Temperature in Angisoq, Greenland: a balmy 32 degrees

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I may take a ride up to Angisoq; supposed to be this warm for the rest of the week. Better pack my sunscreen.

Chuck Norris: litmus test for Americans

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Here’s a Chuck Norris fact you may not know. If Chuck Norris endorses you and appears in one of your campaign’s TV ads, you take the lead in an Iowa poll and your Web server crashes. That’s what happened to Mike Huckabee, the shrewder-than-you-realize former Arkansas governor (sound familiar?) who has become a major player in the tight Republican presidential race. The ad opens with Huckabee deadpanning: “My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.” The camera moves back to reveal the Man Himself, who praises Huckabee as a solid, gun-loving, IRS-loathing conservative. Huckabee adds a twist at the end. “I approved this message … So did Chuck.” The ad, which ran in Iowa on cable for a week, has generated an astonishing 1.5 million YouTube views and clogged the campaign’s Web site. Huckabee was rising in Iowa even before the ad, but he took the lead with Chuck as Huckster.

Yes, Chuck Norris, a coveted endorsement for GOP candidates. Perfect. I think that pretty much sums it up. Americans could just choose sides based on whether or not they see Chuck Norris as a guiding light.

Of course, Mike Huckabee doesn’t believe in evolution. Not to say that Chuck Norris hasn’t evolved as much as the rest of us……

This is the kind of shit you get when you cede the country to a bunch of profiteers who are all about trying to sell you fear, cheap TV shows and toxic shit from China while they work on the real business of grabbing your pension.

Paul Wolfowitz back in the Bush misadministration

Hard to believe, yet so perfectly Bush: The chief architect of the Iraq fiasco (and disgraced ex-World Bank pres) re-latches on to the government tit. The man should be in jail. Instead, he’s spreading his “bomb the brown people” shit around at a time when we’ve really had more than enough, thanks very much. What does he need, some sort of wooden stake?

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. “We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job,” said one senior official.

Warming: tropics moving north much faster than predicted

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Earth’s tropical region, as defined by rain and wind patterns, expanded north and south over the past few decades, another sign of global climate change, researchers reported today. The tropics have moved toward the poles at a faster rate than existing models of climate change have predicted, the scientists wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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To astronomers and mapmakers, the tropics are bordered by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which fall at about 23.5 degrees north and south of the equator. Climatologists tend to measure the area differently, using changes in atmospheric temperatures, winds and ozone observations.

Seidel’s team of climatologists reviewed recent research on the width of the tropical belt. They found that the tropics had expanded north and south by about 2.5 degrees in latitude over the past 25 years. Under the most extreme climate change model, the tropics were forecast to move 2 degrees by the end of this century, the researchers said.