Hi gang,

As if we didn't already have enough snow on the ground here in Maryland, we're going to get another 12 to 18 inches! I have a nice pork shoulder roast in the oven and I'm fixing yellow rice and black beans to go with it. We will be eating Cuban style for the next couple of days. I'm feeling the need to fly to St. Somewhere.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

we are suppose to get another 20 inches on top of the 28.5 recorded in Philly 2 days ago....

Us too...Yeah...St. anywhere, sounds good.
Lee S.

The weatherman just updated the forecast--16 to 20 inches for northern Harford County, which is where I live.

Talked with a friend in Marathon Key, Florida today. It was 41 degrees there last night, but he says it will be in the upper 70s tomorrow. Damned global warming!

If I find that bigger boat this year, next year I'll be sailing to Saint Somewhere.

Gary

Saint Lucie County, FL. -- No snow. Just over run with Yankees avoiding snow.
Eddie

9 to 15 inches forecast in the 'frozen North' - Rhode Island - fortunately we didn't have any on the ground left from the last snowfall ...
Oh well, I guess it's just music and art for the rest of the day ...
t.

Makes you wonder if Al Gore owns a snowblower!





I gotta' sail to Saint Somewhere,

Gary

Wow..thats some snow! We had it bad a few weeks ago, but nothing like you do.

Keep warm!

What did you expect if the Saints won the Superbowl?

And it's true, it is snowing here in Louisiana! Supposed to get 3 to 5 inches.

Yes, it has covered my back yard, which is the golf course. They will be closing everything in this part of the state!
I have an appointment with the Cardiac doctor at 10:15 and Hank's funeral is at 2:00, so I'll be gone the rest of the day.
DonM

There is no snow on the ground right now in extreme S.E. New Mexico. There are just gray skies, some rain, and COLD. High today in low 40's again!
We have had 5 snow falls' on the ground for at least all day so far this winter. The lows here have been as low as 11 degrees and the highs as low as 25 degrees.
My only home is a Motor Home...32' x 8', outside demensions. Right now the electrical sytems in my RV are down. Two extension cords through windows supply electricity to my computer OR an electric heater, and to the TV OR another small electric heater.
I do have a propane heater and cook stove that are working.
As soon as the RV repair man is here in his RV from somewhere in east Texas, the electric circuitry in my RV will be repaired and I will be heading south to Big Bend country in TX which is probably analogous to "St Somewhere"...

Stay warm and happy! This too shall pass!



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Last night we were slammed with winds of 50 MPH, more snow, and the total for this storm alone was about 22 inches. This has been the coldest winter I can recall, and according to the local weather guys, we broke all records for total snow accumulation. The irony of this is that some idiot politician had the balls to stand in front of a TV camera and say this is proof that global warming exists. And, you know it must be the gospel truth--a politician said it was!

When the telephone rang this morning, the cheerful voice at the other end was Joe Ayala (Songman55) asking if I would consider going out on a job today. NOT A PRAYER. I was fully prepared to wolf down some egg beaters, a cup of hot coffee and head outside to tackle the snow in my 300-foot driveway and 160-foot sidewalk. Just as I was finishing breakfast, three high-school kids knocked on the front door. School was closed and they were out making some money by clearing sidewalks and driveways. The offered to do the job for $80 bucks, which is dirt cheap in this part of the world. I told them I needed some gas for my snow blower and they provided me with 2-1/2 gallons that carried for backup.

They did an outstanding job, worked their butts off, they were extremely polite and said if the snow plow plows in my driveway later today they would come back and clear it at no charge. My wife was so impressed with them that she handed them $150 when they finished.

It was really refreshing to see three 11th graders of this caliber, youngsters that were creative and hard-working.

Cheers,

Gary

Great story Gary ... cost a couple of bucks but it saved your muscles AND your heart ...
We just don't see enterprising kids like that anymore ... and after earning almost twice what they were looking for, I bet you will see them again ... maybe you should give them DonM's address ... I don't think they have any snow removal equipment down there other than the month of July !!! ...
t.

Just remember those words when you get a record high this summer. Global warming doesn't mean EVERYBODY only gets warmer. It means wider climate swings. It means, for some parts of the world, that they will get colder. Or have bigger differences between summer and winter. And it is all happening too slowly that any one year is any indicator.

But, if you are looking to a politician's words for proof that it is wrong, you might look at the fact that, to be honest, most of the are saying that global warming does NOT exist...

You can't have it both ways.

It is snowing BIG time here, and has been all day. Only thing, the temperature just now, at nearly midnight, dipped below freezing, so we will be covered tomorrow morning, and then it will immediately start melting.
It is supposed to snow five inches tonight. The last significant snow we had was New Year's Eve 2000!
I'm going to wake up my wife and have her go out and build me a snowman. Yeah, right!
DonM

There you go...

Damn Saints! I've got a Mardi Gras double outside tomorrow, forecast puts it at only 50º F tops 30º at night. Thank God at least the rain has stopped...

I know it's nothing like what you are going through, but even so... DAMN! It's going to get cold I bet none of you have OUTSIDE gigs in that!

How can it be 'GLOBAL' warming if some countries are going to get colder ? thats a contradiction...

You are asking ME? When there is a plethora of SCIENTIFIC information (not some politician's self serving interpretation of it) freely available on the web?

Just Google global warming, do your OWN research, listen to ALL the different opinions out there, try to come up with how you feel yourself. For myself, I don't think you can argue with the carbon dioxide figures. They are getting scary, and it looks (even from those here) that there is little will to do anything about it. As long as only our great grandchildren suffer the consequences, why should WE care?

We had the coldest winter in 40 years in the UK, our scientists are now saying were entering a colder period... ironic is'nt it that global warming means we freeze our nuts off here...I hate it...!

The way I have read it, climate change globally isn't predicted to change more than one or two degrees in the near future. But one or two degrees upsets delicate climate balances worldwide. Some places get hotter, drier. Some places get colder. Some get bigger hurricanes (JUST what I need here in Florida!), some get flooded. But the swings continue to widen.

If you live in the UK, read up about the ice melt from the Greenland glaciers threatening to disrupt how the Atlantic currents function. Imagine England without the Gulf Stream to warm its' climate...

Global climate patterns are FAR too complex to assume silly things. This is far too serious to be funny, I fear. By the time the whole world gets warmer, it will be too late to do anything. Of course, you and I won't be around by then, so who cares, eh?!

Aprés moi, le deluge.

Never were words more appropriate.

Whether or not you believe it global warming caused by man, here are a couple web sites that put things in perspective.
http://www.junkscience.com/
http://www.climatedepot.com/

Additionally, Al Gore and others have claimed the scientific community agrees and the data is undisputed. NOT! 30,000 climatologist sent letters to the White House saying the scientists do not agree, and that by and large, global warming, and cooling, is nothing more than an anomaly created by sun spots. And, according to information on several websites the earth's average temperature has not increased on a decade.

Keep in mind that the planet cannot survive without carbon dioxide. The percentage of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has been relatively stable for millions of years, and science revealed that the highest CO2 level historically was when dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Steve Milloy's book "Green Hell" should be mandatory reading for everyone. I purchased the book at Barnes & Noble, it cost me $28 and I read it cover to cover in just a few days. Since then I have loaned it to a half-dozen friends that sincerely believed global warming was caused by man--they've since changed their minds.

Cheers,

Gary

Does it honestly matter whether it is caused by man or not? Bottom line is, we are the only instrument on the planet that can change its' effects, and whether we or anything else are the cause, is that going to matter when global change affects crops and global political stability?

"A hungry man is an angry man"

If we need to leverage our present for our great grandchildren's futures, will it matter to them when we fail to act that it wasn't actually CAUSED by us..? If we COULD have fixed it but didn't?

BTW, according to this simple Google search, it isn't even POSSIBLE to determine CO2 levels during the dinosaurs age. About 20 million years is our limit, way past the 65 million year departure point of the terrible lizards. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008152242.htm. And, according to this, to quote the article "The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland,"

But I bet that inconvenient fact didn't make it to 'Green Hell'.

Green Hell clearly shows that we, as humans, have little or any impact on the atmospheric CO2 levels, and we DO NOT have the ability to lower these levels--even if all human, carbon emissions immediately ceased. Nothing would change.

Fear mongering by politicians and the scientific community has been a way of life for centuries. How many times has you read this or that would bring the world to an end. Remember Y2K? Remember the asteroid threat? How about the mini Ice Age that took place in an era when we had tons of gas guzzlers on our highways, vehicles that averaged 7 MPG.

In realistic terms, our atmospheric conditions seem to have improved significantly over the past century. This is especially true in the UK, California, and the mid-western U.S., locations where smog (smoke and fog) poisoned the air we breath to the extent where you couldn't see more than a few city blocks. Though most folks are too young to remember, there was a time when thousands of individuals died in London when smog was so dense that it caused suffocation for those who ventured outdoors.

Green Hell is a real eye opener, and as I stated earlier, it should be mandatory reading.

Gotta' go to work,

Cheers,

Gary

Almost forgot. A recent program on the History Channel, How The Earth Was Made, clearly reveals that sea levels during that particular era were not higher, but instead, land levels were lower. The program revealed how those mountain ranges worldwide were created, pushing skyward from the bottom of the sea by shifting of the planet's mantels and volcanic activity.

Cheers,

Gary

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 02-12-2010).]

Gary, stunning !!!...enjoyed your insight and well informed post...top man!

Should have watched that program a little more carefully, Gary... I saw it too. The earth's entire crust doesn't rise and fall, only in certain spots at crustal boundaries. The entire earth does not swell up or contract (which it would need to, to get a global raising of the planet's dry surface).

Once you get a certain point of view, it's all too easy to slot half understood science into your briefcase of 'facts'. The global raising of land levels is absurd. What does the sea rest in? Basins of land. Raise the level of the bottom of the sea (as you swell the entire planet, in your 'theory'), you raise the height of the water also contained. Sorry, but that one floats worse than CO2 being caused by sunspots...

Let's also address those 30,000 scientists. Are numbers your criteria for credibility? So, if 60,000 say we ARE the cause, does that make it a valid statement..? Remember, once upon a time, only ONE scientist believed the world went round the sun...

If your reason for picking one side or another is based on intuitions as spurious as 'the water levels didn't rise, the land fell' I'd take a read of a few books on the other side of the aisle to balance the one you DID

Actually, it was an entire series of programs, and I watched nearly all of them. Yes, there were segments that rose, not the entire Earth's surface. And, I have read books from the opposite side of the isle, some of which were very interesting.

Reading is something I do 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It's a habit I got into when I was an aspiring journalist. When I first decided I wanted to be a writer, Lefty Kreh, an old friend considered to be the best outdoor writer and fly angler on the planet said to me "If you want to be a good writer, you must first be a good reader." He should know. He has published more books than anyone I know of, and at 82 years of age is still working in the field.

As for solar flares, also known as sun spots, causing rises and falls in CO2, I didn't say that either. Solar flares, which I referred to, have been well documented as the primary reason for changes in the planets temperature. Keep in mind that temperature changes on Mars have coincided with temperature changes on Earth--not many CO2 emissions on Mars, at least none that we know of.

This has really strayed well beyond the bounds of OT and I apologize to everyone for my rantings on a subject that has nothing to do with music or arranger keyboards.

Cheers,

Gary

But an interesting hijack, nonetheless...

The thing amongst the evidence for planetary warming that should give us the most concern is the almost 1:1 correlation between CO2 levels, and global temperature, long term. Sunspot activity is cyclical, and if that WERE the primary cause, you would think that that, and NOT the CO2 levels that would show the tracking. But as far back as we can accurately go, it's CO2 that is the bellwether of global temperature.

It's true that most estimates put humans' contribution to total CO2 emissions at about 10% of those that are natural. But if reducing that 10% helps delay or reduce global warming enough to avoid some of the 'trigger' events like global ocean currents' disruption, is it worth it..?

I'm sure you have insurance. Despite your odds of a disaster being WAY under 50%.

Does the planet deserve some 'insurance' too? Not to mention that most of the human sources of CO2 emissions are finite, and useful to our society for FAR more than heating and transportation and electricity generation. Anything that moves the world along to other sources that don't emit and are more sustainable has got to be a good thing, even if it DOESN'T save the planet's ecology.

Petrochemical compounds are at the heart of much of our society, and we simply BURN most of it rather than bite the bullet and find more sustainable ways to get raw power. The faster they run out, the faster the day comes when all the OTHER things that use fossil fuel as raw ingredients (you definitely know how much of the pharmaceutical and health care industries rely on petrochemical derived compounds with few affordable artificial substitutes) become unaffordable.

There's more to some of the things that need to be done than simple 'turn down the thermostat'...