Free Republic

Yep...hearing loud rumbles and sky that weird color...your storm must have hopped on the TPike:)

Btw, did any of you see the park benches in LA (in the area where today’s fundraiser/stupid liberal shakedown) adorned with VERY negative, anti-Obama posters? They are numerous and spot on!

Traffic issues were worse than on a normal weekday commute as only 1 regular lane and 1 HOV lane of the I-90 bridge were open and there was a Mariner game at Safeco (for those that don’t know - north of Boeing Field where AF1 lanes) and a Seattle Storm game at the Key Arena - both at 7.
They were suggesting that some people work from home yesterday, which may have helped with making the commute not as bad as it could have been.

Whenever Obama comes to town one fairly liberal radio host says, “he’s coming to visit his ATM in Bellevue again - he never has time for the little people”.

...crippling the country?????

Morning AM!

Morning! Ack! The traffic in Pittsburgh yesterday was awful!! Wanted to check out the old stamping grounds down in Coraopolis (Groveton) but by then, we just wanted OUT of there! I feel sorry for anybody who has to commute in that every day - twice!

Veggies are lush and green this year, from all the rain. Very overcast out there so I expect to see the rain yinz are sending our way very soon!

Don’t get me started on Dear Leader. It’s too early.......the lying, lazy, incompetent piece of excrement.

Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

BO is in way over his head. All he cares about is crippling the country.

Mornin’ everybuddy!

Good morning!

Pretty strong storm just moved through...heading east.

Good morning n’@!

Yesterday, out in Washington state, at a filthy rich people fundraiser DearLeader said he DOESNT watch the “news” as he KNOWS what has happened already. But before he (and his peeps) said he learned of IRS scandal, ObamaCare “glitches”, etc, ON THE NEWS—that the problem w/lying—he can’t keep it all straight!

Speaking of rich people, why are they donating to Dem politics and NOT taking care of kiddies on the border?

Yinzer be careful n’@ today—big t-storms on the way

Yo, Mr.-Certified-57-States-Stupid, there has been no climate change for 18 yaers.
Or are you just lying again, Skippy?

I thought we were in the cycle of solar inactivity........thus the colder weather. I think the author is wrong......

‘Global warming.’

This called global warning, according to the Bible.

Snap!

Well done, though I would not have included the word “sadly” in the fourth paragraph.

"Patriotism must never be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness." Todd Starnes

Thank you for the Ping Sir.

Thanks - I didn’t know that coal seams were a commercially viable source for gas.

I assumed they just flared the gas off to prevent mine explosions.

Good, interesting posting.

Man, those one legged squats with the kettle bell? I was in pain just watching the women do them.

Smokey Bear Museum and Grave

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/3635

Ping to this year’s Games!

This year has seen a major shakeup in terms of who is competing. In years past, former Games champions received invititations to the Games regardless of how they placed in the Regionals. Some regions (most notably Central East, the SEC of the CrossFit world) were able to send more than three people. This year--no invites, no more than three people per region.

Last year's women's champion, Sam Briggs, did not place high enough to qualify for the Games in the Europe Regional, largely due to her weakness in the handstand walk event. Mikko Salo, the 2009 men's champion, bowed out once again due to injury. Matt Chan, also a multiple-Games veteran, is not competing this year due to injury. Annie Thorisdottir, the women's champion in 2011 and 2012, sat out last year's season due to a back injury, but she won the 2014 Europe Regional and is back at the Games along with another no-show from last year (due to her pursuit of a MD), Julie Foucher.

Last year's rookie and Jason Khalipa-protege, Garrett Fisher, did not make the cut in the NorCal Region, though his 20-yr old sister, Lauren Fisher, did. Kristin Clever, the 2010 women's champion, bowed out of individual competition and is now on a team, whereas 2012 and 2013 champion team leader Tommy Hackenbruck of Hack's Pack Ute is back in the individual competition this year. Six-time Games veteran Chris Spealler, who claimed he was retiring in 2012, made another run in 2013 but failed to qualify for the Games. He's back again this year for his seventh (and, supposedly, final) trip to the Games.

Then there's the biggest name in CrossFit--Rich Froning. The three-time Games champion (2011, 2012, and 2013) is going back for his fourth title. Froning has claimed that this will be his last year as an individual competitor which, if he holds to that, does not rule out the team competition or even a position in the newly-formed NPGL.

Now, go throw on your favorite Rogue t-shirt, grab a paleo snack, and open a delicious bottle of water, and let's watch the fittest people on Earth battle it out in 2014!

It’s not a blog.

Proudly powered by WordPress

It's a blog.

Smokey had no middle name, his name was Smokey Bear.

Bah, hah! I love it.....

But I didn’t know that surface tundra could blow up.

After all those UFO sightings were blamed on "swamp gas"?

Actually, we don't know that it did, it is one possibility.

BTW, coal seams were drilled in the 90s for the methane (natural gas) present in them, and that may still be going on.

A future lib voter with no brains.....

I’d forgotten about the Bhagwan. Viewed from their perspective, it was a fairly successful strategy.

Throw in a couple of boxes of crackers. That’s a good starter list.

Prepper/survivalism begins to take on an air of unreality. There is no realistic scenario which would lead to the total breakdown of "The System" as imagined by survivalists.

I think that sense of unreality is being fostered by shows like "Doomsday Preppers".

Now, to escape unreality, imagine yourself without power for just three days.

Imagine (for whatever reason), food became scarce. Or the currency became worthless.

Whatever the case or cause, it boils down to a few basic things.

Food

Shelter

Clean water

The means to cook or procure those items for a while--or indefinitely.

Even a hurricane can produce such a situation in coastal areas, where it may be weeks or more before basic services are restored.

Our system, as robust as it seems, has many points of failure, which ensure supplies on hand will be small in the event of a problem.

That problem could be economic, political (war), natural (a large storm or other cataclysm), and localized or widespread, of short or long duration.

Can anyone be prepared for every possible scenario?

Honestly, no. Not unless they have incredible resources to draw on.

But you can be prepared for the basics, by sticking to the basics of food, shelter (including clothing), water, and the means to retain what you have and get more if you need to.

What scale, what duration, what severity of a problem you wish to be prepared for is up to the individual, and some will try to be ready for anything up to and including a large cosmic impact or 'supervolcano eruption' (either an E.L.E.), events which have been decidedly uncommon as far as we know.

Political unrest, warfare (declared or otherwise), storm events, are far more common around the world, and while not 'the big one', still are disruptive enough on a localized basis to be deadly. How far can you walk in a day? Not on sidewalks or a track, but over broken ground, carrying a couple of day's supplies? It might take more than a couple of days to get some place 'safe', and there might not be any help--there might even be people who want to take your supplies.

I think you have to weigh the odds, and plan accordingly. Maybe you get snowed in for a couple of days--will you be able to eat? Most people will.

Now, add the fact that the power is out. Will you be able to stay warm? Not so many can say yes.

Will you have water you can drink?

Will you have the means to stay clean? The possibilities are endless, and depending on how far you want to project a loss of economy as we know it, trade as we know it, or just a disruption of the conveniences and trimmings that make life more than huddling by the fire at night, you might decide to be prepared.

Not everyone is anticipating the next dinosaur killer asteroid or the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera.

2 minutes is as good as a mile! LOL

Obama came to WA State to fund raise, not for help the fire victims. While towns all over WA are holding fund raisers for the fdisplaced victims of the wild fires, Obama comes into Seattle at rush hour and ties up traffic to fill his political coffers.

For the numbers, see my #28 below. This year is WAY below 10 year averages.

...and thanks again for the fruit cake recipe; we loved it.

jinx you owe me a coke

So far in 2014 we have had the fewest acres burned in the last 10 years (almost 1/3 of the average to date).

And the 2nd fewest number of fires total (fewest was last year).

http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm

VERY mild fire season so far this year, comparatively.

Year-to-date large fires: 1,562,243 acres vs
Year-to-date 10 year avg: 3,772,922 acres

Y-T-D fires 30,839 vs
Y-T-D 10 year avg 44, 663

3/4 as many fires, and only 1/3 as many acres burned this year so far, of the year-to-date 10 year average.

National Interagency Coordination Center
Incident Management Situation Report
Tuesday July 22, 2014 – 0530 MT
National Preparedness Level 3

http://www.nifc.gov/nicc/sitreprt.pdf

There is an answer to this conundrum, found buried inside that Swedish Website:

Please note: This article has used the terms elk and moose interchangeably. We are aware that this confuses and even angers some people, but we are fairly relaxed about that.

Elk/Moose terminology update: what is commonly called a moose in North America is called an elk in Europe. The fact that there is a different animal, native to North America, which the locals have decided refer to as an elk is not our fault. The animal featured in the article is the European Elk, Alces alces, or moose to North Americans. That we choose to occasionally refer to it as a moose is partly as a courtesy to our North American friends, to let them know which animal we’re talking about, but mostly because ‘moose’ is a funnier sounding word. But if you think we’re going to give up calling our elk ‘elk’ just because you lot went over there and started calling something that wasn’t an elk an elk, well, think again. Elk elk elk.

The recent solar history is quite similar to the “Dalton” minimum of the early 19th century. Note these analogues — regular strong cycles from about 1718 to 1787 similar to the period 1917 to 1989. The details do not match precisely but the overall history was similar. Then the 1787 cycle was long-lasting and had a secondary around 1794. The next peak was a “weak moderate” rather flat period from 1801 to 1804, similar to the 1999 to 2002 period. A long slow decline followed with about three years (1809-11) of nearly zero activity. That was similar to 2007-09. European weather was getting colder during these periods. Now we see the apparent end of a weak cycle, similar to the weak peak of 1816. That one combined with the massive dust veil of Tamboro to create an exceptionally cold year. We may avoid that around 2015-16 if there’s no similar volcanic event, but natural cooling continued beyond that dust veil’s life cycle well into the 1820s. From that point on, activity remained rather modest through a peak in 1829-30 and then resumed much stronger levels with the 1837-38 peak.

Another similar interval ran from 1870 to 1905, strong peak in 1870, weak in 1883 combined with Krakatoa’s dust veil, exceptional cold in North America through that decade, then more moderate-weak cycles in 1893 and 1905.

The idea that we will see another Maunder minimum could be overstated, many think it’s more likely to resemble the Dalton. Effects on climate are not that different, whenever the sun goes off the “regular strong” pulse, the climate seems to cool rather quickly. The reason is mainly due to less solar heat, despite the lack of sunspots which are relatively cool areas of the solar surface, the low-energy spotless sun has an overall lower ability to radiate heat and the “solar constant” drops off by several per cent.

My personal belief is that greenhouse gases are modifying this complex cycle and we’re going to be glad to have them insulating us from an even worse potential cold turn to our climate in coming years. Then maybe when the sun gets strong and regular again, we’ll be beyond fossil fuels anyway, that could be as early as 2025 or maybe as late as 2045 based on the analogues. Time will tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jojuPQXMm44

So glad somebody here ‘got’ what I was saying!

P.S. Please stop in Roberto’s and have a burrito and some of their homemade chips and salsa for me. :)

South40 wrote: "I’ve been going for the last 10 and will be there Thursday."

Wow, lucky you! I have never been and always wanted to take my kid there.

Have fun! :)

SUPERSIZED

(Thank you, Martin Fierro)

(Thank you, arbooz)

The sun is having a global warming crisis with all the pollution on it.

. . . shipments of iPads down 10% !!! Man the lifeboats!

Yup, you can sell so many, gotta find new buyers. Previous buyers just won't give up their old versions (we're still enjoying iPad 1 and iPad 2 devices and are happy with them).

Meanwhile…

Microsoft's Surface Tablet Sales Tanked
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-surface-sales-2014-4

Microsoft said Surface revenue was $500 million for last quarter. That's a big drop from the $893 million in Surface revenue the company reported for Q4 2013.

From another article:

… cost of burying the inital batch of Surface Mini devices in a Shenzhen landfill, similar to the way Atari buried its ill-fated “E.T.” video game in New Mexico in the 1980s.
This follows a $900 million writeoff of Surface-related costs in fiscal 2013.

Yup, things are bad for Apple!