Portent Commie disaster?

Tomorrow there will be an astronomical show in the sky, a total solar eclipse. According to Earth & Sky,

There are at least 2 solar eclipses in every calendar year. In 2008, the first solar eclipse fell on February 7 and the second one will occur tomorrow, on August 1. Then why do we think of solar eclipses as being so rare? It’s because each eclipse can be seen from a narrow band across Earth’s surface – the pathway of the moon’s shadow as it sweeps across Earth during eclipse time.

And the path of the moon's shadow for tomorrow, August 1, 2008, as described here, will start in northern Canada, extend across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia and Mongolia, before ending in northern China around sunset time at the city of Hsi-An, Shaan-Hsi province. It does not extend as far as to the Olympic site, and we will not able to see it in the U.S. area either.

The site of Boycott 2008 Communist Olympics has a good discussion about the phenomenon that will spook the superstitious because it was once seen by China's emperors as a portent of disaster. So the commie government is trying hard to ignore the happening and play down any association between the eclipse and the Olympics a week later. After the Tibet massacre, the Szuchuan earthquake, and the various unrest around the country, understandably the commies are really scared stiff. At any case let's hope that tomorrow is just another ordinary day!

To remind you what a solar eclipse is, here's an illustration from U. Tennessee, Knoxville Astrophysics site given here:

And here's the last total solar eclipse that was observed in Turkey on March 29, 2006 as shown in Science News online today:
Solar eclipse in Chinese is called "日蝕" and total solar eclipse is "日全蝕." The ancient Chinese used to descriptively call it "天狗食日" which literally translates as "a heavenly dog ate the sun." The earliest known observation of solar eclipse was in China around 2128 BC during the earliest Hsia dynasty (2205-1600 BC).

Scenes of Typhoon Fung-Wong lashes Taiwan

Typhoon Fung-wong [鳳凰(Phoenix)] is approaching.

Typhoon Fung-wong [鳳凰(Phoenix)] is making landfall at the central east coast of Taiwan. (From NowPublic.)

The over cast sky with dark clouds signifies Typhoon is approaching!. (From NowPublic.)

Trees tilt over after being nearly blown over by Typhoon Fung-wong in Taiwan's northern city of Keelung (picture from Patrick Lin/AFP/Getty Images)

This is an interesting picture rarely connects with Typhoon. But the falling pears in a pears orchard is indeed a victim. (Picture from WAtoday.)

Typhoon is coming but die hard fishermen are still out there in Keelung, north of Taiwan. (from TimesOnline Chiang Ying-ying/AP)

Just walking in the rain during Typhoon Fung-Wong in Taipei. (Picture of Pichi Chuang/Reuters.)

Commuting to work on bike as usual, July 28, 2008, in Hualien. (AFP Photo.)

Heads east China coast after Taiwan. (Hsinhua Photo.)

Whither freaque wave

Freaque wave, along with the popular media usage of words: freak or rogue waves, representing a strange phenomenon of our time as it seems that we all know what it is, yet at the same time, we don't really know what had really happened when we heard it.

Abounding news media alluding to freaque waves causing mishaps, how do we know that was really freaque wave?

We don't!

A case in point: there was a news yesterday in Phuket Gazette of Thailand that was entitled "Man drowns in 'freak wave'".

Every time when reading a news like this, my first question is usually what kind of "freak wave"? There is likewise usually no clear answer. Most likely stemmed from someone's personal speculation. The details of the Phuket news is simply this:

The body of one of the three men who were dashed against rocks at Paradise Beach by a single large wave on Saturday was recovered today.

A single large wave and the reporter, or the editor, took the liberty to call it freaque wave. It's a tragic case. The loss of a human life unnecessarily is always a sad tragedy for the friends and family. Does not matter where it was happened.

This case happened somewhere here:

near Patong, but rescue is not always readily available there as:

Police were delayed in reaching the scene, however, as the rocky point is inaccessible by car and surrounded by mountains between Tri Trang Beach and Patong, and is approximately a three-kilometer journey by boat, Capt. Nithikorn explained.

“There is a small dirt track that goes there, but you can only walk there or go on an off-road bike, which meant it took a few hours before police could reach the scene,” he said.

K. Anusorn was in Phuket on holiday. His body was recovered today by Kusoldham Foundation volunteers and taken to Patong Hospital.

As one following the news around the world while doing this blog for freaque waves and always ended up asking "What kjind of freaquie wave was it?" I must inevitably come to the conclusion: the term is over used!

As much as we don't have a well defined definition for a freaque wave. We are going to face the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not a wave is indeed a freaque wave.

Recently I turned down a request for a phone interview on freaque waves, because I don't think there's really anything worthwhile to talk about on freaque waves right now. No worthy new research result, no new measurement, what we have and know are all become part of a cliche or talking point. There are real freaque wave happenings out there, there are real tragedies happening out there, but when we hear talks of freaque waves -- we have no idea what they are that were talking about!

Freaques in 2008 Summer Olympics

It has been relatively quiet in the freaque waves front. So I think I'll take a side step away to talk about something I found to be amazing to the point of freaque that had happened at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Peiking which is scheduled to open in less than two weeks. More specifically the opening time will be 8 minutes after 8 pm (8 am EDT) on August 8, 2008.

Visitors to the 2008 Olympics will be treated to see the new National Athletic Stadium built as a Bird's Nest (鳥巢).

and the National Swimming Center built as a Water Cube (水立方):

Originally the bird nest and the water cube will be side by side with nothing nearby. However the visitors are going to actually see something like this:


Yes, there's an ancient temple! Two totally modern building alongside an old ancient temple called the Niong-Niong Temple (娘娘廟) which was said to have built in the Ming Dynasty some 600 years ago. The double words niong-niong (娘娘) in Chinese is a term used by people to addressing the empress. Most famous niong-niong is the Buddha's express, known as King Mother Niong Niong (王母娘娘). There are many niong-niong temples around the country presumably to honor various different niong-niongs. It is really not important who the niong-niong is. The full name of this temple is actually Pei-Ding Niong-Niong Temple, since the area is known as the site of Pei-Ding (北頂), the north apex, village. So 北頂娘娘 must be an important niong-niong. (There are supposedly five apexes representing the apex of from five mountain ranges, the north apex in the capital is the most important one.) So there you are, Niong-niong Temple along with the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. Something modern, something old!

What had happened that caused the commies suddenly become nostalgic?

Well, the official site of the local Olympics explains it as an effort to preserve the capital's ancient culture heritage, they moved the water cube 100 m northward to accommodate the Niong-Niong Temple.

I don't know whether the western reporters that allowed to cover this Olympics would accept this explanation. This explanation is, simply put, total baloney. Inconvenient absurdity. (I guess it's no secret that freedom of speech never exist under the commies even during the international Olympics. Only selected reporters by the commies are allowed to cover the Olympics. Some had their visa canceled. Others simply never could get a visa.)

Please note that the site where the bird nest and the water cube were built is used to be the homestead of hundreds of thousands of local people where their ancestors lived there for thousands of years. The commies just used their imperially breed hoodlum force to evict them all from their own home and razed their homes and all their histories and memories to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of people become instantly homeless. These people had sustained through all the dynasties over the generations, all kinds of adversities, all kinds of rulers: domestic, foreign, the Mongolians, the Manchurians, the Japanese, but it is is under the Chinese Marxist commie thugs that they lost everything. Does George Bush know that's what had happened when he so eagerly goes to the Olympic opening? (You may wonder how can the commies do such things in these day and age? I would like to remind you that the Chinese commies had never hesitate to do that sort thing. They have done it before when they evicted may even be millions of people from their thousands of years old home along with thousands of years of historical heritage on both sides of the Yangtze River when the Three Gorges Dam was built not long ago. And they have the audacity to call themselves the "People"'s Republic !?)

But the puzzling question is still why would they decided to spare the Pei-Ding Niong-Niong Temple from wrecking? What really happened?

I am wondering again if the western reporters would ever try to find out and able to report it. (And still keep their visa.) The truth of the matter is that the wrecking of the Niong-Niong Temple has always been a part of the commies' master plan. They want to wipe out all historial Chinese cultural heritage completely. There were workers assigned to do the wrecking, of course. But just as the workers started and barely knocked down the temple gate, suddenly there was a totally unexpected tornado mixed with heavy sand storm intervened. As the construction of the Water Cube was underway at the time, the storm destroyed them all, struck them all down, caused total havoc, wounded 44 workmen and killed two. But after the storm, all were destroyed but the Niong-Niong Temple remained totally intact. No workers in their right mind would want to take part in that wrecking assignment ever again. That storm was on record in the afternoon of August 27, 2004. When it came to pass, the local meteorologist called it the "100-year storm". I seem to remember reading about the news of this storm, but the connection with the destruction of Olympic constructions was never mentioned. Anyway after that, the commies were understandably subdued, did not wish to confront the Pei-Ding Niong-Niong anymore, and decided on peaceful coexistence with her. (Typical commie tactic: when they can't beat you and you are strong, they just call for peaceful coexistence.) At any rate, I am personally gratified to learn about all these, at least some historical subsistence was preserved!

As I said earlier, it's something amazing and also rather freaque. I can not help to be reminded of the words of the one unidentified person in the Bible on the evening of the Good Friday two thousands years ago: "There's truly a God!" (Here I am making a deliberate interpretation. The specific words in St. Mark xv:39, "Truly this man was the Son of God!")

Peril in the age of internet

Two years ago, shortly after I started this blog, I posted an item entitled "A list of freaque wave encounters." That list was later published in the journal Geofizika (Vol. 24 No. 1, 2007) as a professional paper.

In the blog list I included the case of the tanker World Glory which "encountered an abnormally large wave 105 km east of Durban, South Africa, broken in half , and both halves sunk within 4 hours." This was the picture someone took just before that happened:

I referenced this picture from the site http://www.dynagen.co.za/eugene/freak.html. In the Geofizika publication I used the same URL but not the picture.

Recently Professors Kharif, Pelinovsky, and Slunyaev of Russia are preparing a book "Rogue Waves in the Ocean" to be published by Springer-Verlag Berlin-Heidelberg-New York and wish to include this picture in the book. Unfortunately the acknowledged source is no longer there.

This must be the peril of internet age. Pages on the internet can never be expected to be permanent. People changing jobs and company storages are limited so internet pages are subject to things like "now you see it and now you don't!".

Now the proper source of this dramatic picture of tanker World Glory broken in half is in a limbo.

Anyone who owns the copyright, or knows who owns the copyright, of this picture would you please kindly let us know?

The picture is very valuable, dramatic, and historical. For now it may be simply designated as "copyright unknown." But whoever happens to be at the right place and at the right time to be able to capture that historical moment certainly deserves an appropriate recognition and acknowledgment.

Monsoon and aquaplanet

It is always exhilarating to see new science ideas especially when it tends to renovate, revamp, or revolutionize the old ones. The news release from Caltech yesterday announcing

"a new explanation for the formation of monsoons, proposing an overhaul of a theory about the cause of the seasonal pattern of heavy winds and rainfall that essentially had held firm for more than 300 years"

is such a case.

The new explanation, advanced by Tapio Schneider of Caltech and Simona Bordoni of NCAR who is joining Caltech, was based on a computer-generated, water-covered, hypothetical earth, the aquaplanet, "to simulate monsoon formation and found that differences in heat capacities between land and sea were not necessary". As

Monsoons arise instead because of an interaction between the tropical circulation and large-scale turbulent eddies generated in the atmosphere in middle latitudes. These eddies, which can span more than 300 miles across, form the familiar systems that govern the weather in middle latitudes.

These eddies, Schneider explains:

are "basically large waves, which crash into the tropical circulation. They 'break,' much like water waves on the beach, and modify the circulation as a result of the breaking. There are feedbacks between the circulation, the wind pattern associated with it in the upper atmosphere, and the propagation characteristics of the waves, which make it possible for the circulation to change rapidly." This can quickly generate the characteristic high surface winds and heavy rainfall of the monsoon.

And Bordoni adds:

"These feedbacks provide one possible explanation for the rapidity of monsoon onset, which had been a long-standing conundrum in the traditional view of monsoons," because substantial differences between land and sea temperatures can only develop slowly through heating by sunlight.

Schneider also suggests: "in the long run, a better understanding of monsoons may lead to better predictions with semi-empirical models, but much more work needs to be done."

Their paper, "Monsoons as eddy-mediated regime transitions of the tropical overturning circulation," appearing in the advance online edition of Nature Geosciences is certainly represents a breath of fresh air in a long stagnant modern science world that's been staked with guarded establishment, sacred conventionalism, and unproven innuendos pretend as science.

What is really pertubing to me is noticing the strange fact that this exciting news release has been pretty much totally ignored by the "news establishment". Clearly the "drive-by" news world has absolutely no room for reporting real science accomplishment that does not imply any wrong doing that American people are guilty of.

Fishermen's peril at Kundapura

Kundapura is a town in Udupi district in the Indian state of Karnataka on the west coast of the Indian Subcontinent along the Arabian Sea.

Picture by P Bangalore posted 8th April 2008 here.

A tragic news from Kundapur this morning as reported in daijiworld.com:

Kundapur, Jul 21: Two of the three fishermen who had ventured into the sea at Gangolli near here for fishing in their gill net boats at about 7 am on Sunday July 20, drowned at about 8.30 am after their boat was hit by strong waves and got caught in the accumulated silt at the dock and overturned. One of the fishermen however, was rescued by fishermen from another boat. Bodies of the drowned fishermen are yet to be found.

Once again reminds us the peril fishermen face all around the world, wherever they are. Strong waves, freaque waves, and undesirable local conditions are all part of their daily life. Safety can never be assured. Our prayers are with them always.

Science research misconduct

On a relatively slow news day, there is a news about science research misconduct mildly attracted my attention this morning. I say "mildly" because the research field involved -- nuclear fusion by bubbles -- is totally outside my domain of interest. And science misconduct tends to be usually less than what meets the eye. Here's the background reported in New Scientist:

Controversy has brewed once again over "bubble fusion", once hailed as potential green energy source. Nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan, who claimed in 2002 to have achieved nuclear fusion by popping bubbles in a solvent, has been accused of research misconduct by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Taleyarkhan, who was then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and is now at Purdue, claimed in the journal Science that by bombarding a cool solvent with neutrons and sound waves, his team created bubbles that triggered nuclear fusion. Such a feat could pave the way to abundant cheap and clean power.

But when many experiments by other scientists failed to replicate the work, a Purdue committee began investigating allegations of misconduct against Taleyarkhan in 2006. In early 2007, the committee cleared Taleyarkhan and his team of misconduct.

So there was an investigation that did not find misconduct. But:

But a second investigation began in May 2007 when further, secret allegations surfaced. These allegations were made public on Friday, when Purdue announced that it had completed its second investigation, which concludes that Taleyarkhan committed two counts of misconduct.

For a detail of the allegations and the panel's findings can be found here. Now the first charge:

The first is that he added the name of a researcher called Adam Butt to the list of authors of his bubble fusion papers, knowing that Butt was not a significant contributor to the experiments, data analysis or paper preparation.

does not struck me as particularly serious. And

Secondly, in a 2006 paper in Physical Review Letters, Taleyarkhan stated that the experimental results reported in his original Science paper "have now been independently confirmed". The committee concluded that this assertion was false and constituted misconduct.

In which the "independent" work was in fact his own except that his own name was not used. As it is aimed at deceiving so can be interpreted as a misconduct. Somehow I wonder how many scientists would become angry by this kind of misconduct -- especially knowing full well all the deceitful things that Algore employed in making his notorious documentary "An inconvenient truth." And many of our poor school children are forced to watch it again and again.

Of course, comparing a scientist to Algore would be an insult to the scientist at any rate. I apologize. I don't know Dr. Taleyarkhan, never heard of him before reading his news today. His case is not over by a long shot. I am not condoning whatever he had done, wittingly or otherwise. But we are living in a double-, triple, and multiple standards society. Things can be o.k. for one but not o.k. for another -- depends upon who you are, who do you know, your hair or eye colors, and your club and party affiliations, or whatever circumstances dictate. As George Orwell noticed years ago: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Inconvenient messenger -- Who's Algore?

Algore gave a speech yesterday, the whole drive-by media world went ga ga with it. Of the nearly 120 reactions listed by Google this morning, most were drive-by suck-ups. The followings are only a few interesting exceptions that American people will not hear:

Al Gore's pseudo-ecology strikes again.
Is Al Gore nuts?
Let's ban al Gore.
Limousine liberals.

But most Americans will be swamped with messages like Gore urges Americans to make total shift to renewables, or Gore calls for end of using fossil fuels for electricity in U.S. by 2018, or this idiotic suck-up by Time magazine: Gore's bold plan to save the planet.

With messages like these, do you know who the messenger is?

Who is Algore anyway?

Yes, you know that he's former Vice President of the United States, and he's a winner of Nobel Peace Prize in the same company with Yasi Arafat and Jimmy Carter. What else do you know about him?

Well, Algore, aka Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. is the son of Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. of course. He was born in Washington D.C. and grown up in Fairfax Hotel where Al Gore, Sr. took residence. Beyond all these, I think you might get the impression from the drive-by media types that he is a very smart guy. But based on what? I found this Op-Ed article in Bostom Globe rather illuminating.

Oh yes, Algore is a Harvard graduate. In 2000, WaPo, the Washington Post, revealed his Harvard academic record as "riddled with C's, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another". Now overwhelming majority of world scientists are following him?

Well, before Harvard, Algore also enrolled in Vandebilt Divinity School and Vandebilt Law School. Clearly he earned no degree from either of them. As a matter of fact, according to the author of the book "Inventing Al Gore" Algore spent three semesters at the Divinity school, took eight courses, he received grade F in five of the courses.

These are all minor things, of no particular consequense of course. But one thing I know but no one seems to care mentioning is the fact that when he was the Vice President, he was put in charge of a major project called "Reinvention of the government" or something to that effect with seemingly huge unlimited budget. I was a government worker at the time and I was very encouraged to see somethinbg like that happening. But somehow that was conspicuously never been mentioned ever again -- not in any of Algore's accomplishment enumerations anywhere.

Objectively, until the global warming mumble jumble, other than election to the congress and senate under his father's name, has Algore ever involved anything that can be directly considered as an unconditional successful?

Can we trust our energy policy and our country's future to someone like Algore?

Just note this from Amy Ridenour of Newsbusters:

Apparently complacent about criticism from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research that his family's energy use at his Nashville home is more than 19 times greater than the average American household's, Al Gore has committed conspicious energy consumption once again.

In Washington D.C. Thursday to deliver yet another speech warning Americans about global warming caused, Gore believes, by excessive use of fossil fuels, Gore handed yet more evidence to critics who believe he's a hypocrite.

He did so by traveling to his speech in what almost certainly was an unnecessary entourage of three luxury gas-guzzling vehicles -- two Lincoln Town Cars and a Surburban SUV -- one of which was kept idling outside for twenty minutes, apparently to keep the interior cool for the driver, Mrs. Gore and the Gores' adult daughter.

We know this because the free-market group Americans for Prosperity took a video camera to speech to film not only the Gore family's vehicle choices, but to interview Gore acolytes who declined sponsors' advice to walk, ride a bike or take public transportation to the speech. (You can see the group's very funny four-minute video online here -- my favorite part is the woman who tries to claim a taxi is public transportation.)

So the essence of Algore's message to American people is basically very simple, as summarized by Ed Driscoll: "Sacrifice for Thee -- But Not for Me."

God have mercy on us!

Tidbit news day

Today is shaping up as a day of tidbit news items on the internet. Nothing earth-shaking, no earthquake, tsunami, or threatening storms, just something of interest for being rather out of the ordinary.

First is this "Unmanned boat spins unmanned off Gold Coast beach" of Australia as reported by Greg Stolz of couriermail.com.au :

A RUNAWAY tinnie spun out of control for about 30 minutes off the Gold Coast after its driver and passenger were thrown overboard.

The 4.7m boat was left to its own devices after it was hit by a rogue wave off Narrowneck, between Surfers Paradise and Main Beach, about 9.50am.

The skipper, 41, and passenger, 33, were thrown into the water about 100m offshore near the artificial reef, sparking an emergency drama.

While "There were too many jagged edges and the boat was moving around too unpredictably in the shorebreak," Gold Coast water police was able to managed rescuing the two boaties and grabbed the boat and towed it to safety "moments before it looked being swamped by a wave."

Then there is this Russian billionare's new yacht as reported by Robert Frank in The Wall Street Journal that look like this:
The 390 ft yacht, the "Motor Yacht A", build for Russian billionire Andrey Melnichenko, is "stirring up the boat world by its radical design that comes as slap in the face to an industry known for its classic conformity. It was designed by French designer Philippe Starck to have 6 guest suites, two swimming pools, a disco, more than 100 speakers and more than a dozen plasma TV screens.

Finally there is this article today in Seattle Times: "Kitsap County's Point No Point Lighthouse a step back into maritime history" by Stuart Eskenazi:
tells the story of this unusual lighthouse that started in 1880 and a Seattle dentist gave up his practice to become the first keeper of Point No Point Lighthouse and keeping a detailed log ever since. It was the first lighthouse built on Puget Sound.

I can not help wondering how many big storms or freaque waves the lighthouse had ever witnessed during the last 129 years in this very peaceful and tranquil place:

Elk Creek Dam

This piece of news, literally earth-shaking locally, caught my eye this morning. An old civil Engineering graduate always interested in a story about dam. This one is about the detonation of a part of the Elk Creek Dam that spanning the upper Rogue River in Oregon with this opening sentence:

The crack of explosives Tuesday sent waves of concrete crumbling and launched a plume of dust skyward, signaling the beginning of the end to Elk Creek Dam.

and

The plume slowly drifted upstream as a small group of witnesses oohed and aahed at the historical charge that will mark the end of a contentious community battle over the future of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility whose construction was stopped by lawsuits in 1986.

Whether people viewed it as a flood-control and water-storage opportunity wasted or a fish-killing boondoggle, those perched at a viewing area near the dam said they came for the spectacle.

A good background information about this controversial case can be found here.

But as a by-product of the internet age, I noticed that there's a forum for readers' to comment about the Mail Tribune article by Mark Freeman. There are some interesting comments. Here's one reaction:

It's hard for me to believe that we, the paying citizens of the nation, let a few radicals win this battle and not have to pay us back. The fight should have been decided before $113 million was flushed down the drain. Once started, it should have been allowed to be finished and put in use. I guess we need to rein in the powers given to politically appointed judges that cannot use common sense.

And here's another:

Elk Creek Dam wouldn't have made any difference in the amount of salmon in the Rogue...they went to Japan long ago. I grew up on Mare Island Navy Yard and after WW2 the US (as we always do with nations that attack us), helped rebuild Japan and feed their people. We let the Japanese trawlers fish right off our shores, you could recognize them by their rigging. Their canneries were in the bowels of their ships and their nets nearly overlaped. One Japanese trawler would leave and within two days another would take its place. They fished from Alaska to Mexico and took everything! The upper Rogue needs flood control, stored water, and power...no wonder there is a 94% disapproval rate for the Congress

But here's a hilarious one:

Did anyone bother to check with Al Gore about this? Al needs to be contacted before any major decision like this is made. Al knows it all. If he doesn't then he knows how to fake it very well. Don't question Al, he's the man, just like Kip on Napolean Dynamite. Al and Kip, manly men. They have all the answers (just not accurate answers), but hey, who cares at this point. Al, lead us into the point of no return. Tell us more unfounded lies for personal gain. Al keep doing harm to our universe. Al sell more books and do more speaking engagements. The world is ripe for your lies and venom. WAKE UP PEOPLE!

I thought, obviously wrongly, that Oregon is a state full of very liberal people. They are full of real Americans after all. Yea, Wake Up people!

Heat it up and you'll have kidney stone!

Good grief, I thought it was a joke, may be from the Onion or somethings like that.

But oh no, no, nada, it was definitely not a joke. It is serious business, it is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences!

It is about kidney stone. According to Wikipedia, "kidney stones can be due to underlying metabolic conditions, such as renal tubular acidosis, Dent's disease and medullary sponge kidney." And "there has been some evidence that water fluoridation may increase the risk of kidney stone formation."

But that's all meaningless. No, no, no, no, . . . , no. The media of the whole wide world are reporting the real cause of it. It is serious business of global warming again. Just read these headlines:

Got kidney stones? Blame global warming, study says. Houston Chronicle. July 14, 2008.
Study: global warming may increase kidney stones. Seattle Times. July 15, 2008.
Global warming to spark rise in kidney stone cases, study says. Chicago Tribune. July 15, 2008.
Does global warming mean more kidney stones? U.S. News & World Report. July 15, 2008.
Global warming may lead to more kidney stones, Researchers say. Bloomberg.com. July 15, 2008.
Global warming may raise kidney stone cases: study. Reuters, U.K. July 14, 2008.
Climate pain ahead for folk in the 'kidney stone belt'. New Scientist. July 14, 2008.

These are just a small portion of tens of the news headlines around the world in the last two days. I am just tired typing them in here. The basic idea of what all they reporting is simply this:

People will develop more kidney stones in a hotter climate, because the heat tends to make us dehydrated and that causes the stones to form, two Texas urologists say.

as reported by Tom Spears in the Gazette today. That's it! Hot weather makes you dehydrate, so kidney will form. How profound! What an impressive scientific accomplishment.

That's again part of the global warming disaster caused by you. Yes, you, you are the guilt part, if you are a believer of this new religious mumble jumble.

Hey, even if that is the case, then just drink water, lots of water, will very easily to clear it all up. What's the big deal?!

Well, the big deal is because it is a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Who the heck are you that question the holy brilliance of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences?!?

Richard Feynman was once elected a member of this National Academy of Sciences. But he later decided that he had to resign from it. Now I know why. If this kidney stone paper in the NAS Proceedings can make such a hoopla among the world media, what implication can we draw about the state of our science, media, and our elite scientist? God have mercy!

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas

Real news travels slow when the drive-by people trying so hard to shut you down. Here is the speech given by John Coleman, the founder of the Weather Channel, to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce a month ago that's just slowly making rounds on the internet now. This is how Mr. Coleman starts his speech:

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas.

It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline.

All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth.

What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

And here are his final words:

So now the global warming myth actually has lead to the chaos we are now enduring with energy and food prices. We pay for it every time we fill our gas tanks.

Not only is it running up gasoline prices, it has changed government policy impacting our taxes, our utility bills and the entire focus of government funding.

And, now the Congress is considering a cap and trade carbon credits policy. We the citizens will pay for that, too. It all ends up in our taxes and the price of goods and services.

So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization.

Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam.

I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it. If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy.

My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth.

It is a brilliant speech. You owe it to yours and your families' future to spend the time to read every word of it here. Because Algore and his drive-by gangs will certainly try everything that you wont.

Truth will set you a fake!

This is not a story about waves, nor about freaque waves. But this is a feaque world indeed.

Yesterday's major news in the drive-by world all around was about the missile test by Iran complete with impressive pictures. Ain't they? If it's from the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who the hack will question?

Here are some of the front pages:
And here's the picture:
Impressive, isn't it?

But wait, notice something odd? No? Now look at this one:
Note the parts that are circled, can it be possibly true that they are exactly the same? Of course if it's from the Iran Revolution Guard, no one should question anyway, right? New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, BBC News, MSNBC, . . ., etc , . . .

Here's the original: the truth will set you a fake!

All these are from the New York Times article by Mike Nizza and Patrick Witty with hat-tip to Drudge.

Global Warming Delusion

I know that Algore was a Divinity School dropout and I don't think he has ever earned a doctorate degree. But he is now having a new tittle: Algore, the Profit of Doom.

And also to his credit, he is obviously responsible for a new psychiatric case: the "global warming delusion". As reported in Herald Sun of Australia by Andrew Bolt:

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".

"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."

"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."

Bolt also reports that Australia's Prime Minister, Mr. Kevin Rudd, may also have this delusion since he announced his own apocalyptic vision:

"If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."

What make the article interesting is that Rudd tried to push his delusion to other Asian countries without much success. As Bolt reports:

the Indian experts went to the trouble to check what the climate was actually doing and why.
Their conclusion? They couldn't actually find anything bad in India that was caused by man-made warming: "No firm link between the documented (climate) changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established."
In fact, they couldn't find much change in the climate at all.
Yes, India's surface temperature over a century had inched up by 0.4 degrees, but there had been no change in trends for large-scale droughts and floods, or rain: "The observed monsoon rainfall at the all-India level does not show any significant trend . . ."
It even dismissed the panic Al Gore helped to whip up about melting Himalayan glaciers: "While recession of some glaciers has occurred in some Himalayan regions in recent years, the trend is not consistent across the entire mountain chain. It is, accordingly, too early to establish long-term trends, or their causation, in respect of which there are several hypotheses."

There were talks about India or China might be the world leaders in the 21st century. Now I can see why India is aiming at that direction.

Now while U.S. is facing the peril of world leadership, even the Australia is beating the U.S. to advance the Psychiatric delusion. Though the two apparent presidential candidates are both likely to have varied degrees of this global warming delusion nevertheless -- depending upon what poll numbers reveal on any particular day. I am wondering who's going to wake up sooner, the people of Australia or the people of the U.S. before it's too late !!

Boris and Bertha

The make-believe world of global warming media had been totally disappointed with the hurricane season of 2007. It looks like the early hurricane season of 2008 does not seem to be real promising for them either.

Paul Simons of TimesOnline has an interesting, brief article this morning entitled "Weather Eye: Boris was spin, Bertha means business" which is clearly also mixed with a certain amount of wishful thinking:

Boris huffed and puffed and went in for a lot of spin, but eventually fizzled out without doing harm to anyone. But Bertha has meant business and blew up quite suddenly.

Boris and Bertha were some of the earliest tropical storms of the new hurricane season. Boris erupted in the Pacific way off the western coast of Mexico and died out without causing any damage. But Bertha has been something of a surprise. She formed last Thursday near the Cape Verde islands off the coast of West Africa, and set a new record for the farthest east that a tropical storm has formed in July, only a month into the hurricane season.

On Monday Bertha rapidly erupted into a powerful Category 3 hurricane, packing winds of 190km/h (120mph). The storm is moving across the mid-Atlantic and could threaten Bermuda by Saturday, although the US is expected to escape unscathed.

Do you sense the disappointment in the last sentence "the US is expected to escape unscathed"?

Here's Bertha at peak intensity: 21:15 GMT Monday July 7, 2008:

The business of Bertha is not encouraging to them either, as Jeff Masters of Weather Underground explains:

Bertha is slowing down and turning northward as it "feels" the approach of a trough of low pressure to the north. All of the computer model turn Bertha northwards east of Bermuda, and it currently appears that the island will feel only peripheral effects of Bertha. However, the trough of low pressure turning Bertha to the north will not be strong enough to fully drag the storm into the far North Atlantic, so Bertha will wander close to Bermuda early next week while it waits for another trough of low pressure to finish the job. It is very unlikely Bertha will threaten the U.S., but it could eventually affect the Maritime Provinces of Canada.

It's still a long season ahead. Let's just relax and wait and see what nature has in store for us. One thing can be certain though. It was just by chance that George Bush created Katrina once. If he is as stupid as everyone in the drive-by media world suggests, he can't possibly be able to do it again! (Pity those global warming cult leaders and followers -- their ideal season is to have Katrina born again and again and again . . . )

This day, July 9, in history

A few notable things happened on this day in history according to the History of Events are of interest to me:

1776 - Declaration of Independence is read to George Washington's troops (NY)
1926 - Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek appointed to national-revolutionary supreme commander
1944 - In World War II, US troops secure Saipan as Japan fell
1957 - Discovery of element 102 (Nobelium) announced
1958 - Giant splash caused by fall of 90 million tons of rock and ice into Lituya Bay, Alaska washes 1,800 feet up the mountain

The last item, happened 50 years ago today is probably the most striking one scientifically that generated the largest ever wave height of 516 m (1720 ft) and made Lituya Bay world wide famous. Here are some relevant web sites that can serve to commemorate this event:

• Lituya Bay - 50 years on.
• Giant Waves in Lituya Bay, Alaska, USGS pp354-C.
• Giant Wave in Alaska.
• World Record Tsunami.

After 50 years the Lituya Bay case is well studied and well reported, there are plenty of useful information and pictures can be found through Google. There is no need for me to repeat them here. For the blog today I would like to cite my personal favorite comment made in the last referred item by the Extreme Science:

We say that the tsunami at Lituya Bay was the biggest wave ever, but that's just the ones humans have witnessed and have been able to record. There have probably been even BIGGER waves that have happened in the past when human witnesses didn't even exist. And you never know, there may even be a bigger wave to happen yet!

That can be applied to other freaque waves also!

4D ocean wave measurement

Now for some real waves. A couple of years ago, Prof. Chin Wu and his student Justin Wanek developed the Automated Trinocular Stereo Imaging System (ATSIS) for making 4D ocean wave measurements with three video cameras. They have produced a 5 sec video of actual wave surface that 's the world's first and still the only 4-dimensional (x,y,z,t) wave measurement available. Here's the video in Youtube:


Take a closer look, this is the wave measurement as wave measurement should!