The Arctic is leaking methane 200 times faster than usual: Massive release of gas is creating giant holes and 'trembling tundras'

It has long been known that different parts of Siberia burp CH4 from time to time and it may perhaps be in response to warming -- either a local warming event or an El Nino warming.  It is not however due to anthropogenic global warming because there has been none of that for many years.

The present eruptions seem to be confined to the Yamal peninsula area, which is only a very small part of Siberia.  See Here regarding the inability of CH4 to affect global temperatures

And let me be really pesky by noting the finding:  "No significant increase in long-term CH4emissions on NorthSlope of Alaska despite significant increase in air temperature".  Alaska is geologically and climatically continuous with Siberia so if warming does not elevate  methane levels in Alaska it seems likely that it is not doing so in Siberia either.  So warming is NOT the cause of the CH4 burps presently being observed

Strange bubbles have been discovered in the Arctic permafrost - adding to mysterious behaviour seen in the region, including the sudden appearance of giant holes in northern Siberia.

Now Russian scientists have revealed the bubbles in the wobbly Earth are are leaking methane gas some 200 times above the norm in the atmosphere.

The 'trembling tundra' also contains concentrations of carbon dioxide 20 times higher than usual levels.

The extent of the harmful greenhouse gases buried in this new phenomenon of jelly-like bubbles poses 'very serious alarm' concerning the impact of global warming, expert Alexander Sokolov warned.

Some 15 examples of this swaying Siberian ground were revealed this week on Belyy Island, a polar bear outpost 475 miles (764km) north of the Arctic Circle in the Kara Sea.

One account from a Russian research team at the scene said: 'As we took off a layer of grass and soil, a fountain of gas erupted.'

'An early theory is that warm summer heat has melted the permafrost causing the release of long-frozen gases,'The Siberian Times reported.

The newspaper was the first to report the weird sight and has now shared the gas readings.

Startling video footage shows the ground wobbling under the feet of scientists.

'It was like a jelly,' said one researcher, who continued: 'We have not come across anything like this before.'

He warned there is 'serious reason to be concerned if gas bubbles appear in the permafrost zone' with 'unpredictable' consequences.

Dr Sokolov said he first saw the spectacle during an expedition on this Siberian island last year.

'I've been working in Yamal for twenty years now - some of my peers have been working here even longer - and it's the first time I have ever seen this,' said the ecological expert with the Urals Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He explained: 'The day after seeing this bubble, we came across another one. 'As shown on our video, we punctured it and, let's say, "air" starting coming out quickly - it had no smell - and there was no liquid (eruption).'

The researchers went back and measured the gas that was released when the thin layer of grass and soil sealing in the methane and carbon dioxide was punctured.

'Gases are typically measured in parts per million or ppm,' he said.

'The gas analyser showed that one of these gases was dozens of times higher and another was hundreds of times higher than normal.'

The peak carbon dioxide measurement was 7750 ppm, while the methane reading was 375 ppm.

The island - which lies in the Kara Sea off the Yamal Peninsula - has had unusually warm weather this summer, including temperatures in the 20ºC (68ºF).

'It is likely that 10 days of extraordinary heat could have started some mechanisms, (and the) higher level of permafrost could have thawed and released a huge amount of gases,' Dr Sokolov said.

Three feet (one metre) down there is 'solid permafrost' so he believes the greenhouse gases are caused by the thawing of the surface layer only.

'It is evident even to amateurs that this is a very serious alarm,' he said, continuing: 'As for the future, we are interested in further study of the bubbles. 'We have discovered over a dozen of them. We need interdisciplinary study.'

South of Belvy Island, another phenomenon is being closely observed by scientists - the sudden formation of craters, caused by eruptions or explosions of methane gas, which has melted below the surface.

These Siberian craters are believed to have been caused by the release of gas previously frozen in the permafrost.

When the craters first appeared on the Yamal Peninsula - known to locals as 'the end of the world' - they sparked bizarre theories as to their formation.

They ranged from meteorites to stray missiles fired by Vladimir Putin's military machine, and from man-made pranks to the work of visiting aliens.

Most experts now believe they were created by explosions of methane gas unlocked by warming temperatures in the far north of Russia.

On Yamal, the main theory is that the craters were formed by pingos - dome-shaped mounds over a core of ice - erupting under pressure of methane gas released by the thawing of permafrost caused by climate change.

The Yamal craters, some tiny but others large, were created by natural gas filling vacant space in ice humps, eventually triggering eruptions, according to leading authority Professor Vasily Bogoyavlensky, of Moscow's Oil and Gas Research Institute.

Recently there were accounts of a 'big bang' leading to the formation of a crater on the Taimyr Peninsula. However, there was no pingo on this spot before the eruption in 2013.

The noise could be heard up to 60 miles away and one resident saw a 'glow in the sky' after the explosion, it was recently revealed.

SOURCE






Keeping the poor impoverished

Callous eco-imperialists use lies, scare stories to deny poor countries better living standards

Paul Driessen

We are just now entering the age of industrialization, newly elected President Rodrigo Duterte said recently, explaining why the Philippines will not ratify the Paris climate accords. “Now that we’re developing, you will impose a limit? That’s absurd. It’s being imposed upon us by the industrialized countries. They think they can dictate our destiny.”

More developing nations are taking the same stance – and rightly so. They increasingly understand that fossil fuels are needed to modernize, industrialize, electrify, and decrease poverty, malnutrition and disease. Many supported the 2015 Paris climate treaty for three reasons.

They are not required to reduce their oil, natural gas and coal use, economic development and greenhouse gas emissions, because doing so would prevent them from improving their people’s living standards.

They want the free technology transfers and trillions of dollars in climate “adaptation, mitigation and reparation” funds that now-wealthy nations promised to pay for alleged climate transgressions. But they now know those promises won’t be kept – especially by countries that absurdly insist on slashing their energy use, economic growth and job creation, while developing countries surge ahead.

Climate has always changed. It is far better to have energy, technology, modern housing and wealth to adapt to, survive, recover from and even thrive amid inevitable warming, cooling and weather events, than to forego these abilities (on the absurd assumption that humans can control climate and weather) – and be forced to confront nature’s onslaughts the way previous generations had to.

The November 7-18 Marrakech, Morocco UN climate conference (COP-22) thus promises to be a lot of hot air, just like its predecessors. Officially, its goal is to accelerate GHG emission reductions, “brainstorm” with government and business leaders to achieve “new levels of cooperation and technology sharing” (and subsidies), and embrace “urgent action” to help African and small island nations survive the supposed ravages of manmade droughts and rising seas.

The true purposes are to pressure industrialized nations to end most fossil fuel use by 2050; intentionally replace free enterprise capitalism with a “more equitable” system; “more fairly” redistribute the world’s wealth and natural resources; and ensure that poor countries develop “sustainably” and not “too much” – all under the direction and control of UN agencies and environmentalist pressure groups.

We might ask: Replace capitalism with what exactly? Dictatorial UN socialism? Redistribute what wealth exactly? After we’ve hobbled developed countries’ energy use, job creation and wealth creation, what will be left? As poor countries get rich, do you UN bureaucrats intend to take and redistribute their wealth to “less fortunate” nations that still fail to use fossil fuels or get rid of their kleptocratic leaders?

Africans are not endangered by manmade climate change. They are threatened by the same droughts and storms they have confronted for millennia, and by the same corrupt leaders who line their own pockets with climate and foreign aid cash, while doing nothing for their people and nothing to modernize their countries. Africa certainly does not need yet more callous outsider corruption dictating its future.

Pacific islanders likewise face no greater perils from seas rising at seven inches per century, than they have from seas that rose 400 feet since the last Ice Age glaciers melted, and their coral islands kept pace with those ocean levels – unless they too fail to use fossil fuel (and nuclear) power to modernize.

The Morocco-Paris-Bali-Rio manmade climate chaos mantra may protect people and planet from climate hobgoblins conjured up by garbage in-garbage out computer models. But it will perpetuate energy and economic poverty, imposed on powerless populations by eco-imperialist US, EU and UN functionaries.

Virtually every other environmentalist dogma has similar effects.

Sustainability precepts demand that we somehow predict future technologies – and ensure that today’s resource needs “will not compromise” the completely unpredictable energy and raw material needs that those unpredictable technologies will introduce. They require that we safeguard the assumed needs of future generations, even when it means ignoring or compromising the needs of current generations – including the needs, aspirations, health and welfare of the world’s poorest people.

Resource depletion claims fail to account for hydraulic fracturing and other new technologies that increase supplies, reduce their costs – or decrease the need for previously essential commodities, as fiber optic cables reduced the need for copper. The Stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. If we run out of something, it’s generally because governments prevented us from developing the resource.

Precautionary principles say we must focus on the risks of using chemicals, fossil fuels and other technologies – but never on the risks of not using them. We are required to emphasize minor, alleged, manageable, exaggerated or fabricated risks that a technology might cause, but ignore the risks it would reduce or prevent.

Because of illusory risks from biotechnology, we are to banish GMO Golden Rice and bananas that are rich in beta-carotene (which humans can convert into Vitamin A), and continue letting millions of children go blind or die. We are to accept millions more deaths from malaria, Zika, dengue, yellow fever and other diseases, because of imagined dangers of using DDT and insecticides. Must we also accept millions of cancer deaths, because of risks associated with radiation and chemo therapies?

Over the past three decades, fossil fuels helped 1.3 billion more people get electricity and escape deadly energy and economic poverty – over 830 million because of coal. China connected 99% of its population to the grid, also mostly with coal, enabling its average citizens to be ten times richer and live 32 years longer than five decades previously.

But another 1.2 billion people (the US, Canadian, Mexican and European populations combined) still do not have electricity. Another 2 billion have electrical power only sporadically and unpredictably and must still cook and heat with wood, charcoal and animal dung. Hundreds of millions get horribly sick and five million die every year from lung and intestinal diseases, due to breathing smoke from open fires and not having refrigeration, clean water and safe food. Because of climate “risks,” we are to let this continue.

Or as former Earth Island Institute editor Gar Smith so charmingly put it: “African villagers used to spend their days and evenings sewing clothing for their neighbors on foot-peddle-powered sewing machines.” Once they get electricity, they spend too much time watching television and listening to the radio. “If there is going to be electricity, I would like it to be decentralized, small and solar-powered.”

Of course, as a young black California mother reminded me a few years ago, eco-imperialism is not just a developing country issue. It is a global problem. “Because of their paranoid fear of sprawl,” LaTonya told me, “elitist eco-imperialists employ endless regulations and restrictions that prevent upwardly-mobile people of color from improving their lot in life. Only we, the wealthy and privileged, they seem to insist, can live in nice homes and safe neighborhoods, have good jobs and enjoy modern lifestyles.”

These ideologies and policies are absurd, callous, immoral, eco-imperialistic and genocidal. They inflict unconscionable crimes against humanity on the poorest among us. They can no longer be tolerated.

Rich nations used fossil fuels to advance science, create wondrous technologies beyond previous generations’ wildest imaginings, eradicate killer diseases, increase life expectancy from 46 in 1900 to 78 today, and give even poor families better living standards than kings and queens enjoyed a century ago.

Instead of holding poor countries and billions of less fortunate people back for still more decades, we are ethically bound to do everything we can to encourage and assist them to throw off their shackles, and join the world’s wealthy, healthy, technologically advanced nations.

Via email




Golden Rice: the miracle crop greens love to hate

Rice is the staple food of over 3.5 billion people, most of whom live in the poorest parts of the world. But the world’s staple does come with one major drawback. Despite being loaded with other nutrients, rice is naturally lacking in vitamin A.

The Lancet estimates that, every year, around 670,000 children under the age of five die as a result of vitamin-A deficiency. Imagine, then, the development potential of a genetically modified, mass-market strain of rice that is packed with all the typical nutrients you’d expect, but which also comes loaded with vitamin A.

Golden Rice is such a crop, and it’s the genetically modified organism (GMO) the South has been waiting for. Unfortunately, certain groups are agitating against Golden Rice over claims it is dangerous – despite it having passed every test and safety check it has ever faced. This resistance is largely thanks to environmental organisations like Greenpeace, who have spent decades campaigning relentlessly against GMOs on the basis of unfounded health concerns.

This is despite the fact that GM foodstuffs are commonplace in the US, where the crops are needed far less than they are in the poorest parts of the world. Yet Greenpeace continues to wage war on these revolutionary new foodstuffs, batting away study after study that emerges in defence of GMOs like Golden Rice.

Greenpeace has become so blindly dogmatic in its approach that, late last month, 110 Nobel Laureates signed an open letter condemning its rejection of GMOs. The signatories, who account for one third of living Nobel laureates, went so far as to suggest that Greenpeace’s demonisation of perfectly healthy GMOs, particularly Golden Rice, is akin to a ‘crime against humanity’. They estimate that many of the two million annual deaths attributed to vitamin-A deficiency could be prevented by Golden Rice.

In its response, Greenpeace claimed that its opposition to Golden Rice is down to the failure of manufacturers to produce it cheaply and plentifully. This is a bit rich, considering obstructions by environmentalists has made production of Golden Rice difficult. In 2013, green activists destroyed trial plots of Golden Rice in the Philippines – setting its development back by years.

Perhaps eco-alarmists genuinely believe, in their own paternalistic way, that they are helping the global poor by restricting their access to these new crops. However, their dogmatic resistance to scientific progress is doing more damage than all the GMOs in the world ever could.

Greenpeace should consider looking at the facts. Throughout the history of their existence, nobody has died as a result of eating GMOs. Countless lives have certainly been lost in that time, however, and many development opportunities have been stifled, thanks to hunger.

It’s time organisations like Greenpeace ended their ingrained opposition to Golden Rice and other GM crops. It’s time we all embraced the life-changing potential of such crops.

SOURCE





Court Sinks Navy Over Whales

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that federal rules don’t give enough protection to inhabitants of the world’s oceans. This ruling was a reversal of a lower court’s ruling in 2012 that had approved of rules for naval peacetime operations. It was not that the Navy had gone beyond the regulations. The court stated, “We have every reason to believe that the Navy has been deliberate and thoughtful” in keeping the rules, but the court believed that the rules did not go far enough in protecting marine mammals — specifically whales.

The ruling on the federal regulations dealt specifically with the Navy’s use of low-frequency sonar, which is used by the Navy primarily in the detection of submarines. What environmental groups have contested is that the use of this sonar technology is dangerous to various mammal sea life, specifically whales. It is known that sonar activity affects whales, but it is not well established specifically how dangerous the activity is to the whales.

In 2008 a California judge had ruled that naval ships using sonar had to stay clear of a 12-mile wide stretch along the coast. This ruling was challenged by the Navy and later that year the U.S. Supreme Court rule in favor of the Navy, concluding that national security was of greater importance than specious environmental concerns.

This latest ruling once again pits environmental groups and their interests against that of national security. While it is rarely a good idea to dismiss environmental concerns out right, the ability of the U.S. to defended itself is of a higher priority. For without the security secured by our nation’s military forces, Americans would not enjoy the freedom to engage in promoting protections for the environment.

SOURCE





Australia: Business angry as S.A. wind turbines suck more power than they generate

Wind turbines in South Australia were using more power than they generated during the state’s electricity crisis, which has prompted major businesses to threaten shutdowns and smaller firms to consider moving interstate.

The sapping of power by the turbines during calm weather on July 7 at the height of the ­crisis, which has caused a price surge, shows just how unreliable and ­intermittent wind power is for a state with a renewable ­energy mix of more than 40 per cent. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox ­yesterday said the rise in prices, ­already the highest in the country, had disrupted industry and served as a warning for the rest of the ­­­­nat­ion. “That is a serious blow to energy users across SA and has disrupted supply chains upon which thousands of jobs depend,” he said.

“The real risk is if this volatility becomes the norm across the ­National Electricity Market.

“In June, electricity cost South Australia $133 per megawatt hour on average — already a high price. But since July 1, electricity prices have spiked above $10,000 per MWh at times.”

Mr Willox echoed warnings of the South Australian government on the weekend, saying “We will see similar episodes again, and not just in SA”, and backing calls for major reform of the NEM.

“Changes in the pattern of ­energy demand and the ongoing build-up of wind and solar make life increasingly difficult for ‘baseload’ electricity generators across the country,” he said.

The power crisis comes amid growing pressure from independent senator Nick Xenophon to invest hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into struggling South Australian businesses to save jobs, and as the Turnbull government attempts to establish a hi-tech ­submarine manufacturing industry in the state.

An analysis of data from the Australian Energy Market Operator, responsible for the administration and operation of the wholesale NEM, shows the turbines’ down time on July 7 coincided with NEM prices for South Australia reaching almost $14,000 per MWh

NEM prices in other markets have been as low as $40 per MWh with the AI Group estimating this month’s power surge in South Australian electricity prices had cost $155 million.

While all wind farms in South Australia were producing about 5780MW between 6am and 7am, by 1pm the energy generation was in deficit as the turbines consumed more power than they created. By mid-afternoon, energy generation by all wind farms was minus-50MW.

The situation forced several major companies, including BHP Billiton and Arrium, to warn the state government of possible shutdowns because of higher energy prices, forcing Treasurer and ­Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis to intervene by asking a private operator of a mothballed gas-fired plant in Adelaide for a temporary power spike.

BHP, which employs about 3000 people at its Olympic Dam mine in the state’s far north, said its operations in South Australia were under a cloud.  “The security and reliability of power have been a significant ­concern for BHP Billiton and the sustainability of Olympic Dam,” the miner’s head of corporate ­affairs, Simon Corrigan, said.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the snapshot of wind power operations in the state showed the Labor government’s energy policies had created an oversupply of cheap wind energy at times but that forced it to import from interstate when prices shot up.  “This wouldn’t be a problem if we still had a reasonable amount of base load generation but we don’t,” he said.

Mr Koutsantonis yesterday said improved interconnection for a “truly national electricity ­market” would drive prices down immediately. Federal Energy Minster Josh Frydenberg declined to be interviewed yesterday, but said he would convene a Council of Australian Governments meeting as soon as possible.

Not everyone is unhappy — farmer Peter Ebsary hosts four turbines from the Snowtown wind farm in South Australia’s mid north. The wind farm, owned by TrustPower, is the state’s largest.

“We get a financial return and don’t have to do anything ... we just sit back and collect the money as long as the wind blows,” he said.

SOURCE





‘Quintessential Insider Deal’: Taxpayers Finance Family Ties of 2 Failing Green Companies

Grassroots conservative activists who run a reboot of Ronald Reagan’s political action committee want to know why the government allows one failing company to buy another failing company while both get taxpayer subsidies.

They also want to know why corporate executives with friends in high places have not been subjected to more scrutiny after receiving a multimillion-dollar compensation package at a time when their company remains heavily subsidized at taxpayer expense.

“This is the quintessential insider deal,” one taxpayer advocate said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Citizens for the Republic, a nonprofit, grassroots lobbying group, posed the two questions in a July 15 letter to members of the House and Senate as the lawmakers left Washington for summer recess.

The group calls on Congress to investigate the CEO and the chief technology officer of SolarCity, a renewable energy company based in San Mateo, California. The two SolarCity executives happen to be brothers; Lyndon and Peter Rive also happen to be first cousins to Elon Musk, chairman and co-founder of SolarCity.

Musk is also chairman and founder of Tesla Motors Inc., an electric car company based in Palo Alto, California. In June, Tesla Motors offered to buy SolarCity.

Musk is the largest shareholder in both companies, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The proposed $2.8 billion deal would provide Musk and his cousins, the Rive brothers, with an additional $700 million in Tesla stock, according to media reports.

Musk anticipates a “supermajority of shareholders” will approve his bid, The Wall Street Journal reported. The 45-year-old business mogul was expected to unveil a new master plan for the combined companies as early as this week.

“Elon Musk has been getting bailout after bailout to prop up his companies that never succeed,” Diana Banister, partner in Shirley & Banister Public Affairs and executive director of Citizens for the Republic, told The Daily Signal in an interview, adding of Musk:

    "Why is the government bailing him out and giving him taxpayer money when last year he said he doesn’t need subsidies? Musk is bailing out his own company with taxpayer dollars. That’s how much of a racket this is. Musk is getting subsidies for one company and then using those subsidies to bail out another company that’s also subsidized".

Questioning Compensation Packages

Its letter to Congress is an extension of Citizens for the Republic’s Sunlight Project, set up in 2015 “to monitor and expose corruption and cronyism at the nexus of government and business.”

Sunlight Project keeps tabs on Musk’s corporate enterprises at the Stop Elon From Failing Again website, unveiled in June. The site says it is devoted to “challenging the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money by the failures of Elon Musk.”

The Daily Signal obtained a version of the July 15 letter addressed to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It reads in part:

    "As heads of grassroots organizations devoted to fiscal responsibility and government accountability, we urge Congress to launch an immediate investigation of Lyndon Rive, the chief executive officer of SolarCity, and his brother Peter Rive, the company’s chief technology officer, for their $128.9 million cumulative compensation package while the company is simultaneously receiving more than half a billion dollars in federal direct grants and just as much, if not more, from state and local governments"

The letter is signed by Banister and Craig Shirley, her partner in Shirley & Banister Public Affairs and chairman of Citizens for the Republic, which is a nonprofit under 501(c)(4) of the tax code.  Shirley is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the pair’s public relations and marketing company, where Banister is president.

Also signing the letter were David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a nonprofit focused on government’s effects  on the economy and tax burden, and Seton Motley, president of Less Government, a nonprofit seeking to reduce government’s power and  safeguard First Amendment rights

Reagan originally established Citizens for the Republic in 1977, three years before he won the presidency. Conservative activists rebooted the political action committee in 2010, with Banister and Shirley as board members. Shirley is the author of three books on Reagan, including one on his unsuccessful 1976 campaign for the White House.

‘Taking a Hard Look’

With Congress on recess, the political action committee has not received any official response to its letters regarding Musk and the Rive brothers.

Banister, however, said she received encouraging feedback from a few key lawmakers, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services.

Banister said she sees an opportunity for lawmakers to revisit and review the merits of the Solar Investment Tax Credit if they press ahead with investigations into the Rive brothers and their compensation package.

“Once congressional investigations get started, they could possibly start a conversation about public policy reforms that could better protect taxpayer interests,” Banister said. “This means taking a hard look at the Solar Investment Tax Credit.”

The tax credit was extended as part of the 2015 omnibus spending package that passed Congress late last year. The PAC’s letter says:

    "The solar leasing industry is propped up by the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which subsidizes every panel that they lease. The [credit] was intended to provide subsidies for the growth of renewable technology, but we are concerned that it is being used to pad the paycheck of solar executives, like the Rive brothers"

The letter claims SolarCity “lost more than 50 percent of its value” over the past year, but persists because of government subsidies and the intervention of Musk.

“Doesn’t this all seem a little incestuous and little corrupt?” Banister asked. “I’d say it’s actually extremely corrupt, and it’s time for Congress to start paying attention.”

‘Corporate Favoritism’

The Daily Signal contacted both Tesla Motors and SolarCity, inviting both companies to comment on the letter calling for congressional investigations. Tesla has not yet responded.

In an email, Will Craven, SolarCity’s director of policy and electricity markets, said the “compensation numbers” are “tied to ambitious goals that will take years to achieve, and will only be paid out should SolarCity hit those goals, for example a stock price of $400 per share.”

Craven also referred to a blog post from Lyndon Rive, SolarCity’s CEO, addressing the compensation issue. In it, Rive writes:

    "My own compensation is based on this principle: If SolarCity does not significantly increase value for shareholders and employees and deliver a better experience for customers, then I do not deserve more than my base salary, and that’s the only pay I will receive"

“If this wasn’t a green energy company, you would have both Democrats and Republicans screaming about this,” Williams, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance president, told The Daily Signal, adding:

    "This is the quintessential insider deal. But because this involves green energy you have the left overlooking corporate welfare and corporate favoritism because it’s something they like. But if it involved a big bank or some other company, the left and the right would be up in arms about this".

Tesla is the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of the fatal crash of its Model S car. The driver was using the car’s autopilot when it crashed.

The investigation appears to be focused on finding out whether the crash was material to Tesla’s $2.3 billion secondary offering May 18, a few weeks later.

SOURCE

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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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