I don't recall anywhere in history where an erupting volcano was met by a Cat. 3 hurricane.

No one is entertaining the possible event of wind driven fire? The intensity of heat of volcanic lava is a whole lot worse than the heat that spawned California's 3 mile high fire tornado.

At the very least, there will be lava picked up and carried, either as fire or a very hot ember. The winds of Hurricane Lane need to be scrutinized for any potential direction of debris carried into populated areas. Hurricanes also spawn tornadoes. So, the level of wind direction MUST be paramount to any monitoring of Hurricane Lane.

Kindly recall, Hurricane Irma (click here) caused seismic activity along it's path that was recorded by underwater equipment. This potential carries new risks to the people in the path of these storms. If Lane is strong enough to cause enough underwater turbulence, the outcomes to the current vent and also closed vents has the potential to become a greater threat and more active. Lane may close the darn thing as well, but, I doubt that sincerely. If anything, Lane will encourage a wider vent opening or knock existing cooled lava to crack or chip to reopen the other vents.

The St. Maarten occurrence is worrisome with Irma. The greatest record of turbulence was not the external winds, but, the eye. That is completely contrary to what I would expect given the fact the eye of a hurricane is calm and absent of turbulence, especially a well formed eye as with Irma.

August 19, 2018

By Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Nighttime scene from shipboard of lava entering the Pacific Ocean on July 12, captured from a scientific research vessel deploying submarine seismometers.

The visible part of Kilauea from the summit (click here) to the Lower East Rift Zone makes up only a small portion of the total volcano. Much of Kilauea lies beneath the sea, including the Puna ridge to the east and the south flank extending offshore beyond the southern coastline.

As the volcano grows, this underwater region of the south flank creeps slowly to the south, moving in fits and starts with earthquakes that last seconds (such the May 4 magnitude-6.9 event) and in slow slip events, which last for days or weeks. Many questions have been raised about the stability of the south flank, since other portions of Hawaii Island’s coasts show evidence of past landslides....

Kindly note, there was a marked difference between Harvey, Irma and Maria. Maria was a storm of extreme infrastructure devastation. (click here) BUT, it was Irma's footprint that caused seismic disturbance. If the maximum seismic disturbance is realized when the eye of Irma passed over head, that means the LACK of pressure/extreme low pressure will ALLOW OPPORTUNITY for movement.

I think it foolhardy to ignore the potential for danger to Americans. The winds and the eye have to be realized to have a greater danger than normally estimated with Hurricane Lane.

If the eye doesn't make landfall, which is still possible, the bands surrounding the eye will. I would not under estimate Lane. It is gathering water vapor in it's traverse across the Pacific and currently Hawaii is awash in water vapor that can become incorporated into Lane's velocity. The higher the water vapor content the greater chance there will be an acceleration in winds.

UNISYS Water Vapor GOES West satellite image (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)
August 20, 2018
1200:18z

The GOP has absolutely no room to talk with the champion of bankruptcy sitting in the White House.

There is no doubt "the past" is going to become an issue as the political spectrum moves forward and people begin to take on addressing the qualifications of a candidate themselves. It is ridiculous to have last minute attacks on candidates because the vetting should have occurred long before the nominee won the primaries.

As to the GOP, LOL!

There is "this thing" with the GOP that spans generations, it is called, "Look the other way." One begins to realize why religion is such an important ideology of the GOP, because, it portrays a CANDIDATE REFORMED. What a joke on the electorate.

"W" bankrupted three petroleum companies and had a history of drunkenness. Sorry, but, if these attacks are to sustain, that does not exempt the GOP's past. Cheney went from CEO of a petroleum company to the Vice Presidency by his own hand in lacking anyone else as qualified as he; to demanding the Rumsfeld Cabal to take shape and invade Iraq for it's oil. 

The list is very, very long including the likes of Nixon. So, if the GOP believes it can capture the ideology of morality, they need to think again.

August 20, 2018

By Elena Schneider

Dramatized police dispatch calls (click here) of a DUI arrest. Allegations of sexual harassment. Court filings reviewing “failed” business investments.

Those are attacks leveled against Democratic congressional candidates in a new Republican ad campaign in recent days — part of a growing effort to personalize the midterm elections and disqualify individual Democratic hopefuls early in a bid to save the Republican House majority....

The Unthinkable is a loud validation to loss of civilization.

This is the loss of dignity and decency in the USA. Trump has now resorted to calling up closed immigration cases. I don't believe that is legal. A person in the USA seeking asylum is no different than a USA citizen for the period of time the legal case hangs in the balance. Once the case is closed and the people are allowed their asylum there is no doubt they have the same rights to a peaceful and productive life as any American.

In order to satisfy his base, Trump now assaults immigrants with closed cases and stable lives. These people have long established a home, source of income in work and children garnering an education that serves the country as witnessed with "The Dreamers." Trump is an ignorant oaf that has no cultural significance to society and removes all the characteristics of decency.

August 19, 2018

By Jacey Fortin and Sarah Mervosh

A man was driving his pregnant wife (click here) to a scheduled cesarean section on Wednesday when immigration officials arrested him — leaving her to drive herself to a hospital and have the baby on her own, according to the woman and the family’s legal representative.

The couple had pulled into a gas station in San Bernardino, Calif., on their way to deliver their child. While they were there, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers came to their car window and asked for identification, said the woman, Maria del Carmen Venegas.

Her husband, Joel Arrona-Lara, 35, did not have his driver’s license with him, and officers arrested him, she said.

The arrest quickly provoked outrage and fed into a growing anger toward ICE and the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration policies, which have expanded who is considered a priority for officers to arrest. In recent months, immigrants have been arrested while delivering a pizza or watering the lawn....

Conservatives of global politics are a profound hurdle to successful energy policy that does not assail Earth's troposphere.

It is a flat out rejection of sound science. I don't care what continent one speaks of the conservative parties are corrupt beyond hope. The climate issues are about the generations both current and future. There is no more noble a reason to reject ancient energy sources and embrace alternative energies. It is ridiculous what is occurring globally.

The most laudably corrupt conservative party is that belonging to Donald Trump. They don't care about effective policies that insure the future generations of Earth; everything is here and now, lacking civility and placing people in danger of real effects of a violent troposphere. If the rest of the world is taking example of that poor sap, then they sincerely need to learn to lead and not simply follow a piss poor example of greed of which the USA President claims. My god, he has turned the USA Treasury on it's head and the USA is accumulating trillions of dollars of debt per year now. That is not greed, that is abandonment of everything American.

20 August 2018

By David Crowe

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (click here) has staged another dramatic retreat on energy policy in the face of a dire threat to his leadership, removing climate change targets from the National Energy Guarantee in his second policy reset in four days.

The revised scheme will go ahead without federal legislation to stipulate a 26 per cent cut to greenhouse gas emissions under changes aimed at averting a challenge from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

Asked on Monday morning whether his leadership was under threat, the Prime Minister declared: "I enjoy the confidence of the cabinet and my party room."

Mr Turnbull also said he had the support of Mr Dutton following reports that the Home Affairs Minister was being asked to challenge for the leadership and was inclined to run, with his supporters claiming he had majority support in the Liberal party room.

"Peter Dutton was at our leadership team meeting this morning. He is a member of our team, he has given me his absolute support," Mr Turnbull said....

When does the will of the people finally take hold? When it is too late and they have lost their promises of changing the future and securing the land, air and sea for their children? Is that when the people finally matter, when all is lost?

20 August 2018
By Tony Wright

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton during question time on Monday.

It is not the public humiliation so much, (click here) even if Malcolm Turnbull will have those words of his from 2009 - “I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am” – forever repeated to him.

It is not even that he has changed policy twice in a few days on one of the two or three central tenets of his period as prime minister.

Senior politicians, who talk all the time, inevitably say things that come back to haunt them. And leaders change policy for all sorts of reasons....

I reject the nuclear weapons crisis in whatever form the next brinkmanship takes as the priority of national security; the climate has taken precedent. The problem is that Earth doesn't have fist fulls of cash and lobbyists to pander to cronies of political parties. 

Science and scientists are supposed to matter and why? Because the future, at one time in the history of civilization, children and their future mattered. The conservative parties around the globe have removed the promises of the future and replaced it with greed and here and now. That is hardly moral and in all places, Australia, there are still politicians willing to sell their votes and remove the power the people expected when the placed their ballots. Be very clear, the votes placed in Australia that elected the moral demand of climate science over the cronyism of ancient energy sources have lost their allegiance of the people they elected. When is this abandonment of civilization going to stop? If the answer is never, then Australia has lost it's future as has most of the world.

The Rooster

"Morning Papers"

"Okeydoke"

August 18, 2018
By Scott Shindledecker

The fastest rooster won.

While the rooster crowing (click here) contest at the Northwest Montana Fair in Kalispell wasn’t a foot race, Kayla

Ekern’s 1 1/2-year-old Polish Cross rooster crowed three times before Colton Oedekoven’s Crele Old English Game Bantam let a trio of crows fly to claim top honors Friday.

Ekern’s rooster, Hei Hei, was a standout in appearance among the 15 feathered fowl that unwittingly competed for the championship ribbon at the poultry and rabbit barn.

Ekern, of Kalispell, stood quietly in front of the bird’s cage, explaining that “he doesn’t respond much to anything I’d do, but he’s OK with me just standing there.”

Hei Hei and Oedekoven’s rooster, Smoke Fire, both had their owners in attendance, which may have given them a better chance at the ribbon over some of the roosters whose owners were elsewhere.

The roosters remained in their cages while some owners and volunteers stood next to them to count how many times they sounded off in a six-minute-span....

"Good Night, Moon"

The waxing gibbous

9.0 day old moon

67.1 percent lit

19 August 2018
By Stuart Clark 

This Tuesday, (click here) keep an eye open for a nice conjunction of Saturn and the moon. They will be visible in the southern sky as twilight turns into night. Saturn was at its closest approach to the earth in June but remains a bright yellowish light in the sky. It is located in the constellation of Sagittarius, just above the topmost star of the so-called “teapot”. This grouping of stars, called an asterism, contains the central stars of the full constellation and resembles – you guessed it – a teapot. The chart shows the view looking south for 21:00BST on 21 August 2018. The moon will be in a waxing gibbous phase, heading towards full. This maximum illumination will take place on Sunday. Because of its proximity, the moon is the only celestial object whose features can be seen with the unaided eye. The most prominent features are the lunar maria or “seas”. These are the dark patches on the moon. Not water – the seas are in fact basaltic plains that cover just over one-third of the Moon’s surface. They are solidified lava and are immensely old, having formed around 3–3.5 billion years ago....