WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Part 1:
In just one year. Remember the election in 2006? Thought you might like to read the following:
A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high; 2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon; 3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%. Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen: 1) Consumer confidence plummet;2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon; 3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase); 4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses); 5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars; 6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure. America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! Remember it's Congress that makes law, taxes and spends, not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.
Quote of the Day........'My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it.' -- Barack Obama
Part 2:
Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing. www.taxfoundation.org/publications/sho w/151.html
Taxes under Clinton 1999
Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
Married making 125K – tax $31,250
Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates.
It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.
PART 3:
You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much?
Boy am I confused. I have been hammered with the propaganda that it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us. I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.Verify at http://transcripts.cnn..com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.Verify at http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the USVerify at: http://transcri pts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .'Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
Are we THAT stupid?If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every representative in Washington, D.C. - five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof.
Tell all of your friends, and if you know any, the Democrats that will listen!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Global warming rage lets global hunger grow
This is very ironic considering the UN is one of the biggest Global Warming pushers.
The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year. Last week, the UN predicted "massacres" unless the biofuel policy is halted.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Senator John McCain for President
I received the following endorsement in an email. I don't know who wrote this but I needed to post it
After long and serious thought, I have decided to endorse Senator John McCain for President.
I have always voted for the person and have not voted for anyone because some political party was telling me who I should vote for.
We all know the choices by now and, that said, I do believe that the process of selecting a chief executive is deeply flawed. The words 'money' and 'special intersts' come to mind, among many others.
Here's the way I see it:
Barack Obama, you are a fine public speaker. You are also an extremely liberal Senator from the State of Illinois, which has a long and rich history of political corruption of the first magnitude. You are indeed a child of that system.
You have finally insulted my intelligence far beyond my capacity to tolerate your insults. It has nothing at all to do with your skin color. As a matter of fact, it would be so COOL to finally have an African-American for President. What a great statement that would be to the entire world that we are indeed the greatest country on earth ! But, unfortunately, General Colin Powell is not running, and YOU are NOT the man for this job !
Barack baby, you want me to believe that you have never heard the sermons of your own pastor, the Right Reverend 'God Damn America' Jeremiah Wright. It is a matter of record that this has been your church for over 20 years. It is a matter of record that you were married there by this very pastor, and that your children were baptized there. The good Reverend saw fit to visit Khadafy in Libya with you and to give a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan, of all people. We have all now seen excerpts of his sermons all over the airwaves by now. And you have publicly stated that this man IS your 'spiritual mentor'.
BUT, your pastor is NOT the reason I am NOT voting for you. His words were disturbing enough, but it is your own HUGE church congregation, seen jumping, hooting and howling to his words in the background that disturb me the most. And please don't tell me you attended church there and never once heard a 'discouraging word' in the 20 years you attended there. Don't tell me, that in addition to the good reverend, that you are now not having anything to do with all those other people seen hooting and howling out in the audience in the background of his fiery tirades.
Even Oprah Winfrey got disgusted and walked out. I am no Oprah fan, but still she did the right thing.
Now YOU look me in the eye and ask me to believe that you never heard such language in all the years you attended there ! This is like me telling you that I attended dozens of Klan rallys and never once heard the 'N' word. Yep. And Bill Clinton 'did not inhale'.
Yes, Mr. Obama, we all have friends who have said stupid things that embarrassed us, but NOW you have asked me to believe something that is so incredibly stupid that you are telling me that I am just stupid enough to believe you. THAT is the main reason that I will never vote for you. I am deeply sorry, that in a county teeming with enormously talented African Americans who would make a good President, that the political system has chosen YOU. You are a pathetic and plastic excuse for an American, who will not even salute the Flag during the Pledge of Allegiance. God forbid you ever get near the Oval Office.
Now, did I mention Bill Clinton ?
AH YES ! This brings us to MRS. WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, who this candidate really is, in spite of all the other names she may care to call herself. This 'feminist' piece of work of course would like to be referred to as MS. and we all know who wears the pant suit in that family.
MS. Clinton, (sugar), it is just as depressing to realize that there are dozens of women who would also make great Presidents. But, unfortunately, the horrible state of the selection process has selected YOU. Ms. Clinton, I'm sorry, but you could not tell the truth if we waterboarded your worthless ass !
Still you play the role of the 'embarrassed but dignified noble wife'. What utter malarky ! I am not voting for you for a world of reasons, but the main one is the same as not my voting for Senator Obama. You persistently insult my intelligence. It COULD be conceivably possible that you did not know about Monica Lewinsky, extremely remote, but possible if we stretch our imaginations a bit. But you turn around and then ask me to believe that you also did not know about Paula Jones and the legion of other women who were chewed up and spit out by your lecherous excuse for a husband. Puleese turn off this broken record !!!
But let's set aside your hubby's flagrant pecadillos. The real reason I will never vote for you is that I don't think the country can survive EIGHT MORE YEARS of Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Sandy Berger stuffing his socks with classified intelligence, Janet Reno's goon squad, and the myriad other corruptions that seem to stick to you like your ugly face. So our former President can't keep his dick in his pants. The REAL issue is that he committed perjury under oath when he lied about it and the pathetically-attempted coverup that followed. Like you, he is totally incapable of telling the truth. He could not do it if you tortured him, and in voting for you, we would get the BOTH of you, all over again. The same folks who could have taken out Osama Bin Laden over 3,000 dead Americans ago !
And please stop telling me that you have '8 years of experience' to lead us. You were the freakin' first lady already, not the Commander in Chief. Jeez ! The sum of your 'experience' is that of the most worrisome and incompetent meddling in the history of the White House. You even cursed your pitiful staff and the Secret Service agents who were and still are unfortunately charged with risking their lives to protect your worthless, thieving hide, and all at the expense of other people who have to work for a living.
Your single pathetic platform is to finance the illegal drugs, alcoholism and bad habits of the very lowest and most irresponsible freeloaders in America and to then 'garnish the wages' (your own words) of every law-abiding and hard-working American to pay for it. This disaster you refer to as 'Universal Health Care'. Where have you been the last 30 years ? Did you not see that socialism is a failure wherever it has been tried ? Did you not notice that the Soviet Union has collapsed since it gave no reward to those who worked the hardest for the fruits of their own labors to pay for those who will not ??
It is interesting to see all the dead bodies that you and your hubby have left in your wake. Suicides, mysterious deaths, cover-ups that make Richard Nixon look like a rank amateur. The utter contempt and unbelievable arrogance of some of your strongest supporters, most notably the recently resigned and disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer, the epitome of hypocritical and malevolent arrogance gone wild, one of your most ardent, wealthy and powerful political supporters. A man the news media refuses to admit IS a 'super delegate' in your own political machine, a fine example of your own 'adopted' state of New York. No wonder you moved there to run for Senator ! The environment there is perfect for the likes of you !
Yes, I would vote for a woman, but I will NOT vote for YOU !
Which leaves us with Senator John McCain.
John, you are a flawed man. You are a bit old, a bit looney, and you have a notoriously bad temper. This perfectly qualifies you, in my humble opinion, to lead us for the next eight years. I WANT your trembling hand on the nuclear button.
Think about it.
We have Kim Jong IL, Chavez and Ahmadenijad all running around like lunatics, threatening America and threatening to plunge the world into nuclear Armageddon. We have Putin and the Chinese blustering and rattling their sabres at us. I want John McCain in the Oval Office and I want him to be really pissed off at all these other nut jobs around the planet.
John, once you are elected, I want you to go into the Oval Office and throw one of your perfect FITS. Jump up and down and throw something through a plate glass window. Rip the drapes down and foam at the mouth a bit. And I want the whole thing on camera so that Ahmadinejad can see it. I want ALL of these 'world leaders' to lay awake at night and to break out in a cold sweat every time they think of messing with the United States of America.
I want the nuclear button sitting right next to the alarm clock on your night stand. I want pictures of this to be sent to Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and those other folks in sheets, the Saudis.
On the domestic front, poor John did try and reach across the aisle to the opposition in a desperate effort to compromise and to get the Congress to do something. You may not agree with his efforts, but at least he TRIED. For all his efforts, all he got handed to him was his head in a basket. The liberals are pissed at him and the conservatives are pissed at him. Just my kinda guy.
I predict that John will select Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Good choice. I want a JEW whose memory of the Holocaust is still fresh in his mind and who is royally pissed off at all of these towel-headed morons in the Middle East to be the next in line if something should happen to John. Shalom, Vice President Joe. One heartbeat from the Oval Office.
Finally. John McCain knows on a most personal level what it is to suffer horrible torture for years and to see others die, right in front of you, for their love of America. When you ask him about it, he will tell you that what he did was 'nothing special'. Even more incredibly, he states that ANY American who truly loves his country would do exactly the same as he did in that situation. You and I will have a hard time believing that, but the real point is that John McCain believes that about the 'average American', and that, dear friends and neighbors, is why I will cast my one poor ballot on election day for John McCain--warts and all.
God Bless America,
After long and serious thought, I have decided to endorse Senator John McCain for President.
I have always voted for the person and have not voted for anyone because some political party was telling me who I should vote for.
We all know the choices by now and, that said, I do believe that the process of selecting a chief executive is deeply flawed. The words 'money' and 'special intersts' come to mind, among many others.
Here's the way I see it:
Barack Obama, you are a fine public speaker. You are also an extremely liberal Senator from the State of Illinois, which has a long and rich history of political corruption of the first magnitude. You are indeed a child of that system.
You have finally insulted my intelligence far beyond my capacity to tolerate your insults. It has nothing at all to do with your skin color. As a matter of fact, it would be so COOL to finally have an African-American for President. What a great statement that would be to the entire world that we are indeed the greatest country on earth ! But, unfortunately, General Colin Powell is not running, and YOU are NOT the man for this job !
Barack baby, you want me to believe that you have never heard the sermons of your own pastor, the Right Reverend 'God Damn America' Jeremiah Wright. It is a matter of record that this has been your church for over 20 years. It is a matter of record that you were married there by this very pastor, and that your children were baptized there. The good Reverend saw fit to visit Khadafy in Libya with you and to give a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan, of all people. We have all now seen excerpts of his sermons all over the airwaves by now. And you have publicly stated that this man IS your 'spiritual mentor'.
BUT, your pastor is NOT the reason I am NOT voting for you. His words were disturbing enough, but it is your own HUGE church congregation, seen jumping, hooting and howling to his words in the background that disturb me the most. And please don't tell me you attended church there and never once heard a 'discouraging word' in the 20 years you attended there. Don't tell me, that in addition to the good reverend, that you are now not having anything to do with all those other people seen hooting and howling out in the audience in the background of his fiery tirades.
Even Oprah Winfrey got disgusted and walked out. I am no Oprah fan, but still she did the right thing.
Now YOU look me in the eye and ask me to believe that you never heard such language in all the years you attended there ! This is like me telling you that I attended dozens of Klan rallys and never once heard the 'N' word. Yep. And Bill Clinton 'did not inhale'.
Yes, Mr. Obama, we all have friends who have said stupid things that embarrassed us, but NOW you have asked me to believe something that is so incredibly stupid that you are telling me that I am just stupid enough to believe you. THAT is the main reason that I will never vote for you. I am deeply sorry, that in a county teeming with enormously talented African Americans who would make a good President, that the political system has chosen YOU. You are a pathetic and plastic excuse for an American, who will not even salute the Flag during the Pledge of Allegiance. God forbid you ever get near the Oval Office.
Now, did I mention Bill Clinton ?
AH YES ! This brings us to MRS. WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, who this candidate really is, in spite of all the other names she may care to call herself. This 'feminist' piece of work of course would like to be referred to as MS. and we all know who wears the pant suit in that family.
MS. Clinton, (sugar), it is just as depressing to realize that there are dozens of women who would also make great Presidents. But, unfortunately, the horrible state of the selection process has selected YOU. Ms. Clinton, I'm sorry, but you could not tell the truth if we waterboarded your worthless ass !
Still you play the role of the 'embarrassed but dignified noble wife'. What utter malarky ! I am not voting for you for a world of reasons, but the main one is the same as not my voting for Senator Obama. You persistently insult my intelligence. It COULD be conceivably possible that you did not know about Monica Lewinsky, extremely remote, but possible if we stretch our imaginations a bit. But you turn around and then ask me to believe that you also did not know about Paula Jones and the legion of other women who were chewed up and spit out by your lecherous excuse for a husband. Puleese turn off this broken record !!!
But let's set aside your hubby's flagrant pecadillos. The real reason I will never vote for you is that I don't think the country can survive EIGHT MORE YEARS of Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, Sandy Berger stuffing his socks with classified intelligence, Janet Reno's goon squad, and the myriad other corruptions that seem to stick to you like your ugly face. So our former President can't keep his dick in his pants. The REAL issue is that he committed perjury under oath when he lied about it and the pathetically-attempted coverup that followed. Like you, he is totally incapable of telling the truth. He could not do it if you tortured him, and in voting for you, we would get the BOTH of you, all over again. The same folks who could have taken out Osama Bin Laden over 3,000 dead Americans ago !
And please stop telling me that you have '8 years of experience' to lead us. You were the freakin' first lady already, not the Commander in Chief. Jeez ! The sum of your 'experience' is that of the most worrisome and incompetent meddling in the history of the White House. You even cursed your pitiful staff and the Secret Service agents who were and still are unfortunately charged with risking their lives to protect your worthless, thieving hide, and all at the expense of other people who have to work for a living.
Your single pathetic platform is to finance the illegal drugs, alcoholism and bad habits of the very lowest and most irresponsible freeloaders in America and to then 'garnish the wages' (your own words) of every law-abiding and hard-working American to pay for it. This disaster you refer to as 'Universal Health Care'. Where have you been the last 30 years ? Did you not see that socialism is a failure wherever it has been tried ? Did you not notice that the Soviet Union has collapsed since it gave no reward to those who worked the hardest for the fruits of their own labors to pay for those who will not ??
It is interesting to see all the dead bodies that you and your hubby have left in your wake. Suicides, mysterious deaths, cover-ups that make Richard Nixon look like a rank amateur. The utter contempt and unbelievable arrogance of some of your strongest supporters, most notably the recently resigned and disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer, the epitome of hypocritical and malevolent arrogance gone wild, one of your most ardent, wealthy and powerful political supporters. A man the news media refuses to admit IS a 'super delegate' in your own political machine, a fine example of your own 'adopted' state of New York. No wonder you moved there to run for Senator ! The environment there is perfect for the likes of you !
Yes, I would vote for a woman, but I will NOT vote for YOU !
Which leaves us with Senator John McCain.
John, you are a flawed man. You are a bit old, a bit looney, and you have a notoriously bad temper. This perfectly qualifies you, in my humble opinion, to lead us for the next eight years. I WANT your trembling hand on the nuclear button.
Think about it.
We have Kim Jong IL, Chavez and Ahmadenijad all running around like lunatics, threatening America and threatening to plunge the world into nuclear Armageddon. We have Putin and the Chinese blustering and rattling their sabres at us. I want John McCain in the Oval Office and I want him to be really pissed off at all these other nut jobs around the planet.
John, once you are elected, I want you to go into the Oval Office and throw one of your perfect FITS. Jump up and down and throw something through a plate glass window. Rip the drapes down and foam at the mouth a bit. And I want the whole thing on camera so that Ahmadinejad can see it. I want ALL of these 'world leaders' to lay awake at night and to break out in a cold sweat every time they think of messing with the United States of America.
I want the nuclear button sitting right next to the alarm clock on your night stand. I want pictures of this to be sent to Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and those other folks in sheets, the Saudis.
On the domestic front, poor John did try and reach across the aisle to the opposition in a desperate effort to compromise and to get the Congress to do something. You may not agree with his efforts, but at least he TRIED. For all his efforts, all he got handed to him was his head in a basket. The liberals are pissed at him and the conservatives are pissed at him. Just my kinda guy.
I predict that John will select Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Good choice. I want a JEW whose memory of the Holocaust is still fresh in his mind and who is royally pissed off at all of these towel-headed morons in the Middle East to be the next in line if something should happen to John. Shalom, Vice President Joe. One heartbeat from the Oval Office.
Finally. John McCain knows on a most personal level what it is to suffer horrible torture for years and to see others die, right in front of you, for their love of America. When you ask him about it, he will tell you that what he did was 'nothing special'. Even more incredibly, he states that ANY American who truly loves his country would do exactly the same as he did in that situation. You and I will have a hard time believing that, but the real point is that John McCain believes that about the 'average American', and that, dear friends and neighbors, is why I will cast my one poor ballot on election day for John McCain--warts and all.
God Bless America,
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Wilkins Ice Shelf Con Job
By John McLean
On 25 March the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) jointly published a press statement declaring that the Wilkins Ice Shelf “has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.” I’ve looked at relevant public data and I’m undecided whether this statement was a gross exaggeration, an inept interpretation of the evidence or borderline fraud, because I can see nothing about the collapse to indicate that it was anything but a natural event.
Firstly, there were no other reports of recent collapses in this part of the Antarctic during what the end of the (southern) summer melt period. If climate was the major cause then surely we would have seen other instances of ice shelf disintegration, shelves such as the nearby King George IV shelf or the several shelves along the Bellinghausen Sea just 500km to the west. Secondly and more importantly, there is nothing in the observational data to suggest a dramatic recent change in climatic conditions. The NSIDC/BAS press statement, grandly titled “Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World”, said “In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on Earth, rising by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) per decade.” By accident or design that press release omitted some very vital details about that increase, details that show the warming to have very minor effect and that the likely cause of recent temperature change is quite natural.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is located about half way along the western (i.e. Pacific) side of the Antarctic Peninsula, that tongue of land stretching towards South America and reaching latitudes comparable with central Alaska (or for European readers, the Finnish city of Oulu). The NSIDC photographs of the Wilkins Ice Shelf give a clear indication of the normal cycle of events and show a lot about the collapse. The distinct line indicates the natural boundary of thicker pack ice and thinner sea ice. The area indicated as being reformed appears to be part of an old collapse that sea ice has progressively filled. The ice in this region is rougher than the long-term pack ice.
Image is for January 15, 2008, prior to the partial break-up. See larger image here
A plausible hypothesis is that wind and wave conditions during the second quarter of 2007 caused internal forces that opened an old weakness in the ice. Perhaps that weakness was caused by undercutting wave action back in 2004 and the sea ice has until now had braced the pack ice. The hypothesis of previous bracing is supported by the press statement, which said “Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28; data revealed that a large iceberg, 41 by 2.5 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles), fell away from the ice shelf’s southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf interior”. One collapse apparently triggered another, which is what we’d expect from bracing. This begs the question of when the Wilkins Ice Shelf last lost ice from its southwestern edge and whether the recent collapse was not some kind of “catch up” of natural processes.
There are many possible causes for this loss of ice, which in itself is hardly a momentous and unknown event, but it seems that neither NSIDC nor BAS were inclined to look beyond the reasons that we all recognize as being likely to interest the news media. If NSIDC or BAS have evidence that the ice shelf collapsed due to man-made warming then they need to produce it very quickly. Until that happens I will continue to believe that their great hype about man-made climate change is no more than a con job. It grabbed some brief media attention but now we can go back to observing falling temperatures and a very poor correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, two factors that unfortunately for many believers threaten to undermine the claims of man-made warming.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Wilkins_Ice_Shelf_con.pdf
On 25 March the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) jointly published a press statement declaring that the Wilkins Ice Shelf “has begun to collapse because of rapid climate change in a fast-warming region of Antarctica.” I’ve looked at relevant public data and I’m undecided whether this statement was a gross exaggeration, an inept interpretation of the evidence or borderline fraud, because I can see nothing about the collapse to indicate that it was anything but a natural event.
Firstly, there were no other reports of recent collapses in this part of the Antarctic during what the end of the (southern) summer melt period. If climate was the major cause then surely we would have seen other instances of ice shelf disintegration, shelves such as the nearby King George IV shelf or the several shelves along the Bellinghausen Sea just 500km to the west. Secondly and more importantly, there is nothing in the observational data to suggest a dramatic recent change in climatic conditions. The NSIDC/BAS press statement, grandly titled “Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World”, said “In the past 50 years, the western Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the biggest temperature increase on Earth, rising by 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) per decade.” By accident or design that press release omitted some very vital details about that increase, details that show the warming to have very minor effect and that the likely cause of recent temperature change is quite natural.
The Wilkins Ice Shelf is located about half way along the western (i.e. Pacific) side of the Antarctic Peninsula, that tongue of land stretching towards South America and reaching latitudes comparable with central Alaska (or for European readers, the Finnish city of Oulu). The NSIDC photographs of the Wilkins Ice Shelf give a clear indication of the normal cycle of events and show a lot about the collapse. The distinct line indicates the natural boundary of thicker pack ice and thinner sea ice. The area indicated as being reformed appears to be part of an old collapse that sea ice has progressively filled. The ice in this region is rougher than the long-term pack ice.
Image is for January 15, 2008, prior to the partial break-up. See larger image here
A plausible hypothesis is that wind and wave conditions during the second quarter of 2007 caused internal forces that opened an old weakness in the ice. Perhaps that weakness was caused by undercutting wave action back in 2004 and the sea ice has until now had braced the pack ice. The hypothesis of previous bracing is supported by the press statement, which said “Satellite images indicate that the Wilkins began its collapse on February 28; data revealed that a large iceberg, 41 by 2.5 kilometers (25.5 by 1.5 miles), fell away from the ice shelf’s southwestern front, triggering a runaway disintegration of 405 square kilometers (160 square miles) of the shelf interior”. One collapse apparently triggered another, which is what we’d expect from bracing. This begs the question of when the Wilkins Ice Shelf last lost ice from its southwestern edge and whether the recent collapse was not some kind of “catch up” of natural processes.
There are many possible causes for this loss of ice, which in itself is hardly a momentous and unknown event, but it seems that neither NSIDC nor BAS were inclined to look beyond the reasons that we all recognize as being likely to interest the news media. If NSIDC or BAS have evidence that the ice shelf collapsed due to man-made warming then they need to produce it very quickly. Until that happens I will continue to believe that their great hype about man-made climate change is no more than a con job. It grabbed some brief media attention but now we can go back to observing falling temperatures and a very poor correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, two factors that unfortunately for many believers threaten to undermine the claims of man-made warming.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Wilkins_Ice_Shelf_con.pdf
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