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Posts Tagged 'Al Gore'
Al Jazeera America Shutting Down
I was a little surprised to learn that Al Jazeera America is shutting down its cable news network. Here is the story from the BBC.
Al Jazeera America will shut down its cable news channel despite spending heavily to break into the US market.
CEO Al Anstey said the business model "is simply not sustainable in light of the economic challenges".
Al Jazeera America launched in 2013 vowing to be a more serious and in-depth alternative to CNN and Fox News.
The Qatar-based broadcaster spent millions of dollars hiring top US journalists but struggled to bring viewers to its news programmes.
Al Jazeera promised to expand its coverage of the US online after the channel shuts down in April.
The network replaced Current TV, a network founded by former US Vice President Al Gore.
The Qatar-based broadcaster bought Current TV for around $500 million (£308 million).
Al Jazeera America was available in about 60 million American homes. Politiconotes that the channel reached an average of 19,000 viewers each day in 2015, far fewer than its competitors.
The channel struggled with internal turmoil, as well, including multiple discrimination lawsuits that ended up ousting its founding CEO.
I wonder why Al Jazeera found it so difficult to break into the US market. Part of the reason might be that many American viewers did not believe that a news network funded by the Qatari government to be a trustworthy source of news. The Arabic name might not have helped. Al Jazeera sounds as if it could be the Osama bin Laden News Network. I think, though, that Al Jazeera's main difficulty was simply that the North American market for TV news is saturated. We already have Fox, MSNBC, CNN, not to mention ABC, NBC, and CBS, and the BBC from across the Pond. There is probably simply not enough room for another news network. I also believe that the audience for TV news is declining, just as it as been for newspapers. I am too lazy to look up the ratings right now, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a shift towards the internet as the major source of news for many people, particularly for younger people. I notice that Al Jazeera is maintaining their online activities.
In a way it's a shame, though. American news badly needs more diversity of viewpoints. Most of the news we get here in America is increasingly superficial and celebrity oriented, not to mention biased to the left. Fox is perhaps more evenhanded than most, with a bias to the right, but one right center network and a host of leftist networks, all based in the US hardly makes for much diversity. At least, we have the internet.
Al Gore thinks global climate agreement is gonna work out (brucesterling.tumblr.com) He seems to be the only person to make any profit out of the deal by unloading Current TV at just the right time.
BBC forced to admit it misled over Palestine (foa.org.uk)
Tags:Al Gore, Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, news
Posted in Foreign Affairs, Movies, Television and Entertainment, What's Happening | Leave a Comment »
Goggle Gatekeeper
The internet is truly a wonderful invention, for which Al Gore doesn't get nearly enough credit for creating. Thanks to the internet anyone can research any topic and acquire information in a matter of minutes that would have taken hours or even days before, if at all. Best of all, one can bypass the traditional gatekeepers of information such as the mainstream media. There is the problem of the quality of the information gathered by search engines such as Google. Since the results are generally ranked by popularity, websites promoting crazy conspiracy theories and medical quackery get the same attention as sober scientific journals. It requires a certain amount of judgement to sift through the results of any web search to get accurate information.
According to some reports, Google is getting ready to do the sifting for us. The researchers at Google are trying to develop a search algorithm that will rank pages according to facts in their database. Webpages will get a truth score based on how closely the claims in that page correspond to the facts in Google's database. They will then be ranked according to how truthful or accurate they are, at least according to Google.
It should not come as much of a surprise that progressives are gleeful about the possibility of putting a new gatekeeper over the Internet. Reality and truth have a liberal bias, as they say, and fact-checking by the right sort of people can make sure people with ideas contrary to liberal truths are able able to spread their misinformation. I read an article in Salon that is positively ecstatic about putting "anti-science advocates" in their place.
Google could launch an effort to keep trolls and bad information at bay, with a program that would rank websites according to veracity, and sort results according to those rankings. Currently, the search engine ranks pages according to popularity, which means that pages containing unsubstantiated celebrity gossip or conspiracy theories, for example, show up very high.
Google has recently implemented a kind of Knowledge-Based Truth score lite with its medical search results. Now, doctors and real medical experts vet search results about health conditions, meaning anti-vaxx propaganda will not appear in the top results for a "measles" search, for instance.
Even though the former program is just in the research stage, some anti-science advocates are upset about the potential development, likely because their websites will become buried under content that is, well, true.
"I worry about this issue greatly," said Anthony Watts, founder of climate denying website "Watts Up With That," in an interview with FoxNews.com. "My site gets a significant portion of its daily traffic from Google… It is a very slippery and dangerous slope because there's no arguing with a machine."
One need not have read John Stuart Mill to understand why this is a bad idea, though it might help. You only need to ask a simple question, what if Anthony Watts is right?What if global warming is not a real threat and measures to prevent it will only waste billions of dollars and make a lot of people poorer? Well, we wouldn't know until too late because Google might place his blog at the bottom of the rankings because they believe him to be wrong. A gatekeeper in charge of sifting good information from bad will not eliminate the problem of bad information on the Internet. It will only ensure that bad information preferred by the gatekeeper will go unchallenged. This idea that the common people cannot decide for themselves what is correct and incorrect has been the pretext for autocrats, despots, and theocrats, throughout history to justify controlling the information possessed by the common people by censorship, propaganda, or other methods. The despots and autocrats have never liked to be shown that they were wrong and their contemporary admirers are no better. If Google ever manages to make this truth ranking system to work, it will inevitably reflect what the designers of the new search algorithm believe to be the truth whether right or wrong. Truths that they do not like, perhaps like global warming is a fraud, will be buried.
Messy as it is, we must have faith that in the free marketplace of ideas the truth will ultimately prevail over falsehood. There is no other way to get at the truth except by allowing all sides to have their say. I predict that if Google adopts this new search method, Google will be a great deal less useful as a search engine and perhaps people will turn elsewhere to find things on the Internet.
Google 'encouraged too much attention,' too soon to Glass (cnet.com)
US based survey states Users Find Natural Search Results Most Relevant in Google and Yahoo! (firstdigital.co.nz)
What is a search engine and how important are they? (business.yell.com)
Al Gore, liar and alleged sexual assault offender, wants politicians who reject his doctrine "punished" (truebluenz.com) But he did invent the internet, so he should be forgiven.
Will Google soon define what is "truth" and what is not? (againstcronycapitalism.org)
Tags:Al Gore, climate change, Google, Internet, Search engine optimization, Web search engine
Posted in Climate, Deep Thoughts, Science, Scum and Villainy, What's Happening | Leave a Comment »
Manbearpig
I feel privileged today. Al Gore has sent me an e-mail asking me to help him track down and kill manbearpig.
Dear friend —
Folks like you know what I believe: We have no more important priority than confronting and solving the climate crisis.
Luckily, we have a President who has taken up that task with both determination and seriousness of purpose, and it's amazing what a difference that can make.
In June, President Obama empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to cut carbon pollution, a move which will help reduce dangerous CO2 from power plants by 30 percent in 2030. On top of that, he has established new fuel economy standards that reduce CO2 levels and will save us all money at the pump. With the Recovery Act, he made the single biggest investment in clean energy in the United States, ever. All these steps will have a lasting impact on the planet our children and grandchildren inherit — and they wouldn't have happened without your support.
If you stand with President Obama, add your name to support Democrats working with him to address climate change.
As Bob Dylan sang, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." We're seeing real, important progress in the fight against the climate crisis — and it's coming not a moment too soon.
But you and I both know there are still a lot of deniers out there. The time for leadership in the face of this threat has not passed. If ever there were a moment to send leaders to Washington who make climate legislation their top priority, this is it.
Support Democrats, and tell Congress to address climate change:
http://my.democrats.org/Act-on-Climate
It is really too bad that there are so many deniers out there so refuse to take the former vice-president serial. What does he have to do to convince the deniers? Present actual empirical evidence for what he claims?
If you want to know why I am one of those deniers who cannot take Mr. Gore or the other climate alarmists very serial, it is because they do not act in a particularly honest manner. They do not simply state facts. The try to generate panic by exaggeration and misdirection. They try to bully people who disagree with them and fantasize about blowing such people up.
Carbon dioxide is not, in any way dangerous nor is it pollution. Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring substance in the Earth's atmosphere that is absolutely necessary for life on this planet. The Earth's climate is not at a delicate equilibrium that can easily be disturbed by human activity. The Earth's climate has changed drastically over the eons and will continue to change long after we are gone.
Another reason I cannot take people like Al Gore very serial is the hypocrisy of their position. Despite what Gore says, cutting "carbon pollution" from power plants and imposing stricter fuel standards will increase the cost of energy in this country. This won't affect Al Gore. He has no intention of giving up his mansion or jetting around the world to spread the message about manbearpig . It will hurt the rest of us.
Well, since manbearpig has been spotted in southern Indiana, I guess I should get with Mr. Gore and help track it down. Maybe I can get a nobel prize too.
Al Gore Asks Democrats For Money To Fight The Global Warming "Deniers"… (weaselzippers.us)
Gore Promotes Carbon Tax in latest '24 Hours of Reality' – Scientists Pan Gore's climate claims (climatedepot.com)
Al Gore Attacks People Who Exhale as Despicable (politicaloutcast.com)
CNN: 'Gore says climate change deniers melting away' (junkscience.com)
Climate spin – more than just a game, it's 'Wheel of Gore' (wattsupwiththat.com)
Manbearpig Attacks In The Arctic! (thepatriotperspective.wordpress.com)
Tags:Al Gore, climate change, Earth, Gore, manbearpig
Posted in Climate, Politics, Science, Scum and Villainy, Tongue in Cheek | Leave a Comment »
Progressives Against Progress
Some of the most worthwhile things to read are not necessarily those which tell you something new so much as those which remind you of something you have forgotten or which express your own thoughts more clearly than you ever could. I had an experience like that when I came across a an article titled Progressives Against Progress, written back in 2010 by Fred Siegel in City Journal. Reading the article, I was reminded why I don't pay too much attention to the modern day apocalyptic preachers who insist that global warming or some other environmental catastrophe is going to destroy the world. Part of the reason is that they have been shown to be wrong again and again, as Siegel points out.
Back in the early 1970s, it was overpopulation that was about to destroy the Earth. In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich, who has been involved in all three waves, warned that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over" on our crowded planet. He predicted mass starvation and called for compulsory sterilization to curb population growth, even comparing unplanned births with cancer: "A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people." An advocate of abortion on demand, Ehrlich wanted to ban photos of large, happy families from newspapers and magazines, and he called for new, heavy taxes on baby carriages and the like. He proposed a federal Department of Population and Environment that would regulate both procreation and the economy. But the population bomb, fear of which peaked during Richard Nixon's presidency, never detonated. Population in much of the world actually declined in the 1970s, and the green revolution, based on biologically modified foods, produced a sharp increase in crop productivity.
In the 1980s, the prophets of doom found another theme: the imminent danger of nuclear winter, the potential end of life on Earth resulting from a Soviet-American nuclear war. Even a limited nuclear exchange, argued politicized scientists like Ehrlich and Carl Sagan, would release enough soot and dust into the atmosphere to block the sun's warming rays, producing drastic drops in temperature. Skeptics, such as Russell Seitz, acknowledged that even with the new, smaller warheads, a nuclear exchange would have fearsome consequences, but argued effectively that the dangers were dramatically exaggerated. The nuke scare nevertheless received major backing from the liberal press. Nuclear-winter doomsayers placed their hopes, variously, in an unverifiable nuclear-weapons "freeze," American unilateral disarmament, or assigning control of nuclear weapons to international bodies. Back in the real world, nuclear fears eventually faded with Ronald Reagan's Cold War successes.
The third wave, which has been building for decades, is the campaign against global warming. The global-warming argument relied on the claim, effectively promoted by former vice president Al Gore, that the rapid growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was producing an unprecedented rise in temperatures. This rise was summarized in the now-notorious "hockey stick" graph, which supposedly showed that temperatures had been steady from roughly ad 1000 to 1900 but had sharply increased from 1900 on, thanks to industrialization. Brandishing the graph, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the first decade of the twenty-first century would be even warmer. As it turned out, temperatures were essentially flat, and the entire global-warming argument came under increasing scrutiny. Skeptics pointed out that temperatures had repeatedly risen and fallen since ad 1000, describing, for instance, a "little ice age" between 1500 and 1850. The global-warming panic cooled further after a series of e-mails from East Anglia University's Climatic Research Unit, showing apparent collusion among scientists to exaggerate warming data and repress contradictory information, was leaked.
As with the previous waves, politicized science played on liberal fears of progress: for Gore and his allies at the UN, only a global command-and-control economy that kept growth in check could stave off imminent catastrophe. The anti-progress mind-set was by then familiar ground for liberals. Back in the 1970s, environmentalist E. J. Mishan had proposed dramatic solutions to the growth dilemma. He suggested banning all international air travel so that only those with the time and money could get to the choice spots—thus reintroducing, in effect, the class system. Should this prove too radical, Mishan proposed banning air travel "to a wide variety of mountain, lake and coastal resorts, and to a selection of some islands from the many scattered about the globe; and within such areas also to abolish all motorised traffic." Echoing John Stuart Mill's mid-nineteenth-century call for a "stationary state" without economic growth, Mishan argued that "regions may be set aside for the true nature lover who is willing to make his pilgrimage by boat and willing leisurely to explore islands, valleys, bays, woodlands, on foot or on horseback."
The interesting thing is that these "progressives" seem to be against progress of any time and seek nothing so much as to turn the clock back to a simpler time when the lower orders knew their place.
As such proposals indicate, American liberalism has remarkably come to resemble nineteenth-century British Tory Radicalism, an aristocratic sensibility that combined strong support for centralized monarchical power with a paternalistic concern for the poor. Its enemies were the middle classes and the aesthetic ugliness it associated with an industrial economy powered by bourgeois energies. For instance, John Ruskin, a leading nineteenth-century Tory Radical and a proponent of handicrafts, declaimed against "ilth," a negative version of wealth produced by manufacturing.
Like the Tory Radicals, today's liberal gentry see the untamed middle classes as the true enemy. "Environmentalism offered the extraordinary opportunity to combine the qualities of virtue and selfishness," wrote William Tucker in a groundbreaking 1977 Harper's article on the opposition to construction of the Storm King power plant along New York's Hudson River. Tucker described the extraordinary sight of a fleet of yachts—including one piloted by the old Stalinist singer Pete Seeger—sailing up and down the Hudson in protest. What Tucker tellingly described as the environmentalists' "aristocratic" vision called for a stratified, terraced society in which the knowing ones would order society for the rest of us. Touring American campuses in the mid-1970s, Norman Macrae of The Economist was shocked "to hear so many supposedly left-wing young Americans who still thought they were expressing an entirely new and progressive philosophy as they mouthed the same prejudices as Trollope's 19th century Tory squires: attacking any further expansion of industry and commerce as impossibly vulgar, because ecologically unfair to their pheasants and wild ducks."
I have noticed that a lot of the people who call loudest for restrictions on peoples' lifestyles and who rail against the ways in which billions of people in developing countries are lifting themselves out of poverty never quite seem to believe that they should cut back on their own excesses.
There is a lot more to the article.
Snake Oil: The Population Bomb, Nuclear Winter, Man-Made Global Warming (maxredline.typepad.com)
The Ice Caps Are Flourishing (americanthinker.com)
Gore Compares Climate Deniers to 'an Alcoholic Father Who Flies Into a Rage'…but This Leaked U.N. Report Might Stump Him (theblaze.com) When the facts are not on your side, try name calling.
$1,000 question: Did the population bomb ever explode? (grist.org) Somehow it never did.
'Bulls**t!': Al Gore Comes 'Unhinged' During Climate Change Speech (theblaze.com)
Arctic Sea Ice Grows By 29% In 2013 Despite Global Warming Claims (americanlivewire.com) But the ice is growing because of global warming. Don't you stupid deniers know anything?
Tags:Al Gore, Fred Siegel, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Population Bomb, Ronald Reagan
Posted in Economics, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Al Gore is still at it. You might think he would be just a little ashamed to be continuing to spread the gospel of global warming considering that he sold his network CurrentTV to Al Jazeera which is backed by the decidedly ungreen Kingdom of Qatar, not to mention that there has been, in fact, no warmer for the past several years, as even the New York Times is forced to admit. Recently, Gore compared the fight against global warming to World War II. I found this article in PJMedia entertaining.
Comparing "global warming" to World War II, former Vice President Al Gore said America should "mobilize" to combat climate change and put a "price on carbon pollution."
"Even though we give FDR and the New Deal the credit for ending the Great Depression, what really ended it was World War II when we mobilized for a great national effort in which the survival of our country and our values was deemed to be at stake and when we decided to act, then we put people to work and the economy started booming like never before," said Gore on Tuesday at Rhode Island Energy and Environmental Leaders Day sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
"Well, this time the threat is different and it doesn't trigger the ancient reflexes we inherited from our ancestors when they were attacked by other humans with weapons, but it is nonetheless a threat to our survival. This stuff is no joke. We're now, we're seeing the acceleration of this."
Gore, who won an Academy Award for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said he is training 800 representatives from 91 countries in Turkey this weekend on a "new version" of his global warming slideshow presentation. After the training, Gore said, they would give the presentation in their home countries.
"Even though on a population basis the cities that are most affected by sea level rise are in India and China and so forth, Bangladesh – if you look at the value of assets at risk in coastal cities, number one is Miami, number two is New York, New Jersey and we are paying the cost of carbon pollution. It is well past time that we put a price on carbon pollutio
n and not just accept the price that it extracts from us," Gore said.
The former Tennessee senator said retrofitting U.S. buildings and infrastructure would create more jobs and lower "global warming pollution."
"It's a huge fork in the road, huge choice that we have to make and if we mobilize the way we should, if we put a price on carbon and get the signals correct in the economy, then we're going to put many millions of people to work installing the solar, installing the wind, reconfiguring buildings with more insulation," Gore said.
"We can save 90 percent of the energy saved being used in most buildings – 25 to 30 percent of all the global warming pollution in the world comes from poorly insulated, poorly constructed buildings. The retrofitting of our buildings and our infrastructure, that's the way to create jobs and the installation of the renewable energy systems."
Pollution can be defined as "The contamination of air, water, or soil by substances that are harmful to living organisms." Carbon dioxide in a naturally occurring substance in the Earth's atmosphere and is necessary for life on Earth. Carbon dioxide, therefore, cannot be considered pollution. It makes just as much sense to complain of oxygen pollution.
Of course, it is the dosage that makes the poison and an Earth with substantially less carbon dioxide would be a frozen wasteland, while an Earth with a much greater level
Just shut up Al (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
would be too hot for comfort. Still, the amount of carbon dioxide and the Earth's temperature has varied somewhat over the ages without catastrophic results. There have been long eras with higher temperatures than present in which life has flourished.
I am pleased to see that Al Gore admits that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal did not end the Great Depression. Roosevelt did not really know what he was doing and it is likely that his policies made matters worse. To be fair, no one knew what to do about the depression and the different varieties of socialism that were fashionable at the time helped to make the 1930s a lost decade in terms of world economic growth. Roosevelt was also worried about his chance of re-election as 1936 approached and tried to out-demogoguethe socialist populists like Huey Long and Father Coughlin. This did not help inspire economic confidence. By 1940, Roosevelt had begun to see that his antagonistic attitude toward business was making an economic recovery almost impossible. Since World War II had begun and it was obvious that America would eventually enter the war, he eased back on many New Deal policies.
The war did stimulate the American economy, but it doesn't say much for Roosevelt's policies that something as destructive and inefficient as war did a better job at promoting economic growth. In general, war is a terrible and wasteful way to stimulate a nation's economy. Resources get used to make weapons, ships, tanks, or planes which are blown up or end up at the bottom of the ocean. Economic efficiency must make way for military necessity. People get killed. Aside from the horror of many deaths, there is also the loss of the talent and skills those killed in war could better have used in peacetime. If Al Gore is proposing that we undertake a massive, national effort to waste and squander resources on green energy that could better be deployed more efficiently, as the market decides, than he is simply a fool and a fraud. He really needs to stop selling the snake oil.
Gore Says Obama Needs To Get Serious On Dealing With Hotcoldwetdry (stoptheaclu.com)
Al Gore Admits: Scientists won't 'let us' connect climate to tornadoes (junkscience.com)
Al Gore backlash: Why environmentalists are celebrating rising CO2 (12160info.lefora.com) A world with more CO2 might be a more fertile world. CO2 is good for plants, you know.
Tree Hugger Fed Up With Algore and His Uninformed Hysterical Facebook Fartknockers (iowntheworld.com)
The Leftist Global Warming Scandal – North Of The Border (stevengoddard.wordpress.com)
Tags:Al Gore, global warming, great depression, Huey Long, new deal, United States
Posted in Climate, Scum and Villainy, What's Happening | Leave a Comment »
Global Warming and the Lizard People
I had another point to make about the poll I referred to the other day but I thought it would distract attention from my discussion of the Anti-Christ, and anyway the post was getting to be long enough. Let me quote the article again.
It's official: Americans love their conspiracy theories. Public Policy Polling asked voters to weigh in on 20 more infamous ones, and the results show that a not-insignificant number of people believe that President Obama is the anti-Christ (13%), Big Foot exists (14%), and the planet is secretly ruled by the New World Order (28%). Four percent think our societies are actually ruled by "lizard people."
21% believe the government covered up a UFO crash in Roswell; 29% believe in aliens
6% believe Osama bin Laden is alive
5% think Paul McCartney has been dead for decades
15% think there's mind-control technology hidden in TV signals
37% think global warming is a hoax
7% think the moon landing was faked
15% think Big Pharma develops new diseases as a way to make money
14% see the CIA's hand in the 1980s crack epidemic
If you look carefully, you will notice that one of these crazy conspiracy theories is not like the others in terms of plausibility. It is insane to believe that lizard people rule the world or the CIA distributed crack to minority neighborhoods. It is more than a little silly to believe that Bigfoot exists or the Moon landing is a fraud. These sorts of things are possible, but the available evidence is against their being true. The belief that the New World Order or the Trilateral Commission secretly rules the world seems like paranoia, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to watch any group of powerful people who meet on a regular basis.
What about the idea that global warming is a hoax? Well, given that the behavior of some of the principal proponents of the idea that man made global warming will lead to catastrophic results has been less than honest in their dealings with the public and given that at least some of these proponents seem to have a political agenda that is quite unrelated to any scientific evidence, it does not seem that the theory that global warming (or is it climate change or climate catastrophe or climate chaos?) is a hoax is quite in the same league as these others.
To be fair, I am not sure if the scientists at the Climate Research Institute and elsewhere were consciously engaging in fraud. Their misbehavior may be more due to self-deception, wishful thinking and shoddy scientific technique. They did not take Richard Feyman's advice.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself–and you easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful aboutthat. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.
Instead of presenting the facts the best way they could, too many decided the matter was so important that they had to be alarmist. If global warming is a real threat, then they harmed their cause considerably.
When you consider the business people and politicians who stand to profit from this sort of alarmism, would be carbon credit billionaires and world leaders who will leap at any excuse to gain more power for themselves (Yes, I have Al Gore in mind), then perhaps hoax is not too strong a word to use.
Of course, the idea here is to associate people who are unconvinced by any lack of evidence for global warming with crazy people who believe that the lizard people rule the world.
The fact that 37% of the people in a poll believe that global warming is a hoax does not, of course, make it a hoax. But then, listing the idea that global warming is a hoax with a group of less plausible ideas does not make disbelief in global warming less plausible. One hurricane, however strong, does not prove that the world is getting warmed, nor was Sandy unprecedented in its size and destructiveness. Sandy was a category 3 hurricane, while the highest rating is category 5. There have been worse tropical storms in the Atlantic.
Hurricane Sandy was the largest hurricane on record as far as actual diameter, as well as the second most destructive in terms of property damage, with 2005's Hurricane Katrina causing the most property damage. You have to consider, however, that coasts are more developed today than they were decades ago and property is worth more, not to mention that both these storms struck urban areas in the United States.
I suppose that it is too much to ask that a television meteorologist be familiar with logic and the scientific method though.
13 percent of Americans believe Obama is the anti-Christ (rt.com)
One in four Americans think Obama may be the antichrist, survey says (guardian.co.uk)
Conspiracy Theory Poll Results (publicpolicypolling.com)
Tags:Al Gore, climate change, global warming, Public Policy Polling
Posted in Climate, Idiocracy, What's Happening | Leave a Comment »
Bob Woodward vs. Al Gore
Bob Woodward apparently does not care much for the company of former Vice-President Al Gore according to The Hill.
If you plan on throwing a dinner party full of VIPs, whatever you do, don't seat Bob Woodward next to Al Gore.
In a speech at the Organization for International Investment's annual dinner at D.C.'s Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Thursday, the famed Washington Post journalist, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, disclosed that he doesn't enjoy the former vice president as a tablemate.
Describing an event where he was paired up next to the monotone-talking ex-vice president, Woodward said, "Now, sitting next to Gore is taxing."
After some laughs from the crowd, Woodward continued, "In fact, it's unpleasant."
I don't imagine that Gore would be a barrel of laughs.
I like some of the comments in the story.
I couldn't think of anything more unpleasant then to have to sit at a table with both AL GORE and BOB WOODWARD. If there was ever two more boring people to have to sit with and fake laugh with it is them.
I would rather watch paint dry, bacon fry, or even listen to nails on a chalk board.
Bob Woodward is kind choosing his words about Gore.
I would have said that Gore is a f————g idiot
That last goes without saying.
Tags:Al Gore, bob woodward, politicians
Posted in Idiocracy, Politics | Leave a Comment »
End of the Global Warming Cult
Michael Barone reports that the global warming cult is rapidly losing influence on public opinion. it seems that the more people know, especially about the costs of policies meant to combat climate change. I suppose that it was inevitable that the public would turn against these charlatans. Their mistake was their ceaseless alarmism, which began to stretch the bounds of credibility some time ago.
A similar but more peaceable fate is befalling believers in what I think can be called the religion of the global warming alarmists.
They have an unshakeable faith that manmade carbon emissions will produce a hotter climate, causing multiple natural disasters. Their insistence that we can be absolutely certain this will come to pass is based not on science — which is never fully settled, witness the recent experiments that may undermine Albert Einstein's theory of relativity — but on something very much like religious faith.
But like the Millerites, the global warming clergy has preached apocalyptic doom — and is now facing an increasingly skeptical public. The idea that we can be so completely certain of climate change 70 to 90 years hence that we must inflict serious economic damage on ourselves in the meantime seems increasingly absurd.
I am intrigued, however by Barone's comparison of the global warming movement.
All the trappings of religion are there. Original sin: Mankind is responsible for these prophesied disasters, especially those slobs who live on suburban cul-de-sacs and drive their SUVs to strip malls and tacky chain restaurants.
The need for atonement and repentance: We must impose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, which will increase the cost of everything and stunt economic growth.
Ritual, from the annual Earth Day to weekly recycling.
Indulgences, like those Martin Luther railed against: private jet-fliers like Al Gore and sitcom heiress Laurie David can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their carbon-emitting sins.
Corporate elitists, like General Electric's Jeff Immelt, profess to share this faith, just as cynical Venetian merchants and prim Victorian bankers gave lip service to the religious enthusiasms of their days. Bad for business not to. And if you're clever, you can figure out how to make money off it.
Believers in this religion have flocked to conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto and Copenhagen, just as Catholic bishops flocked to councils in Constance, Ferrara and Trent, to codify dogma and set new rules.
It is possible to go overboard with this sort of comparison. There is no actual Church of Global Warming. If there were though, would Al Gore be its Pope ? Still, I think it is a good point. I don't imagine that many people who are active in the radical environmental movement are much involved in any conventional religion. Since it is a part of human nature to worship something, if someone will not worship the Creator of the universe, they, might well come to worship the universe itself.
Paul wrote to the Romans'
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans1:25)
He was writing about the pagans of his time, of course, but he could have said much the same about the followers of the global warming cult.
Tags:Al Gore, General Electric, global warming, michael barone
Posted in Climate, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Well, it would seem that I am making all kinds of friends in high places. First, Barack Obama invites me to dinner, and now Al Gore is making a personal appeal to me to contribute to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
At no time has Democrats' progress been more threatened than it is now. Single-minded proponents of a dangerous and extremist agenda are working feverishly to roll back every Democratic gain we've ever made.
The Tea Partiers now calling the shots in the Republican Party won't back away from their radical agenda. And they are also exceedingly well funded by corporate backers, thanks to the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United decision.
It will take an unshakeable commitment from grassroots Democrats like you to guarantee our progress and to continue to move America forward.
That's why I am asking for your support of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)'s Million Dollar Matching Gift Campaign before their critical Federal Election Commission (FEC) fundraising reporting deadline on September 30th.
I am making this personal appeal to you because it's imperative we have a strong FEC filing on September 30th.
Yes, the Tea Partiers certainly do have an extreme radical agenda. Imagine, thinking that the government should live within its means and actually follow the Constitution. I don't know where they get such wackos.
Well, Al Gore can certainly count on me!
Hey!, there's more. I just got an e-mail from Harry Reid!
We are locked in a struggle for America's soul. Our very values are at risk.
Rick Perry calls Social Security a "monstrous lie." Paul Ryan dreams of ending Medicare forever. And the Republican response to the thought of an uninsured coma patient? Grisly, callous shouting from the audience.
They want to reverse the steps our country took to care for the sick and prevent our parents and grandparents from living in squalor.
Doing so would fundamentally change America. We simply must fight back.
The Republicans want to ride a wave of frustration to win four Senate seats so they can remake America. Unless you contribute to the DSCC's $662,000 goal before midnight on Sept. 30, we won't have the resources to stop them in their tracks.
This country could change forever. Don't wait to fight for the ideals all of us believe in.
Click here to rush $5 or more to the DSCC before midnight on Sept. 30. The Republicans are four seats away from a total congressional takeover, and it's up to us to raise $662,000 to beat them back.
Everywhere you look, Republicans are assaulting the very idea that we are our brother's keeper and that all Americans deserve a certain basic dignity.
The Republicans don't seem to care that our people don't have jobs. They refuse to lift a finger to get the economy moving again.
The Republicans don't seem to care that one in four American children live in poverty. They're too busy lecturing us about the budget deficit they created while defending huge tax giveaways to the big corporations.
Democrats have always been the party that fights for the middle class – and now is no different. If we're going to stand up to the special interests, the DSCC needs the grassroots to come through in a big way.
The DSCC is counting on grassroots donors for $662,000 before Sept. 30. Let's make sure we get there.
Click here to rush $5 or more to the DSCC before midnight on Sept. 30. The Republicans are 4 seats away from a total congressional takeover, and it's up to us to raise $662,000 to beat them back.
I know progress doesn't always come as quickly as we'd like. But our values will always endure.
Democrats will always be the ones fighting for what's right for the American people. Republicans will always fight for the super-rich and the big corporations.
Right now, we need you in this fight. Please give whatever you can right away.
Those fiends!. Wanting to balance the budget and not supporting Obama's latest stimulus boondoggle. Not to mention wanting to keep money in the private sector so that employers might feel confident enough to start hiring again. I'm with you Harry!
Tags:Al Gore, Barack Obama, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Federal Election Commission
Posted in My Life, Politics | 3 Comments »
Carter's Second Term
Speaking of Jimmy Carter, here is an interesting analysis from the Washington Times comparing Obama with Carter. The similarities are striking, and not just the bad economy and weak foreign policy.
One of the most unpleasant things about Mr. Carter was the condescending disdain he could barely disguise for struggling Americans and their irritating malaise.
Increasingly, Jimmy Jr. is having difficulty concealing that very same disdain for us as the political winds around him turn hostile and all of his bright ideas lie fallow as nothing more than socialist hocus-pocus.
But even Mr. Carter never laid bare so baldly and plainly as Mr. Obama did earlier this week his deep-seated contempt for this whole annoying process we call "democracy."
The problem with reaching a deal to raise the debt ceiling, he explained in a long sermon, is that there is this huge wave of Republicans who won control of the House in the last election by promising not to raise any more taxes and to cut the absurd overspending that has driven this town for decades.
He bemoaned – in public – that these Republicans are more concerned about the "next election" rather than doing "what's right for the country." In other words, he is saying the honorable thing would be for these Republicans to ignore the expressed wishes of voters, break their campaign promises and raise taxes. Wow.
As if the whole problem of Washington spending us into oblivion is the fault of stingy taxpayers and stupid voters. And what we really need is Jimmy Jr., who knows what is best for us despite what we may think.
Continuing his lecture, Mr. Obama then complained about America's "political process, where folks are rewarded for saying irresponsible things to win elections."
How did this man get past sixth-grade social studies, much less Iowa?
When Mr. Obama finished his sermon about the contemptible Republicans keeping faith with their voters like a bunch of chumps, he then turned to his own intentions – and revealed even more of his contempt for us.
This contempt and disdain for ordinary Americans can be found in many on the Left, including politicians, who one might expect to at least pretend to like the voters.
Al Gore was another example that I can think of right away. He has the most irritating habit of speaking to people as though he were addressing a class of not very bright third-graders. It's actually a wonder he managed to get highest popular vote in 2000, and as far as I am concerned, the best reason imaginable for keeping the Electoral College.
But back to Carter II. I wonder when he is going to give a speech blaming the American people for their malaise, or get chased around a lake by a killer rabbit.
Tags:Al Gore, Barack Obama, Carter, Electoral College, Jimmy Carter, killer rabbit, malaise, politics, United States, Washington Times
Posted in History, Idiocracy, Politics | 3 Comments »


This article explains how to add an image for a course.
In the Course Image section, click on the Pick File button.
Add an image from your computer or a third party site.
Your image is uploaded and set as the course image. Click on the Update Course button.


What is the secret to staying healthy and happy? This question is being asked numerously by much holistic health counselor, doctors, and dietitians. The larger secret is, unfortunately, that there is no one-night drastic change thing when it comes to creating instant health as it takes routine and repetition to create lasting and visible results and a strong immune system to fight back.
However, there are a few main ingredients and go-to holistic remedies that are recommended to have. Here are some of the top five kitchen things available to bolster immunity and staying well throughout the colder months to come.
The bone broth is the same liquid stuff that all of our mothers used to make. It is not the processed one or canned one, but the actual one which is made from the scratch level. Head to your local meat market and source the best quality, organic, antibiotic-free, free-range, pastured chicken, beef, or even bison bones, gristle, and cartilage you can to make your own at home.
The quality of their diet and lifestyle ultimately is what you will be benefiting from, so it does make a big difference. It is best and very effective just for your own bones, muscles, and connective tissues, but basic essential vitamins and minerals, like calcium and magnesium, that most of us are extremely low in today.
We also have an easier time utilizing these nutrients from naturally occurring ingredients vs. vitamin supplements, so drink up. Think of it like a perfect seasonal and more bio available multi vitamin what can be easily consumed and works wonder for your skin.
For best results, you really need to make up a fresh batch. If you are having a cold, make the soup hot and spicy with plenty of pepper. The spices will trigger a sudden release of watery fluids in your mouth, throat, and lungs, which will help thin down the respiratory mucus so it's easier to expel.
Whether you get the majority or your greens from green juices and smoothies, soups, green powders, algae, and superfoods, or good old-fashioned, home-cooked vegetables, they are an absolute necessity to cultivating health and immunity.
Just as bone broth supplies the foundation nutrients for your body, these greens supply the life-force in the form of chlorophyll, vitamin A, vitamin C, antioxidants, and a host of others as well. Fiber helps to keep your digestion regular while this healthy nutritious help to build and cleanse the blood, maintain an alkaline environment, and keep your immunity high.
There are nearly endless uses for apple cider vinegar. From external skin care to natural cleaning nutrition solutions to internal health care, ACV provides numerous benefits. Containing both pre- and probiotics, ACV may help ease a sore throat, nasal congestion, and stomach aches and acidity, and improve overall immunity.
This may be in part due to the highly alkalizing properties ACV contains as well as the acetic acid that helps to keep pathogenic bacteria at bay. A good practice is to start your day off by consuming a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar diluted in water. If the flavor is too strong, add it to your favorite green juice or try morning drink as it actually enhances the flavor. Try gargling with it if you have a sore throat.
The health and happiness of our guts is a direct reflection of our overall wellness and even mood. We are beginning to understand more and more about the direct correlation between our gut ecology and our immunity.
While it is true that many of us don't consume the balanced diets we should, we also consume less naturally occurring beneficial bacteria from the soil ingested through our products, as well as other sources of these probiotics such as traditional raw fermented products.
Along with a dependency on antibiotics, our gut health suffers, the result is a high sensitivity to the foods we consume and weakened resistance to pathogens.
The fix? Load up on high-quality probiotics in the form of either a supplement, fermented food, or beverages like kimchi, and coconut kefir.
And when all else fails, there is oregano oil always. The health benefits of Oregano Oil can be attributed to its properties as an antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, digestive, and anti-allergenic substance. It is a powerhouse restorer of health and absolute go-to when anybody is feeling anything less than 100%.
It's a potent antibacterial and antimicrobial that also fights free radical damage, can help reduce and relieve allergies, stimulate digestion, and help to clear yeasts from the body, both externally and internally. A little goes a long way and brand to brand the quality also greatly varies so just check out for the most credible one in the market.


WQED, PNC Grow Up Great, and Fred Rogers Productions are hosting Be My Neighbor Day -- April 13, 2019.
Be My Neighbor Day invites children and families to participate in family volunteer activities that aid neighbors in need. It's a great way to help children understand how to support others and how one kind act can lead to many.
Sign-up to do something nice for your neighbor on Saturday, April 13. Families can volunteer to help clean a park, make sweater goodie bags, create a greeting card or wash a fire truck.
It's a "grr-ific" way to begin a lifetime of neighborly volunteerism!
The whole neighborhood comes together to help celebrate "Neighbor Day."


God is directing as "woman of the hour" for your event.
bathing all areas of your event with prayer regularly.
Your event must be organized and planned well in advance of the special date.
A few words about my speaking fee. 100% of the money I receive from speaking goes to one of the host's local ministries. I ask the host churches or Christian organizations to select a ministry within it's church and one ministry within it's local community like a food bank, etc. and I pick a ministry in it's area once called Crisis Pregnancy Center, now known as, Clarity. At the end of each speaking engagement and in front of all attendees, I pick the name of one of these from a bowl and ask that a check be sent directly to this ministry as a donation from the church, not from me.


Voyeuristically inspired editorial photoshoot for THE ØRDER's second collection, La Grande Prêtresse. Shot simultaneously with the lookbook for this collection, the photographer set up his video camera to capture film of shots taken by another photographer as the flash went off. The images shown here are the stills from that film.


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Rocking and rolling down the WA coast.......PART ONE
WA = Western Australia.......
Well, we know it's been a while since the last update. Sorry about that, we have been putting on some miles, and haven't really stopped in one place long enough to post. Our bad!!!
This post will just hit on some highlights of the last 3 months...... Big picture, we continued down the coast of WA to Perth, where we left Tojo at a friend of friends Don and Deb while we traveled to New Zealand to check on Bravo, then to Seattle for a quick Thanksgiving visit, and back to Perth, where we've resumed our land travels down the coast and will soon be in the desert again heading east. Here's a bit more shade and color, told mostly through photos......
Leaving the Pilbara, we headed west to the coast to explore the Exmouth area, home of the Cape Range National Park and the famous Ningaloo reef. The area is a World Heritage site, known for one of the longest fringing reefs in the world, providing great habitat for corals, mantas, whales, and other fishy critters. It was calling our names!!!
Exmouth has started a new program this year, where divers are permitted to swim with visiting humpback whales. After getting skunked on our attempted whale swim in Tonga a couple of years ago, we were eager to give it another go. Unfortunately the season was ending when we arrived, as most of the whales had headed south to antarctica for the summer. We did sign up for a manta snorkel trip anyway, as we wanted to explore the reef, and swimming w/ mantas is always a treat.
On the ride out, we did pass a couple of whales, oh well, maybe next time!!!
The boat was quickly able to put us into the water with mantas, as they use a spotting plane to find the rascals. After several runs with the rays, we were heading back to shore when the skipper spotted a huge loggerhead turtle.
Adam getting up close and personal with Mr. Loggerhead.
Listed as endangered around the world, they're an uncommon species of turtle, at least in these waters, and we all jumped in to check him out. Fantastic to swim with the elder statesman, who's head was as big around as my leg.
We then headed down to Cape Range, a stunning park within the Ningaloo Reef. Had a terrific time camping in sites on the beach and exploring the area for about a week.
Solving the world's problems with a bunch of fellow denizens of the reef.
Turtle porn: One day this happy couple swept past our camp. No need to rush too fast for the camera, these characters know how to take their time.
Emus were a common sight in Exmouth, this one wandered past our downtown campsite.
After Exmouth we drove down to the little tourist town of Coral Bay, also within the Ningaloo Reef. Here we signed up for a couple of scuba dives with a local dive boat. Though due to the cooler water the coral was perhaps not quite as spectacular as that in Fiji and the other tropical places we've been, there was a good variety of fish and we saw some new (to us) species, such as a wobbegong shark, sailfin catfish, frog fish, and lots of different nudibranchs. The guides were great, and we had a terrific day. Nice to get out on and under the water again!!!
The next big stop was Steep Point, the westernmost point of mainland Australia, accessible only by 4 wheel drive. The area is famous for its beach driving, cliffs, ship wrecks, and dramatic beach landscapes. It didn't disappoint !!!
The cliffs are famous for radical rock fishing, yielding many record catches. It's radical indeed, with fisherman roping up with climbing gear to keep from falling in. Now and then, the sea claims another.....
Fishing anchorage spot
Cliff at the point is apparently a popular fishing spot!!!!!
Zuytdorp Cliffs, site of the wreck of the Zuytdorp, an 18th century trading ship of the Dutch East India Trading Company.
The life ring seemed a bit of a joke, given the likelihood of a rescue's happy outcome up the cliffs.
The beach went on for miles
Staying in the Shark Bay area, we headed up the 4wd tracks to Cape Peron and the Francois Peron National Park for a few days. The whole Shark Bay area was full of great hiking and interesting sites to explore, such as this huge colony of cormorants.
Shell beach.....the entire beach is made up not of sand, but of billions of tiny, fingernail sized shells
The shells formed a dense conglomeration used by the early settlers of the area as building blocks. This was a typical quarry.
Boardwalk at Hamelin Bay
We headed south to the surf town of Kalbarri and the Kalbarri National Park. Great surfing in the area!!!
The road passed by this whacky pink lake.....apparently made pink by algae, and hosting a commercial harvest industry of tiny brine shrimp. (Wondered where those "sea monkeys" of comic book and Southpark fame came from??? Thought so.....)
At last we arrived at the outskirts of Perth, and found a classic little park, Yanchep National Park, which allowed camping. Great critters, with wild kangaroos hopping around the campsite, and a recovery center for injured koala bears. Nice way to wrap up this leg of the trip!
Awwwwwww.......
Mama roo w/ joey. The little guy looks like he's about ready to start university!!!
Koalas can be nasty.....we didn't want to mess with this bad boy!!!
So let's call this a wrap on Part One of the WA Coast so we can get something posted. Will try to pick it up shortly, as we continue south of Perth. Lots more to come, so stay tuned!!! Happy holidays to all, or "Happy Chrissie", as a proper Aussie would say!!!
Labels: Australia, Coral Bay, cormorant, emu, Exmouth, Francois Peron, Hamelin Pool, Kalbarri, kangaroo, koala, Ningaloo Reef, pink lake, Shark Bay, Steep Point, surfing, turtle, Zuytdorp
Mining our own business in the Pilbara
WARNING: MANY PIXELS WERE KILLED IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS POST !!!
Leaving Broome, team Tojo was itching to get back bush.....back into the more remote desert region known as the Pilbara. Located between the Indian Ocean and the Great Sandy Desert, the huge sparsely populated region is home to some of Australia's most undeveloped back country, as well as the heart of the Australian ore mining industry. The national parks are equally large, such as isolated Karlamilyi (formerly Rudall River) national park, second largest in Australia, and Karijini, home of spectacular gorges and landscapes.
We headed south to camp at 80 mile beach. While we can't vouch for it's claimed length, we can vouch for the difficulty of catching fish from it!!! That said, it's a beautiful stretch of virtually unpopulated sand, and we enjoyed a couple of nights there before pointing our bull bar inland. We quickly left the pavement, driving east toward Karlamilyi National Park. The desolate road took us deep into mining country, with the topo map showing a myriad of unmarked desert tracks branching off to past and current smaller mining operations.
After spending a nice night at Carawine Gorge, we entered the world of the Telfer Mining Co., receiving a permit to traverse their gravel track into the back of the Karlamilyi Park.
This park was like none we'd ever seen. No paved roads, no signs (including at the "entrance"), no facilities. Just the way we like it!!!
As soon as we left the Telfer property, crossing into the park, we found ourselves on an 18km gnarly rock track, heading deeper into the bush to a spot alluringly known on the map as "Queens Pool". Called our names!!! The track was a decent pair of wheel ruts in some places, and basically a boulder field in others. We let our tires down, and our trusty steed Tojo made it without a hitch....Sweet!
Tojo camp at Queens Pools
At the end of the track we came to a couple of cleared spots to camp, one was already occupied. No worries. We made camp in the other, a beautiful spot, and hiked up a sort of goat track, going to a succession of nice, COLD little rock swimming holes. Fantastic!
Views from the campsite were beautiful...
And the pools even better!!!
After a couple of days exploring the 5 pools, we headed back down the track to see what the rest of the park had to offer.
Unfortunately the clouds looked threatening, and we got a bit of a drizzle. The dirt tracks of the park can become impassable for days after a good rain, so after checking out a few other tracks around the park, finding some other beautiful photo spots, we decided to beat feet and go out the southern side of the park, onto a better dirt/gravel road.
On this road, we saw a spot marked as ok for camping on our 4x4 map, and as it was getting late, we pulled off onto a dirt track as marked. This was a really desolate spot, we hadn't passed another vehicle all day, just the kind of place we love. So we made camp, and as we were enjoying a couple of coldies in the fading light, at the same moment, we both noticed a couple of BIG ants.....REALLY BIG ants. (later research showed them as "bull ants")
Bull ant (internet photo).....check out the bloody pincers on these bad boys!!!
Next thing you know we see a few others, no big deal, what are a few ants, even if they're over an inch, say 30mm long? Adam tried to step on one. The bugger acted like he didn't even feel a size 12 stomp from above, just shook his now dusty head, looked up, and laughed....."Is that all you got, big fella?"
By now, there were perhaps 30 or 40, all around us. Time for stronger stuff. Adam got out a big ball peen hammer, and tried pounding the buggers into the dirt.....same thing happened. Even after being pounded a couple of inches into the sand, they'd rise up their pincers from the dust and give us what I'm sure was a nasty ant sneer. There was just no way to kill the bastards.
A few minutes went by. They were now all over the place. Hundreds of them had appeared, all around us. Cindi got bitten by one on the leg, and was in a world of hurt! Even though the tent was already deployed on the roof, we tried moving about 50' away. It appeared to be an ant free zone. Not to be.....they WERE FOLLOWING US. It was just like a zombie movie, there was no killing them, and every time we'd try to whack one into the ground, it seemed like 2 or more appeared. Got pretty intense. We were their prey. We finally drove (w/tent still up!!!) a couple hundred meters down the track, and finally that was the end of the ant saga for the night (though the big flying beetles began in ernest to attack our lights, banging into us in the process.....BIG but harmless, and the beetle fillets fried up nicely with a bottle of shiraz!!!)
Cindi relaxes the morning after the zombie bull ant attack
Here's what AustralianMuseum.com has to say about bull ants, these sons-a-bitches of the insect kingdom:
"They attack intruders of any size that come too close to their nest. Bull ants also have well-developed vision and will follow or even chase an intruder a good distance from the nest. Usually the sight of large aggressive ants streaming out of the nest is enough to prompt a hasty retreat. If not, the ants deliver painful stings by gripping the intruder with their mandibles (jaws), curling their abdomen to reveal the sting and injecting the victim with venom. Often multiple stings are delivered."
So much for this brush with Australian bugs, most of which, it seems, can inflict serious pain on their prey (us).
The next day we continued down the Talawana track to the mining town of Newman, home of the Mount Whaleback Mine, the biggest iron ore mine in the southern hemisphere. Newman is the nondescript company town, built when the mine began in the late 60's. Not much here that isn't related to the work of the mine, which has been raping and pillaging the Pilbarra for over 40 years, and supposedly has about 20 years to go. We like wikipedia's view of the architectural style of the town:
"Being founded in the 1960s, Newman's architecture reflects the modernist styles of that decade and the next, being predominantly functional and devoid of detail or embellishment."
They were being kind!!!
After a few quick hours resupplying in Newman (it wasn't easy to find decent wine in the town, that's for sure!!!), we boogied out as quickly as possible and headed NW to Karijini National Park.
This beautiful park is home to some spectacular gorges and canyons, and several are accessible via hiking trails of various length and challenge. A few also offer a reward of a swim in a beautiful swimming hole for your efforts. We like it.
Here are a few shots of this spectacular landscape:
Cindi swims through to the next gorge....Adam carried the camera gear along the ledges
Karijini really delivered the goods.....the 3 days we spent in the park really wasn't nearly enough time!
Leaving Karijini, we headed into Tom Price, another mining company town, for resupply. Much like Newman, TP was built in the 60's/70's to house the employees of the Tom Price mine, owned by mining giant Rio Tinto. While here, we decided to take a tour of the big mine. The scale of the entire operation was rather unbelievable. In digging the ore, Rio Tinto has completely removed an entire mountain, not to even mention the hole beneath where it used to live. It was unsettling to see how little concern was given to any ecological effects, and absolutely no mention of the impact the mines have on the local aboriginal original inhabitants of the region. Clearly money talks with a loud voice in the Pilbarra, as it does in so much of the world. And ore here is huge money. In 2009 the mine produced nearly 13% of the world's iron ore. It is now producing 28 million tons per year, and is expected to continue production for 20 more years. The ore is all shipped via private railway line to the coast, where it is loaded on ships to smelters around the world. (even the trains are amazing, nearly 2 km long!!!)
View into the pit. There used to be a mountain on top of this.
Mine from an overlook over the town. Pit is in the background
Leaving Tom Price we headed to our final park of the Pilbara, Millstream Chichester National Park. Compared to its neighbor Karijini the park is little known. It was a bit quirky and offered some great 4wd tracks and beautiful remote landscapes, as well as lots of wildlife.
It's wildflower season in the Pilbara
Saw a bizarre rock formation on the cliff above one of our camps. Check out the bright circle below. The blowup is in the following photo. We have no idea how it got there!!! Any ideas???
How did it get there, how does it stay? Like kids building blocks!!!
One evening we had a fun visit in our campsite from a small kangaroo, known as a euro. As we sat quietly taking photos, the little gal (w/ joey in pouch) just kept munching the grasses and scrub around us. She stayed with us for about 30 minutes, until it was nearly dark, then hopped away into the bush.
So that wraps up our swing through the Pilbara region of the western Australian outback. It was a magical place, a region of huge contrasts between the vast natural beauty of the desert landscapes and the harsh reality of the costs to the environment of the myriad of mineral extraction operations throughout the area. We could have spent a lot more time exploring, but the coast is beckoning.....stay tuned!
Labels: Australia, gorge, Karijini, Karlamilyi, mining, Newman, Pilbara, Rudall, Telfer, Tom Price
Rocking and rolling down the WA coast.......PART O...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl