BMEWS
 
Death once had a near-Sarah Palin experience.

calendar   Friday - March 20, 2015

what she said

As we were sitting here watching the snow fall, talking about Spring arriving irrespective of what the calendar says, my wife quips “March is tough. It’s the last month and a half of winter.” Got that one right, honey.

Spring officially begins with the vernal equinox today – though it hardly feels like it in the eastern U.S., where winter is making an unwelcome comeback.

At 6:45 p.m. EDT on March 20, the sun appears directly overhead at Earth’s equator, marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

Cool. So today may be the first day of Spring, but it isn’t really Spring until this evening. Which means today’s snow really is the last of the Winter’s.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/20/2015 at 11:06 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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La Droite avec Marion ….. The right Marion …. Le-Pens at war? not good for France

Out with the old, in with the new, maybe in with the newer as the Le-Pens of France don’t always see eye to eye.

The famous old man of the far right who found and led the Front National until taken over by his daughter Marine a few years ago.

Politically more astute and understanding better than the old fellow, the importance of image and reasoned argument, she is a trained lawyer after all.
She has brought the party new adherents and has managed fairly well.  That’s not to say we can see her party running France very soon but then in politics and the unhappiness in France among many, who knows.  Even the left wing who voted in a socialist pm are not happy but that won’t win her any votes anyway.

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But waiting in the wings is another Le-Pen, another blonde with ambition and a brain.  Marine is the aunt of 25 year old Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: Third-Generation Extreme-Right Militant. Here they are together in photo if not policy.

Now grandaddy Le-Pen had made few friends because for example, he rather favored the German occupation as he thought the country was being run by Communists anyway.
But to tell you the truth, I like the old geezer for a few other things.  He just plain says out loud what many think anyway. Which is not always good politics. Is it?  For example ...

Daughter Marine has distanced herself from the father who still admires the wartime occupation and she disowns him openly when he reverts to the old sulphur, as he did this summer when he suggested that, disease was a remedy for African immigration to France. “Monsieur Ebola can solve the problem in three months,” he said.
I like him for saying that.  France is already buried up to it’s eyeballs in foreigners who bring disease with them, along with with their criminal behavior.
Like they do here in the UK. Anyway ...

He has also taken issue with daughter Marine’s plans for rebranding the party, with the aim of dropping the “Front” label, which conjures up brown shirts and stiff-armed salutes. “Only bankrupt companies change their names. That would be betraying the militants who built the movement,” Jean-Marie said this month.  But the truth of today is you just can’t say the things I approve of and write , when when you’re trying to bring ppl together and form a viable political party that will not be seen as a far right threat to freedom.
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So now enter the very lovely French version of her Blondness, Ann Coulter. Maybe not quite as much like Coulter to say they’re the same, but close when you know the French don’t have anyone close to that.
She is Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, and is the niece of the current party leader Marine Le-Pen.  Marion is not a moderate.
She supports her grandaddy full stop, has no trust in what are called “moderate” muslims and doesn’t really believe any exist.  Her outspoken attitude has been, yes. I can hear what they say in public.  But I think they speak differently in private. 

Another difference between her aunt Marine and herself is, she is opposed to homosexual marriage, Aunt Marine tolerates it.  Lets not confuse tolerate with agreement but the two are opposite there as well.

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: The poster-girl of the French far-right is more extreme than her aunt and bigger box office than her grandfather
As France goes to the polls, Marine Le Pen’s party, the Front National, looks set to do well. And key to that rise has been Le Pen’s fiery niece Marion, the FN’s rising star.
She has been a French MP for three years. She is 25. 


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Posted by peiper   United Kingdom  on 03/20/2015 at 10:51 AM   
Filed Under: • FRANCE •  
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calendar   Thursday - March 19, 2015

The Turtle Stopped 8 Days Ago

I can’t catch every piece of news. I missed this one. And I am a bit glad that I did. I am devastated, but the way I look at it is, for me he lived 8 days longer.

You’ve got your potato Sir Terry. Everything will be alright.



Sir Terry Pratchett, RIP

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[ March 12, 2015 ] It is with immeasurable sadness that we announce that author Sir Terry Pratchett has died at the age of 66.

Larry Finlay, MD at Transworld Publishers:

“I was deeply saddened to learn that Sir Terry Pratchett has died. The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds.

In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. As all who read him know, Discworld was his vehicle to satirize this world: he did so brilliantly, with great skill, enormous humour and constant invention.

Terry faced his Alzheimer’s disease (an ‘embuggerance’, as he called it) publicly and bravely. Over the last few years, it was his writing that sustained him. His legacy will endure for decades to come.

My sympathies go out to Terry’s wife Lyn, their daughter Rhianna, to his close friend Rob Wilkins, and to all closest to him.”

Terry passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on 12th March 2015. Diagnosed with PCA in 2007, he battled the progressive disease with his trademark determination and creativity, and continued to write. He completed his last book, a new Discworld novel, in the summer of 2014, before succumbing to the final stages of the disease.

PCA is Posterior cortical atrophy, a form of Alzheimer’s Disease.



I have read, and reread, and reread, just about every single book the man ever published. Pratchett is not just my favorite author, he is my very best printed friend. Waiting for the annual book to come out became something like a child’s anticipating Christmas; every turn of a page was another visit with the best of old chums.

But it’s more than that, more than my love of his insightful and playful style of writing. Pratchett changes you. He grows you from the inside. He is the best kind of soul food because you never know you’re eating ... until one day, by chance, something surprises you and you say “Well I’ll be mogadored” and you mean it! And people stare at you ... but you stare right back; what’s their problem? Don’t they know? Nanny Ogg used the expression once. Once. But that was enough. What kind of dolts are these, do they even know how to spell susurrus? Have they no extelligence?

He opens your mind. And fills it with stars and dreams. And perfect moments, and perfect endings. Pure headology. What more could you ask for? A Morris dance with bells on? Crivens laddie, if’n ah coulda, aye woulda.



So, as we did for the old Baron, we do for Sir Terry ...


It was pleasant and delightful on a midsummer’s morn
And the green fields and the meadows were all covered in corn;
And the blackbirds and thrushes sang on every green spray
And the larks they sang melodious at the dawning of the day,
And the larks they sang melodious,
And the larks they sang melodious,
And the larks they sang melodious at the dawning of the day.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/19/2015 at 11:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Passing on, Death and Disaster •  
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Redefining The Term

D***** B**



Fake NYC gun shop opens up for two days to lure in customers to preach anti-gun zealotry.

Even in ultra liberal New York City, I’m amazed these assclowns didn’t get the crap beat out of them. Hourly.

A “gun shop” that suddenly appeared in the heart of Manhattan last week only to close its doors after two days was actually an elaborate ruse by a pro-gun control group that sought to lure potential customers in order to make their anti-firearms case.

States United to Prevent Gun Violence set up the “Guns with History Gun Shop” on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and pretended to offer for sale guns used in high-profile crimes. The phony sales pitches were really part of a “social experiment”—pretexts for telling customers about the dangers of gun proliferation in unconsummated transactions recorded by hidden cameras, according to the group. In one such conversation, the bogus clerk shows a replica Bushmaster assault rifle like the one Connecticut State Police said Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook school massacre.

“Collectors love this one,” the actor states in a video the anti-gun group posted on YouTube. “Adam Lanza’s mom had this in her collection, too, until he took this and several other guns and killed her and then went down to Sandy Hook and killed 6 teachers and 20 innocent children. Twenty little kids…Gone like that.”

Pro-gun advocates called the effort a misleading stunt.

“This is a tasteless PR stunt designed to further an anti-gun agenda, and it’s out of touch with reality,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told FoxNews.com. “As gun ownership has risen to an all-time high, violent crime has fallen to a 43-year low, and the firearm accident death rate has fallen to the lowest that it has been in over a hundred years. A clear majority of the American people support the use of firearms for protection and put more faith in gun ownership rights than in gun control.”

Another critic blasted the fake gun shop, calling it “the most disgusting and outrageous stunt” gun control “extremists” have cooked up to date.

...

The replica weapons displayed at the store bore tags linking them to specific crimes, while a sign in the front window beckoned passersby with a sign saying, “First-time gun buyer? We are here to help you.” Several purported customers were shocked when they learned of the stories behind each of the guns.

“A very handy gun,” the clerk says in another segment as he shows a 9-mm. semiautomatic to another customer. “Easy to use. It’s a great gun to carry in your purse, like that gal from the Walmart, her 2-year-old son reaches into her pocketbook, pulls it out, shoots her.”

That must have been the biggest and strongest 2 year old in human history. Actually, no, I’m not buying it AT ALL. The pistol was a S&W M&P Shield.  I’ve handled one. No way on earth a toddler could even pull the trigger, with it’s 6lb pull and 2 3/4” reach. No. Sorry, either she committed suicide or one of her older kids shot her, probably by accident, and everyone is playing “blame the baby” because they know nothing will come of it. Plus the damn gun has a safety, which has been shown to accidentally engage itself. That’s right, the safety turns on easily when the gun moves around in a holster. Look it up.

Read more on the phony gun store story, with pictures and videos, at The Federalist Papers.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/19/2015 at 05:02 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat LeftistsGuns and Gun Control •  
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celebrate diversity and hope your children don’t die

One more reason for vaccination. I know my inoculations are up to date; I hope yours are too.

27 Infected With Tuberculosis At Kansas City High School

I don’t have to opine how I can absolutely guarantee that the carrier is an illegal immigrant, do I? We all know it.

Nearly 30 people have tested positive for tuberculosis at a Kansas City-area high school, officials confirmed Wednesday.

That’s about 10 percent of the 300 tested after one person tested positive at Olathe Northwest High School last week, KSHB reports.

“The number of individuals with TB infection does not exceed what we would anticipate in this setting,” said Lougene Marsh, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment in a statement.

Officials have not confirmed who may have been the original carrier of the disease.

“Does not exceed what we anticipate in this setting”? No, of course not. Because you already knew what the setting was: a bunch of disease carrying foreigners forcibly mixed in with a generation of American kids who live such a germ free life that their parents didn’t get them inoculated because of some perceived moral high ground, or because they objected to some possibly GMO derived ingredient in the injections. Because we spent our tax dollars wiping out TB in this country so long ago that nobody even knows what the heck it is anymore. They’ve lost the fear.

Thanks for nothing Obozo. Let’s let another wave of invaders over the border.

PROFESSIONAL UPDATE: A doctor who reads BMEWS, let’s call him Dr. Walker, has written me several times with additional information concerning tuberculosis:

Doc: HI, I am not a registered user, just a reader, and a doctor.  There is no immunization used in the states for tuberculosis.  Shots would not have prevented the outbreak.  Although, border control would have.
Overseas a vaccine called BCG is slightly effective but is not used in developed countries, there are valid reasons too extensive to explain why it is not given here. Suffice it to say one of them is that developed countries don’t need vaccines for TB as it is not rampant in our population. Again, although it likely will be soon.

Drew responds: Thanks for the clarification. So that little thing they stick kids with just tests for TB, not immunizes? Ok.
...

Doc: Rright, it is called a “Mantoux test” it just tests for it, and if you have had the BCG vaccine then that test is positive,, thus making the Mantoux test useless in countries where everyone has had a bcg vaccine....
Actually, Mantoux test tests for exposure to TB, if you have antibodies to it; to see if you actually have active disease you need a chest x-ray and possibly bronchoscopy with washings of the fluid secretions in your lung then await the cultures of that test. this is not simple. I have had experts not be able to pin down a diagnosis for a week or two in my patients due to the diagnostic tests being imperfect and the disease not obvious.
Since there is almost no TB in the states we don’t use BCG vaccine as it is not needed and thus the Mantoux test can be used, relied upon ...  the vaccine is not all that good but is better than nothing and is also why it is not used here.  but in countries where there is TB on every street corner the BCG vaccine helps reduce overall disease burden.

Thanks for that, Dr. Walker.

Quick internet research shows that the standard treatment for TB is to hit it with a cocktail of heavy duty antibiotics for an extended time period. I gather it also spreads through an airborne vector. The point is, border jumpers get into our society with no health screening, so they could be carrying anything and everything in the way of nasty diseases. And I’m pretty certain that whatever “screening” was done with the hordes last summer was cursory at best, and most likely just applied on a random sampling. Looks like some of them didn’t get a chest X-ray, at least.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/19/2015 at 09:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •  
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This One Shouldn’t Count

US Planes Kill ISIS Drone



Woo hoo, we got one!

In the virtual reality world back behind my eyeballs, I’m seeing a small but heroic dogfight. F15s come swooping in, eager to blast the offensive ISIS beastie from the sky. Billion dollar radars flailing at the sky, they try in vain to get a lock. Racks of million dollar missiles line their wings, eager to deal out precision hypersonic death from long range. But to no avail! The drone is too small; it doesn’t have enough cross section for a good radar reflection. So as the sporadic anti-aircraft fire from ISIS starts to bloom in the brilliant desert sky, the decision is made to do it the old school way.  Back and forth over the burning dunes our heroes fly, “mowing the lawn”, hunting desperately while frying their eyes in the roasting sun looking for something hardly bigger than a bird, while their fuel dwindles and the enemy litters the sky with everything they have; bullets, RPGs, dozens and dozens of those MANPAD things stolen from Libya or ‘inadvertently’ supplied by Hillary via Qatar. Finally, amid the blooming red and black clouds of fragmented death, a chance reflection that seems out of place. Target! But it swoops and dives and loops, climbing and falling like no normal aircraft as the fighters make pass after pass, draining hundreds of rounds of 25mm autocannon ammo. But our boys have done this before, and they know the game and how to win it: flight leader and his wingman come in hot and blazing, forcing the drone to evade wildly and lose nearly all airspeed. And there it sits, quack quack, momentarily stillborn in the air as the second wave glides in slowly, full flaps and air brakes out, landing gear deployed, barely above stall speed. One quick burst and the spybird is a smoking shred falling burning through the sky. Tally ho, and time to get the hell out of Dodge!

Dan Brown has nothing on me.

Would that this was the case. Eh, err, um, no.

Washington (AFP) - US warplanes have bombed a small drone used by Islamic State extremists in Iraq, marking the first time American-led forces had targeted an unmanned aircraft flown by the jihadists, officials said Wednesday.

The strike took place on Tuesday near the western city of Fallujah, destroying “a remotely piloted aircraft” and a vehicle with the IS forces, according to a statement from the US military command overseeing the campaign against the group.

The drone, used for battlefield surveillance, was “small-scale” and not a sophisticated aircraft equivalent to some US-made robotic planes that can fly at high altitudes or launch missiles, US defense officials said.

After flying the drone for a short period, Islamic State militants placed it on a vehicle. American aircraft then struck the vehicle near Fallujah, officials said.



They dropped a bomb on the carry truck. Good job, sure, great. But how lame is that?

PS - ISIS has drones? Who knew? Well, at least now they have one less.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/19/2015 at 08:54 AM   
Filed Under: • War On Terror •  
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oh hardy har har

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over


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Spring officially arrives on Friday, March 20, at 6:45 p.m. EDT, but Old Man Winter may have the last laugh.

Colder air that invaded the Northeast during the middle days of the week will stick around to help produce some wet snow before the week draws to a close.

Despite the colder air, temperatures will be marginal for the storm with a close call between rain and snow along the I-95 corridor in the mid-Atlantic, Long Island and along the southern coast of New England. Much of the snow that falls in this area may melt on roads. However, there will be some exceptions due to time of day and location.

A wintry mix of rain and snow is most likely in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware, and Trenton, New Jersey. The storm is likely to impact travel in this area, including the potential for flight delays due to poor visibility and deicing operations. Motorists and pedestrians should be prepared for delays on Friday.

Areas farther north such as Harrisburg, Allentown and Scranton, Pennsylvania; New York City and White Plains, New York; Hartford, Connecticut; and Boston are likely to be cold enough for all or mostly snow.


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Looks like the sky should start falling here Friday morning, just in time for rush hour. Gee, how wonderful. Well, most of the stuff that was on the ground has melted away or shrunk into ice blocks, so I guess it was time for a refresh.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/19/2015 at 08:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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calendar   Wednesday - March 18, 2015

what fred said

Another great short essay by Fred Reed is out.

Even without the (inevitable) racial hostility, togetherheid would not work well. The races have little or nothing in common. They do not want the same things. Whites come from a literate European tradition dating at least from the Iliad in 800 BC, a tradition characterized by literature, mathematics, architecture, philosophy, and the sciences. Africa, having a very different social traditions, was barely touched by this, and today blacks still show little interest. Even in the degenerate America of today, whites put far more emphasis on education than do blacks.

The media paint the problems of blacks as consequent to discrimination, but they clearly are not. If blacks in white schools wanted to do the work, or could, whites would applaud. If in black schools they demanded thicker textbooks with bigger words and smaller pictures, no white would refuse. The illiteracy, the very high rates of illegitimacy, the crime in general, the constant killing of young black men by young black men in particular—whites do not do these. They are either genetic, and irremediable, or cultural, and remediable, if at all, only in the very long run. We live in the short run.

I can’t really disagree with any of that. And yet this is about the biggest sin in the entire universe of Political Correctness.

And yet the same guy looked at a very similar situation some time ago, and ran his thoughts out in a slightly different direction ...

If black children can be educated, the question arises: Why aren’t they? The usual answer is that racism and conservatism are responsible, and much ink is spilled in exorcising these evils. But racists and conservatives have almost nothing to do with educational policy in Washington. Until recently, we’ve had a Democratic president and Congress; we have a liberal National Education Association, a black city government, a black school board, a black electorate. They, not conservatives or racists, bear responsibility for conditions in the schools.
...
Educationists, who have a well-developed sense of self-preservation, understandably do not favor higher standards for teachers. Hiring good teachers means firing bad ones. Any serious attempt to get rid of deadwood means bucking the powerful teachers’ unions, which, as a variety of tests have shown, would be gutted by any insistence on competence. Moreover, dismissal of incompetent teachers would mean a heavily disproportionate dismissal of black teachers. The bald, statistically verifiable truth is that the teachers’ colleges, probably on ideological grounds, have produced an incredible proportion of incompetent black teachers. Evidence of this appears periodically, as, for example, in the results of a competency test given to applicants for teaching positions in Pinellas County, Florida (which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater), cited in Time, June 16, 1980. To pass this grueling examination, an applicant had to be able to read at the tenth-grade level and do arithmetic at the eighth-grade level. Though they all held B.A.’s, 25 percent of the whites and 79 percent of the blacks failed. Similar statistics exist for other places.

There’s really nothing new here, but it’s nice to see the thoughts and feelings kicking around in your mind put so clearly and succinctly.

Fred Reed. One of the treasures of the Internet.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2015 at 10:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Politically-IncorrectRacism and race relations •  
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A Grain Of Salt For All That Water

Glacier Melting, Sea Levels To Rise 11 feet, We’re All Gonna Drown!!

According to Wikipedia, the surface area of all the oceans in the world combined is 139 million square miles.  11 feet is 0.002083333 miles, so raising sea levels the world over by 11 feet requires 289,583.33 cubic miles of water. Since water expands about 10% when it freezes, that much water requires 318,541.67 cubic miles of ice. Using the mean ice thickness of East Antarctica, 7300 ft, and rounding that to a convenient 1.5 miles (7920 ft), this leaves an ice square sheet a nominal 461 miles long on each side. This is a square equal to the distance from Chicago IL due south to beyond Waynesboro in southern Tennessee, east from there to Fayetville NC, and then north to a bit east of Jamestown NY. All that, a mile and a half thick.

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Right. Next bit of info ... the sea ice around the polar continent turns out to be thicker than expected. Granted, only about 10% of all the circumferential ice has been measured at this point.

Antarctic ice thicker than previously thought, study finds

First of its kind robotic survey of underside of sea ice floes reveals denser ice fringing the continent

Groundbreaking 3D mapping of previously inaccessible areas of the Antarctic has found that the sea ice fringing the vast continent is thicker than previous thought.

Two expeditions to Antarctica by scientists from the UK, USA and Australia analysed an area of ice spanning 500,000 metres squared, using a robot known as SeaBed.

The survey discovered ice thickness average between 1.4m and 5.5m, with a maximum ice thickness of 16m. Scientists also discovered that 76% of the mapped ice was ‘deformed’ – meaning that huge slabs of ice have crashed into each other to create larger, denser bodies of ice.

Ok, perspective established, Science News updated. On to the daily FEAR NEWS story ...

Study raises concerns over big, rapidly thinning Antarctic glacier

(CNN)Scientists have raised concerns about a large, rapidly thinning glacier in Antarctica, warning it could contribute significantly to rising sea levels.

They say they’ve discovered two openings that could channel warm seawater to the base of the huge Totten Glacier and bring the threat of potentially disastrous melting.

The glacier is bigger and thinning faster than all the others in East Antarctica.

It contains enough ice to raise the global sea level by at least 11 feet (3.4 meters), according to researchers from the University of Texas at Austin who were among the authors of a new study published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Scientists had previously detected warm water on the seaward side of the glacier. But until now, they had found no evidence that it could threaten coastal ice.

“We now know there are avenues for the warmest waters in East Antarctica to access the most sensitive areas of Totten Glacier,” said Jamin Greenbaum, a University of Texas Ph.D. candidate and the lead author of the study.

Worries about other parts of Antarctica

The two gateways on the seafloor that lead to the base of the glacier offer an explanation for why Totten Glacier has been melting so fast.

Scientists have already warned about the consequences of melting ice in West Antarctica. NASA said last year that glacial retreat in some areas ”appears unstoppable.

The increase in sea levels that would be caused by the melting of all the ice in Totten Glacier is estimated to be roughly equivalent to the contribution from a collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Oh, and by the by ... this is the end of summer way down under. Whatever ice melting there is, is at it’s maximum right now. In about 5 weeks winter will set in, and everything will freeze right up again. Including the penguins. But until then, be afraid. Very, very afraid. Cuz we’re all gonna diiiiiiie!!!

PS - The Totten glacier is that big. Wiki says it has a drainage basin of 538,000 sq km, which is very close to that 461x461 mile square. (538,000sq km = 227,722 sq miles = 455.76x455.76 miles) It would have to melt completely. And not a drop refreeze anywhere else.

See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2015 at 04:35 PM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather •  
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The EverReady Bunny Disease

It Just Keeps Going, And Going, And Going ...


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Ebola awareness billboard, Liberia

Ebola Cases On The Rise In Guinea

Guinea Ebola cases rise, three doctors infected

Guinea has suffered a setback in its fight against Ebola with a rash of new cases, including three doctors infected by the virus, with officials blaming weak surveillance and a failure to follow safety procedures.

The outbreak, which began in eastern Guinea more than a year ago and has killed over 10,000 people in the three West African countries worst hit, had appeared to be on the wane, but Guinea has seen cases rise for three consecutive weeks, according to World Health Organization data.

A government health report from the weekend showed there were 21 new cases in a single day, a spike from the recent daily average of eight.

President Alpha Conde said on Tuesday that everything must be done to end the outbreak by mid-April, ahead of a meeting with donors scheduled around that date.

Ending Ebola could reboot Guinea’s mining-dependent economy that has been hammered by the outbreak which has scared investors, he said.

“With Ebola, it is easier to go from 100 cases to 10 cases than from 10 cases of to zero. To end it, we need ten times more effort than when the outbreak was at its height,” he said.

A big source of concern is a chain of new infections that can be linked back to a woman who died of Ebola and was not buried safely, according to Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokeswoman for the U.N.’s Ebola emergency response mission UNMEER.

“It’s a major setback .... It’s due to individual behaviors. That is having a devastating effect on the community. People are simply not practicing the safety rules that we have been talking about for a year,” she told Reuters.

Of the other two countries worst hit, Sierra Leone has also seen a spate of new cases while Liberia has no known cases at present and is waiting to be declared free of the disease.

The new cases in Guinea are in the capital and the southwestern town of Forecariah but if the situation is not brought under control they could spread across borders, said Lejeune-Kaba.

Guinea officials said the new cases came from high risk Ebola contacts who had left Forecariah and developed symptoms elsewhere, pointing to poor surveillance.

Meanwhile, here in the USA ...

Fifteen American aid workers who had high-risk exposure to Ebola in Sierra Leone have arrived back in the United States since Friday for monitoring, according to a spokesman.

None is known to be infected with the disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner said Tuesday.

The returning workers are clinicians for Partners in Health, a Boston-based aid group. They all had contact with a colleague who’s been diagnosed with the disease and is being treated at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

The heath care worker with Ebola was in critical condition Monday, the NIH said. That changed from the NIH saying on Friday that the patient was in serious condition. Details about the patient’s identity weren’t released.

While in West Africa, the workers “came to the aid of their ailing colleague,” according to a Partners in Health statement.

As the CDC investigates who else might have had contact with the Ebola patient, more workers might be flown back to the United States, according to Skinner.

The workers are being housed near hospitals that specialize in treating Ebola patients, and if they show signs of the disease, they’ll be admitted as patients—as was the case with one worker in Nebraska.

The person developed symptoms Sunday evening and “out of an abundance of caution” was taken to the biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

“At this point, this person has not tested positive for the Ebola virus,” Phil Smith, M.D., medical director of the unit, said in a statement Monday. “However, because of a change in symptoms, we decided the most prudent course of action was to bring the individual to the Biocontainment Unit, where we can better monitor symptoms and safely perform testing.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2015 at 04:18 PM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •  
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Four Times For Benji

Benji, Benji Benji Benji

In an effort to save Israel from the Left, huge voter turnout gives Benjamin Netanyahu an unprecedented fourth victory as Israel’s Prime Minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impressive victory in Tuesday’s elections can be explained by going back to the early days of the state.

The Ashkenazi immigrants from Eastern Europe were seen as having an unfair advantage over their Sephardic counterparts from North Africa and the Middle East. The people who are called “the second Israel” have complained since then that the “elites” in the Israeli Left, the media and academia have discriminated against them.

The “second Israel” did not like the the way the media seemed to be deposing of Netanyahu and bringing to power the Left under the leadership of Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, who were raised not far from each other in North Tel Aviv and are both the children of former Knesset members.

The Zionist Union inadvertently played into Netanyahu’s hands with a campaign of “anyone but Bibi.”

...

Many who considered staying home, or voting for one of the Likud’s satellite parties, hurried to the polling stations to cast ballots for Likud. People who have not voted in years - or at least not for Likud - felt the need to save Israel from the Left, Iran and from a hostile international community.

On Monday, Shaviv revealed a poll that for the first time, less than 50 percent of the public thought Netanyahu would form the next government. Shaviv said at the time that if it gets closer to 40 percent the Likud will win the election.

In Netanyahu’s appeal to the “second Israel’ he succeeded, and because of that, he won a fourth term.

Well, most of this is lost on me. All I understand is that Obama hates him, so that’s more than enough reason to support the guy. Plus, I love the way he talks. And I think he’s one smart cookie with his head on straight.

Ok, I want to write more on this, but I’m having internet issues this morning. So publish now, update later.

Spring may be days away but don’t count on a thaw in the chilly relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House—which, even after election results showed Netanyahu’s party scoring a major victory, congratulated the Israeli people but ignored the winning candidate.

The election results point to another two years of confrontation between President Obama and his Israeli counterpart, who is poised to secure a third consecutive term as prime minister. While tensions have flared for years between the two leaders, the last several weeks have seen their relationship further fray.

In the run-up to the election, Netanyahu took a hardline stance on the two issues on which his government and the Obama administration are most intertwined—Iran nuclear talks and the seemingly far-off prospects for an agreement with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu pronounced earlier this week he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state—something Obama supports and a key demand of the Palestinians for any peace agreement.

And Netanyahu infuriated the White House early this month when he delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress criticizing an emerging nuclear deal with Iran.

Obama is such a pouty little brat.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2015 at 09:40 AM   
Filed Under: • IsraelPolitics •  
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Crowder With Col. West



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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/18/2015 at 08:48 AM   
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calendar   Tuesday - March 17, 2015

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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I looked around, but I couldn’t find any pictures of leprechauns or four leafed clovers. So I’ll make due, somehow.

The town I grew up in was heavily Irish. Intensely, majorly Irish. We had the 2nd biggest St. Patty’s Day parade on earth every year, I kid you not. One year they even brought over Gerry Adams ( of Sinn Fein ) to be Grand Marshall, and IIRC that was before the Peace to the everlasting Troubles. So March 17 was a Big Deal. These days, in my little corner of rural New Jersey, we’re lucky if the grocery store even hangs up a couple of cardboard shamrocks to try and push the corned beef that’s on sale. Which I didn’t buy any of this year, because I completely forgot about the holiday. Worlds apart, yet I live only 57 miles away as the crow flies. So if you really are an Irish, or a descendant of them, or just pretending for today, or not even bothering, have a nice St. Patrick’s Day anyway.

A link to all things St. Patrick-ish.

Why Ireland is a safe place for Samuel L. Jackson to visit.

So I tried to find some properly Irish pictures to post. And found I had trouble there too. Used to be I could spot the Irish girls from a mile away. They just had a certain something. Now, I have doubts. I’m out of practice. But hey, I tried.


low hanging fruit
Miss Ireland 2013 Aofie Walhs. Well, duh. But, wow. (clicky)
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absolutely an Irish lass
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almost certainly an Irish lass
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See More Below The Fold

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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/17/2015 at 02:33 PM   
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Digital Doofus


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I’ve got a digital response to Net Neutrality ... from 5 digits, choose 1. The one in the middle.


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Posted by Drew458   United States  on 03/17/2015 at 12:46 PM   
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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