My husband's cousin in Iowa sent this picture today of the tornado that hit the Little Souix Scout Ranch in Nebraska on 11 June 2008. She said a friend sent it to her along with this comment:
"This is a photo of the same tornado that destroyed the Boy Scout camp in Little Sioux. Our friend's brother took the photo. She couldn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to stop and take a photo, but the results are definitely amazing."
I just watched this video and my take on it is that it would be funny except that it is the truth. My comment is that at the end he talks about coal and oil being good enough for us all these years...yeah, right. No pollutants from either of those fuels, right? Not. Now, if you want to get me on board with any alternative fuels, you had better make it something that doesn't pollute and yet makes energy. For instance (duh) solar or windpower. How about more money poured into harnessing the energy freely given in the oceans?
As usual, our Congress is promoting big business who only cares about making a quick buck at the expense of our health and our pocketbooks. We are going to end up fouling our nest to the extent that we annihilate ourselves and become extinct. God, humans are STUPID.
This little newspaper snippet was sent to me today, along with this comment:
This was a letter to the editor in Wednesday's [Waterloo, IA] Courier. He is referring, of course, to the wind turbines erected all over Iowa to generate electricity. How he makes this connection is beyond me. As a precaution, I wouldn't drink the water in Lawler [either].....might be contaminated by some kind of "windmill fallout"!!!!!!!It gave me the best laugh I have had in weeks.
By the way, if you are going to blame the weather on anything, blame it on the cycles of the sun. At least that is something big enough to cause a difference in our weather! We have just begun Cycle 24 of the sun, and have not yet finished Cycle 23, so both are affecting us right now.
Read more about it at Sun's Effect on Earth's Weather
For current weather and Earth information visit NOAA, or Space Weather. Oh heck, check them both!
What do Mt. Rainier in Washington state and Fujiama in Japan have in common? They are "sister" mountains. In a generous and environmentally-minded gesture, a ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on June 9, 2008 at Cougar Rock Campground to christen a new bio-toilet donated by Groundwork Mishima. Because of heavy snows still in the area, the campground itself will not be opened until June 13th.
Just a side note, our son Greg was stationed on Okinawa from 1992 to 1993. While he was there he and some friends were able to take a trip to climb Mt. Fuji. Actually, he did it twice. Quite a climb up and they glissaded down on their butts. Bet that was fun...not. As you climb the mountain you stop at stations along the way and have your Fuji stick branded with Kanji stamps.
Other than being 'sister' mountains through friendship, climbing Mt. Fuji (yes, I know that is redundant) is definitely not the same as climbing Mt. Rainier. The former is more of a very long upward stroll, while the latter is more for the experienced climber who has gear and lots of insurance.
After the F5 tornado that hit Parkersburg, Iowa a couple of my husband's family members sent pictures. I thought you might like to see some of them. The aerial pictures of the damage are on Picasa in a web album with about 20 pictures.
The second set of pictures were taken at ground level, or should I say, sadly, ground zero? I have them in an album in my Picasa sets. You can see them here. Or click on the slide show. I am a nice person and didn't make it autoplay. :)
Are you a genealogy enthusiast? Visit iPentimento, my genealogy blog today!
Thieves Cut Down Maples In Search Of Rare Wood
The chain saw noise at 3 AM gave it all away....
I don't even know how to express my disgust at this act of butchery by two grown men. Greed and total disregard for nature, and the result is not only the loss of the trees, but the ecosystem has been impacted as well. No doubt, the court will slap them on the wrist and let them off with just a fine and jail time served. Too bad they outlawed the stocks and pillories. I'd be all for that!
Somewhere, an "Ent" is crying...
Read the article, and if you can, plant a tree in remembrance. And, listen for chain saws in the middle of the night.
I really wanted to have the title to this post as Ring Around the Lava Dome, Hang On It's Gonna Blowsy. :)
This was just interesting to me, as an inhabitant of Washington state, home of Mt. St. Helens. I am always fascinated by how nature and our planet react to natural events. In this case, a volcanic eruption that began 28 years ago today, on May 18th, 1980. When the volcano blew that day, there was already a glacier on the mountain that was carried along with the mix of debris into the atmosphere. Now, the glacier reformed, but around the new lava dome.
NASA has some amazing pictures from the USGS showing the growth of the dome and the glacier that rings around it.
Even though I grew up in Washington state, I wasn't living here in 1980. We were living in Iowa then, and I remember worrying about my parents and my brother Dave and his family who were not too far from the volcano. As it turned out, they weren't hurt, but they all got their share of volcanic dust. Nothing like the places that got it in eastern Washington and even further to the east than that! What we did see in Iowa took a few days to get there. We were outside at our son Greg's baseball game and I was sitting in the grass with some of the other moms. The skies where clear, but in Iowa, a storm can come up very suddenly, so when I saw this huge dark cloud I thought that's what it was. But instead, it was the dust cloud from the volcano. What was so weird about it was that it was so big, so dark, and so quiet. Many of the other people didn't even notice it going over! As it turned out, in July of 1980 we moved back to Washington state and so we had essentially 'front row seats' for the following eruptions. So, where were you when the volcano blew?
Yesterday was Earth Day, but that's no reason to slack off on your efforts to save the planet now that it's over. My daughter-in-law told me about iRecyclePhones and their goal to lessen the impact on our landfills while at the same time reforesting areas of our planet that need it.
Here is all you have to do (ideally, after you delete your personal information from the phone!): You supply the box and put the phone(s) you would like to recycle into it. Then, download and print the prepaid shipping label. iRecyclePhones.com, in union with American Forest, will plant one tree for each cell phone that’s donated. Easy, simple, and something good you can do for the planet. Now, go spread the word about this worthwhile effort! 
I just joined the ShareASale affiliate program and I hope it will help me promote some things I believe in.
Let shareasale.com find sales leads for you. Only pay when it works!
You may notice a new ad in my Sponsor area for GoGreenSolar. Not just because today is Earth Day, but because I think that we eventually will have to move to solar and wind power if we want our descendants to continue to live on this planet. If I had the money, I would have solar panels on my house and anything else I could do to reduce my carbon footprint. As you may know, we just put a new solatube in our family room, and even though it isn't a large impact on the grid, it helps us reduce our electrical usage now. See my post Indoor UFO's to see a picture of it in use.
In my Entrecard travels today I stumbled upon a great contest that I think you might like to enter. It is called The Great Green Giveaway Competition at lifegoggles.com, and I was thrilled to see the green prizes we could win. Currently, there are 82 in the lineup with a total value of $3,681 / £1,840 Worth Of Prizes!
I can't list them all here, but trust me, they are really cool things like gadgets, books, personal care items, etc. Even if you don't want to enter the contest, you might want to check out the green products on the sponsor's home pages.
While NY's governor Spitzer is getting caught with his pants down, Hillary and Barack make the news by sniping at each other, and Bill Gates testifies before Congress that we need to grant more visas to aliens, we are completely left in the dark, so to speak, when it comes to real major events like Russia and China having satellites orbiting the moon.
What's the fuss you say? Well, think about it. First come satellites. Like those are just up there to study the moon surface. Yes, I am paranoid and I think they would take the opportunity to spy on us ala cold war revisited. But, they are after the even bigger prize: establishing bases on the moon. Think about that for a moment. I don't think it is stretching the imagination a bit to consider that while they might both be looking for water or ice up there, it doesn't bode well for us little humans back on earth to have our past present enemies in a strategically adventageous position where they could also take aim at our country and we are left as sitting ducks.
What do you think? Do you relish the idea of either of those countries controling the moonscape and keeping an eye on us at the same time?
I can't say for sure who is behind this campaign to slaughter the Yellowstone wolves, but I can only imagine it is the stockmen in the area, or perhaps even someone who has a "back to wilderness" lodge they want to run.
I saw a program about a place like the latter on TV one day and they were promoting that they could put you up in a tent and you could sleep in there with no fear of predators. Uh huh. How could they guarantee that? They had several 'someones' in other tents nearby with guns, and they figured they would just shoot whatever came near. Gee, that would help me sleep well, wouldn't it you?
This killing of the wolves plan has been thwarted by the NRDC for years, and still the Bush administration finds ways to keep it an issue. I can only imagine what other dastardly things await us at the very end of Bush's term!
Personally, I think humans have become the scourge upon this planet instead of the wildlife, but that is a blog post for another day. If you would like to put a stop to this senseless killing of the wolves, please click here and send a message to your Congressional Representative and ask them to oppose this travesty against a protected species.
Most of us that watch the Weather Channel regularly, know they routinely act like there is no weather beyond Atlanta. Just this week, as we were getting pounded by three different major storms that rolled in from the Pacific, I heard one of the weather reporters on that channel actually say, "The area east of the Rockies is just getting pummeled with snow...". (No mention of what was happening west of the Rockies.)
My mouth just dropped open when I heard that. At the time, we were getting pounded by the wind and rain here in western Washington with the first of the three storms. Here where I live in the Bremerton area, we had over 10 inches of rain [Bremerton, Washington, reported 10.78 inches of rain in 24 hours, said Weather Service meteorologist Chris Burke.] and horrible flooding with damage from broken storm lines. Gee, thanks Weather Channel!
~The bowling alley is just a couple miles from our house. The sink hole was from a broken storm drain pipe that couldn't take the pressure of the extra water from the rain.~
The winds out at the coast near Hoquiam toppled big Bonneville transmission towers like they were flimsy erector set projects. Aerial video of downed towers. The people that live in that area are without power for at least a week or more. Probably more! In the mean time, because there is no gas, there is looting going on, and in my humble opinion this is when the National Guard is needed to be home patrolling the streets.
So, anyway, contrary to the Weather Channel's opinion, there is a west coast of the United States, and it doesn't stop at the Rockies.
After eating some crab apples, this wandering moose got tangled in some Christmas lights and had to have them removed. He was OK, just a bit fuzzy in the head, but he wandered off in kind of a daze. Poor thing. Might have a little headache in the morning, eh?
read more | digg story
If you have Google Earth installed, check out this Earthquake KML from USGS. I got so caught up in it that I wasted a good hour just going from place to place. I guess you could kind of call me an earthquake nut, but I am fascinated by the effects of volcanism, plate tectonics and all that geology stuff. Not that I am educated in it or anything, I just like to be "in the know". Google Earth does a spectacular job of bringing into perspective the forces of nature at work all around us.
Our news services could devote a whole day to just covering nothing but all the earthquakes, but they probably assume that we want to hear about other issues too (poisoned food, lead in toys, the instability of Pakistan, how some nuts start fires in CA, etc., etc.). I think it will get your attention though when you see all the quakes popping up on the world map.
Jim was working out in the yard tonight, just about dusk. Dark enough for the motion detector light to come on as I talked to him, and there she was in all her arachnid glory, Ms. Spidey who had instinctively built her meticulous web right in front of the light where she knew it was a good place to attract dinner insects. There were a few in the web too, even though I am pretty sure she just wove it today. What a smart little creature she is, and even though I hate it when they crawl on me, I appreciate that she and her kind will probably be around for a good long time, even after us dumb humans have gone the way of the do-do.
Please take a moment to click this link and see the article I posted about a new baby moose in WA state that was born just yesterday morning. It is so "cute" and we are so lucky to have some of our wildlife still thriving here.
Here is another link to the same article Bullwinkle Was Born Today In WA state
The short response to this is, "People are stupid". The somewhat longer one is, if you are going to move to Kitsap county, or anywhere there are bears (and where aren't there some?) then you need to have some common sense when it comes to venturing out into the wilderness. I am (again) furious that the bear is slated to be killed for being a bear in this incident. This man should not have been biking alone in the woods with two dogs who were not under his control. We live with nature and the accompanying animals here in Kitsap county, and if this man needed to get some exercise, he should do it responsibly. How about instead of biking he join a club to exercise indoors; or how about expending some energy to help some elderly person who needs some repairs to their home; volunteer at a soup kitchen or spend time gardening for a friend, or in your own yard? We need to stop acting like the bears are in "our" territory. We are in theirs. Respect nature, don't try to conquer it.
Remember the movie The China Syndrome
I think you will see more and more of these sorts of underhanded shenanigans by those in Congress who want to squeeze the last dime out of the country, along with little regard to the environment along the way, in the next months leading up to the election in 2008. It doesn't state it in this news piece, but this is the result of privatization that is an ongoing crusade of big business, and those in Congress who have sold their souls to the Bush administration. At least someone is trying to fight back and get the word out. I wish you luck Scott Farber! We need more people like you!
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Bears must eat constantly during spring, summer, and fall and they'll eat an amazing variety of food. Although they are often portrayed as ferocious carnivores, bears are omnivores which means they eat both meat and plants. Black bears can digest plant fibers better than other meat-eaters, but they don't possess the efficient multi-chambered stomachs of elk and other herbivores. For this reason, they must eat a lot of plants to obtain enough nutrition. | |
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In spring, bears search for newly emerged grasses and forbs (broadleaved plants) in the early morning and late afternoon. To conserve energy, they rest a lot. Their rate of feeding increases as food quality increases. In summer they will eat throughout the day as they search for nutritious food such as berries. By eating the most when the best quality food is available, bears quickly fatten up for their coming hibernation. Black bears seldom hunt and chase down big animals for food. The only time black bears are likely to search for meat is in the spring, when plant food is still scarce. During this time, bears may look for newborn deer, elk, and moose. |
What Black Bears Eat
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Although many people believe that fawns and calves have no scent, they probably have a faint odor. Humans aren't able to detect it, but bears with their super sense of smell can pick it up.
When a black bear finds a patch of berries, it will spend hours delicately plucking the berries from the bush. It doesn't have dexterous fingers as humans have to pluck fruit. Instead, it uses its flexible lips. A bear's lips can bend and grasp much the way a monkey's prehensile tail can grasp a limb. With these "prehensile" lips, a bear can grasp berries one by one. | |
Berries provide bears with vital nutrition. During a good berry year, bears thrive. But if the crop fails, as it does periodically, bears may have difficulty finding enough food. Near the town of Council, for example, bears eat eight kinds of berries. If one crop fails, they can find other berries to eat. But near Priest Lake, bears depend on only three kinds of berries. If huckleberries fail, bears have difficulty finding enough to make up for the loss. This can be a critical issue for young bears because they depend on berries to build up their reserves for the winter. If they don't have enough food to eat in the late summer and fall, their chances of surviving the winter are reduced. Berry crop failures also affect female bears' ability to produce young the following winter.
People who portray bears as roly- butterballs haven't seen a scrawny bear emerging from its den in the spring. During hibernation, a black bear may lose 30-50 % of its fat reserves. This weight loss continues in the spring because food is scarce. When the summer berry season arrives, they finally begin gaining weight again. They repeat the same pattern annually gaining weight in the summer and fall, then losing it in the winter and early spring. Females that are rearing cubs may lose weight the entire year that they are nursing their young.
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People and Bears
Even though thousands of bears live in Idaho, people seldom see these shy "shadows of the forest" unless they are careless about their garbage or they hunt.
In 1990, more than 15,000 hunters searched for black bear in Idaho; around 2,000 hunters find a bear each year. Wildlife managers monitor bears that live in hunting areas to make sure that the bear population can withstand the hunting. They also keep watch on how much bear habitat is lost each year and report that habitat loss is the biggest problem that bears face.
Bears, like all wild animals, must share most of their habitat with
humans. People enter bear habitat to hike, ride horses, fish, hunt, ski, and
snowmobile. They also cut timber, graze cows and sheep, and operate mines in the
same forests where black bears live.
Biologists and wildlife managers strive to understand how bears use their habitat and how they react to human presence. For example, by studying how bears use logged forests, biologists and managers can recommend logging practices that have less impact on bears. They have learned that bears continue feeding in fields rich with berries if logging ceases during this time. Bears are more likely to return to a disturbed area if it is small, irregularly shaped and trees are left along streams, roads, and north slopes.
Managers also know that bears are better off if logging roads are closed instead of remaining open to provide people with new routes to hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking areas. Bears also lose habitat when people build homes along lakes and in forests. As people build, their roads cut off bear travel routes, break up home ranges, and destroy natural sources of food. People also provide new sources of food with ornamental shrubs and vegetable gardens, bee hives, pet food, and garbage.
Tips For Sharing the Bear's Forests
It should be no surprise that bears sometimes appear on people's
property and will take advantage of that easy food.
Unfortunately, people often become upset if the bears actually come onto their property. Wildlife managers will trap the bear and try to relocate it.
Sometimes the bear remains in its new home; often it returns, traveling as far as 50 miles. If a bear continues to enter private property to find easy food, wildlife managers may have to kill it. They warn property owners that "feeding a bear equals killing a bear."
Bears are highly intelligent and can learn new behavior in reaction to a single experience. For example, bears can be trained to stay away from an apiarist's bee hives even after they have discovered this easy source of food. How? The apiarist erects an electric fence around the hives. One brief jolt from the fence, and the bear knows the easy food source is gone. Some biologists are experimenting with other such aversive conditioning to help bears learn to stay away from people's homes and gardens.
Can Idaho's growing human population coexist with bears? Idaho has a healthy black bear population now, but if the population declines, it will be slow to build up again because bears are long-lived, mature late, and produce only one or two cubs every other year. Such a decline won't happen if everyone in Idaho works to ensure that both bears and people can continue to thrive in Idaho.
People can learn how to maintain their houses and yards so there is less temptation for bears. People can also learn that the sight of a bear on their property is something to be treasured. Our lives are richer when we share the land with wild creatures and black bears are one of Idaho's wildest wonders.
Some unrelated articles:
Another Reason Why Big Oil Wants To Drill In The Arctic Refuge Area
Do you ever wonder, other than for the obvious reasons, why the Bush administration is so hot to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge area? Maybe reading this news item will give you a clue. I had a great discussion with one of my friends today about this very topic of oil, etc., and both of us are very concerned about there being a oil crisis beyond even what we hear about now in the news.
I don't think I am being "chicken little-ish" when I say that all the younger generation better learn how to live without electricity and how to plant food gardens!
The animation might not show up in this file, but if not, please do click on the link to SpaceWeather.com to see it. It is massive!
SOLAR TSUNAMI: When sunspot 930 exploded on Dec. 6th, producing an X6-category flare, it also created a tsunami-like shock wave that rolled across the face of the sun, wiping out filaments and other structures in its path. An H-alpha telescope in New Mexico operated by the National Solar Observatory (NSO) recorded the action:
Credit: NSO/Optical Solar Patrol Network telescope
"These large scale blast waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful," says Dr. K. S. Balasubramaniam of the National Solar Observatory. "They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole sun and apparently sweeping away filamentary material." Researchers are unsure whether the filaments were blown off or were compressed so they were temporarily invisible. Get the full story from the NSO.
AURORA WATCH: Sky watchers, be alert for auroras. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to brush past Earth tonight, sparking a mild geomagnetic storm. The display will probably favor high latitudes--e.g., Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska--but it could descend as well to northern-tier US states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. (continued below)
Auroras over Finland on Dec. 8th. Credit: Vesa Särkelä
The source of the CME is sunspot 930, which has been exploding regularly since it first appeared on Dec. 5th. The sunspot is slowly turning to face Earth. As it does, it might send more CMEs our way, and they would hit head-on rather than merely brushing past. By next week, Northern Lights could reach deep into the United States. Stay tuned. (And keep your fingers crossed.)
Let's get this out of the way right from the get-go. I am not a scientist. I hold no degrees. I am able to read, comprehend and decipher many things I come in contact with each day. My daily thoughts run from the mundane to the innane, and occasionally to the profane. With all that said, I would like to address something that my friends and family discuss quite often since many, or most of us, live in earthquake-prone areas.
How is it that we are told that all the earthquakes are not connected, when the underlying cause of them is the molten core of our earth?
I was just reading the newsletter from Mitch Battros today for Earth Changes TV where he asks, "What's going on with our Subterranean World?" In that article he says that he wonders if there is not some sort of domino effect around the ring of fire. I had not thought of it in that way, but it does give me something new to think about.
But back to my question. I understand the simple reasoning that not all faults are connected, but for those of us who look at the big picture and the underlying cause for things, don't you think it is just another way to keep the masses from panicking when we are told that not all quakes are related?
The fault that caused the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra has not slipped all the way. I hate to imagine what could have happened if it had. As it was, the 9.1 quake off the coast of Sumatra that ripped an 800 mile gash in the crust caused the earth to 'ring like a bell". This quake shook the whole earth's surface, and the earth was still trembling weeks later. Maybe it still is??
Currently, we have had swarms of quakes in Yellowstone Park, as well as in Hawai'i and Alaska. Is this a domino effect? Back as far as 2004 scientists were monitoring a slow quake here in WA state. Was this a precursor to the 2004 quake in the Indian Ocean?
In the mean time, Mt. St. Helen's rumbles and spews lava here in WA. Mt. Rainier has even had some quakes this month. It might be worth your time to take a look at the Smithsonian-USGS website for global volcanism to keep track of the ongoing volcanic activity and how it is driving the forces that create quakes. Our planet is still evolving and changing every moment. We can't tell the future, but we sure can keep an eye on our environment and be prepared for disasters.
Image: This is a false-color image of ultraviolet light from two plasma bands in the ionosphere that encircle the Earth over the equator. Bright, blue-white areas are where the plasma is densest. Solid white lines outline the continents; Africa is on the left, and North and South America are on the right. Dotted white lines mark regions where rising tides of hot air indirectly create the bright, dense zones in the bands. The picture is a composite built up from 30 days of observations with NASA's IMAGE satellite (March 20 to April 20, 2002). Credit: NASA/University of California, Berkeley
Link: NASA - First Global Connection Between Earth And Space Weather Found.
I wonder why it has taken so long for NASA to put this information out there? It is my opinion that our government and their entities suppress scientific news that could affect the masses so that they don't cause wide-spread panic and worry. Gee, that's awfully nice of them to be so concerned, but who are they concerned for? Us, or them? We have already seen of late that they are way out of their league when it comes to handling any kind of national emergency. Sorry, but it makes no sense to me that we should be kept in the dark. Every day I thank the creator of the Internet for making it possible to get information that would otherwise be lost to us.
My question for the powers that be is: Why don't you make space weather a part of our daily weather forcast. Here in the Seattle area it was mentioned that it might be done on Channel 4 (ABC), but then nothing ever came of it.
Link: The Day Part of Washington State Flew over Iowa by Carol W. — washington, wind, ash cloud | Gather. A memoir of a day in 1980.
Loyal blooms of rose and brit,
Keep their brilliant heads uplift.
Offered sweetness anyway
As if to say, "Oh, it's OK".
Petals soft but slowly drying,
Leaves and stems as if goodbying.
One last show to bid farewell,
Farewell my beauties, come back again,
Come back to me and be my friends.
(c) C. Wilkerson 2006
Link: NASA - Solar Sentinels.
"NASA astronauts are scheduled to return to the Moon around 2020," notes Robert Lin, a solar physicist at UC Berkeley. "We've got only one solar maximum left to learn what we need to know" to protect those crews.
Lin recently chaired a team commissioned by NASA in 2004 to study a "Solar Sentinels" mission that would help scientists learn to predict solar storms in time to warn astronauts. Their report has just been published: link.
Above: the cover of the just-released Solar Sentinels report. [
At any time of year, bears are far more likely to use their teeth and
curved front claws to rip open a log full of swarming ants and lap up the
insects by the hundreds. Their curved claws also come in handy for climbing
trees to reach nuts and fruits that deer and grizzly bears can't reach.
