2012 // Current TV

America’s Ignorance!

Do You Know Your America? Do You Know Your Government? Are You One Of The Low... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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3 comments

New Zealand All Blacks v. Argentina Pumas - International Rugby

Gordon_Tunstall_II [removed]
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8 months ago
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David Letterman: "Romney's Yellow!"

Watch Letterman video at this link:... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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1 comment

Vin Weber, Another WIngnut Neocon Romney Adviser Humbugging About New Family Income Data

Good charts! Some LOL.... more

mfb1949
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8 months ago
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Is Romney's Brain About To Blow?

Just read below: Romney talks polls, 'character assassination,'... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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Indian Ocean Earthquakes Triggered Quakes Globally

Giant earthquakes that rocked the Indian Ocean in April had global effects, triggering sizable quakes off the Oregon and Mexican coasts and elsewhere, geologists reported Wednesday.

The undersea quakes on April 11, which measured magnitude 8.6 and 8.2, struck about 300 miles southwest of Indonesia's Aceh province. The larger quake was among the 20 most powerful recorded in the past century, and the pair triggered tsunami warnings around the Indian Ocean. Those were soon canceled when only small waves washed onto coastal beaches. But their effects now appear to have been more far-reaching, an idea once seen as unlikely by geologists.

"The energy from the earthquakes radiated sideways around the planet and likely triggered many more events," says Fred Pollitz of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. He led the analysis in the journal Nature, which looked for links between the quakes April 11 and the jump in quakes of magnitude 5.5 or stronger seen worldwide in the days afterward. The number was five times higher than normal.

The Indonesia quakes were so-called slip-strike quakes in which portions of the Earth's crust slide sideways against each other. The unusual sideways motion of the quakes April 11 prevented them from raising large tsunami waves but appears to have more efficiently sent the "ground waves" they created traveling worldwide. Normally, aftershocks or quakes triggered by large quakes are contained within a relatively local zone.

"Essentially, we're seeing here the entire globe become an aftershock zone of these two earthquakes," says seismologist Aaron Velasco of the University of Texas-El Paso, who was not part of the study. " A decade ago we would have laughed at thinking there was a connection, but we see pretty clear links in this case."

One related quake was the magnitude-7.0 quake that struck in the Gulf of California on April 12. The study says the odds are 1 in 300 of a swarm of quakes like that one happening by chance so soon after the Indian Ocean events. These triggered quakes fell most heavily in regions that seismological measures show were the most stressed by ground waves from the quakes April 11.

Earthquake experts hotly debate a possible link between the magnitude-9.1 Indian Ocean earthquake in 2004 that killed 230,000 people and a large increase in quakes since, says Georgia Tech earthquake expert Zhigang Peng. The triggered events seen from the quakes April 11 don't settle that debate, he says, but the analysis "provides a hope for scientists to search for further evidence, or lack of evidence, to link those great earthquakes."Giant earthquakes that rocked the Indian Ocean in April had global effects, triggering... more

coolplanet
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8 months ago
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17 comments

Scandal At The Library Of Congress 2012 National Book Festival: Books They Would Not Allow You To See!

Mitt Romney's "No Opinion" should be a blockbuster... more

mfb1949
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8 months ago
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Video: What It's Like to be a New York Fashion Week Photographer

"You'd never guess that there is actually well over a hundred photographers... more

meli8
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8 months ago
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Values Voter Summiteer Says Some GOP "Soul-Searching" Needed If Obama Wins

Note to self: Look up "soul" in dictionary... more

mfb1949
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8 months ago
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1 comment

Wait a Minute!!!! Hold the Phone! Just one Cotton Pickin Frickin Minute!!!

GOP Tea Party To Boycott Scott Van Duzer's Restaurant. FOR WHAT? Please... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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Taking A Wild Ride With Jennifer Granholm

Jennifer Granholm electrified the Democratic National Convention crowd Thursday... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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Hey Paul Ryan, Social Darwinism Is Insane and It's Cruel!

Just ask Sister Simone Campbell one of the Nuns On The Bus. This is one fantastic... more

thinkingblue
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8 months ago
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1 comment

Revolution 2012 Thread

We are all screwed unless we rise against the evil-doers of the world. The banks, the... more

youngdebater
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9 months ago
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67 comments

What Is Wrong With This Romney Photo Op?

The teapublicans yell TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK! If only they weren’t so ignorant... more

thinkingblue
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9 months ago
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2 comments

Mitt Romney's Ad Infinitum Right-wing Buffoonery

I am fed up with hearing the Right-wing’s same old redundant BOBBEMYSEH…... more

thinkingblue
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9 months ago
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The Voter ID Law 2012 or Jim Crow Rides Again

The Republican Tea Party has successfully taken this (Jim Crow) law out of mothballs... more

thinkingblue
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9 months ago
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Why The Arctic Sea Ice Death Spiral Matters

In the past week the Arctic sea ice cover reached an all-time low, several weeks before previous records, several weeks before the end of the melting season. The long-term decline of Arctic sea ice has been incredibly fast, and at this point a sudden reversal of events doesn’t seem likely. The question no longer seems to be “will we see an ice-free Arctic?” but “how soon will we see it?”. By running the Arctic Sea Ice blog for the past three years I’ve learned much about the importance of Arctic sea ice. With the help of Kevin McKinney I’ve written the piece below, which is a summary of all the potential consequences of disappearing Arctic sea ice.

Arctic sea ice became a recurrent feature on planet Earth around 47 million years ago. Since the start of the current ice age, about 2.5 million years ago, the Arctic Ocean has been completely covered with sea ice. Only during interglacials, like the one we are in now, does some of the sea ice melt during summer, when the top of the planet is oriented a bit more towards the Sun and receives large amounts of sunlight for several summer months. Even then, when winter starts, the ice-free portion of the Arctic Ocean freezes over again with a new layer of sea ice.

Since the dawn of human civilization, 5000 to 8000 years ago, this annual ebb and flow of melting and freezing Arctic sea ice has been more or less consistent. There were periods when more ice melted during summer, and periods when less melted. However, a radical shift has occurred in recent times. Ever since satellites allowed a detailed view of the Arctic and its ice, a pronounced decrease in summer sea ice cover has been observed (with this year setting a new record low). When the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, it was generally thought that the Arctic could become ice-free somewhere near the end of this century. But changes in the Arctic have progressed at such speed that most experts now think 2030 might see an ice-free Arctic for the first time. Some say it could even happen this decade.

What makes this event significant, is the role Arctic sea ice plays as a reflector of solar energy. Ice is white and therefore reflects a large part of incoming sunlight back out to space. But where there is no ice, dark ocean water absorbs most of the sunlight and thus heats up. The less ice there is, the more the water heats up, melting more ice. This feedback has all kinds of consequences for the Arctic region. Disappearing ice can be good for species such as tiny algae that profit from the warmer waters and extended growing season, but no sea ice could spell catastrophe for larger animals that hunt or give birth to offspring on the ice. Rapidly changing conditions also have repercussions for human populations whose income and culture depend on sea ice. Their communities literally melt and wash away as the sea ice no longer acts as a buffer to weaken wave action.

But what happens in the Arctic, doesn’t stay in the Arctic. The rapid disappearance of sea ice cover can have consequences that are felt all over the Northern Hemisphere, due to the effects it has on atmospheric patterns. As the ice pack becomes smaller ever earlier into the melting season, more and more sunlight gets soaked up by dark ocean waters, effectively warming up the ocean. The heat and moisture that are then released to the atmosphere in fall and winter could be leading to disturbances of the jet stream, the high-altitude wind that separates warm air to its south from cold air to the north. A destabilized jet stream becomes more ‘wavy’, allowing frigid air to plunge farther south, a possible factor in the extreme winters that were experienced all around the Northern Hemisphere in recent years. Another side-effect is that as the jet stream waves become larger, they slow down or even stall at times, leading to a significant increase in so-called blocking events. These cause extreme weather simply because they lead to unusually prolonged conditions of one type or another. The recent prolonged heatwave, drought and wildfires in the USA are one example of what can happen; another is the cool, dull and extremely wet first half of summer 2012 in the UK and other parts of Eurasia.

Much more at linkIn the past week the Arctic sea ice cover reached an all-time low, several weeks... more

coolplanet
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9 months ago
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13 comments

Republican National Convention Organizers Plans For Escape From Storm Include Federally Funded Cruise Ship With "Posh Accommodations"

Indeed. http://mytinyspot.blogspot.com/2012/08/republican-national-convention.html

mfb1949
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9 months ago
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2 comments

Counter Strike GO - Global Offensive Review

This is my review of PlayStation 3's game Counter Strike GO - Global Offensive,... more

StuArt_Gould
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9 months ago
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Concerto Köln Live At The International Chopin Festival 2012 – Past Daily Mid-Week Concert « Past Daily

Some serious Anti-Road Rage tonight.

Gordonskene
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9 months ago
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