Fresh Bilge

Iran makes the decision simple. It has sworn to wipe the Zionist entity off the map of the Middle East, and to burn down the empire of the United States. How would Iran do that? Iranians are coy about the ways and means, but we all know the answer: nukes. Iran also threatens to do these things immediately, if its nuclear facilities are attacked. But Iran does not have nukes yet. It would be a lot harder for the soldiers of Islam to fulfill their threats now than later — therefore it would be wise to take out the nuclear sites tonight, not tomorrow night, or next year. Tonight. We should respect our enemy enough to take him at his word, and act while there is still time.

Straws in the wind, will they kindle? Straws on the water, will they float a drowning voter?

Bonus: The staw man is also a sexist, in the eyes of at least one feminist.

Sernageomin has circulated another bulletin. Seismicity has begun to decline at the volcano, and the geologists are increasingly confident that the eruption is winding down. The webcam view is clear this morning. It shows a copious but weak plume shearing east at low elevation. I do not think it will be necessary to update again, though I’ll keep an eye on the area for awhile. My interest in Chaitén has always been its potential for affecting global climate. The eruption has been a large one, but the volcano only made a few brief shots into the stratosphere. This was an unusual event with a very long sustained, moderate venting of ash. It buried the countryside nearby, smothered all the local valleys in mud, but it did not affect the upper atmosphere. I remain concerned about cooling driven by the solar minimum (no sunspots today) and other factors, but the obscure South American volcano now seems very unlikely to exacerbate the problem.

Note: I’ll leave the Chaitén informational link in the “featured” list for a little longer, but I shall be switching emphasis to hurricane season in the coming weeks. I have already added two very useful links to the “featured” list.

Spirit of Glacier Bay is a small cruise ship that operated as Spirit of Nantucket until new owners moved it to Alaska. This season it plied strange and much trickier waters. Oops! How did that happen? Maybe the Nantucket captain came with the ship. I know right where Spirit ran aground. The bottom is always changing there as the glaciers dump their load of rocks and gravel into the bay, and powerful tides shift the underwater moraines. In due time, my travel posts will steer a course up that misty fiord.

Overnight hurricane Bertha slowed its forward speed and turned a bit more to the right. It has also peaked in strength and begun to weaken visibly. Studying the time lapse imagery, I can now see how the model scenario for slow recurvature might play out. I threw out the models too soon. Bertha has not gotten quite far enough west to tuck itself under the Bermuda high, which is not very strong at present. Although there is no polar trough to pick it up, Bertha can simply drift poleward until it gains enough latitude to turn extratopical and head for the far North Atlantic. This was the original guess for Bertha’s course. Will the weakening storm threaten Bermuda? Probably not. NHC and model consensus now take Bertha well east of the island. It will be out there for many days, making nice, long-period swell for East Coast surfers. There are no other tropical systems of note at present.

Update: Southwesterly shear is now degrading Bertha as fast as yesterday’s windlessness strengthened it. Hurricanes are fickle. Their energies are vast, but the least disturbance of their symmetry sometimes tears them apart.

We had seen the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and the Great White Throne of Zion, but nothing in our travels had prepared me for the Grand Canyon. We wandered from overlook to overlook along the South Rim drive. I snapped a photo here, a photo there. The photographs are lost, and they would not do the place justice. You have probably seen many photos. Surely I could choose from thousands at Panoramio. Nothing can match being there, on a wintry afternoon, with snow banked in the shade of the junipers, and no tourists elbowing for the best viewpoints.

We checked into a hotel with Keith K, Tim’s friend from Los Angeles, who had flown up to join us on the pending adventure. Our room was pleasant, but there were only two beds, not king-size. I rolled out a sleeping bag on the floor. A chronic insomniac, I always had trouble sleeping the night before an airplane flight, and the prospect of a vertiginous mule-ride was even scarier. When I booked the trip, it seemed a fine idea. Not any more.

Wakeful all night, I talked myself into staying behind. With daylight, I grumbled and fretted; but I went to the corral, wearily admired the handsome drover in charge of our party, and boarded my lurching, snorting, farting mount. There were about a dozen riders, including a few novices like me. Tim and Keith had both ridden a few times as Boy Scouts. The drover told us how to use our legs as well as our reins to control our mules. We also carried switches, which proved in due time to be quite useless.

Tim and I wore Stetsons we had bought in Wyoming a few years before; but the lead drover cocked his battered hat with a lot more authority. A second cowboy would follow at the rear of our file. Clop, clop went the horseshoes on the stony trail as we started down the first grade. You’ve probably heard Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite. It’s a very accurate musical description of the sound and rhythm.

I can’t recall my mule’s name, but I decided we were not friends when he paused at the first real cliff and bent deeply to bite some weed off the outside edge. The drover had warned us about such behavior. It seemed sheer malevolence. I soon discovered our mules had another nasty habit — communal pissing. If one animal cut loose, each successor would piss on the same spot. By the time our whole band had irrigated the trail, a distinct hazard awaited any hikers who might stride unwarily after us.

Sporadic sunshine took the chill from the air as we descended. There was little wind, but the clouds were moving fast, and the weather looked chancy. For once I wasn’t thinking about the weather, or even about the incredible views, changing with every switchback. I thought of nothing but my mount, and how very far we had to go.

“This is Skeleton Point,” the drover called back. “The trail is slippery here, especially when it’s wet. If you look over the side, you can actually see bones at the bottom of the cliff. Pack trains are roped together when they’re hauling supplies.”

I was still picturing horrific accidents when my mule made another grab at foliage over the verge. I leaned way back in the saddle. I did not want to see wreckage below, or add another set of bones. There was a stir among the riders behind me, and giggling from a couple of pubescent horse-girls, who were perfectly at ease in their stirrups. The lead drover turned.

“He’s a cranky one. Move him on.”

Bright Angel Plateau was a relief. The trail gentled and ran through a sunny meadow. The place smelled of herbs. Throughout the canyon complex there were benches at this elevation. It was a geologic non-conformity: the end of the sedimentary layers. Below were pre-Cambrian metamophics, much harder, forming the Grand Canyon’s inner complex of dark gorges.

We had gone a short way down the Marble Canyon when our drover stopped and dismounted. He was tightening the cinches that held his brute’s saddle when it suddenly lashed out. It kicked him sprawling, almost over the cliff. His jeans were ripped and bloody on his upper leg, where the nailed shoe had struck him. He dusted himself off and politely apologized for his mount — a youngster, just learning the trail, and not trusty at all. I could see he was hurting, but he was a tough SOB, and getting kicked was part of a cowboy’s work. A little higher, though, and he would have been a gelding.

We filed along a stretch of trail blasted slantwise down a precipice of the inner gorge. The bedrock was wonderfully veined, but I had no chance to examine it. At the bottom of the steep was a little sward between great buttresses. The trail led into a dark opening on the far side. Our drover halted and told us to gather around while he explained what was coming next. Beyond the tunnel was a suspension bridge, just wide enough for mules to pass. It had been under repair recently, and the planking had changed.

“Mules don’t like changes,” the drover warned us. “Your mule might take one look at the bridge and stop dead. Keep your switches ready, and if your mule balks, give it a good whack.”

I was fourth or fifth in the line. The tunnel was dark, wet, and spooky. In the blinding light ahead I saw that the bridge jutted straight out of the tunnel mouth. My mule hesitated skittishly at the brink. I swatted his rump, and he stepped onto the planks. There was a railing on either side, but it gave me no sense of security, since it was only about three feet tall. I was sitting much higher, and the bridge was very narrow. Two mules could not have passed abreast A hundred feet below, the Colorado swirled and surged.

In the middle of the bridge, my mule went rigid. The animals ahead moved forward and reached the far side. No amount of whacking could make mine follow them. “He’s afraid to go. There’s nothing in front of him now,” called the drover at the rear.

I was terrified that the mule would buck me right out of the saddle if I hit it any more. There was only one alternative: dismount and lead on foot. At the same time I remembered what had happened to the lead drover when he irritated his beast. I would have to move so deftly that I would be in front of the mule before it even realized what was happening.

Somehow I got off safely. Suddenly tractable, the mule suffered me to lead it. In a few moments we were all across, and I remounted. The trail slanted down onto gentle ground. Our mules plodded steadily. They knew the corrals were near. The two drovers sat off to the side.

“It’s a good thing we had an experienced rider on that one,” the lead drover said to his companion as I passed.

I hope he wasn’t joking, because I took him seriously, and I glowed all evening. We rode another mile along the vale of Bright Angel Creek, which chortled among stones on its way to join the Colorado. This was just a local watershed of the North Rim, which loomed through the bare cottonwood trees, more than a mile above us. It was almost warm at this elevation, and the spring grass was greening. Soon we were eating a huge supper at a trestle table in Bright Angel Camp. I actually slept in a bed that night.

A thunderstorm broke my fitful doze. I lay awake, thinking what such weather might do to the trail, and hurting in places that had never been sore before. The day broke cloudy, and the lowest clouds were moving fast, just above the South Rim, which was freshly frosted with snow. It was noticeably cooler even at the canyon floor. After breakfast we donned sweaters, jackets, and gloves for the long climb. I have never been so cold in my life, stuck atop the laboring mule in a forty-mile-per-hour wind, with snow flurries blowing past as we neared the top. I could barely walk at the end of the ride. We were all deeply hypothermic, and it took a lot of hot soup to restore us. I swore never to ride a mule again — and I didn’t. We took horses after that.

On March 30 we drove through verdant deserts. It was rainy season. All the strange vegetation was thick with foliage and blossoms. Descending further, we entered the Sonoran ecosystem, which I had not seen before. Here saguaro cactus was the standout species. Prickly pear and barrel cactus studded the desert pediment. In alluvial soils, skeletal ocotillo bushes were tipped with flame-red flowers. When we stopped, I heard birdsongs that were completely new to me. But I would not walk unbooted into the thorny, snake-infested land.

We rolled on into LA, ate at Keith’s favorite restaurant, a place called El Chavo, and turned in early. For the next week we savored the many pleasures of Los Angeles. We toured the Huntington Gardens and Museum twice. We revisited the Getty on a day of rain and startling sunshine. We beached at Venice and Malibu. I chased boys in Griffith Park. We dined in Chinese, Mexican, Siamese, Italian, and Greek restraurants – the latter down the coast in San Pedro, where we celebrated Keith K.’s birthday. The shy Scandinavian blushed fetchingly when a Greek waiter kissed him.

After our riotous stay in LA, we spent a quieter and more expensive pair of nights in La Jolla. A surfer at Griffith Park had told me about a particular beach north of town, near Camp Pendleton. Warm Sant’ana weather afforded a perfect opportunity for enjoying the shore, though Tim quickly became bored with it. As for me — La Jolla seemed paradisical, quieter than LA, and more beautiful, gay but more discreet. I would have bought a place there in an instant. But Tim’s livelihood was in Fargo, and he dreamed of buying farmland, not vacation homes. My inclination was more practical by far, had we only known.

From San Diego we drove east. I wangled a stop at Saguaro National Monument. Then we rolled on to New Mexico. Tim’s valley was calling him. It was spring. Soon the wheat would be going in. The next day we drove 750 miles, from tiny Vaughn, New Mexico to York, Nebraska. The day after, chilly and gray, we reached Fargo, where piles of dirty snow were still melting in our front yard. La Jolla might as well have circled another star.

This will be my last travel recollection for awhile. On Wednesday I begin a real trip, for the first time in three years. I fly to Providence, RI, meet Tim there, and tour New England for eight days, visiting literary friends. On July 17, Tim and I board Arabella for a five-day cruise. I will road-blog when possible, and I hope not to miss any days altogether, but obviously my posts will be fewer. When I resume these recollections, we’ll be off to the Beartooth Range, then Canada, Alaska, Central America, so many places. Will I have the time to visit them all again?

Bertha has strengthened explosively today. That is the satellite presentation of a category three storm, though the actual winds are probably not that strong yet. Throw out the models. None of them foresaw this. Although models rightly foresaw the storm’s formation — I was skeptical about that — they consistently underestimated this cyclone once it got going. Now it is strong enough to alter the upper level systems in its path, perhaps overwhelming them altogether. While the forward motion has slowed and will probably jog NW for a time, I expect a more westward turn may follow. Bertha has already gained enough latitude that it probably won’t threaten Florida, but risk is increasing for the Carolinas.

Note: 5 PM EDT: I made a small addition in this post to acknowledge the models that anticipated Bertha’s formation.

Steve and I drove an incredibly convoluted path through the airport perimeter on Saturday morning to reach the Broward County animal shelter and see the dog-GAY I wrote about last Friday. The reception area had an alarming resemblance to the Department of Motor Vehicles. After awhile I collared an employee in an adjoining hallway and learned that the adoption process was handled by the volunteer with whom I had exchanged emails. She had not shown up, and in her absence, we could not see the dog. Later in the day I emailed again and also left a phone message. I have heard nothing.

This morning I told Steve what had happened. He has been working double shifts the last few days, and I had only seen him momentarily since our failed foray. He did not seem surprised, and he had a ready explanation: “She looked at your weblog.”

I pondered that for a moment, recalling the time I posted a photo of a bird (with attribution) and was promptly assailed by an outraged ornithologist, demanding I remove the photo forthwith. It quickly became apparent that the real problem was not her notion of fair use, but her hatred of “conservative” politics.

“Yes,” said Steve. “It’s that puppy lover, tree hugger crap.”

You know, I hate to say it, but he might be right, although I had the more innocent idea that the adoption process might be made difficult simply to weed out the uncommitted. And that means me. This incident seems a sign, or a warning. I have no confidence that I will enjoy remission for six months — the minimum that would justify getting a dog, as I see it. My gut still hurts vaguely. I could be sick and headed for the end much sooner. Perhaps my mind was playing a trick of denial, latching onto the idea of a dog, as though I could dodge fate.

Bonus: Prefer dogs to humans? You’re not alone (or unbalanced). Oh yes you are.

It was the bloodiest suicide attack yet in Kabul, and calculated for maximum political impact in the region. The target: India’s embassy. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan will be accused of complicity. I shouldn’t need to spell out the implications for rare readers.

The “quagmire” is not Iraq but Afghanistan. NATO should not be there unless its leaders are prepared to take serious action — reversing the grave mistake made long ago by the British. The NW provinces of Pakistan cannot be ruled from Islamabad, nor will they be candidates for self-rule, until Al Qaeda is destroyed as it was in Iraq’s Anbar. Their incorporation into Afghanistan would change the tribal balance for that country. In the long run it would probably result in civil war and partition anyway.

For the present, the best answer is probably a major punitive raid to kill Al Qaeda across the border, without regard for Pakistani sensibilities. The larger problem would remain — the same problem that Britain’s imperium failed to solve in the 19th Century.

Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee who endured an ugly and hysterical confirmation to the US Commission on Civil Rights, writes about the campaign of Barack Obama. He does not discuss the issue of race — a conspicuous omission. Instead he details a long series of political issues on which the Democratic candidate is far to the left of the electorate.

All presidential candidates take at least one position that’s unpopular with the electorate; it’s impossible not to in a heterogeneous society. And a candidate who’s nothing but a weathervane of public opinion isn’t likely to become an inspiring leader. But few, if any, serious presidential contenders have ever taken so many positions supported by so few.

How can Obama be a viable candidate? Kirsanow speaks of a “Democratic year,” but why this Democrat? Michael Barone has the explanation. He has been reading old polls. During the mid-Nineties, when there was talk of a Colin Powell candidacy, the general had overwhelming approval among Republicans. Indeed I feel sure he could have unseated Bill Clinton, had he chosen to run in 1996, because he also had some independent support. Most Democrats opposed him. Nowadays Obama polls in precise reverse. In other words, it looks superficially as though the pattern is partisan.

Not so fast. Powell is ideologically a moderate Democrat, not a Republican at all. He might have won the general election, but his broad support among Republicans is not explicable in partisan terms. Plainly there was some other reason why a lot of Republicans supported him. I have spoken before of a mantle the American people have yearned to bestow on some black candidate. Americans of both parties want to feel good about themselves. They want to prove they have transcended race. Powell was not really a Republican — and now he is apparently planning to support Obama. No matter what Obama says as he zigs to the center, he is ideologically a socialist, well left of his own party, not to mention the general electorate. For a great many people, ideology is outweighed by color.

Not only do these polls exonerate the Republican Party from false charges of anti-black racism, they also prove that Obama’s appeal is precisely his race, and not anything else. He is not a “post-racial” candidate at all. Rather he is the candidate of a new, affirmative racism — in favor of blacks. We have not solved our problem with race in this country; we have only transmuted it.

The weather is very rainy at Chaitén today, and there will be no views from the webcam. I have no new information on seismic activity. In fact I am only making this post for one reason: the satellite shows a strong Pacific cold front approaching the coast. Weather will improve tonight. Strong SW winds will bring chillier, more stable air into the area. However, low clouds may persist over the mountains, so I cannot promise we will see the volcanic plume tomorrow, unless it shoots over the cloud tops. That seems unlikely, as plume heights have been modest recently. Maybe Tuesday we’ll get a proper view. It looks as though the frontal zone will be pushed north, and it should stay there for awhile, allowing clearer skies to persist for several days near the volcano.

Tolerate Sharia? Why? Even a British conservative cannot face the unpleasant truth: those who follow Sharia have goals beyond “community mediation.” They aim at nothing less than world dominance, absurd as it may seem to those steeped in the presumptions of Western culture, which still feels secure in its superiority, and cannot conceive any threat from the ambition of primitives. Alas, the threat is real, and we won’t defeat it by putting little booties on our bomb-sniffing dogs.

As you can see from this image, fresh at 11 PM EDT, Bertha is looking more symmetrical tonight. This is a sure sign of strengthening. We will probably see the storm close to hurricane strength by the 5 AM advisory. Tomorrow Bertha should become the first hurricane of the 2008 season. Its track has shifted slightly to the WNW. Most models continue to curve the storm NW and slow its forward speed over the next few days. This seems reasonable. Beyond that, we shall see. Bertha is a large system, and it may alter the environment along its course.

A five hundred fifty ton shipment of Saddam’s yellowcake (concentrated uranium ore) has been secured and flown from Iraq to North America. It’s time to reconsider the Plame case. Who baked the yellowcake? Democrats, playing partisan games in wartime. Despicable. I said so at the time. I say it still.

However we do not know the truth about Niger — and we probably never will. The partisan right blurs this issue at American Thinker. The yellowcake taken from Iraq probably dates back to Osiriak — the reactor destroyed by Israel in 1981. Saddam had it in storage. Was he seeking to build his inventory in 2002? That makes no sense, since he had no real nuclear program — no enrichment facilities, no reactor to fuel.

Nevertheless, Iraq was the right war, no matter what murky pretexts were advanced to launch it.

Syria is for sale. The US (along with Israel and France) can offer a lot more than Iran can. What will Assad ask? Security, of course. Perpetuity of unchallenged power over his wretched land. And Golan. Plus a lot of money. And then he will cheat. This is a higher price than our leaders want to admit. More, in fact, than Syria is worth.

Steven Greenhut is really pessimistic:

Those of us who believe in free markets, small government, peace, capitalism, civil liberties and the Constitution will lose, no matter who wins in November. The gloom already is setting in. But there’s reason to be optimistic. Our ideas are the right ones. Freedom and capitalism work, while command-and-control policies do not. The question is how to get to the point where those in power begin to loosen rather than tighten their grip over the economy and our lives.

There aren’t any easy answers. But once Republicans get drubbed in November, they might begin to slowly, carefully reconstruct a winning message. Sure beats electing a liberal Republican war-monger or re-electing reprobate GOP members of Congress, which will only delay this regenerative process. From defeat springs victory.

Wasn’t the defeat of 2006 enough? Since then, America has achieved victory in Iraq, without even noticing. Must we throw a national temper tantrum over the events of 2005? That’s history. So let’s make history this fall. And not by electing Barack Hussein Obama.

With Dr. Harrington on vacation, The Volcanism Blog will not be providing translation of Sernageomin bulletins for awhile, so my paraphrase may be the only English language version available. I received the latest information this morning. It referred to seismicity on July 3. Larger quakes (greater than magnitude 2.5) had decreased in number, but small quakes had increased to 250 per day. This is quite a high number, I might add. The Chilean authorities were hoping for an overflight opportunity so they can get a better idea how the eruptive behavior and the seismicity correspond.

The weather was poor yesterday, but it is somewhat better today, with breaks in the overcast, though surface wind is very strong from the west. With some low clouds persisting over the mountains, I could not see any eruption plume on the webcam this morning. No doubt it is shearing away inland under the powerful wind. There will probably be enough breaks in the cloud cover today for the overflight to proceed.

I remain puzzled by the evasive language of the bulletin. It sounds to me, reading between the lines in another language, as though Sernageomin sees a disparity between the intensity of seismic activity and the comparatively paltry plume production at present. Since the seismicity increased, I have speculated that pressure may be building inside the volcano. The mass of the new dome is probably obstructing escape of gas. It is therefore easy to surmise that an explosion could occur. This does not necessarily mean that a major eruption would follow. But Sernageomin has nothing, absolutely nothing to say about the future course of the eruption.

In many countries of the former communist bloc, from China to Slovenia, post-communist prosperity has filled government coffers and spurred a spate of infrastructure projects — dams, bridges, highways, schools — constructed in haste and often below specification, as corrupt contractors and officials skimmed public funds. This burst of building recapitulates past episodes in the US, and it proceeds with little regard for the environmental concerns that stall virtually all projects here nowadays.

Slovenia is building a hydroelectric dam on a scenic river. A canoeing club decided to take a “final descent” through the construction zone. Eight members died when the whitewater flipped their craft and they were sucked into the turbine tunnel. Several other craft pulled to shore without attempting to run the dam. Perhaps their occupants had less to drink. Of course the article says nothing about alcohol, but it’s a fair bet that judgment was impaired by something stronger than testosterone.

Is there no middle way between heedless despoilation — symbolized by the deaths in Slovenia — and heedless restraint — symbolized by the travesties of ANWR and Yucca Mountain?

Tropical storm Bertha continues to dash nearly due west across the Atlantic. It has passed the cooler surface waters that were retarding its development. Intensification should resume today, though it may be hindered by the storm’s rapid motion. I note from the vapor loop that Bertha may encounter some mid-level shear. The storm envelope has already become distorted on a NE-SW axis. Bertha is also embedded in a rather dry airmass of Saharan origin — another negative factor.

I have been looking at a wide variety of models. I have also studied the satellite loop. There is a great deal of divergence in the models. At one extreme, Bertha continues its course and speed unchanged. In five days it would be tearing over western Cuba, south of Florida. At another extreme, Bertha slows forward motion and turns sharply northward. Several models offer this option — a return to an earlier version of Bertha’s future.

Intensity models are also rather divergent. Many lift Bertha to category one and keep it there. Some weaken Bertha in the fourth and fifth days. Weak outliers keep Bertha at tropical storm status through day five. A strong outlier rockets it to a category four hurricane at day five. What to make of this muddled picture?

There has been persistent troughiness near Bermuda. It is still apparent, but I can see signs of weakening. I am not persuaded that the trough will pick Bertha up, but it will at least remain close enough for upper westerlies to impinge on the cyclone. It should slow the storm’s forward speed, and it may turn Bertha to the northwest for a time. I strongly suspect a westward course will resume by day six or seven. In that case real recurvature would be postponed until Bertha neared or hit land. However I do not entirely discount the left outlier model that keeps Bertha hurtling under the trough, on its present course, passing over Cuba into the Gulf.

I am remembering Andrew, a weak system in early August 1992. It’s an ominous precedent. Tropical storm Andrew tracked NW until it was abreast of the Bahamas, then it escaped the upper trough that had hindered it. High pressure built to the north. Andrew turned west and intensified rapidly to landfall just south of Miami. It recurved in the Gulf and made final landfall in Mississippi.

Ominous precedent aside, for the present Bertha is a weak cyclone in a rather hostile environment. It may be nothing more, throughout its life cycle. But I will be really frustrated if Bertha approaches South Florida while I am away next week — unless it turns into Bertha the Bruiser, in which case I shall not envy Steve here in Dania Beach.

Here’s a report from the front lines of the culture war.

National Forest Service officials, surrounded and attacked yesterday in Wyoming with sticks and stones by 400 members of the Rainbow Family, were given reason to regret their decision to cancel a long-planned national service project by the Boy Scouts of America in favor of the unorganized annual gathering of hippies, anarchists and “free spirits” who commune with nature and each other.

I can’t help thinking there’s backstory. How was the Forest Service “intimidated” into this bizarre decision?

It tells the story of Jesus — and it dates before his birth. If it is authentic, it places the concept of the Resurrection within the mainstream of Jewish tradition.

A nonsensical quiz for poetry lovers: What Poetry Form Are You? Not very accurate, but amusing anyway. Via Odious and Peculiar.

I encountered this comment at the HPC forecast page.

TS BERTHA FORECAST TO BECOME HURRICANE MAY APPROACH THE BAHAMAS AND SOUTHEAST SEABOARD NEXT WEEKEND UNDER MID LEVEL RIDGING. SEE NHC DISCUSSIONS/ADVISORIES.

It may indeed. Some models still keep Bertha offshore, but there is a risk, especially for Florida, the Carolinas, and eastern New England. Waters are warm enough to sustain a serious hurricane near Florida, and a moderate hurricane to the Carolina coast. Further north it is simply too cool. Bertha would be a weakening tropical or extratropical storm if it eventually made landfall in New England.

The Dominion that was, is no more. South of the border, we need only elect the wrong man this fall, and Americans will soon be saying, the Independence that was, is no more.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at Chinle, the settlement where Canyon de Chelly debouched westward into open rangeland. To our east, the dark piñon-clad country rose gently toward mountains that vanished in glowering cloud. Dusk came early. We drove up the rimroad and peered at the pueblo ruins under the farside cliffs, but the light was too dim for photography.

In the morning it was raining steadily. The lorry tour was cancelled, so we drove up the rim and entered the canyon via a slithery, mud-slimed footpath. We had the whole place to ourselves. We saw no living soul during our trek — not even a bird or beast. Nothing moved but the trickling, dripping rainwater. If there were any other off-season tourists around, they were waiting for better weather.

The interior of the canyon was magical — much more magical than it would have been if we had ridden a bouncing, roaring lorry with a bunch of gum-popping children. But we never reached the ruins. Too much ice-water was running on the canyon floor, and we could not have crossed dry-shod. Here are the photos, uncaptioned.

After a change to dry clothes — always awkward in the car — we drove on through the rain. It was still sprinkling when we approached the volcanic field of Shiprock.

This terrain originated several million years ago when a series of volcanoes punched to the surface, some smaller, some larger. After they went extinct, erosion stripped the friable cones and exposed the tough lava plugs in the old conduits. I already knew how to read the book of time in the landscapes I passed.

At mid-afternoon Tim and I checked into a motel in Monument Valley. Maybe there’s an Indian casino now; but in 1982 the low, sandstone-hued building scarcely interrupted the emptiness of the land. It was fenced with antiques. The old wagon wheels might have been there for a century, and the first structure on the site was probably a pony express station.

Tim sat under the eave, smoking. I don’t believe he ever wrote about this place. It’s a surprising omission, given the history and romance of the landscape. At day’s end, a rainbow painted itself over the orange Navaho sandstone of The Mittens. Navaho sandstone forms cliffs wherever it is exposed, including the Grand Canyon.

The next morning dawned clear, chill, and calm in the aftermath of the storm. We drove over to The Mittens for sunrise photography — not very satisfactory, since I never learned the right settings for such light — then sought in vain for eggs, bacon, and waffles in this country of corn tortillas. Our destination for March 27 was the Grand Canyon. I took many photos there and in Los Angeles, where we stayed for a week. I remember my shots of the Colorado River, and of the Getty Museum; but those prints and negatives have gone missing. At least I have the journal to guide my prose and stir my memories.
Tomorrow.

By fiat — always convenient in a communist state — China has closed 40 factories in Taijin, seventy miles east of Beijing. The closures have ostensibly been ordered to limit air pollution in the capitol during the Olympics; however I note that prevailing winds are westerly at the latitude of Beijing, and that closing factories downwind is unlikely to reduce pollution upwind. Could China be concealing an economic downturn by making an Olympic excuse for business failures?

Tomatoes are out. Probably. Now jalapeno peppers are under investigation. Or maybe it’s the cilantro. How about this: maybe there is no “salmonella outbreak” at all, just a publicity-driven chatter emerging from the normal epidemiological background noise. Yes, I know there is a new strain, but testing methods have improved, and that factor alone could account for the reported caseload.

Now that so many growers and distributors have lost so much money, and the “liberal interest groups” have invested their credibility, we will never see a withdrawal of the allegations, if they prove unfounded. Nor will there be any apology to Mexico, if the latest seizure of products — peppers, cilantro, onions — fails to identify any source of contagion. Instead there will be pressure for more government regulation. Yeah. That’ll fix the problem — if it never existed in the first place.

The former governor of Washington — now a Parkinson’s sufferer — is trying to get a version of the Oregon law through the referendum process in his home state. It would be a shame if he had to emigrate, but he has that option. I don’t. And Florida’s social conservatives will undoubtedly block any attempt to pass such a law here. After all, this was ground zero of the Schiavo case. In that instance, because there was reasonable doubt what the woman would have wanted, and because of her husband’s disturbing behavior, I shifted to the “pro-life” side. But death with dignity is a separate issue. Why does a faction of hardline Christians have the right to enforce its morality through the power of the state? In what way does this arrogation differ from Sharia? Yet imagine the outcry, if Supreme Court liberals were ever to decide that laws against suicide are unconstitutional. Where exactly in the constitution is the basis for such laws? I suppose clever minds could construe something. Other clever minds might construe the opposite.

Segway has finally found the perfect market for its politically correct product (read to the end of the article). Someone must have been subsidizing the company, but now it has a customer at last. Chortle.

I scarcely ever see a Segway here in South Florida. It’s got to be one of the stupidest inventions ever. A rider can carry nothing, and a backpack would raise the center of gravity, adding to instability.

FB covered the January flyby of Mercury by the Messenger space probe. There will be two more flybys during the next several years. Messenger is using the planet to brake its momentum. This is a tricky process so close to the sun and its overwhelming gravity. Messenger is not due to enter a stable Mercury orbit until 2011. Then the real work will begin. But the single flyby has already produced a wealth of new science on the smallest and densest of the Terran planets. There are also many photos available. Mercury is a fascinating place for exogeologists. The planet is sixty percent core. Its upper layer somewhat resembles Earth’s mantle. The core is evidently still molten — churning and generating a magnetic field. There is much to learn here.

Bonus: On Mars, the Pheonix lander will soon attempt an ice analysis. These are great days for planetary science. Oh, to be a boy again, plunging into this data stream for the first time!

Tropical storm Bertha has increased its forward speed to around 20 mph. It is moving slightly north of due west. Most models now pass it underneath the mid-ocean weakness in the subtropical ridge and keep it on its current course through day five. At that point it could be quite near the NE Leeward Islands. For months I have warned my friend Steffen that the Cape Verde season would commence early this year, and that he could be at risk in St. Maarten by July. I have not heard from him in some time. I hope he is heading further south, to the comparative safety of Trinidad.

With my hope for an early recurvature growing remote, it is time to think what this unusual July storm might do beyond day five. Bertha will certainly encounter unfavorable upper winds for a number of days as it approaches and passes the NE Antilles. Southwest shear will keep it weak. But Bertha is a large storm with an impressive satellite signature. It is likely to prove resilient, and unlikely to dissipate completely.

The models are trending to strengthen Atlantic ridging westward over the eastern US. When Bertha reaches the waters east of the Bahamas, shear will probably decrease. In that case we will have a hurricane slipping under the Bermuda high. It could hit the East Coast anywhere from Florida to Cape Cod, or the polar jet might dip and turn it just offshore. At first I did not take Bertha seriously. Now I am becoming concerned.

Locusts. Could anything else go wrong for the Beijing Olympics? Note the reference to the abnormally cool summer. No mention of “climate change.”

Chinese are superstitious, and a lot of them apparently think the Olympics are cursed. It seems the Sichuan quake happened 88 days before the games, and had a magnitude of 8. Don’t ask.

I attach more significance to the number 0. No sunspots today.

It’s raining solidly in Fort Lauderdale this evening. I had planned a run into town, where I was going to park at Eric’s condo and walk with him down to the beach for the fireworks. We’re pretty sure the display will be postponed until tomorrow. It may stop raining around 8:59 PM, but I doubt the people in charge will care to wait. This is vexing. Evening rains are unusual. Diurnally-driven convection tends to quit before sunset, but there’s an upper disturbance giving this activity a boost.

On March 22 we drove over rutted ice amid blowing snow to escape the Red River Valley of the North. The region had recently been slammed by an equinoctial blizzard — all too typical. We didn’t reach Grand Island, Nebraska, until ightfall.

The back roads were dry in southern Nebraska and Kansas. Migratory birds were milling restlessly, staging for their flights north. I could never properly photograph them, but a bunch of specks are visible in the image above — probably sandhill cranes. We drove through this straw-colored land all day and settled in Walsenberg, CO.

Crossing La Veta Pass, we rounded the southern end of the Sangre de Christo Range and paid a visit to the Great Sand Dunes. It was a unique landscape for us, as lifeless as an expanse of Dakota snow, and even more difficult to traverse on foot. We climbed one dune, and my legs ached as though I had borne a pack for hours.

With a cigarette on his lip, Tim imitated a legionnaire in the Sahara. Afterward we lunched at the little town of Alamosa. Genuine Mexican food was as strange to me as this land of sand and snowpeaks. In North Dakota I had encountered nothing but Tex-Mex.

With so much snow on the highlands, we decided not to force Wolf Creek Pass. Instead we proceeded down the Rio Grande Valley (pictured above), stopping briefly to gawk at the arts-and-crafts shops of Taos, then ending our day’s journey in the old town of Santa Fe.

There was just time for me to catch a shot of the cathedral in the last sun of the afternoon.

Tim always wanted to visit cathedrals, wherever we travelled. In retrospect, I realize that he had never really left the Church; he was just angry at it.

We made a long drive across New Mexico into Navaho country of Arizona. Somewhere along the way we must have crossed the snowy plateau above, but I have no recollection of it, and find no hints in my journal. Tomorrow I will post scans from prints of our visit to Canyon de Chelly — the next stop on our intinerary of March, 1982.

But who is betraying whom? I’m inclined to believe that Dr. Khan, who was cast as the villain in Pakistan’s nuclear game, is finally telling the truth. President Musharraf is losing power, and Pakistan has a civilian government, so the scientist has recanted his confession. He says the Army and the President were fully informed, and authorized all his actions. Of course Dr. Khan may have done a couple of side deals to enhance his personal take, but I believe his claim that nuclear materials or equipment would not have moved without authorization from the top. The only remaining question — was US President Bush taken for a fool, or did he know the truth about his “good friend” in Islamabad?

I’m simply going to link The Volcanism Blog’s translation of yesterday’s Sernageomin bulletin. I read and deciphered it last evening, but found it an inadequate reason to post. There is no comment on the eruptive pattern or its potential. Seismicity has risen then stabilized at the higher level, meaning lots of small quakes, occurring for unknown reason. Vigorous venting of ash and dome building continued when observations were last possible, but the weather has been terrible for the last few days. Unless the volcano shoots a plume through the thick cloud cover, nothing will be visible.

This is a very odd eruption. Volcanic outbreaks are generally much more sporadic affairs. The continual activity at Chaitén suggests an unknown and unknowable outcome. Chamber-emptying blowout and collapse remains conceivable until there is a definitive pause in activity. Yet we may simply be seeing a long, gradual wind-down from the initial explosive phase, which will eventually wane without further consequence, except for the locality, where the burden of environmental damage grows daily.

I despised him when I was young; and later, when I became a Reagan supporter, I hated having to answer for his prejudices. Then as now, most of my brethren saw no distinction between “conservative” and “fascist.” But Jesse Helms is gone, and in retrospect his virtues are much more apparent to me. He loved his country, and it’s fitting that he died on July 4, like two illustrious politicians of old.

Another dzud struck Mongolia last winter. Now the Telegraph is reporting the social consequences of four dzuds since global cooling began with the 2000-01 La Nina, which developed after the 1998 El Nino. Of course the newspaper cannot even recognize the cause, so there is no editorializing. A dzud is an intolerable seige of cold and snow, fatal even to the toughest herds. Cultural change was already depopulating the vast Gobi ranges, but the loss of animals has accelerated the process. Ritual blame is laid on “climate change” by the foreign minister of Mongolia. He is no climatologist, and he has no notion what “climate change” might really mean. Still no sunspots.

Victor Davis Hanson thinks the election pits two archetypes against each other rather than two fallible politicians. If so, Obama has the advantage. Americans prefer youth and hope to age and caution. In that case, of course, McCain’s challenge is to knock Obama off the plith, exposing the weakness and narcissistic pride that render the younger man profoundly unfit for high office. But I fear that McCain expects to be elected for his own merits, and fails to see that he cannot win unless he breaks his adversary.

The future track of tropical storm Bertha diverges widely in the various models. Some still recurve it over open ocean. Others, alas, keep drifting it WNW toward North America, as subtropical high pressure strengthens north of the storm. This massive Bermuda high would also produce a healthy July heat wave for parts of the eastern US, and thunderstorms at the fringe of the heat in New England, where I will be travelling next week. If Bertha gets trapped under the ridge, it would have potential to trouble the East Coast at roughly the time I’m supposed to board Arabella — July 17. If so, I shall be road-blogging monomaniacally.

Some intensity models make Bertha a hurricane within a few days, as soon as it gets past the coolish water in its immediate path. Others keep it under hurricane strength. Toward the end of their run, at day five, all models weaken Bertha due to persistent SW flow at upper levels coursing from the Greater Antilles practically to the Azores. This sub-topical jet stream has been parked for weeks across that swatch of ocean. For Bertha to approach the US, it must first undergo prolonged shear. Could it recover? Maybe, but that is a very long way out.