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POPSFacts for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades Global warming (i.e, the warming since 1977) is over. The minute increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere (0.008%) was not the cause of the warming—it was a continuation of natural cycles that occurred over the past 500 years. The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling, perhaps much deeper than the global cooling from about 1945 to 1977. Just how much cooler the global climate will be during this cool cycle is uncertain. Recent solar changes suggest that it could be fairly severe, perhaps more like the 1880 to 1915 cool cycle than the more moderate 1945-1977 cool cycle. A more drastic cooling, similar to that during the Dalton and Maunder minimums, could plunge the Earth into another Little Ice Age, but only time will tell if that is likely.
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POPSScientists see deep-sea volcano for first time "It was an underwater Fourth of July," said Bob Embley, a marine geologist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Since the water pressure at that depth suppresses the violence of the volcano's explosions, we could get the underwater robot within feet of the active eruption."
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POPSTwo Of The Four Plotters Behind The Flight 253 Attack Were Released From Gitmo In 2007 both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We can argue about the political pressures Bush was under, but the simple truth of the matter is that we should have created a process for dealing with these detainees long ago. The Military Commissions Act was this solution, establishing military commissions to establish the guilt or innocence of these detainees, but it came far too late in Bush’s administration to do any good (and was absurdly deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in yet another decision ignoring the constitution completely). And now our policy toward Guantanamo Bay is a mish-mash of conflicted and largely politically-motivated pap geared more, I think, toward pandering and backside-covering than any national security strategy. Some of the detainees are getting trials in civilian US courts. Some are being shipped off to Pacific islands for continued detention.
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POPSMichael P. Ehline Law Blog Here is some shameless self promotion be me. Check out my law blog when you get a chance. You may find it cool and interesting.
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POPSWhat Is A Tutulemma? When I was a kid, I always wondered why there was a figure eight on all the globes in the classrooms (usually in the southern Pacific Ocean). None of the teachers knew. Now I do. Blessed Solstice to all.
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POPS2012 Is Already Here "It started off same as always; coupla fossils saying how our Banjo Patterson was a better poet than Walt Whitman, how Con the Fruiterer is funnier than Seinfeld, only they're Aussies so no one knows about 'em," recalled witness Kevin Porter. "Then this bloke Martin pipes up and says Australia's main problem is that it's stuck in Australia, and everybody says 'Too right!'" "Well, it made sense at the time," Porter added. By 2 a.m., powered by national pride and alcohol, the 3-million-square-mile land mass was barging eastward through the Coral Sea and crossing into the central Pacific, leaving a trail of beer cans and Chinese take-away in its wake. When dawn broke over the Northern Hemisphere, the continent suddenly found itself, not only upside down, but smack in the middle of the Atlantic, and according to most of its 19 million inhabitants, that's the way it's going to stay.
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POPSDeep-Sea Volcano Seen By Scientists For First Time The eruption was a spectacular sight: Bright-red lava bubbles shot out of the volcano, releasing a smoke-like cloud of sulfur. The lava froze almost instantly as it hit the cold sea water, causing black rock to sink to the sea floor. The submersible hovered near the blasts, its robotic arm reaching into the lava to collect samples. Earth and ocean scientists said the eruption allowed them to see for the first time the creation of a material called boninite, which had previously been found only in samples at least a million years old.
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POPSSpectacular Sea Eruption Filmed -- Deepest Ever
One of the lead scientists called it, an underwater Fourth of July. Images show large molten lava bubbles about three feet across; glowing red vents ejecting lava into the sea, and lava flows across the seafloor. This West Mata volcano stands more than a mile high off the ocean floor. Its eruptive area is about the length of a football field. It is producing Boninite lavas, believed to be among the hottest erupting on Earth in modern times. Researchers believe they have a unique chance to study magma formation and how the Earth recycles material where tectonic plates slide against each other. A microbiologist on the team found diverse microbes in the extreme conditions, and they observed a small species of shrimp thriving. Its believed to be the same shrimp species found at eruptive sites more than 3,000 miles away. Mission scientists believe 80 percent of eruptive activity on Earth occurs in the ocean, and most volcanoes are in the deep sea.
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POPSNew Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor questions corporate personhood Wow. What a fantastic thing it would be to have the whole "corporate personhood" thing reexamined. Especially since "corporate personhood" arose via dictum in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad — it was never argued as a legal matter before the court, it was merely asserted as an "oh, by the way".
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POPS2010 could be warmest year on record (1) Nobody talks about consciousnes change leading to a new way of understanding what wealth means beyond the very basics of survival. If everyone just did everything they could to assist in the grand project of helping to heal nature which (some) people have harmed so grievously, then there may be a chance. All real wealth is co-owned and co-created by all life and the planet for the mutual benefit of all the stakeholders, both human and non-human. What is required is no more (and no less) than to redefine the purpose of life.
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POPSHow Well They Played Our Game "It did not take long for the Japanese to tire of the territorial restrictions placed upon them by their Anglo-American partners. No one in Oslo, or in the United States Congress, knew the truth then. But the Japanese did. And the American president’s support emboldened them to increase their military might — and their imperial ambitions. In December 1941, the consequence of Theodore Roosevelt’s recklessness would become clear to those few who knew of the secret dealings."
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POPSPalin's Father: She Left Hawaii Because Asians Made Her Uncomfortable I don't like Sarah Palin, but I think Palin's father mixed his words up or was misquoted. This particular quote makes a whole lot of sense to me if "they" refers to Sarah Palin and white people, rather than Asians and Pacific islanders. In universities and colleges in Hawaii, white students are a minority, and they tend to be discriminated against quite often by the locals, so I can see how Sarah Palin would feel like part of the minority and be a bit intimidated. So I think Sarah Palin's father meant to say, "Sarah Palin felt like part of the minority as a result of the discriminatory nature of the locals, so she came home." Carry along... nothing noteworthy here.
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POPSNavajo Code Talkers break silence for Veterans Day Go to the source page at the top of the clip to read their amazing story. More information can also be found at: Navajo Code Talkers official site: http://www.navajocodetalkers.org United War Veterans Council of NYC: http://www.unitedwarveterans.org
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POPSDecember 7, 1941: Day of Deceit--FDR and Pearl Harbor FDR deliberately set up a plan to provoke Japan into attacking the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor (where they sat as ducks in this new forward position, resisted by Naval commanders for that very reason), in order to force reluctant Americans into war with Germany. Throughout 1941, FDR implemented the remaining seven provocations . He then gauged Japanese reaction through intercepted and decoded communications intelligence originated by Japan’s diplomatic and military leaders. The island nation’s militarists used the provocations to seize control of Japan and organized their military forces for war against the U.S., Great Britain, and the Netherlands. The centerpiece – the Pearl Harbor attack – was leaked to the U.S. in January 1941. During the next 11 months, the White House followed the Japanese war plans through the intercepted and decoded diplomatic and military communications intelligence.
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POPSClimate Change: Small islands Fear Going the Way of Atlantis Drought, rising sea levels, flooding, and increased food insecurity are predicted to negatively affect hundreds of millions of people across the globe ... Indigenous peoples, intimately inter-connected with their environment, are already sensing environmental changes. "Even if indigenous peoples don't completely understand the science, they understand perfectly that modern civilisation is living out of balance with nature, the consequences of which we are now reaping, The precarious situation of the Amazon rainforest can be viewed as a bell-weather for the survival of Earth's ecosystem as a whole. Industrial-scale human activities, leading to deforestation, are conspiring with climate change symptoms like drought to point the Amazon toward the nightmare "die-back" scenario.
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POPSPlanet Killing Opps? Plastic Bags + Plankton = ? Talk about a major unintended consequence? Better start demanding quick switch to biodegradable plastic bags or how about carrying things in your own bags! Got to be one of the dumbest and laziest ways to kill our planet and ourselves!
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POPSLatest Tourist Attraction in New Zealand? Icebergs! Meanwhile, the massive chunks of ice are expected to generate lots of interests amongst New Zealanders and visitors from abroad alike, with many taking to the high seas to get an up close and personal look at these gigantic invaders. Over the next few weeks, the icebergs will be another great, natural attraction in a country that seems to have an abundance of them.
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