Showing posts with label the end times will soon be here (wait they are here). Show all posts
Showing posts with label the end times will soon be here (wait they are here). Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Turns out the End Times SUCK more than we might have imagined
[S]omething was very, very different in the fourth quarter of 2008. Sales of alcohol for off-premises consumption were down by 9.3 percent from the previous quarter, according to the Commerce Department. This is absolutely unprecedented: the largest previous drop had been just 3.7 percent, between the third and fourth quarters of 1991.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
the End Times harbingers continue to roll in (cont'd)
Goose Island on Clybourn will serve "Huskie Ale" during Saturday's NIU-Tennessee game.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
News item: world ends tomorrow
The End of the World
Some scientists, on the other hand, went to the European Court for Human Rights to try to stop the collider being turned on. They fear it may create a black hole – which would certainly violate our rights by sucking the planet into... well we don't really know. Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern says: "The chance we produce a black hole is minuscule." Which is not all that reassuring. But he adds: "Even if we do, it can't swallow up the Earth." It would be too small, and disappear in moments. In any case, they will only send the hadrons in one direction this week. The collisions start in October. Until then, at least, we're not all doomed.
Some scientists, on the other hand, went to the European Court for Human Rights to try to stop the collider being turned on. They fear it may create a black hole – which would certainly violate our rights by sucking the planet into... well we don't really know. Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern says: "The chance we produce a black hole is minuscule." Which is not all that reassuring. But he adds: "Even if we do, it can't swallow up the Earth." It would be too small, and disappear in moments. In any case, they will only send the hadrons in one direction this week. The collisions start in October. Until then, at least, we're not all doomed.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
imperviousness to irony (cont'd)
Exclusive: Scientists warn that there may be no ice at North Pole this summer
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
. . .
If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above. (YAY! Ed.)
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
. . .
If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above. (YAY! Ed.)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The End Times are so much closer now
"Smiff added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Smiff in order for you to be friends on Facebook."
Monday, July 14, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Whitey's turn to shine
Sour Grape News: Goosen says Tiger was Faking it.
Breaking News: Tiger to miss the rest of the season.
Breaking News: Tiger to miss the rest of the season.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Someone better alert the authorities!
Tiger is down by a shot with three holes to go...to someone named Rocco!
There could be city-wide hysteria, people fainting, dogs and cats living together...
There could be city-wide hysteria, people fainting, dogs and cats living together...
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
It's a Brave New World
A text message has been sent to Smiff scion of the 21st century. And he's responded.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
the tairrists are winning
Americans Driving At Historic Lows
Eleven Billion Fewer Vehicle Miles Traveled in March 2008 Over Previous March
WASHINGTON - Americans drove less in March 2008, continuing a trend that began last November, according to estimates released today from the Federal Highway Administration.
"That Americans are driving less underscores the challenges facing the Highway Trust Fund and its reliance on the federal gasoline excise tax," said Acting Federal Highway Administrator Jim Ray.
The FHWA's "Traffic Volume Trends" report, produced monthly since 1942, shows that estimated vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on all U.S. public roads for March 2008 fell 4.3 percent as compared with March 2007 travel. This is the first time estimated March travel on public roads fell since 1979. At 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March, this is the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.
Eleven Billion Fewer Vehicle Miles Traveled in March 2008 Over Previous March
WASHINGTON - Americans drove less in March 2008, continuing a trend that began last November, according to estimates released today from the Federal Highway Administration.
"That Americans are driving less underscores the challenges facing the Highway Trust Fund and its reliance on the federal gasoline excise tax," said Acting Federal Highway Administrator Jim Ray.
The FHWA's "Traffic Volume Trends" report, produced monthly since 1942, shows that estimated vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on all U.S. public roads for March 2008 fell 4.3 percent as compared with March 2007 travel. This is the first time estimated March travel on public roads fell since 1979. At 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March, this is the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
next thing you know, we'll all be smothering our hot dogs in ketchup
News item: All Blackhawks games to be on TV next season
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
This is probably nothing to worry about (cont'd)
Western Antarctic ice chunk collapses
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.
Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years.
This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.
Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.
"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."
While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.
The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.
Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now. The part that recently gave way makes up about 4 percent of the overall shelf, but it's an important part that can trigger further collapse.
There's still a chance the rest of the ice shelf will survive until next year because this is the end of the Antarctic summer and colder weather is setting in, Vaughan said.
Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.
Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
"These are things that are not re-forming," Das said. "So once they're gone, they're gone."
Climate in Antarctica is complicated and more isolated from the rest of the world.
Much of the continent is not warming and some parts are even cooling, Vaughan said. However, the western peninsula, which includes the Wilkins ice shelf, juts out into the ocean and is warming. This is the part of the continent where scientists are most concern about ice-melt triggering sea level rise.
___
On the Net:
The National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org
The British Antarctic Survey: http://www.bas.ac.uk/
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk, scientists said Tuesday.
Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, which started Feb. 28. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years.
This is the result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.
Because scientists noticed satellite images within hours, they diverted satellite cameras and even flew an airplane over the ongoing collapse for rare pictures and video.
"It's an event we don't get to see very often," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. "The cracks fill with water and slice off and topple... That gets to be a runaway situation."
While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades, Vaughan said. The collapse is similar to what happens to hardened glass when it is smashed with a hammer, he said.
The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995.
Vaughan had predicted the Wilkins shelf would collapse about 15 years from now. The part that recently gave way makes up about 4 percent of the overall shelf, but it's an important part that can trigger further collapse.
There's still a chance the rest of the ice shelf will survive until next year because this is the end of the Antarctic summer and colder weather is setting in, Vaughan said.
Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming.
Such occurrences are "more indicative of a tipping point or trigger in the climate system," said Sarah Das, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
"These are things that are not re-forming," Das said. "So once they're gone, they're gone."
Climate in Antarctica is complicated and more isolated from the rest of the world.
Much of the continent is not warming and some parts are even cooling, Vaughan said. However, the western peninsula, which includes the Wilkins ice shelf, juts out into the ocean and is warming. This is the part of the continent where scientists are most concern about ice-melt triggering sea level rise.
___
On the Net:
The National Snow and Ice Data Center: http://nsidc.org
The British Antarctic Survey: http://www.bas.ac.uk/
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Grand Scientific Host (cont'd)
Thickest, oldest Arctic ice is melting: NASA data
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting, a bad sign for the future of the Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite data showed on Tuesday.
"Thickness is an indicator of long-term health of sea ice, and that's not looking good at the moment," Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center told reporters in a telephone briefing.
This adds to the litany of disturbing news about Arctic sea ice, which has been retreating over the last three decades, especially last year, when it ebbed to its lowest level.
Scientists have said the trend is spurred by human-generated climate change.
Melting Arctic ice does not raise sea levels as the melting of glaciers on Greenland or Antarctica could, but it does contribute to global warming when reflective white ice is replaced by dark water that absorbs the sun's heat.
Using satellites that measure how much ice covers water in the Arctic and Antarctic, Meier and other climate scientists found a steep drop in the amount of perennial ice -- the hardy, thick ice that is over a year old -- in the north.
The oldest Arctic ice that has survived six years or more is the toughest, and even that shrank dramatically, Meier and the other scientists said.
OLD ICE "TOUGH AS NAILS"
Some 965,300 square miles of perennial ice have been lost -- about one and a half times the area of Alaska -- a 50 percent decrease between February 2007 and February 2008, Meier said.
The oldest "tough as nails" perennial ice has decreased by about 75 percent this year, losing 579,200 square miles (1.5 million sq kms, or about twice the area of Texas, he said.
This doesn't mean the Arctic is open water during the winter, but it does mean that in many areas, the stronger perennial ice is being replaced by younger, frailer new ice that is more easily disturbed by wind and warm sea temperatures.
"It's like looking at a Hollywood set," Meier said of an Arctic largely covered with younger ice. "It may look OK but if you could see behind you'd see ... it's just empty. And what we're seeing with the ice cover is it's becoming more and more empty underneath the ice cover."
Perennial ice is also vulnerable to a recurring pattern of swirling winds and currents known as the Arctic oscillation, which ejects the old ice out of the zone around the pole and aims it south where warmer waters will melt it.
The scientists also analyzed satellite data for Antarctica but found less dramatic change there.
This was attributed to the difference in the two polar regions. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land while the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean.
However, the scientists noted sharp warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches northward from the southern continent toward South America.
By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The thickest, oldest and toughest sea ice around the North Pole is melting, a bad sign for the future of the Arctic ice cap, NASA satellite data showed on Tuesday.
"Thickness is an indicator of long-term health of sea ice, and that's not looking good at the moment," Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center told reporters in a telephone briefing.
This adds to the litany of disturbing news about Arctic sea ice, which has been retreating over the last three decades, especially last year, when it ebbed to its lowest level.
Scientists have said the trend is spurred by human-generated climate change.
Melting Arctic ice does not raise sea levels as the melting of glaciers on Greenland or Antarctica could, but it does contribute to global warming when reflective white ice is replaced by dark water that absorbs the sun's heat.
Using satellites that measure how much ice covers water in the Arctic and Antarctic, Meier and other climate scientists found a steep drop in the amount of perennial ice -- the hardy, thick ice that is over a year old -- in the north.
The oldest Arctic ice that has survived six years or more is the toughest, and even that shrank dramatically, Meier and the other scientists said.
OLD ICE "TOUGH AS NAILS"
Some 965,300 square miles of perennial ice have been lost -- about one and a half times the area of Alaska -- a 50 percent decrease between February 2007 and February 2008, Meier said.
The oldest "tough as nails" perennial ice has decreased by about 75 percent this year, losing 579,200 square miles (1.5 million sq kms, or about twice the area of Texas, he said.
This doesn't mean the Arctic is open water during the winter, but it does mean that in many areas, the stronger perennial ice is being replaced by younger, frailer new ice that is more easily disturbed by wind and warm sea temperatures.
"It's like looking at a Hollywood set," Meier said of an Arctic largely covered with younger ice. "It may look OK but if you could see behind you'd see ... it's just empty. And what we're seeing with the ice cover is it's becoming more and more empty underneath the ice cover."
Perennial ice is also vulnerable to a recurring pattern of swirling winds and currents known as the Arctic oscillation, which ejects the old ice out of the zone around the pole and aims it south where warmer waters will melt it.
The scientists also analyzed satellite data for Antarctica but found less dramatic change there.
This was attributed to the difference in the two polar regions. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land while the Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean.
However, the scientists noted sharp warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches northward from the southern continent toward South America.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Going for da record
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate soared to 66,212.3% in December, according to official figures.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
what the End Times will look like: a preview
Godspeed, Smiffy
"A few small mud flows and some falling rocks have been reported on backcountry roads, including state routes 79, 76 and Lake Wohlford Road," according to a survivor.
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