Ladywriter

currently 86 feels like 88 humidity 48% I could swim through the air out to the garden. Its frigin hot and humid. One of those don't go out 'till the sun goes down days. Fuck it aint even August. Who else is dieing?

Some residents allowed to return home but blazes continue to rage LOS ANGELES - A day of gains on the California firelines could be giving way to days of trouble.The return of some residents to their homes Monday marked progress against the siege of wildfires, but forecasters warned that weather is turning the advantage back in favor of the flames. "A high pressure system is setting up over the entire West," said Mike Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. "So in addition to the very warm temperatures we're getting, we'll also be getting a little bit of offshore wind over the next couple of days, which keeps the moist marine air from coming inland." The turn toward hot and drier weather comes as three major forest blazes — a blaze above the city of Goleta west of Santa Barbara, another 150 miles to the northwest at Big Sur and a third fire in the southern Sierra Nevada — are all less than half contained. Those fires, considered the most dangerous, were among more than 300 still uncontained from some 1,780 that have scorched more than 960 square miles of California in two weeks. Most were started by lightning strikes, but several are believed to have been human-caused. Some 100 structures statewide have been destroyed. One firefighter died of a heart attack. suckage

article WASHINGTON - There’s a 50-50 chance that the North Pole will be ice-free this summer, which would be a first in recorded history, a leading ice scientist says.The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He’s a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo. The chances for a total meltdown at the pole are higher than ever because the layer of ice coating the sea is thinner than ever, he said. “A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice,” Serreze said. “That’s the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it’s thin.” Record ice melt Preliminary February and March data from a NASA satellite shows that the circle of ice surrounding the North Pole is “considerably thinner” than scientists have seen during the five years the satellite has been taking pictures, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally said Friday. He thinks there is slightly less than a 50-50 chance the North Pole will be ice-free. Last year was a record year for ice melt all over the Arctic and the ice band surrounding the North Pole is even thinner now. There is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole, Serreze said. But there is a cultural and symbolic importance. It’s home to Santa Claus, after all. Last August, the Northwest Passage was open to navigation for the first time in memory. A more conservative ice scientist, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington, put the odds of a North Pole without ice closer to 1 in 4. Even that is far worse than climate models had predicted, which was 1 in 70 sometime in the next decade, she said. But both she and Serreze agree it’s just a matter of time. Warming climate partly to blame “I would guess within the next 10 years it would happen at least once,” Bitz said. Already, figures from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show sea ice in the Arctic as a whole at about the same level now as it was at its low point last year in late June and early July. The explanation is a warming climate and a weather phenomenon, scientists said. For the last couple of decades, there has been a steady melt of Arctic sea ice — which covers only the ocean and which thins during summer and refreezes in winter. In recent years, it has gradually become thinner because more of it has been melting as the Earth’s temperature rises. Then, this past winter, there was a natural weather shift called the Arctic Oscillation, sort of a cold weather cousin to El Nino. That oscillation caused a change in winds and ocean that accelerated a normal flushing of sea ice in the Arctic. That pushed the older thicker sea ice that had been over the North Pole south toward Greenland and eventually out of the Arctic, Serreze said. That left just a thin one-year layer of ice that previously covered part of Siberia.

Project could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes. Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air. EnviroMission Ltd. A Solar Tower prototype operated from 1982 to 1989 in Manzanares, Spain. Demonstrated more than 20 years ago, the basic design calls for solar collectors to warm the air near Earth's surface and then channel it up the tall central tower. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity from the updraft. "It's a combination chimney, windmill, greenhouse," said Kim Forté of EnviroMission Limited in South Melbourne, Australia. EnviroMission has designed a kilometer-high solar tower (0.62 miles) and is now looking at possible sites in the southwestern United States. Solar-stack The solar tower is an updated version of a solar chimney — a centuries-old technique for providing ventilation to a home by creating a natural updraft from sun-heated air. The physics is also similar to the atmospheric vortex engine, where a man-made tornado funnels warm air up into the sky. Even though this vortex could extend higher than a solid structure, only the solar tower has been demonstrated to work, Forté said. In 1982, a small prototype was installed in Manzanares, Spain. Its tower was 195-meters-tall and was surrounded by a transparent canopy that covered an area of about 244 meters in diameter. As it was primarily a test facility, the maximum power output was only 50 kilowatts. Inexpensive materials were purposefully used to minimize costs, but eventually a storm blew the tower over in 1989. In comparison, EnviroMission’s design calls for a concrete tower that should last 50 years, Forté told LiveScience. Up, up in the sky The company's plan is not only to build stronger, but also taller. This allows for a greater temperature difference between the ground and the top of the tower, and this difference makes for more powerful suction up the chimney structure. The optimum configuration is an 800- to 1,000-meter tower (twice the height of the Empire State Building) surrounded by a greenhouse canopy 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) in radius on the ground. "It is a sizeable footprint [on the land], but with the rising cost of carbon fuels, it's becoming more commercial," Forté said. On a sunny day, the air at the top of the tower would be 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), whereas the air in the greenhouse could reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius). As this hot air escapes up the tower at 34 mph (15 meters per second), it spins 32 turbines that generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity. Even with all this power, the solar tower is less than one tenth as efficient as solar cells in converting the sun's energy into electricity. The advantage for a solar tower is that its materials are much less expensive. A 200-megawatt solar tower would cost upwards of a billion dollars to build. According to a 2005 industry report, this would imply about 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is roughly a third of the cost of electricity from current solar cells. However, a solar tower must be fairly big to be effective. EnviroMission has recently developed a slightly smaller design that has a maximum output of 50 megawatts that may be appropriate in some markets. Lacking sufficient financial support in Australia, the company is now in negotiations with SolarMission Technology Inc., which owns the license to the technology in the United States. Waiting on a deal, EnviroMission is evaluating the weather patterns at four U.S. sites. Although the solar tower has less output at night, Forté said that it does supply a more constant supply of power during the day than simple wind turbines. And compared to traditional technologies — such as coal, natural gas and nuclear — the solar tower is certain to have "fuel" in the future. "We do know the sun will rise and set every day," Forté said.

Agency cites uncertain jurisdiction after 2006 Supreme Court ruling WASHINGTON - The Bush administration didn't pursue hundreds of potential water pollution cases after a 2006 Supreme Court decision that restricted the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate seasonal streams and wetlands.From July 2006 through December 2007 there were 304 instances where the EPA found what would have been violations of the Clean Water Act before the court's ruling, according to a memo by the agency's enforcement chief. Officials "chose not to pursue formal enforcement based on the uncertainty about EPA's jurisdiction," according to the memo, which was released Monday by two Democratic House committee chairmen. The EPA also chose to "lower the priority" of 147 other cases because it was unclear whether the intermittent streams, swamps and marshes flowed into navigable waterways. Chief Justice John Roberts predicted the court's decision would be confusing, saying "regulated entities will now have to feel their way on a case-by-case basis." The confusion primarily surrounds temporary streams and wetlands not large enough to be navigable, but which are among the most prevalent types of waters across the country. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers issued a guidance document in July 2007 that said officials must first analyze whether an ephemeral stream or seasonal wetland leads to federal waters before federal water pollution laws can be enforced. "These intermittent and ephemeral waters are vital to the protection of our nation's streams and rivers," wrote Assistant Administrator Granta Nakayama in the March 2008 memo commenting on the agency's guidance, which he said "impeded our efforts to pursue enforcement." Nakayama, in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, said the agency was simply responding to a "changed legal landscape." "We need to ensure that the case, the facts of the case, establish federal jurisdiction," he said *sigh*

Some fish 'largely depleted' as result, government task force reports FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - U.S. coral reef ecosystems have declined in recent years and about half are considered to be in "poor" or "fair" condition due to threats ranging from global warming to overfishing, the federal government said in a new report Monday."While the report indicates reefs in general are healthier in the Pacific than the Atlantic, even remote reefs are subject to threats stemming from climate change, as well as illegal fishing and marine debris," Tim Keeney, co-chair of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, said in a statement issued with the report. In the Caribbean, the report stated, "overall trends indicate that resource condition is declining and threats are increasing." A quarter of all marine species need coral reefs to live and grow, while 40 percent of the fish caught commercially use reefs to breed, Keeney said in raising a call to action. "If we lose the reefs, you lose a very significant and important habitat." Keeney noted that since the previous federal reef report in 2005, the Caribbean has lost at least 50 percent of its corals. The report found that coral bleaching caused largely by rising sea temperatures is a major factor. Carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels is absorbed by the oceans, making the waters more acidic and corrosive on corals. Land-based pollution, such as sewage, beach erosion, coastal development and overfishing also are to blame. “There’s no question that ... man-made actions are the major cause for these losses and stresses on the reefs,” Keeney said. Fewer fish in the sea The deterioration is impacting reef fish as well as the coral themselves. "Populations of harvested reef fishes in Florida and the U.S. Caribbean are largely depleted," the report stated, noting that only three percent of snappers and groupers observed between 2001 and 2007 were large enough to fish. In Florida's Broward County, only 2 of the 242 groupers seen during four years of surveys were larger than the minimum legal size. In the Florida Keys, 25 species of snapper and grouper were considered "overfished," the report noted. At the same time, the number of recreational fishing vessels grew by 41,000 and 25 percent more saltwater fishing licenses were issued. Dave Allison, a senior campaign director for the advocacy group Oceana, said the entire world’s coral reefs “border on disaster.” “All the world’s coral reefs are being stressed by both short-term and long-term human impacts,” Allison said. “We’ve known about the human impact on corals for decades. It’s just that the combination of problems confronting the corals have never come together in such a perfect storm.” 10 threats cited Released at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the report cited 10 main threats to U.S. reef systems: climate change and coral bleaching; coral disease; tropical storms; coastal development; tourism and recreation; commercial fishing; subsistence and recreational fishing; vessel damage; marine debris; and nonnative species. Most of the areas surveyed saw at least nine of those threats worsen in recent years, the report stated. The report's authors noted that since the last status report, two coral species — Elkhorn and Staghorn corals — had become the first corals ever listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Keeney called coral “a sentinel species of the planet and "a major indicator of something that could go wrong with the environment." Beyond their importance as breeding grounds for fish, reefs could also hold cures for diseases, he said. The full report is online at ccma.nos.noaa.gov/stateofthereefs.

World's leading industrialized countries stop short of nearer-term gains RUSUTSU, Japan - The Group of Eight leading industrial nations on Tuesday endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, edging forward in the battle against global warming but stopping short of tough, nearer-term targets.The G-8 countries — the United States, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy — also called on all major economies to join in the effort to stem the potentially dangerous rise in world temperatures. “The G-8 nations came to a mutual recognition that this target — cutting global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 — should be a global target,” said Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who announced the endorsement. I'm also inclined to believe 50% by 2050 is not good enough. The time table is way too long. Study: U.S. worst of G8 in addressing warming

Former EPA adviser says VP's office was wary of linking climate, health Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science. But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney’s office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC’s original draft testimony removed. “The Council on Environmental Quality and the office of the vice president were seeking deletions to the CDC testimony (concerning) ... any discussions of the human health consequences of climate change,” Burnett has told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The three-page letter, a response to an inquiry by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the panel’s chairwoman, was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. Boxer planned a news conference later in the day. ... Cheney’s office also objected last January over congressional testimony by Administrator Johnson that “greenhouse gas emissions harm the environment.”An official in Cheney’s office “called to tell me that his office wanted the language changed” with references to climate change harming the environment deleted, Burnett said. Nevertheless, the phrase was left in Johnson’s testimony. Cheney’s office and the White House Council on Environmental Quality worried that if key health officials provided detailed testimony about global warming’s consequences on public health or the environment, it could make it more difficult to avoid regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Burnett believes. ... Nowhere were these White House concerns more apparent than when CDC Director Julie Gerberding, the head of the government’s premier public health watchdog, testified about climate change and public health before Boxer’s committee last October. The White House deleted six of the original 14 pages of Gerberding’s testimony, including a list of likely public health impacts of global warming. Way to go Dick. You're caught now you son of a bitch.

article National security adviser says any security deal must contain timetable BAGHDAD - Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government's national security adviser said on Tuesday. The comments by Mowaffaq al-Rubaie underscore the U.S.-backed government's hardening stance toward a deal with Washington that will provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to operate when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. On Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared to catch Washington off-guard by suggesting for the first time that a timetable be set for the departure of U.S. forces under the deal being negotiated, which he called a memorandum of understanding. Rubaie said Iraq was waiting "impatiently for the day when the last foreign soldier leaves Iraq." ... Iraq's government has felt increasingly confident in recent weeks about its authority and the country's improved stability, and Iraqi officials have sharpened their public stance in the negotiations considerably in just the last few days. Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level in four years. The change has been driven by the 2007 buildup of American forces, the Sunni tribal revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and crackdowns against Shiite militias and Sunni extremists. Finally

I was considering that actually....

It aint exceptable to me I was 21 my first kid and that was too young. I wish I waited until I was like 30

such a Zoro fan

just imagine peoples faces when they saw it

Its all the 'I'm a teen mom pity me' shit I can't stomach.

ooh thanks for the heads up on that one

I'll see it but wait for the dvd release. I havent been into Keanu since Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey X'D

buncha drama and bullshit mostly X'D

sorry daddies but I can't include you guys... Anyone ever go to/browse or join cafe mom?

c sections are thousands of years old When medically necessary go for it. I think doc's perform them too often and unnecessarily. I'm a firm believer that having a baby should be labor, it should hurt like a mutherfucker. Pain is a fantastic motivator and after one birth experience most intelligent women think long and hard before becoming a baby pez dispenser

When in doubt wait for the dvd

Different strokes for different folks. People express their patriotism differently. Some people wave a flag, some people constantly bitch at their elected officials about the state of the union. Some people even took the time to watch the videos and read what other Americans posted in this thread. Everybody here loves America.