Trolls, Jeb Bush and explosive volcanoes

Call it violent misogyny rather than trolling.

More about Jeb Bush and his preaching to a rather unimpressed evangelical crowd.  And his support of White Supremacy.  And his lack of regret for getting involved with the Terri Schiavo case. And his declaration that he too would have invaded Iraq.  Student tells Jeb that his brother created ISIS.   If you want a repeat of the wonderful years of Georgie Bush but this time with Iran.... vote for Jeb.

Oatmeal has suggestions on what we should have been taught in senior year of high school.

Bees are still in trouble:
U.S. Honeybee Population Plummets by More Than 40%, USDA Finds

Something called volcano monitoring.

Cats and Crumbs.

Caturday and more.

Will the trolls win the internets?

A scientist fights back.

Police steal from innocent people.

Whatever Iceland is doing right now.

How to vote in November.

Iceland could really mess things up...

Because of Bárðarbunga.  Daily Kos's Rei tells the story:

The winter of 1783-1784. The Revolutionary War had just ended, and Benjamin Franklin was puzzling over the nation's bizarre weather. Congress had been delayed getting to Annapolis to vote for the Treaty of Paris because the Chesapeake Bay just wouldn't melt. The Mississippi River froze down to New Orleans, and ice was reported floating in the Gulf of Mexico. Reports from Europe were of a bizarrely hot summer with thick fog that was choking people to death in Scotland, massive hailstones, lightning, and crop failures. The sun was blood-red at noon. Mass starvation that would ultimately kill 1/6ths of Egypt's population took hold due to a historic drought of the Nile. As many as six million people would die from the bizarre weather.

Franklin was one of the few scientists of the era to (almost) correctly speculate as to its cause:

"The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained [...] or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing, to issue during the summer from Hekla in Iceland, and that other volcano which arose out of the sea near that island, which smoke might be spread by various winds, over the northern part of the world, is yet uncertain."

He, however, had mixed up his Icelandic volcanoes, for it was not Hekla that erupted that year, causing the planet-altering weather, but Laki (Eldgjá). A rift 23 kilometers long opened up in places up to 100 meters wide with lava fountains at times reaching over a kilometers into the air - and it continued erupting for 8 months.

The total quantity of lava erupted - 14 cubic kilometers - was not that much more than Mount Pinatubo (largest eruption of the 20th century)'s 10 cubic kilometers. But the eruption kicked out a staggering 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide, compared to Pinatubo's 17 million - nearly supervolcano levels. Also unusually, Laki emitted 8 million tons of hydrogen fluoride - normally a trace volcanic gas. These gasses created the "Laki Haze" across Europe. In Iceland, the consequences were most severe - a quarter of the population starved or died of fluoride poisoning, and most of the livestock died. Denmark considered evacuating the entire island.

Is Laki threatening to go off? No. Then why do I mention him?

Because his big sister IS threatening to go off.

Bárðarbunga (BOWR-thar-Boon-kah, "Bárður's Bulge") is part of the same volcanic system, but is much larger than Laki. Barðárbunga stretches out over 200 kilometers long. It has a large eruption every 250-600 years. One of its eruptions before settlers arrived was 21-30 cubic kilometers of lava. Like her little brother Laki, she's associated with massive amounts of toxic gas release.

Update:
Rei's update.

Suddenly Sunday...

Finding cave paintings in Mexico

About the earthquake swarm near the Lassen Volcanic Center.... nothing to do with volcanoes.  (Rats.)

What the soldiers in the Vietnam War really thought.

Colony Collapse Disorder.

Marching against Monsanto.  Because of things like this.  And who actually owns organic products.

And because I haven't posted for a while... kittens and cats

US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits, spyware, ransomware and trojans to attack pirates!

Unexpected Health Insurance Rate Shock-California Obamacare Insurance Exchange Announces Premium Rates

Weird, wise and wonderful... and simply stupid

21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity

Dog

The dangers of privatizing things that governments do.

Solar cell breakthrough taps previously unused energy source

11 Bizarrely Wrong Beliefs Americans Have About Themselves

Throwing trash into a volcano as an experiment. I'd be freaked out.





11 facts about the Affordable Care Act

Krugman:

None of this should be happening. As in 1931, Western nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to restore prosperity — and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than our great-grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them. But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use them. And that’s what seems to be happening. The fundamentals of the world economy aren’t, in themselves, all that scary; it’s the almost universal abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a growing sense of dread.

The Big Bang?

Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland's largest glaciers there are signs of a looming volcanic eruption that could be one of the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century. Mighty Katla, with its 10km (6.2 mile) crater, has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding as it melts the frozen surface of its caldera and sends billions of gallons of water surging through Iceland's east coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. "There has been a great deal of seismic activity," says Ford Cochran, the National Geographic's expert on Iceland. There were more than 500 tremors in and around the caldera of Katla just in October, which suggests the motion of magma. "And that certainly suggests an eruption may be imminent."

Lions and volcanoes and Brits

Lions and tigers and ... LIONS!

Rapidly Inflating Volcano Creates Growing Mystery

Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed.

[snip]

Researchers realized about five years ago that the area below and around Uturuncu is steadily rising — blowing up like a giant balloon under a wide disc of land some 43 miles (70 kilometers) across. Satellite data revealed the region was inflating by 1 to 2 centimeters (less than an inch) per year and had been doing so for at least 20 years, when satellite observations began.

"It's one of the fastest uplifting volcanic areas on Earth," de Silva told OurAmazingPlanet."What we're trying to do is understand why there is this rapid inflation, and from there we'll try to understand what it's going to lead to."

The peak is perched like a party hat at the center of the inflating area. "It's very circular. It's like a big bull's-eye," said Jonathan Perkins, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who recently presented work on the mountain at this year's Geological Society of America meeting in Minneapolis.

Scientists figured out from the inflation rate that the pocket of magma beneath the volcano was growing by about 27 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) per second.

Mississippi tries to retreat to the Dark Ages with their 'Personhood Amendment'.

Delightful review of the upcoming Sherlock Holmes Part 2.

Trying to understand the British.

Dammit. I didn't know some grapes and kiwi fruit were being treated with a growth hormone.

Things that are cool

Catching anti-matter to study

Sharks like AC/DC's music

Anybody else see the amazing fire demon rising up out of Chile's volcano?



Australian climate change scientists stand up in spite of death threats.

Paul Krugman explains why Vouchercare is not Medicare.

Fox News has a slump...

Gamer humor.

Where is Gollum?

We're all gonna diiiiiieeeeeee!

The End of America as we know it.

The End of the World:

Or these neat options:

Update: well, darn. Removed from YouTube. I'll post them again if they reappear.

Update: They were YouTubes of Gareth Edwards' END:DAY movie about several different ways the world could experience a world wide disaster: tsunami, virus, supervolcano, Hadron Collider, meteors.... it had it all.

Watch Iceland's volcano

From a safe distance. Webcams.

If cats reported the news...

It's Saturday! Do you know where your cat is?

CHICAGO – No one knows how a tabby cat named Charles traveled the 1,300 miles from his New Mexico home to Chicago, but he's set for a complimentary flight home on American Airlines in a carrier donated by an Albuquerque business.

Charles disappeared about eight months ago while his owner was out of town and a friend was caring for him.

Report from Texas, Muffin.

Today, the Texas State Board of Education released amendments to the state's social studies curriculum that essentially rewrite history to comport with the personal ideological and religious beliefs of some members of the board. As explained below, the proposed amendments depart drastically from accepted historical accounts. Indeed, as the New York Times Magazine has reported, they are so disturbing that at least one member on the board vehemently exclaimed, "burst[ing] out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation": "Guys, you're rewriting history now!"

If the changes are implemented as proposed, it could affect the education of students from kindergarten to 12th grade across the country for the next 10 years: because Texas is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks nationwide, the changes the board makes to its standards often end up in textbooks purchased by other schools districts around the country.

Over to you, Whiskers.

Democrats don't want to deviate far from the Dodd draft, and they love the politics of putting Republicans and Wall Street on the same side of a battle line. They hope the optics there will be so bad, that Republicans will ultimately be shamed into caving. But ultimately Dems need 60 votes simply to debate the bill, and if the Republicans stick together in the face of a likely political backlash, there won't be a bill. And nobody knows dedication like the Senate GOP.

A lot of feathers will be flying, to be sure. To Spot for the weather:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Global temperatures fueled by El Nino seasonal warming last month chalked up the hottest March on record, US weather monitors reported.
"Warmer-than-normal conditions dominated the globe, especially in northern Africa, South Asia and Canada," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement on Thursday.
Combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record at 13.5 degrees Celsius (56.3 degrees Fahrenheit), which is 0.77 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 12.7 C, it said.

Stop being so theatrical, Spot. Our science report from Midnight:

LONDON – A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe on Saturday, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating — a portent of more travel chaos to come.

Scientists say that because the volcano is situated below a glacial ice cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines if prevailing winds are right.

And more from the Onion:

PASADENA, CA–A team of cold-hearted, killjoy scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory callously announced Monday that the likelihood of complex life on Mars is "extraordinarily low," dashing the hopes of the public just like that.

Cats are secretly unmoved by this announcement....

The Mayans were right!!

2012 will bring the END OF THE WORLD!!!!1!

Except it's Iceland that's starting a bit early....

Iceland sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mid-oceanic ridge. Eruptions, common throughout Iceland's history, are often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface.

Like earthquakes, predicting the timing of volcanic eruptions is an imprecise science. An eruption at the Katla volcano could be disastrous, however — both for Iceland and other nations.

Iceland's Laki volcano erupted in 1783, freeing gases that turned into smog. The smog floated across the Jet Stream, changing weather patterns. Many died from gas poisoning in the British Isles. Crop production fell in western Europe. Famine spread. Some even linked the eruption, which helped fuel famine, to the French Revolution. Painters in the 18th century illustrated fiery sunsets in their works.

The winter of 1784 was also one of the longest and coldest on record in North America. New England reported a record stretch of below-zero temperatures and New Jersey reported record snow accumulation. The Mississippi River also reportedly froze in New Orleans.

"These are Hollywood-sort of scenarios but possible," said Colin Macpherson, a geologist with the University of Durham. "As the melt rises, it's a little like taking a cork out of a champagne bottle."

As the world burns

Fascinating and scary sequence of fires around the globe from 2000 to present day.

And amazing video taken from the International Space Station of Sarychev Peak exploding.

Ever get the feeling the universe and Mother Nature are getting a little irritated at us?

Jupiter:

Something has smashed into Jupiter, leaving behind a black spot in the planet's atmosphere, scientists confirmed on Monday.

This is only the second time such an impact has been observed. The first was almost exactly 15 years ago, when more than 20 fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the gas giant.

"This has all the hallmarks of an impact event, very similar to Shoemaker-Levy 9," said Leigh Fletcher, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. "We're all extremely excited."

The impact was discovered by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley in Murrumbateman, Australia at about 1330 GMT on Sunday. Wesley noticed a black spot in Jupiter's south polar region (see image) – but he very nearly stopped observing before he saw it.

Venus:

A strange spot emerged on Venus last week, and astronomers are not sure what caused it. They hope future observations will reveal whether volcanic activity, turbulence in the planet's atmosphere, or charged particles from the sun are to blame.

Amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, New York, first spotted the new feature, which is brighter than its surroundings at ultraviolet wavelengths, on the planet's southern hemisphere on 19 July.

Supervolcanoes:

Gary Egbert of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who is a magnetotellurics specialist but not a member of Hill's team, is cautious about the idea of a nascent supervolcano where Mount St Helens sits. "It seems likely that there's some partial melt down there," given that it is a volcanic area, he says. "But part of the conductivity is probably just water."

If the structure beneath the three volcanoes is indeed a vast bubble of partially molten rock, it would be comparable in size to the biggest magma chambers ever discovered, such as the one below Yellowstone National Park.

Every few hundred thousand years, such chambers can erupt as so-called supervolcanoes - the Yellowstone one did so about 640,000 years ago. These enormous eruptions can spew enough sunlight-blocking ash into the atmosphere to cool the climate by several degrees Celsius.

Could Mount St Helens erupt like this? "A really big, big eruption is possible if it is one of those big systems like Yellowstone," Hill says. "I don't think it will be tomorrow, but I couldn't try to predict when it would happen."

Looks like we'll have to go back to sacrificing goats and tipping them into the volcano's mouth....

I doubt the teacher will ever see the original note....

(watch to the end for the explanation...)

Sarah Palin saw her projected book sales numbers?

Alaskans are not running in mad panic for cover, but many are concerned about the imminent eruption of Mount Redoubt southwest of Anchorage.

Fox News is reporting: "Mount Redoubt continues to rumble and simmer, prompting geologists to say this Alaska volcano could erupt "within days."

The Anchorage Daily News cautions: "Mount Redoubt is still rumbling and simmering, prompting geologists to repeat their warning that an eruption may be imminent."

It would not be a pleasant period in Anchorage if Redoubt were to blow its top, if its previous eruption is any indication.

For five months beginning in December 1989, smoke and ash from the 10,197-foot peak disrupted international air traffic and deposited volcanic dust throughout the Anchorage region.

That eruption also delivered mud flows from Redoubt into the Drift River drainage.

Explosive island, humanitarian gesture

SAN'A, Yemen (AHN) - A volcano erupted Sunday in a tiny Yemeni island in the Red Sea, spewing lava and ash hundreds of feet into the air forcing local Yemeni authorities to evacuate a military base.

Local authorities said that joint NATO and Yemeni ships were searching for eight soldiers reported missing.

Reports from the Yemeni news agency SABA said that the eruption caused a landslide collapsing the western part of Jabal al-Tair island, reported.

The oval island, about two miles wide, lacks a settled population although it houses military installations used for naval control and observation for large cargo ships passing nearby.

The report, however, was not clear how many people were stationed on the island, although it confirmed that Yemeni ships had evacuated all personnel and were searching for eight missing military personnel.

Ken Allan, a Navy Public Affairs with the Canadian Armed Forces said a NATO fleet passing nearby reported seeing a "catastrophic volcanic eruption" at 7 p.m. local time Sunday on the island, about 70 miles off the Yemeni coast.

With the fleet was sailing toward the Suez Canal when it spotted the eruption, the government of Yemen asked NATO to assist in searching for survivors.

The closest ship in the vicinity, the HMCS Toronto, immediately headed toward the island.

Thank goodness there are some who remember we are all on this earth together.