Fresh Bilge

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 muclear 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.

Last evening, while rummaging around websites, I encountered a link to Petfinder, a national listing agency for animals in shelters. Inevitably I checked the only place in Hollywood and met an irresistable little terrier mix. It has been hard to resist Steve’s pleas for a “doggie” — a word he speaks with a peculiar intonation, roughly, dog-GAY.

Tim’s hunting dogs enriched my life through the years at Orchard Glen. But my complaint from that time undergirds my present concern — I would be responsible by default for an animal that would otherwise be neglected by its ostensible master. And the dog would lead a very odd life for a canine, if it kept Steve’s hours. I suppose it would nap for a few hours after my bedtime, hang out with Steve from 1-4 AM, sleep in his room, and emerge with him at noon. Unlike him, it would be all perky when it appeared.

I am tempted. On the positive side, Steve and I both like dogs. On the negative, my illness and short life expectancy argue against such a commitment. Dogs are germy, and I don’t need to raise my risk of infection. As my medical situation worsens, the household will be disrupted, and a dog would be just another complication. However there would also be something still alive in the apartment (besides the plants) when I’m not here any more, and that might be good for Steve.

If you are an American, happy Independence Day. If not, my condolences. Today I shall celebrate US culture with cheeseburger, ice cream, and fireworks. Tomorrow, back to lean chicken, snow peas, and politics.

In the mainstream, at the New York Times, everything you ever wanted to know about Rush Limbaugh. In the sidestream, at New York Press, everything you never wanted to know about Matt Drudge. Both are narcissists, but the elder knows policy and ideology; the younger deals in personalities. The elder will reluctantly support McCain; the younger will furtively support Obama, or so I surmise from the selection of stories on his site. Who will win this election, Rush or Matt? Dittoheads or gearheads?

Bonus: Via Drudge, of course, Florida’s governor Crist is getting married, after 28 years of bachelorhood. How very convenient — for a prospective VP. And his pretty bride-to-be is almost as rich as Cindy McCain. Politicians. I hope Crist has been discreet, because if he so much as looked askance at a boy in the last three decades, John Aravosis will out him at the most inconvenient moment.

In today’s Opinion Journal, a Chicago Muslim community organizer, Junaid Afeef, urges Barack Obama to embrace his Muslim heritage, and chides Americans for Islamophobia. Meanwhile at FrontPage Magazine, apostate Muslim Abul Kasem explains the scriptural passages that prompt Muslims to regard infidels as subhuman. Not all Muslims heed those passages, but enough do that “Islamophobia” is a completely rational response.

Bonus: Take a peek at the confused, angry adolescent behind the mask of Barack Hussein Obama. So many angry offspring of broken homes have reached voting age now, and they are all quivering for this man. They imagine he can heal them. And he thinks they can heal him.

Larry Kudlow imagines an America First energy policy. He thinks energy could be a winning issue for McCain, and he’s right. Yet there is a curious omission in Kudlow’s article. He never uses the phrases “global warming” or “climate change.” He never mentions CO2. He refuses to face the fact of faith. McCain is a believer in the green credo. He cannot win without eschewing it, yet he will not forsake the faith. At most he will make a few concessions around the edges. There will be no focussed campaign. I suspect McCain’s passion for Nature is more vital and real for him than Christianity. We have two agnostics running for President — or so it seems to me. And it takes one to know one.

The season’s second tropical depression has formed near the Cape Verde Islands. As I mentioned recently, this is the one part of the eastern Atlantic where water temperatures are significantly above the norm. It is unusual for a depression to form so far east, even at the height of the season, but conditions are right. As the system moves WNW, however, it will encounter a long run of cooler water. If it survives, it will probably recurve through a gap in the upper ridge to its north. At this juncture, TD #2 seems unlikely to bother anyone, even if it becomes an open-ocean hurricane, as a few models suggest.

Just a reminder: National Hurricane Center is currently “featured” at the top of FB’s sidebar. Any time you want more information on a tropical system that FB has discussed, the details are a click away.

Update: TD #2 got upgraded to minimal tropical storm Bertha. A more organized system is more likely to survive its passage of the cooler zone ahead.

The world is abuzz today over the freeing of hostages in an extraordinarily daring raid by Columbian forces. President Uribe is a great man. I can imagine no leader in the paralysed United States daring to take such a risk. Two countries side-by-side, Columbia and Venezuela, provide a timely lesson in the difference one man can make. Contrast and compare Uribe with Chavez. This autumn Americans choose between our own somewhat attenuated versions of these two. Which way will the election tip? One man can ruin a country, or lead it from a dark time into the light.

Daniel Henninger beholds the pit at Ground Zero and arrives at this surprising conclusion:

As a case study of system malfunction, the Port Authority report on unbuilt Ground Zero is a warning shot to our acrimonious national politics. A can-do tradition is losing ground to can’t-possibly-do. Barack Obama’s appeal rests heavily on the belief that he’ll bring back can-do. He’s one man. The answer lies deeper, with a people who have to choose between politics that moves its system forward or a politics that just wants to have fun.

It is delusional for anyone to imagine that Barack Obama “can do” anything other than play the best racial spoils game in Chicago. Henninger completely misreads the meta message of Obama’s campaign. Obsessed with diversity and inclusion — already identified as the causes of paralysis in New York — Obama would bring “can’t do” to the top of the government. With our NIMBY energy policy, we have already perfected “won’t do.” If we add “can’t do” at the national level, America is finished.

Afterthought: In a weird way, however, it is fitting the the hole remains, and I hope it is never filled. I had always thought that the site should not be rebuilt. It was a government boondoggle in the first place. The scabrous hole is the best possible memorial — even better than the grave fire-and-water plaza I imagined years ago.

Foreclosures are up in LA and Miami. It’s no cause for panic. The boom in adjustable rate mortgages built a shakeout into the market. We have just passed the peak in expirations of those initial, teaser terms. One property analyst referred to her chart of foreclosures as a ski-jump. Well, the skier is airborne. He’s not a pretty sight, old Chris Dodd, flailing his arms. Can he recover his balance for the landing?

Drudge is headlining the California fires, which are burning through the scenic redwood country of Big Sur. I have previously mentioned the unusual thunderstorm outbreak that sparked the fires. It took place at night, and it was caused by a cold swirl in the upper winds, dipping SE from the Gulf of Alaska. This is not a normal event for the summer season, but spring was very backward this year along the Pacific Coast. The PDO has shifted to its cold phase. This is not an abstraction; it has real consequences.

The firefighters have their work cut out. I hope they get all these blazes tamped down quickly, because the GFS model is projecting another dig of the jet stream next week — a really big one. If it comes to pass, it could cause more thunderstorms during the onset, but its most dangerous manifestation will be wind — fierce dry wind in the tinderland. The current conflagration may be just a prelude.

Of course “journalists” will blame “global warming.” Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards — all are signs of “climate change” caused by humans. We need only sacrifice our SUV’s to placate Gaia’s wrath. By freezing energy development for three decades, Gaia worshippers have finally succeeded in forcing the sacrifice on their fellow citizens. The SUV’s are vanishing, for all the good it will do. Our lightbulbs too will disappear, to no avail. The climate will change, and change again. The only constant, it seems, is the gullibility of humankind.

We spent a night in Jasper and rose early to begin our saunter down Icefields Parkway. The weather continued radiant and warm.

Everywhere, the scenery.

Mountain sheep blithely watched passing cars.

The mountains rose about us, and to our right, the Columbia Icefield peeked over the rimrocks. Beyond was another world — an unseen expanse of snow reflecting the sun, turning the cloud-bases white — a vestige of the North American ice sheet. By early afternoon we had reached the foot of Athabaska Glacier, which approached the valley floor in those days. No doubt it has melted back a bit in recent years. We knocked around the visitor center, joined the tourists gawking at the ice-edge, and reconnoitered for a hike.

After a night in a campground near the highway, we hiked up a ridge of moraine, aiming to get as far into the mountain fastness as we could go without technical climbing gear. We would not make the summit, or even the glacier, but we got a couple of thousand feet above the valley floor, and the views were striking.

From here, there was nowhere to go but downhill. Uh, I’m talking about me, not the terrain.

After our hike, we hit the road again.

We found a modern lodge at the roadside, and there was actually a room available. Those were simpler times.

Incredibly, the weather still held as we made our way further south. I took this shot during another dayhike up sunlit, flower-scented meadows.

“I am marmot. Hear me peent!”

We took a last look at the high country, then it was time for our short, sybaritic stay at Chateau Lake Louise.

Alas, my photo of Tim on that terrace did not survive. It was a pleasant place to sit, sip, and watch passers-by in the busy resort complex.

Charmed by the old custom of piping the day down, I would have liked to stay another week at the chateau, but on the morrow we would cross the prairie and head back to North Dakota. We never returned to that unique run of mountains between Banff and Jaser. In 1991, I planned a trip there to include canoeing on a lake near Jasper. I got the Bronco packed and the canoe lashed on top, but Tim was too drunk to drive (or be tolerable as a passenger), so I called the whole thing off. Tim was so jolted that he quit drinking for four months. It was a start, but a false one, alas.

The next trip dates to March, 1982, and returns to the Desert Southwest — a rainstorm in Canyon de Chelly, a mule-ride down the Grand Canyon, another stay in LA, San Diego, and Sonora. It will take me awhile to format the photos. I’m not sure whether I’ll get more travel posts up before I leave for New England next week. Then I’ll be live-blogging a journey for the first time in years.

Wonderful news. Maybe Uribe could run for President of the US, after his term expires in Columbia? He was actually born in the Canal Zone, right? Uh, no, I guess that wouldn’t work.

I visited Tamarac for followup this morning. Not very good numbers, but no surprise, after six rounds of chemotherapy. My hemoglobin was 13.0 at the start of treatment, which is normal, and quite high for someone with my history. Through each cycle it has drifted down. Two weeks ago it was 10.1, today down to 8.9. That’s pretty low. And my platelet count, which had been 270k, also normal, had dropped to 103k. Poor clotting is a risk for me, with a pituitary tumor also to consider — though I try not to think about that, since it is not causing notable problems at this time.

These numbers are the same as those I experienced a year ago, after my last serious round of treatment, when I was also having nasty fevers. At least there has been none of that with this drug regimen. In fact I have gone swimming several times in recent days. But I’m lethargic and easily winded — not in shape for travel. Doctor D. prescribed a shot of procrit, which will probably give me a boost by next week. He also can no longer palpate any remnant of the mass in my abdomen, though I still feel some discomfort. The disease is definitely in abeyance again, for a time. The therapy has done its unpleasant but necessary work. And I will watch the world a while longer from my aerie over the wildlife refuge.

Here is a panoramic view from the SW, taken when weather cleared on June 30.

This is a closeup of the caldera and southwestern flank of the dome. The intense seismic activity of recent days has occurred directly under this part of the volcano. What does it mean? You’ll notice there are no longer any open craters in the dome. Emissions are seeping out, and the plume height is the lowest since the beginning of the eruption. This could mean that the dome has stoppered its conduit, causing a buildup of pressure inside. Weather is deteriorating again, with windshift to NW and more moisture arriving. If something dramatic happens, our webcam viewing won’t be so good for awhile. Thanks to The Volcanism Blog for sourcing photos taken during the break in the clouds.

I haven’t commented on the hurricane season lately. There hasn’t been much to say. Tropical waves have been coming off Africa more strongly and earlier than usual, but they have not found favorable conditions at the surface or aloft while crossing the Atlantic. The warm anomalies have shrunk in the last month. Only the waters near the Cape Verde Islands are markedly warm now. Westward to the Antilles, temperatures are near to slightly below normal for the season. Upper winds continue to display the laminar flow I remarked upon the last time I wrote on this topic. A wave is currently active in the eastern Atlantic, and some models develop it, but recurve it far at sea. I’ll believe in development when I see it. I think the water is still too cool.

Over North America there has been a strong tendency for troughing along the east and west coasts, with some ridging over the plains. An east coast trough — very prominent at present — will reliably recurve Atlantic hurricanes offshore. However in this pattern, a low latitude storm could course through the Caribbean, under the trough, and later threaten the Gulf region. Until there is a change in the trough / ridge / trough configuration, the Gulf is the most likely place to see a landfalling hurricane in the US this season.

Alarm is everywhere in our culture. I surmise it is driven partly by the post-Christian sense of loss and confusion that Auden long ago described in such works as The Age of Anxiety. This title was appropriated for a symphony by influential composer Leonard Bernstein, and it passed as an axiom into the collective unconscious of collectivism. During the Bush years, mass hysteria has emerged as the predominant mood of mass media. We see it in the coverage of economic news (an inflationary slowdown likened to the deflationary crash of the Great Depression), policy news (a setback proving a war “unwinnable” and victory called defeat) and above all in the climate scare.

The great majority of “journalists” regard global warming as proven and ongoing. Their computers apparently stopped in Y2K. They have not seen the news. Global warming, which occurred sporadically during the Twentieth Century, ended a decade ago, and was never reliably attributable to human agency, save by the fevered imagination of James Hansen. Truth is beginning to make some headway against myth, but it’s a hard beat into the hot wind. Yesterday I quoted the full text of a truthful Bret Stephens op-ed in WSJ. Later in the day I encountered alarmist drivel in a WSJ news report on insurance rates, which are nowadays based on “computerized catastrophe modelling.”

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is: a scheme to rip you off by basing your insurance rates on Al Gore’s diluvian fantasties and hurricane horrors, rather than the actual history of natural disasters. As “cap-and-trade” would enrich Al Gore and friends, this fraud is already making lots of money for insurance companies. But how can it be challenged, when the “journalist” is editorializing: “That sea-surface temperatures are rising is no longer much in dispute. There is also near-consensus that rising temperatures are linked to greater hurricane activity.”

Three thousand Argo buoys have recently reported that sea temperatures are not rising. Satellite data show modest cooling since the La Nina of 2000. It is completely irresponsible for editors at major newspapers to let ignorant journalists publish false claims like those in the insurance article. And it was discouraging to see WSJ implicitly contradicting itself in this fashion. WSJ has a particular responsibility to get these issues right. Perverse “green” incentives are multiplying throughout the economy, but especially in the energy sector. Every story including the word “climate” should be vetted by someone who knows the facts.

Lower down in the media, I expect less than I do at WSJ. It doesn’t surprise me to find the Midwest floods – and floods in general — blamed on “global warming” by Reuters. Here’s their drivel:

Although no single weather event can be attributed to global warming, it’s critical to understand that a warming climate is supplying the very conditions that fuel these kinds of weather events,” said Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist with the National Wildlife Federation.

Warmer air can carry more water, Staudt said in a telephone briefing, and this means more heavy precipitation in the central United States. Big Midwestern storms that used to be seen every 20 years or so will likely occur every four to six years by century’s end, she said.

As it happens, the 1993 flood occured during a brief, Pinatubo-driven dip in world temperatures. When air cools, moisture condenses out. The present flood might more plausibly be blamed on the absence of sunspots. Naturally Reuters called a warmist advocacy group for an objective assessment. But one can also go to the top of the intellectual food chain and find the same hunger for alarm. In an article praising Thomas Malthus, the debunked philospher whose notions inspired the debunked modern alarm of The Population Bomb, Robert Kagan concludes: “In an era of global warming, Malthus may prove among the most-relevant philosophers of the Enlightenment.” But there is no global warming at present, and Malthus is still wrong.

If you are seeing this post, rare reader, you are fortunate. My webhost has been experiencing an outage, and I have only sporadic access to the site.

Update: Things seem to be working now. I got one post up, but I’ll be offline for the next few hours.

On August 4, Tim and I drove west into British Columbia. The weather cleared once we got past the Continental Divide. We lodged in Sorrento, overlooking Shuswap Lake — as picturesque as it sounds. Next morning we stopped in Kamloops, a very western-looking town amid sage-covered hills. When we turned north on Canada 5, we passed along a wide, cultivated valley. Presently the country rose. We found ourselves among evergreens and rushing streams again. On a hot, sunny afternoon, we took a room at Valemont, then turned east to reconnoiter the trailhead below Mount Robson.

Our first sight of the mountain blew us away. With two vertical miles of relief, Robson is the highest of the Canadian Rockies. It stands alone over the Fraser Valley, northwest of Jasper, at the extremity of the range. Further northwest, there are no more high peaks. The Rockies split into several lower ranges, each with its own geology and history.

Next morning we donned our packs and started hiking up the Valley of a Thousand Falls. I posed Tim at a stream crossing with Robson’s summit looming ethereally behind him.

With summer thaw at its climax, all the streams were in spate.

And all the falls were roaring.

We never got our feet wet. The trail was superbly graded, and Canadian forestry personnel had built elaborate wilderness bridges.

After a night in the lower valley, with our packs slung over a high pole to keep them (and us) safe from bears, we hiked past the northwest shoulder of Mount Robson (above) on another hot, sunny morning.

As we rounded the turn of the valley, this view opened ahead. Our trail followed Robson River east toward Berg Lake, below the north face of the mountain.

By day’s end we had found a tenting spot at the far end of a long, crowded campground in the woods above Berg Lake. I surprised Tim by snapping the unposed photo above. We spent three nights there. The place was overrun with beautiful boys from all over the world. I met two tousled potheads from Great Britain, and I shared a joint with a blond, washboarded southern kid who wore only sandals, a pair of skintight cutoffs, and an enormous Bowie knife. It seemed wiser not to make a pass at him.

Toward sunset, a short walk downhill from our camp, I shot a view of Robson’s summit from the gravel flat that stretched out to Berg Lake.

It seemed but a short while before dawn at this high latitude. I aimed the camera at Robson again as we set out for a dayhike. We planned to climb until we reached a three-quarter circumambulation of the mountain.

This glacier above debouched into the shallow, silty lake northeast of the Robson massif.

Glacial scouring had polished the fine foreground sandstone so that its layers looked like banding in petrified wood. The skick surface in the background is ice, darkened by its heavy load of rock flour.

We climbed a dusty, crooked trail over the moraine and further back into the valley. Eventually we got onto grassy slopes at the left of the photo above. From there we had an incredible view of the glacial bowl on the east side of the Robson massif. Alas, that negative was not salvageable.

Passing showers cooled the evening after our long day-hike.

On the next day we rested. The weather was hot and sunny again. Flies were bothersome around the campsite, but the glacier exhaled cool air onto the lake, and we spent much of the day at the shore.

Shaded by our dining fly, we heard helicopters in the distance. Through our little Minolta binoculars, bought expressly for this trip, we watched a mountain rescue. Eventually, late in the afternoon, one of the helicopters swooped out from the high glacier and dropped onto the gravel flat with a stretcher slung some fifty feet below. The rescue had begun when pair of summiteers had failed to return. They had fallen into a crevasse. One eventually climbed out and reached his tent high on the glacier; the other was still in the crevasse when rescuers arrived.

Day five of our pack trip dawned clear and warm. This was the view as we started down the valley from our Berg Lake camp.

Nearing the Fraser Valley, I took this last look back at Mount Robson. Tomorrow I will post the third and final installment of the Canadian jounrney, along the Icefields Parkway.

Bret Stephens has written a superb essay: Global Warming as Mass Neurosis. It is so cogent and well-argued that I am going to push the outer limits of “fair use” and quote the full text below. Kudos to the author. Some bloggers have been saying these things for a long while, but finally the truth is beginning to emerge in venues that attract larger readership. (Read on …)