I don't think Iran is serious. If China is marketing ICBMs they are attempting to escalate rather than stabilize.

Israel Air Force aircraft (click title to entry - thank you) have been spotted in recent days at a Saudi Arabian military base unloading military equipment in the city of Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, according to a report from Iranian news agency FARS.

The base will reportedly be used as a forward operating base by the Israelis as part of an offensive on an Islamic country... 

These are Israeli Jets parked in Saudi Arabia.  The picture is form 2010.  Saudi Arabia has actively purchased military hardware from the USA.  I doubt seriously Saudi Arabia wants Iran to have nuclear capacity of ICBMs.  I could be wrong, but, I don't think so.  Iran has to know there are many neighbors not happy with them and it isn't just Israel.

China's needs to be checking their list of gifts to Iran twice before they actually dispatch hardware that will begin a war of no return.  Seriously.

This is a bipartisan ad. "Both teams are in the locker room." Maybe it is actually a non-partisan ad.

Clint Eastwood was in a movie named after a Ford, "Gran Torino." I am sure Chyrsler was delighted to have Award Winning Actor, Director, Producer, Composer and Politician, Clint Eastwood for their ad. They also have a fold out today in USA Today. They are waging a commercial campaign to bond with the people of the USA. Is that so bad?

So, the New York Giants get a ticker tape parade by the returned Iraq Vets that made this possible don't.

I am surprised at the inconsistent priorities of the mayor.  Odd.


Don't get me wrong, my mother nearly fainted yesterday when they took the trophy.  She was expecting the Pats to connect for a victory at the end.  But, my mother also prays the rosary everyday for the troops and the President and our nation.  


In between (click title to entry - thank you) all the commercials and snacking there was a pretty good football game last night, and when the final whistle was blown it was the New York Giants on top. They’re the Super Bowl champs—for the second time in four years—and now New York is ready to welcome their team home for a little bit of a party and parade. Mayor Bloomberg is putting the final touches on this and that, but we do know that the celebration is taking place on Tuesday....

"Morning Papers" - It's Origin

The Rooster
"Okeydoke"

Good Night, Moon

February 5, 2012


Waxing Gibbous


96.3 % lit


1.6 days until Full Moon

Not to victimize VW. They have always been out front with best gas mileage for as long as I can remember.

But, I think I made the point how companies can pay millions upon millions of dollars US for commercial time for the Super Bowl, where millionaires play on fields owned by billionaires, oblivious to people dying in the frigid reality of abandonment.  But, hey, the jobs are more important then anything else.  Work hard, keep warm.


I thought the dog was great.  A real sport actually.  VW treated the dog exceptionally well.  And the dog is quite the character.  He seems to enjoy his life.  Quite the thinker.  Very loveable.  Nice.

The Paradox

A truck clears snow in Burgos, Ukraine. More than 120 people died in the country owing to the poor weather conditions. Photograph: Cesar Manso/AFP/Getty Images

...After more than 200 people (click title to entry - thank you) were killed in Arctic temperatures in eastern Europe, the pattern of snowfall moved west, dumping two metres (6.5ft) of snow in parts of Bosnia. On Sunday, the authorities used helicopters to evacuate sick people and deliver food to thousands cut off by the country's highest snowfall on record.

More than 100 remote Bosnian villages were cut off by the snowfall. A state of emergency was declared in the capital, Sarajevo, which has been under more than a metre of snow since Friday, with schools closed, trams stuck in snowdrifts and people trapped in cars. With roads closed and no public transport in much of Sarajevo, some neighbourhoods reported water shortages and residents struggled to reach the shops to buy food.

In neighbouring Serbia, about 70,000 people remained cut off from services. Rare snowfall on Croatia's Adriatic coast left three dead, and the army was called in to help clear snow...

Nothing to envy though.  Tornadoes and burgeoning Tropical Storms make life no less threatening.

No-snow winter would be first in history for region  (click here)

February 03, 2012 12:44 PM

Yael Ossowski

If the skies fail to yield any frozen precipitation in the next six to eight weeks, the greater Charlotte region could experience its first-ever winter without any snow.

This is a stark contrast to last year’s abnormally snowy season, which left children celebrating multiple school closings and parents fretting dangerous and icy road conditions.

According to the National Weather Service, the region has had at least a trace of snow every year since records began in 1878, producing an average of 5.7 inches of snowfall for the past 134 years.

Though the Charlotte region, which includes Gaston County, has always enjoyed modest amounts of snow, the chance of a snowless winter would make 2011-2012 a landmark season in metrological history. Since 2001, an average of 4.8 inches of snow has fallen in the region, peaking at the unusually high total of 14.5 inches during the winter of 2003-2004....

2011 was the third lowest ice volume since 1979.

Overview of Conditions
Arctic sea ice extent in December 2011 averaged 12.38 million square kilometers (4.78 million square miles). This is the third lowest December ice extent in the 1979 to 2011 satellite data record, 970,000 square kilometers (375,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average extent.

Ice extent was particularly low on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, most notably in the Barents and Kara seas. The eastern coast of Hudson Bay did not freeze entirely until late in the month: normally, Hudson Bay has completely frozen over by the beginning of December. In the Bering Sea, ice extent was slightly above average....

...The graph to the right shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of January 3, 2011, along with the ice extents for the previous four years. 2011 is shown in light blue, 2010 is in pink, 2009 in dark blue, 2008 is in purple, and 2007, the year with the record low minimum, is dashed green. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. ...

I've noted the Arctic Oscillation repeatedly over the years on this blog. The winds are strong enough to reverse ocean currents and dilute ocean salinity.

...PASADENA, Calif. - A new NASA and University of Washington study allays concerns that melting Arctic sea ice could be increasing the amount of freshwater in the Arctic enough to have an impact on the global "ocean conveyor belt" that redistributes heat around our planet... 


...The team (click title to entry -thank you) attributes the redistribution to an eastward shift in the path of Russian runoff through the Arctic Ocean, which is tied to an increase in the strength of the Northern Hemisphere's west-to-east atmospheric circulation, known as the Arctic Oscillation. The resulting counterclockwise winds changed the direction of ocean circulation, diverting upper-ocean freshwater from Russian rivers away from the Arctic's Eurasian Basin, between Russia and Greenland, to the Beaufort Sea in the Canada Basin bordered by the United States and Canada. The stronger Arctic Oscillation is associated with two decades of reduced atmospheric pressure over the Russian side of the Arctic. Results of the NASA- and National Science Foundation-funded study are published Jan. 5 in the journal Nature….

They are dying in the USA, too. But, they are children begging for medicine.

Begging at a Faith, Family and Forum meeting doesn't even make an impression for the need of reform in the health care system in the USA.  Santorum is pathetic.  He is completely removed from compassion.  He treats a child's plea as an adult question at a financial forum.


By the way, the pundits have it wrong.  Santorum is not seeking Vice Presidential status, when the made what appeared to be accolades to Romney he was actually answering the demand by Gingrich to leave the race.  Do you actually think Santorum would tell Republican Social Conservatives to move to the back of the bus to throw in with Romney?  They are the only ones that vote for him.

Time for a commercial break.

The people don't have basic clothes such as gloves to even try to protect themselves.

The hands of a homeless man are seen as he rests inside an overcrowded shelter set up by the city hall in Bucharest as temperatures plunge to minus 16 degrees Celsius.

...A state of emergency (click title to entry - thank you) has been declared in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, which is buried in more than 3 feet of snow. Several water shortages have been reported, and many people are trapped in their cars, Britain's The Guardian newspaper reported. Helicopters were dispatched to evacuate the sick in parts of Bosnia that are cut off by the country's highest snowfall on record.

In Bulgaria, 15 people have been found dead at the side of the road or in unheated houses. Deaths have also been reported in France and Poland, and record snowfalls in Italy, Algeria and several Mediterranean islands.

In England, more than 60 car accidents have been reported in the North Yorkshire region due to about 6 inches of snow. The Met office issued nine warnings after snow began to turn into ice across U.K. roadways, the BBC reports.

There is no conscience in this.  When are the wealthiest going to realize their responsibility in the pain and death of the poor due to their own disastrous decisions?  This impoverishment is not due to anything within their control and now they are paying with their lives.

The CONTENT of the Arctic Ocean has been based in fresh water.

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008


One of Canada's (click here) five remaining Arctic ice shelves - the 4,500-year-old, 50-sq.-km. Markham Ice Shelf - has broken completely away from Ellesmere Island and drifted into the Arctic Ocean, the most dramatic sign yet of how rising temperatures and retreating sea ice are creating "irreversible" changes to the country's polar frontier....

Year old ice has salt content.  Older ice does not.  The older the ice the more it is composed of FRESH WATER.  


When the older ice melts it is entering the ocean circulation of the North Atlantic and dilutes the warmer waters.


There is a very good chance with the loss of older ice, the Thermohaline Current is beginning to be effected.


The Markham Ice Shelf above is nothing but fresh water and as it melts it dilutes the ocean currents, effects circulation and assists sea level rise.


Growth of Ice (click title to entry - thank you)


...The ions of the salts in sea water cannot enter the crystal structure despite its open nature. One might expect all salt to be rejected, therefore, leading to a sea ice cover composed of pure ice. Such is not the case, however. If you suck on a piece of first-year sea ice it will taste distinctly salty. The water from young sea ice may have a salinity of about 10 parts per thousand, dropping to 1-3 (parts per thousand) in old ice....

The Arctic Ocean has been replaced with ONE YEAR OLD ICE.

Maps show the relative age of Arctic Sea Ice at the end of February 2009 and over time.  Thin, first-year ice is the predominant type covering the Arctic Ocean this winter.  Credit:  Chuck Fowler and Jim Maslanik, University of Colorado and NSIDC.

Time for a commercial break.

This is from a 2003 study. The governments of the world knew this was coming.

The Arctic Ocean 1979

…The result has direct connections to NASA-funded studies conducted last year that found perennial, or year-round, sea ice in the Arctic is declining at a rate of nine percent per decade and that in 2002 summer sea ice was at record low levels. Early results indicate this persisted in 2003.

Researchers have suspected loss of Arctic sea ice may be caused by changing atmospheric pressure patterns over the Arctic that move sea ice around, and by warming Arctic temperatures that result from greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere….

It is an inconvenient truth it has happened when the global economy crashed.  One has to ask if it was sincerely wise to bailout the banks so much as investing it the people.  The problem is that austerity with lack of job growth is tragic to the human condition.  The governments are not doing their job in protecting their people and their sovereignty. 

Arctic Ocean 2003

The Thermohaline Circulation

The Global Conveyor Belt


This is a general depiction of the overall circulation.  It is not detailed.

It takes dense salt water to make it work, not an ocean full of fresh water.


...In the Earth's polar (click title to entry - thank you) regions ocean water gets very cold, forming sea ice. As a consequence the surrounding seawater gets saltier, because when sea ice forms, the salt is left behind. As the seawater gets saltier, its density increases, and it starts to sink. Surface water is pulled in to replace the sinking water, which in turn eventually becomes cold and salty enough to sink. This initiates the deep-ocean currents driving the global conveyer belt....


This is the more detailed ocean circulation of the North Atlantic.


The Gulf Steam is a wind driven current and is warmer than most other currents in the Atlantic.  It originates off Africa.  


The North Atlantic Drift also known as the North Atlantic Current.  It is a warm water current driven by the ocean conveyor belt.  It is a considerable warming current to Europe.

\\

The unnecessary price for political austerity.

By Paul Krugman

New York Times

Last week the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, (click title to entry - thank you) a British think tank, released a startling chart comparing the current slump with past recessions and recoveries.

It turns out that by one important measure — changes in real GDP since the recession began — Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression.

Four years into the Depression, British GDP had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.

Nor is Britain unique. Italy also is doing worse than it did in the 1930s — and with Spain clearly headed for a double-dip recession, that makes three of Europe’s big five economies members of the worse-than club.

Yes, there are some caveats and complications. But this nonetheless represents a stunning failure of policy.

And it’s a failure, in particular, of the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years....

...The infuriating thing about this tragedy is that it was completely unnecessary. Half a century ago, any economist — or for that matter any undergraduate who had read Paul Samuelson’s textbook “Economics” — could have told you that austerity in the face of depression was a very bad idea.

But policymakers, pundits and, I’m sorry to say, many economists decided, largely for political reasons, to forget what they used to know. And millions of workers are paying the price for their willful amnesia.

Last count, there were 300 people found dead in the lastest freeze in Europe.

An elderly woman cleared a path through snow in the village of Medjurijecje, Montenegro.

...Eastern Europe was particularly hard hit. Ukraine’s Ministry of Emergencies reported that at least 131 people had died during a cold snap that has lasted more than a week in which night temperatures have dropped well below freezing. Hundreds have been treated for hypothermia or frostbite.

Many of the victims in Eastern Europe were homeless people. In Poland, the PAP news agency reported that Prime Minister Donald Tusk had asked local authorities to waive the ban on admitting inebriated people to homeless shelters after eight more people died, bringing the death toll from the storm to 53 in Poland....

Great cheek bones, I guess. It's Sunday Night. Any chance anorexia can be outlawed on the runway?

I do believe five hours of this is a career killer.  Could be wrong, but, over exposure.