to blame.
That would put them outside the scientific mainstream.

The National Academy of Sciences and the academies of 10 other nations issued a statement this summer saying there is strong evidence that significant global warming is under way and that "it is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities."

Whatever the cause, almost everyone agrees the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the world, and the effects in the North can seem dramatic, which is why Clinton, McCain and two other Lower 48 senators came. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the Arctic is the canary in the mine shaft of global warming, "crying out to us to pay attention to the impact."

The group flew over Canada's Yukon territory and saw forests decimated by spruce bark beetles -- believed to grow profusely because of warm weather.

"It's just heartbreaking to see the devastation," Clinton said.

She was struck by the account of a 93-year-old woman she met at a fish camp they helicoptered to from Whitehorse, Yukon. The woman told her she'd been fishing there her whole life but that lately the fish have strange bumps on them, growths Clinton said sounded like some sort of tumor.

They also went to Barrow, the northernmost city in the United States, and met with scientists and Inupiaq Eskimo residents concerned about rising sea levels and other changes. The senators headed to Seward Wednesday to see shrinking glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park.

Murkowski doesn't dispute Earth is warming or that emissions play a role, only the size of that role, her spokeswoman, Kristin Pugh, said Wednesday. Murkowski welcomed the senators with a dinner she hosted Tuesday night at the Turnagain home of former Gov. Bill Sheffield. After dinner, Clinton and Murkowski walked back to the Captain Cook along the city's Coastal Trail, Pugh said.

Last year, the Alaska delegation disputed an international report by more than 300 scientists that said "human influences ... have now become the dominant factor" in global warming.
Young dismissed the "so-called study" as ammunition for fear mongers.

"I don't believe it is our fault. That's an opinion," Young said in November. "It's as sound as any scientist's."

In an interview with KTUU-Channel 2 News this week, Young said the globe is going to change no matter what humans do.

"But to have people come down and talk about we gotta do this, we gotta change that, we don't use Freon anymore, you don't use underarm deodorant, you can't do these kinds of things -- you know, that is pure nonsense," Young said.

Murkowski said she got her most definitive answer to date at a Senate hearing last month, when a climate expert told her that "nearly all" the warming in recent decades is due to human activity. She said the degree of human causation is a matter of debate, however, and she wanted more evidence before she could support something like mandatory emission limits, which could slow the economy.

McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., have sponsored the "Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act," which would require electric utilities and other companies to keep greenhouse gas emissions to what they were in the year 2000.

Stevens, who opposes mandatory limits, has said any such legislation would have to go through him because he chairs the Senate Commerce Committee.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the fourth senator at the Anchorage press conference Wednesday, said he is on the fence about global warming legislation but said he was moved by what he heard on the trip.

"Climate change is different when you come here, because you see the faces of people experiencing it in Alaska," he said. "If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening."
As for Rep. Young's dismissive comments about the issue, "All of us who know Don know that he's just being Don," said Graham.

One of the climate-related questions Alaska's senators are facing is what to do for villages like Shishmaref, which are suffering coastal erosion. Moving them is projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

McCain, a constant critic of congressional spending, said he thinks American taxpayers will be generous to such villagers, as they are to hurricane victims in Florida.
But, he said, people asking for money to fix a problem should be willing to address the root cause.

"So far, some of my colleagues are not eager to do so," he said.

Why won't CNN aire the TRUTH anyway?

Tim Botkin: Exposing Their Misguided Ruthlessness

August 16, 2005

Column writers rarely respond to the frequent barbs thrown their way by loyal readers. But this week I exercise the exception, as events stemming from last week provide a perfect opportunity to underscore that column’s original theme.

Last Tuesday, the day my column appeared, I received an e-mail from Virginia sent at 7:09 a.m. Hardly complimentary, the writer fumed, "Your comments in today’s paper about CNN’s ‘alleged’ investigation of the swift vets are a lie. Are you asking readers to believe that you have an inside source at CNN allowing you to preview stories?"

The writer, D.C.-based Sean McCabe, had worked with the Swift Boat Veterans against John Kerry, and invoked his group’s "honor" to justify his outrage. I was honored to be so widely read, but a little dismayed to be rebuffed and dishonored as a liar from so far away and so early in the morning.

I sent off a response acceding to McCabe’s demand that I disclose my source for stating: "How many of us know that CNN did an in-depth investigation and found that the ‘Swiftboat Veterans’ claims against John Kerry were truly baseless? It wasn’t reported because they didn’t finish the investigation until too late in the campaign."

That came from my recollection of a speech last November by Aaron Brown, one of CNN’s anchors. McCabe immediately fired back that he doubted my source and would personally check with Mr. Brown. The next day, terse with vinegar, he responded that Brown had disclaimed making statements about unreported CNN investigations. McCabe left me saying that he would "take it up with my editor."

McCabe began a determined assault on the Kitsap Sun, calling or e-mailing repeatedly over the next several days demanding a retraction in the name of the honor of his organization.

Who were these guys? It turns out that McCabe works for Creative Response Concepts, which apparently starts each day like other well-funded national attack organizations — by conducting sophisticated Internet searches across all media lines, to seek and destroy stories that contradict their message.

Creative Response spearheaded the original Swiftboat Veterans’ questionably accurate yet very effective campaign against John Kerry’s presidential bid.

Obviously, ignoring an organization with such resources and unflinching dogma was not a likely winning strategy. They demanded capitulation. There was only one way out. If I could show that my column was accurate and truthful, their bullying attempts and self-righteous flag-waving would be exposed and left to flutter in their own superficial breeze.

So we reviewed the tape of Brown’s terrific address to the Puget Sound Prosperity Partnership. (The speech starts at minute marker 20:24. Imagine that Aaron, you are actually valued enough to bring the truth to small town America. So, why not tell the truth? ) After about 40 minutes talking about the importance of real news and truth versus propaganda, here are Brown’s exact words:

"News ... has turned too often into mudwrestling. It’s just people screaming at each other as if facts didn’t exist, only argument. The Swiftboat thing was amazing to me. The first Swiftboat ad. It was about facts. And I assigned a producer who works for me to go find out what the truth was. I thought that was sort of part of the gig. Now that takes awhile, to be honest. And while we were out there trying to figure out the truth of something, my colleagues on cable were just sitting around arguing about it. He did. He didn’t. He did. He didn’t.

"Well you know what," Brown continued, "He either did or he didn’t. There’s a fact set there. By the time we could establish, by looking at the available record and what the accusers had said over the course of time, that what they were saying did not stand the test (emphasis added), the story was over. To the extent there was damage done, and I think there was damage done, it had been done."

Based on hearing the tape, I must concede that Brown did not say whether CNN’s findings were reported.

That is an important point to Brown, who told Kitsap Sun Editor Scott Ware that he would never comment publicly on an investigation that has not aired. But, more important, my column discussed the despicable and growing trend in which organizations try to accomplish their own ends through concerted efforts to obfuscate or replace truth and fact.

The Swiftboat ads proclaimed the honor of vets, yet their sole purpose was to dishonor an undisputed combat veteran — and to benefit a presidential candidate who avoided even domestic service in the National Guard.

Despite being based on shaky assertions, their campaign may have decided the election and determined our course of history.

They won that one, but our local incident exposes again their misguided ruthlessness.
Tim Botkin can be reached at columnist@kitsapsun.com.

On the Web

Aaron Brown’s speech is online at www.tvw.org; click on "archived audio" then on "public policy events 2004." The speech can be accessed on the fourth page of the events list.

The Swift Boat Veterans still have their website and collect donations. When will the lied to reveal the fraud be forthcoming?

August 18, 2005. East Asia is not exempt. There is a good deal of heat concentration due to the smaller amounts of carbon dioxide emissions this area of the world that leads to vortices taking heat into the ice continet.  

August 18, 2005. The Pacific Picture is not that horrible. There is a definate connection between the equator and Antarctica. Noted at the vortex and cloud mass to the left. The problem with CO2 concentration is noted to be over the USA and Europe where the bad weather is.  

August 28, 2005. The 'hot' regions of Northern Africa and the Middle East are very hot. More than normal. Africa still hold true as the one continent that does not contribute at all to the carbon dioxide concentrations of Earth. The clouds that exist over Africa are in the areas of rainforest. It makes sense from the standpoint that CO2 consentrations will be higher there as the plants respirate. 

August 18, 2005. The equator is getting hot again as the Equinox approaches. The vortices at east pole are nearly matching each other. If a straight line was drawn on the right side of the globe as if the same longitude it would bring together identical peripheral flows off the vortices. It is my estimation the dynamics of the votices at each pole is identical as Equinox approaches 'save' surface areas with land masses of the Northern Hemisphere vs. the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere. 

Morning Papers - concluded

The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is getting warm:

Scott Base

Overcast

-10.0°

Updated Thursday 18 Aug 8:59PM

The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is:

55 °F / 13 °C
Overcast

Humidity:
88%

Dew Point:
52 °F / 11 °C

Wind:
Calm

Pressure:
29.82 in / 1010 hPa (Falling)

Visibility:
7.0 miles / 11.3 kilometers

UV:
0 out of 16

Clouds (AGL):
Overcast 200 ft

end

August 14, 2005. Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Photographer states :: Captured this image of lightning only about a mile from me. Had a huge storm on 8-14 and nearly 1 inch of rain. Lots of lightning.
 

August 14, 2005. Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  

August 14, 2005. Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Some really strange and ionic clouds.