Global warming could bring sharks to Antarctica

The other day in a post announcing two new species of shark discovered in Western Australia, there were some questions as to whether this might be because of “Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming” or in spite of it.

Well I still haven’t worked that one out yet, but evidently Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming means that the next JAWS sequel could be filmed just a little ways South of here. Okay, a fair ways South. Like, Antarctica.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or, not. Personally, I’m more looking forward to saltwater crocs invading Bondi.

. . .

GLOBAL warming could bring ferocious sharks to Antarctic waters, threatening a unique marine life shielded from predators by frigid conditions for millions of years, biologists warn.

Biologists gathered in Boston for the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science warned that the return of predators to Antarctica could prove devastating to its underwater ecosystem.

Antarctica’s surrounding waters remain too cold for sharks and other fish capable of crushing shellfish similar to the mollusks living in the vast continent’s seas, said University of Rhode Island biology professor Cheryl Wilga.

“As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators,” she told a news conference yesterday on the sidelines of the conference.

But global warming has already pushed temperatures up by one to two degrees in the past 50 years, and the waters could become hospitable to sharks within the next 100 years, she said.

“The water only needs to remain above freezing year round for it to become habitable to some sharks, and at the rate we’re going, that could happen this century,” Ms Wilga said.

“Once they get there, it will completely change the ecology of the Antarctic benthic community,” she said.

–via news.com.au

 

UPDATE: Elmer and Daryl of Minnesota are still quite looking forward to Global Warming. As are their Flamingos.

UPDATE #2:  Repeat after Dminor.   We’re all gonna die! Repeat it after me, children: We’re. All. Going. To. Die. Class dismissed.

.

 

Did Someone Say ‘Insane’?

Just a couple more examples of the exponential lunacy generated by climate change hysteria.

First up, we have the cold=warming mantra, as Hong Kong suffers its coldest spell since 1885. Of course, we never hear of climate change being blamed for mild winters, do we? Arrgh.

 Second,  spare a thought for the residents of New York city, who must be putting up with even more farcial doomsaying than what filters through the international media. Or rather, don’t spare. They voted for the fool.

 We’re all gonna die! Repeat it after me, children: We’re. All. Going. To. Die. Class dismissed.

From the fingertips of Melanie Phillips….’We Are At War’

Snippet:

And at the very core of all of this lies the deepest problem of all – the fact that in Britain we no longer know what we are. With confidence in our cultural identity all but destroyed, we cannot defend that identity any more. That’s what has to be addressed. That’s why multiculturalism is so lethal for us. That’s why the Archbishop’s comments were a declaration of national suicide. The report suggests ways of addressing these core issues by taking security out of the arena of party politics. Can this be done? Is there the political will to do it? Or are we trapped in a vicious circle as a result of the very collapse of national self-confidence that the report identifies?

Spectator UK/Melanie Phillips

missredi takes a trip

i haven’t posted anything here for a while.  i make an occasional comment.  i have been extremely busy at work.. working weekends and stupid hours.  now i am getting ready for my annual trip to God’s country and if i can remember my password i may be able to make a comment or even post something relevant to the world.  i fly out on sunday and am looking forward to not have to listen to an alarm clock for 3 and a half weeks.  take care you lot.  keep up the good fight.  and know i love you

Andrew Bolt’s Editor gets fan mail from a Compassionate Lefty

Andrew Bolt’s Editor-in-Chief receives a message of reconciliation from one of those compassionate, caring sharing “Sorry” head-tilters.

Hi, I would just to say that after today’s National Day of Reconciliation. If your newspapers chooses to print one more article by Andrew denying the reality of the stolen generation. Im going to walk into the editor’s office and slap his f—ing face. My name is … I’m really sick of your newspapers racism shit. I am really serious, if you keep printing that racist shit, I am going to take you to court for racism.

It might be time to go commercial with these t-shirts.

Huge Blast Rocks Mexico City

We’ll see how it turns out, but it may have been an explosive device

Via Drudge.

A modest proposal for curing a whiny nation..Courtesy our shy Editor, J.M. Heinrichs

Snippets…

Today, Canadians don’t lose children in disease epidemics, but it hasn’t prevented some from trying. Vaccination programs that allowed the parents of their parents to survive infancy, which transformed the scars of smallpox and the paralysis of polio into artifacts of medical history, are now condemned by the children of their children, who form cleverly acronymed organizations to convince the public that vaccinations are killing them.

Traits essential to the building of nations and preservation of democracies — reason, resolve, creativity, self-reliance, common sense — are no longer holding their own against the tide of the emotive, reactionary, self-obsessed and risk averse. The foundations built by those pioneering forefathers, upon which our unparalleled wealth and security were built, are cracking under the weight of regulation, litigation and personal entitlement. The nannies are staging a coup. They’ve moved out of the nursery to seize control of the family business.

National Post

Canada Has Many Assets….To Many to List…The few I do list, are Outstanding.

                                             Wonder Woman        

(Sorry Ezra…When you look like this, I’ll post YOUR picture. BUT HEY! I do have your link)

Ezra Levant

AND…A fellow who is a bit camera shy, his name IS:

J.M. Heinrichs…..A retired, with meritorious service, Canadian Military Officer. J.M. can be found HERE, (Tizona) as an Editor AND HERE, as a Contributor

Son of a… what do you think THIS means?

Read the whole thing and speak your mind:

What in the world are advisers to both Senators Obama and Clinton doing in Syria in the middle of a presidential campaign — and why are the two campaigns so unforthcoming about the details of the visits?

Is there life elsewhere in the universe?

Thanks to Instapundit for starting me on this particular speculation:

Astronomers say they have found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner ones.

The discovery, they said, means that our solar system might be more typical of planetary systems across the universe than had been thought.

Alan Boss, a theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washinton, said: “The fact that these are hard to detect by microlensing means there must be a good number of them — solar system analogues are not rare.”

Now, I happen to believe that life in the universe is probably pretty common. I don’t say they’ve come here in UFOs, or any such thing (because, well, there’s nothing to prove that life elsewhere is intelligent, or if it is, that they can travel vast distances any better than we can), but the fact is, there are more stars (with accompanying planetary systems) than we even have numbers for. A gazillion trillion bazillion wouldn’t count but a fraction of what’s out there. And as scientists know:

“It is well established and becoming more and more clear that the basic organic molecules which seem to have led to the origin of life on Earth — as best we can reconstruct it — do seem to be widely distributed in the galaxy,” David Grinspoon, principal scientist in the department of space studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., told UPI.

“Carbon behaves as if it wants to get together to form complex molecules,” said Grinspoon, author of “Lonely Planets,” about the possibilities for life elsewhere. “There’s no question that this stuff is widely available in our galaxy and presumably in the rest of the universe. If all life needs to get going is these starting materials and a watery place, it’s probably common.”

To be fair, this particular newest discovery may not be a hospitable place for life as we know it. But life takes all kinds of forms (we know that from the weird stuff they find in the bottom of our own oceans around volcanic vents). Who’s to say where or what life would form in an environment even more alien, and yet chock full of the stuff that creates life?

This is a significant finding for astrobiologists attempting to estimate the number of habitable environments in the Universe. If multi-planet systems similar to our own Solar System are not rare, the chances of finding a habitable, Earth-like planet could be greater than previously expected.

The newly-discovered planets appear to be gaseous planets like Jupiter and Saturn — only about 80 percent as big — and they orbit a star about half the size of the sun. The star is dim and cold compared to ours, issuing only five percent as much light. Still, the new solar system appears to be a smaller analog of our own. The larger planet is about as massive compared to its star as Jupiter is to ours. The smaller planet shares a similar mass ratio with Saturn.

Also, the smaller planet is roughly twice as far from its star as the larger one, just as Saturn is roughly twice as far away from the sun as Jupiter. Although the star is much dimmer than our sun, temperatures at both planets are likely to be similar to that of Jupiter and Saturn, because they are closer to their star.

“The temperatures are important because these dictate the amount of material that is available for planet formation,” Gaudi said. “Most theorists think that the biggest planet in our solar system formed at Jupiter’s location because that is the closest to the sun that ice can form. Saturn is the next biggest because it is in the next location further away, where there is less primordial material available to form planets.”

“Theorists have wondered whether gas giants in other solar systems would form in the same way as ours did. This system seems to answer in the affirmative.”

The fact that astronomers found the planets during the first event that allowed such a detection suggests that these scaled-down versions of our solar system are very common, he added.

What do you think? Think we’re alone in the universe?

Rioting in Denmark – guess who?

Yesterday, newspapers in Denmark reprinted the “Motoons” that started all that ugly business last year, in solidarity with the cartoonist who was the target of a recent plot on his life by three Muslims (a Danish citizen, and two Tunisian immigrants). Now, news has come out that there is rioting in Denmark yet again.

But hold on. There’s something interesting:

“We don’t know why they’re rioting. I think it’s because they’re bored. Some people say it’s because of the cartoons but that’s not my opinion,” Olesen said.

He was referring to the reprinting of a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in 17 Danish newspapers on Wednesday.

As proof of that, take a look at the timeline of the rioting. That’s right. It started five daysbefore the republishing of the cartoons.

Astute Blogger has this to say:

Contrary to the skeptics who do not believe anything unless the BBC or CNN reports it, I assure you skirmishes continue across Denmark as episodes of street violence and arson are reported in Copenhagen and and its suburbs – notably Kokkedal and and a torched school in Bagsværd.

Gee, it’s almost as if they don’t need a reason.

The Famous Charlie Mason

 Charlie Mason, Spot_the_dog‘s running companion, has made an appearance at Andrew Bolt’s.

Tres cool!

The Cure for the Disease of Islamic Misogyny: Wonder Woman

Fucking-A.

I don’t know who the artist is, but this is brilliant.

I Call Bullshit!

NEARLY half of British men surveyed would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV, according to a survey.

Remember People…

…Lotto wins may not always end how you intend them to.

Way To Go Kev!

That’s right Kev, I fully support your need to go to East Timor.

The East Timorese don’t have anything more important to do than protect you following an assassination attempt on their leader.

You again show your illuminating brilliance.

Some Stories Are So Sad

Just like this one.

I wish there were more support systems available.

First The Che Flag, Now Danny O. How Soon will we hear from Hugho, Fidelito and Evo

Nicaraguan leader calls Obama’s campaign ‘revolutionary’

MANAGUA, Nicaragua: President Daniel Ortega, who led the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, says Barack Obama’s presidential bid is a “revolutionary” phenomenon in the United States.

“It’s not to say that there is already a revolution under way in the U.S. … but yes, they are laying the foundations for a revolutionary change,” the Sandinista leader said Wednesday night as he accepted an honorary doctorate from an engineering university.

Ortega led a Soviet-backed government that battled U.S.-supported Contra rebels before he lost power in a 1990 election. He returned to office last year via the ballot box.

In statements broadcast on Sandinista Radio La Primerisima, Ortega said he has “faith in God and in the North American people, and above all in the youth, that the moment of great change in the U.S. will come and it will act differently, with justice and equality toward all nations.”

International Herald Tribune