AGW: Upright thinking from a land down under

Greenhouse sceptics to congregate - National - theage.com.au:

"'Environmentalism has largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the upper classes in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States,' Mr [Ray] Evans says in the publication [Nine Facts About Climate Change].

"'It is a form of religious belief which fosters a sense of moral superiority in the believer, but which places no importance on telling the truth,' he says.

"'The global warming scam has been, arguably, the most extraordinary example of scientific fraud in the postwar period.'"

I couldn't agree more.

And, it seems our Aussie friends have just as many spineless politicians as we do. According to Ray Evans, "Cabinet, from what I understand, is by and large still sceptical of climate change, but it is scared of the drought and worried about how Labor will make use of it."

A little humility. please

My Way News - La Nina's Brewing, Forecasters Warn:

"Historically, El Ninos and La Ninas are difficult to forecast, said National Center for Atmospheric Research senior scientist Michael Glantz, who studies how they effect humans.

"'I don't see it as a useful forecast,' Glantz said. 'Every event since they've been looking at El Nino ... surprised scientists.'"

Keep this pearl of wisdom - about the difficulty of predicting weather a year from now - in mind when you hear urgent warnings given with great certitude about weather that will happen 20, 50 or 100 years from now.

RFK Jr.decries anti-progressive bias of MSM

RFK Jr. rips President Bush for environmental policy - Roanoke.com:
"But Kennedy's attacks weren't reserved for Bush. He criticized what he called a 'negligent and indolent press' for perpetuating the idea that there's still a debate about global warming despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it is real."

What planet does this guy live on? That would seem to be the first reaction to such a seemingly improbable statement from a man who certainly follows the news of the day as presented in the NYTimes, WashPost, and other MSM propaganda organs.

However, Mr. Kennedy is speaking in code. He knows full well that the MSM has swallowed the AGW doctrine hook, line and sinker. What he is chiding the media for is failing to enforce 100 percent censorship on dessenting voices. This is a signal that the time for ridiculing of opponents is passing and now their statements must be quarantined from the public.

Such is the sad state of liberalism in America today. Like a schoolyard bully, at once cocky and fearful.

Big Brother is watching

Surveillance Cameras Get Smarter - washingtonpost.com:
"In the commercial market, the gaming industry uses camera systems that can detect facial features, according to Bordes. Casinos use their vast banks of security cameras to hunt cheating gamblers who have been flagged before."

This may be the least reputable use of surveillance since the casinos are notorious for banning card counters from the blackjack tables. Counting cards and adjusting your estimation of the odds appropriately is just playing the game; but it cuts into the house advantage which is lowest at blackjack anyway.

On other fronts, the article discusses efforts underway to develop camera/computer systems that will be able to notice when someone leaves a package behind in an airport or walks in a way that might indicate they were carrying a weapon of bomb. Some of these sorts of applications raise serious questions about probable cause for police searches.

It's The DaVinci Code all over again; but this time it claims to be fact

BREITBART.COM - Tomb could be of Jesus, wife and son: directors:
"'Who says that 'Maria' is Magdalena and 'Judah' is the son of Jesus? It cannot be proved. These are very popular and common names from the 1st century BC,' said the academic at Israel's Bar Ilan University."

This is a nice summation of this fraud. Even better is a story in This Is London Online also linked by Drudge today. I'm going to try to track down a few details and post a longer critique of the Discovery News story about this upcoming documentary later today.

A view of the GWOT from India

Samjhauta Blasts: Terrorists get it wrong:
"The attacks are a gruesome follow-up of the train bombings of Mumbai and Malegaon. They also come at a time when Pakistan has been rattled with a spate of bombings over the past few weeks, the most recent being in Quetta last week that killed 15. The attacks show a changing profile and ideology of the terror outfits who don't seem averse to attacking the very establishment that has propped them up."

Really interesting take on the shifting tactics of Muslim extremist bombings in both India and Pakistan. Worth a look.

War clouds gathering over Iran

Report: 3 Gulf states agree to IAF overflights en route to Iran - Haaretz - Israel News :

"According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.

"Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack."

This report makes a lot more sense than the rumors on the web that the US has already had to scramble interceptors twice to turn back Israeli attacks on Iran.

A scary thought ... and another

CLINTON SEES ROLE FOR HUSBAND / CAMPAIGN 2008: Senator tells S.F. crowd the former president could be a diplomat:
"In response to a question from the audience, she called her husband 'the most popular person in the world right now'' and said that when she reaches the White House, 'I will continue the tradition of using former presidents' as diplomats around the world."

A scary thought, isn't it? Bill Clinton roaming the globe with the imprimatur of the president of the US, eclipsing by orders of magnitude anything that might be heard from a constitutionally-accountable secretary of state.

And, to pick up the slack, our only other living former Democrat president, that world-improver par excellence, Jimmy Carter. Yikes!

Of course, I wouldn't be too surprised if Bush 41 got tapped from time to time as well, but there is little comfort in that.

Conspiracy theories

ANGELINA A BABE AMID BRAINIACS By ANGELA MONTEFINISE and SUSAN EDELMAN - Worldnews - New York Post Online Edition:
"Member Carol Adelman, former head of U.S. foreign-aid programs, said, 'It's not like Paris Hilton is being nominated.'"

I can hardly wait to see what the conspiratorial-minded will make of this development.

Should Bill's scandals taint Hillary?

Clinton Fights to Keep Impeachment Taboo - washingtonpost.com:
"'In the end, voters will decide what's off-limits, but I can't imagine that the public will reward the politics of personal destruction,' senior Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson said Friday, when asked whether the impeachment is fair game for Clinton's opponents. Earlier in the week, Wolfson dismissed references to President Bill Clinton's conduct as 'under the belt.'"

Thye usual formulation is "below the belt" - a reference to the rules of boxing. One wonders if Mr. Wolfson amended the phrase to shift the imagery to Bill Clinton's waistline instead of his zipper which seemed to be the source of so much of his troubles.

It's one thing, one supposes, for a wife to defend even a seemingly guilty husband against charges of adulterous liaisons; but, it ought to be fair game to ask how one lawyer defends another for perjured testimony as a witness in a lawsuit. After all, Sen. Clinton's claims of competence and probity as an attorney are a key part of her alleged qualifications for the highest office in our nation.

Coming soon to a highway near you

Critics bash Mexican truck decision - Yahoo! News:
"Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa: 'They are playing a game of Russian roulette on America's highways.'"

The marvelous thing about this little contretempa, which will have no effect on the Bush administration's dubious plans, is that the union and consumer angles cause many congressional Democrats to turn up on the correct side of this issue.

Of course, this will not be entirely one-sided. Under the plan, 100 US trucking firms will be licensed and inspected by Mexiso to travel in their country while 100 Mexican firms will be licensed and inspected by the US. I wonder how much money will go into the pockets of Mexican officials as a result of this.

Read the story. There is some genuinely scary stuff along with the usual "whose ox is gored"-motivated criticisms.

ABC News: First Campaign Barbs Tied to Jailed Man

ABC News: First Campaign Barbs Tied to Jailed Man:

"''Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?'' Geffen told Times' columnist Maureen Dowd.


"And then, referring to the Peltier case, Geffen continued, ''Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in.


"'Everybody in politics lies, but they [Bill and Hillary Clinton] do it with such ease, it's troubling,' Geffen said."

While I have no patience with Geffen's choice of the object of his solicitude - prison gang leader and convicted cop-killer Leonard Peltier - I find his comment on the Clinton's veracity wonderfully revealing.

Celebrity prez poll predicts tight race in 2008

FOXNews.com - FOX News Poll: If Hollywood Ran America - Celebrity Gossip | Entertainment News | Arts And Entertainment:

"Eastwood, famous for playing tough guys on the screen, served as mayor of Carmel, Calif., from 1986 to 1988. (He also got into the White House in the 1993 thriller 'In the Line of Fire,' where he played a down-at-the-heels Secret Service agent guarding the president against an assassin played by John Malkovich.)

"Eastwood led with 32 percent of the vote, narrowly edging out Winfrey — the Chicago-based Queen of Talk, and an often-talked-about possible political candidate — who came in second with 30 percent."

The results of the poll show a rather tight split between the center-right - represented by Eastwood at 32 percent and Mel Gibson at nine, for a total of 41 - as opposed to the left and far left - represented by Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, and Barbra Streisand who totaled 39 percent. Sixteen percent of the sample chose none of the above. That leaves four percent unaccounted for - presumably due to rounding and/or scattered write-ins.

How do you spell H-Y-P-E?

Fever claim on global warming | Herald Sun:
"The University of Sydney research is the first to make a solid link between climate changes and childhood illness."

Amazing how easy it is to make a big splash with the MSM when you re-inforce its prejudices. "The two-year study ... [which involved only a single facility - The Children's Hospital at Westmead] showed that for every five-degree rise in temperature two more children under six years old were admitted with fever to that hospital."

According to the article, the research showed the temperature effect only with regard to fever and gastro-intestinal complaints, but not respiratory conditions. Curiously, higher UV levels - another consequence of AGW according to the alarmists - were negatively associated with gastroenteritis. But, nothing was said about what this might mean for the net effect of a warming climate.

Let's face it. If this had been a study that showed second-hand tobacco smoke to be good for you (and such studies do exist, by the way), it would not make headlines and rocket around the world.

All the University of Sydney researchers really have is a good argument for funding a much larger study. Let's wait to see what develops.

Warning: LOUC about to be violated

Men-free tourism island planned�|�Oddly Enough�|�Reuters.com:
"'There will be no men on the Arezou (Wish) island. Public transport, restaurants and other facilities will be staffed only by women,' Aghai said."

When I first saw the headline "Men-free island planned..." on Drudge, I had the idea maybe Rosie of Ellen was planning an all-Lesbo high-end tourist trap in the Caribbean. Instead, it turns out to be part of a longstanding tradition of Iranian government sponsored women-only parks and beaches.

Still, one can't help wondering what such an unnatural environment might produce. So, watch out for the Law Of Unintended Consequences.

The air war heats up

My Way News - Romney to Air Presidential Campaign Ad:
"It is the first ad by a top-tier contender in a campaign experts believe will cost more than $1 billion by the time it ends in November 2008."

According to this AP story, US Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) opened the air war in December in a small way in the Carolinas and South Dakota. With expensive TV advertising starting already, that billion dollar price tag for the 2008 presidential campaigns may be a conservative estimate.

In case anyone thinks choosing a president for four years is not an appropriate way to spend a billion dollars, I would reply that it's only about six dollars for every adult in America - sounds like a bargain to me.

I don't intend to prognosticate on who will win either nomination. Better men than me have come to grief over such predictions.

In 1967, David Broder, long the top political analyst at The Washington Post, published a wonderful and insightful book about the upcoming 1968 presidential race. In that book, he described how George Romney (Republican governor of Michigan and father of Mitt Romney) would use the issue of the Vietnam War to defeat the re-election of President Lyndon Johnson. There were only three minor defects to Broder's book: (1) Romney did not get the GOP nod; (2) LBJ did not run for re-election; and (3) Vietnam was not the central issue of the campaign.

For the benefit of those too young to remember, 1968 was the year Republican nominee Richard Milhaus Nixon (former vice president) defeated Democrat nominee Hubert Horatio Humphrey (the incumbent vice president) and American Independent Party nominee George Corley Wallace (Democrat governor of Alabama). The key issue was crime.

Japanese Army Sex Slaves

Japanese Army Sex Slaves:
"On this day, a new group of LDP Diet members who refuse to admit that Japan waged a war of aggression (Chairman: Okuno Seisuke, former Minister of Justice) was launched. The idea for the group is: 'We cannot stand for the self-humiliating historical re cognition and mean apologizing diplomacy. We have tried to regain what we have lost after World War II and raise healthy Japanese.' During the press conference, Okuno, who was asked about the issue of sexual slavery, answered, 'Comfort women participated in commercial activities, and they were not forced to do so.' Itagaki, secretary general, also commented, 'The situation of textbooks of implanting the image of sexual abuse was wrong.'"

In case you are wondering why I dredged up this ten-year old article from a Japanese magazine, it was to juxtapose these comments which were thrown in the face of real victims during a visit to Japan in 1996 with a statemeent from Japan's foreign minister today that this historical incident never happened.

Foreign minister Taro Aso's comments came in response to a US House resolution condemning Japan for sexual exploitation of women in WW2, This, of course, raises another question, Why, at this late date, does the US House of Representatives feel a need to roil the waters of US-Japanese relations?

In a delicious irony, the same day's Japan Times carries a story about a foreign woman who came for an internship with a Japanese company and leaves with an out-of-court settlement of her sexual harassment suit.

Carpetbagger wife of scalawag opposes CSA banner display

BREITBART.COM - Clinton Objects to Confederate Flag:
"'I think about how many South Carolinians have served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people in South Carolina do every single day,' Clinton told The Associated Press in an interview."

For the benefit of those who don't know the background, the CSA battle flag (aka The Southern Cross) flew over the statehouse dome below the US flag and above the state flag for many years. After a very acrimonious debate a few years ago, a Republican governor worked out a compromise to remove it from the dome, but to add it to a War Between The States memorial on the capitol grounds.

As I and many other loyal southrons predicted, the compromise was very shortly disavowed by the other side and the controversy began anew, although with a bit less intensity. Officially, the NAACP requests that no organization go to South Carolina for any sort of convention or meetings. Too bad the NAACP didn't call for out of state politicians to boycott South Carolina; then my neighbors wouldn't be pestered by the likes of Biden, Clinton, Edwards and Obama.

It is altogether appropriate that the WBTS memorial, with its battle flag, be preserved as a reminder of the wanton destruction of life and property in an orgy of rape, murder, robbery and arson - without distinction of age, sex or race of the victims - by the Union Army.

Root causes of crime

:
"A recent murder encapsulated the difficulties. After a 17-year-old was beaten up, his mother gave him a gun and told him to get revenge, and he killed the boy he fought with.

"When police went to his home to investigate, they found the mother with cocaine and a family photo on display of the son with a gun in one hand and a fistful of cash in the other.

"'For us to correct this, we have to look at the root of the problem. The root of the problem is our education system,' Police Superintendent Warren Riley said in an interview."

No doubt the schools have a lot to answer for, but this judgment by Supt. Riley seems unjustified to me. This incident would seem to be a clear case of inappropriate parenting.

Another attack on carnivores and their prey

Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet | csmonitor.com:
"It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes, especially deforestation to expand pastures and to create arable land for feed crops, is a big part. So is the use of energy to produce fertilizers, to run the slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants, and to pump water."

By adding in all these impacts, the FAO comes to the conclusion that we meat eaters are a bigger source of pollution than the transport sector. Of course, this whole business is founded on the false premise that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant rather than a fertilizer stimulating the growth and abundance of both plants and animals. Oh, well ... what's the use of logic and science when there is a nice crisis brewing that some meddlesome busybodies can use to boss other people around.

Mubarak crackdown on granddaddy of Islamic militant outfits

Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Brothers up in arms:
"Reverberations from President Hosni Mubarak's 6 February order that 39 senior members of the illegal Muslim Brotherhood, including the group's number three Khairat El-Shater, be tried by a military tribunal dominated proceedings in the People's Assembly this week."

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in the wake of WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, is the original radical Islamist group. Despite occasional attempts at repression by successive Egyptian governments, it remains a potent force in Egyptian politics and influential among Islamist militants worldwide.

Communist terror still around

Corriere.it:
"MILAN – Police arrested fifteen Italian nationals on charges of terrorism yesterday in dawn raids carried out in the Lombardy, Piedmont and Triveneto regions. Those arrested are accused of organising a “terrorist association constituting an armed group”. Calling itself the Political-Military Communist Party (PCPM), the group adhered to the “second position”, the so-called “movimentista” faction, of the Red Brigades (BR)."

Shades of the good old days when it was easier to blame the commies for all our troubles.

AGW agit-prop from international group of local government officials

Local leaders OK post-Kyoto plan | The Japan Times Online:
"'It's easy to set the bar low. But we wanted to set targets that will actually help curb greenhouse gas emissions,' said ICLEI President David Cadman, who is also a city councilor from Vancouver, British Columbia."

Just to keep things in perspective, the greenhouse effect makes the earth around 30 C degrees warmer than it would be otherwise. Quite simply, it is the difference between a lush and living planet and a dead rock like most of the inner planets.

Of the total greenhouse effect, about 95% is due to water vapor which is not on the Kyoto hit list. When you focus on CO2, as Kyoto does, and tease out the anthropogenic component, you get to a proportion of about twelve cents in a hundred dollars. It is arguable that cutting this small about by a few percent from its current levels would be statistically indistinguishable from the background variation in the composition of the atmosphere. Yet, for the illusion of doing something, we would be making real sacrifices in living standards.

Another front in the GWOT reports

Senior MI official: Hezbollah has more firepower than before war - Haaretz - Israel News :
"Some committee members expressed their beguilement at the contradiction between the intelligence officer and the defense minister."

It seems the Israeli defense minister has given his assessment that the effectiveness of Hezbollah is only about a quarter what it was before the recent campaign in Lebanon while the research director of Israeli military intelligence has told the Knesset that Hezbollah has been replacing its munitions expended in that conflict and is better armed today than before Israel attacked.

If correct, this implies a massive financial commitment from Iran. Add this to the recent news about millions of pounds worth of sniper rifles sent to Shia insurgents in Iraq and the continuing budget crisis in Iran and you get a fairly clear impression of how the Iranian regime perceives its priorities.

Another act of terror in India

New Article-Pakistan-World-NEWS-The Times of India:
"ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri on Monday condemned the blasts aboard Samjhauta Express in India which killed at least 66 people as a 'horrendous act of terrorism' and said most of the victims were Pakistanis."

Shades of things to come

Bracks gloomy on water summit's chances - National - theage.com.au:
"A deal on Canberra's proposed takeover of the Murray-Darling basin has little chance of success at Friday's meeting between the state and federal governments, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks says."

In many parts of the world there is a water supply crisis in the making that will make oil supply issues pale in comparison. This article deals with the difficulty just in one country of dealing with water resources in one river basin.

Here in the US, we have the issue of depletion of the Oglala aquifer which threatens the continuation of irrigated agriculture in much of the Great Plains. There is also an ongoing conflict with Mexico in which Mexico is taking more than its share of water from the Rio Grande while the US is drawing more than the agreed quantity of water from the Colorado.

In the Mideast, one of the factors seldom mentioned in connection with the possibility of Kurdish seperatism is that an independent Kurdistan encompassing the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria would control the mountains which are the source of the Tigris, Euphrates, Jordan and other major rivers.

French troubles in Africa

The six issues that are poisoning franco-african relations:
"During Jacques Chirac's two presidential mandates, numerous crises have contributed to the erosion of French influence on the African continent."

There is a tendency in some quarters to see difficulty in dealing with the third world as a uniquely American problem. The French are often the source of such sniping at Uncle Sam. Here is a brief resume of French troubles in dealing with six African nations, most of them her former colonies.

French socialists in disarray

Doubt sets in among the socialists:
"The result is that no one knows who is doing what."

It is always nice to hear that one's idoelogical opponents are having trouble.

Fake illness, fake drug ... art imitates life

Videos, News Videos, Top Story Videos, Headline News Videos & More | Reuters.com:
"Feb. 15 - A mock advertisement campaign for a fake disorder and its accompanying drug is mistaken by many to be real."

Take a look, I'm not good enough to make this stuff up.

Mirror.co.uk - News - Top Stories - EXCLUSIVE: HARRY TO FIGHT IN IRAQ

Mirror.co.uk - News - Top Stories - EXCLUSIVE: HARRY TO FIGHT IN IRAQ:
"The 22-year-old prince will head for Basra with comrades from the Blues and Royals Regiment within days and will then probably be deployed along the border with Iran."

They say young Wales threatened to resign his commission if he were not permitted to see action with his comrades in the Blues and Royals Regiment. Good for him. The military is about the only career available for a spare prince and you can't have any respect from your colleagues if you are totally pampered because of your family connections. So, like his uncle Andrew (the prior generation's spare prince) before him, Harry is off to the only war available to his generation of young officers.

Can we blame this on Bush?

cbs4.com - Exclusive: Andrew Victim Gets Power After 15 Years:
"(CBS4) CUTLER BAY An elderly woman who had been living without power in her home due to hurricane damage was finally seeing the light Friday night, when power to her home was restored. What makes her story amazing is that the hurricane which put her in the dark was Andrew, almost 15 years ago, and she's been living without power to her house since August 24, 1992."

Privacy concerns baffle me

Driver’s License Emerges as Crime-Fighting Tool, but Privacy Advocates Worry - New York Times:
"“The states are finding hundreds of cases of fraud each year in each state,” said J. Scott Carr, executive vice president of the Digimarc Corporation, which says it has sold biometric technology to motor vehicle departments in seven states and has a role in the production of more than two-thirds of all driver’s licenses in the United States."

Some states (Massachusettss is the focus of this NYT article) are using facial recognition software to find duplicate faces on drivers licenses. The goal being to prevent identity theft and fraudulently obtaining a license under a false name by persons whose own licenses have been suspended or revoked. Along the way, they turn up a lot of identical twins.

If you read the whole article and skip the speculation that "someday" surveillance camera footage will be matched to driver licenxe photos to identify perps, you find that even comparing two images taken under very similar lighting conditions and from the same angle, the software can only do a rough cut on the data and the actual determination of a match relies on a trained human analyst.

From the standpoint of privacy concerns, I don't see a problem here. Isn't this actually less intrusive than police following up leads from people who see a suspect's picture on America's Most Wanted or the local evening news?

Best article yet on the "Scooter" Libby trial

Trial in Error - washingtonpost.com:
"Could someone please explain to me why Scooter Libby is the only person on trial in the Valerie Plame leak investigation?"

I've commented on some of the absurdities of this case previously, but my hat is off to Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant US attorney general under Ronald Reagan, for a very comprehensive summary of the elements of the case that don't make sense. In it's own way, this is as great a travesty of justice as the Duke lax case.

Back to normal ... well, almost

Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/17/2007 | All Pa. interstates reopen:
"The barriers came down and Interstates 78, 80 and 81 were opened to all traffic at 4 p.m. today, ending an embarrassing saga for Pennsylvania's transportation department."

The Interstates re-opened with a reduced speed limit of 45 due to some remaining slick patches. There is a 30% chance of a small accumulation of snow Sunday and a 50% chance for Monday. Temperatures remain frigid.

In Hamburg this morning, the borough had to start closing streets a block at a time so that snow removal contractors could load snow and ice into dump trucks to haul it out of the town. Meanwhile PennDoT began to turn its attention back to some of the local roads that are state maintained. Very few merchants have managed to clear the sidewalks in front of their stores.

A minor gaffe by the New York Times

Review Set in Pennsylvania After 50-Mile Traffic Tie-Up - New York Times:
"About 200 tractor-trailers that had been diverted from Interstate 81 in Hamburg after it was closed nearly filled the parking lot of the Schuylkill Mall there on Friday night."

The sentence above appeared in a story datelined Hamburg, PA - maybe the first time such a story was filed with the Times. Unfortunately, they goofed when they identified the Schuylkill Mall as being in Hamburg. Our little town is on I-78 in Berks County, that mall is on I-81 in Schuylkill County - over 20 miles north up SR-61.

The storm coverage is fairly accurate, but fails to point out that the storm laid ice on the roads, then snow, then more ice. It has also included extreme cold except during the night of the storm when temperatures warmed enough to allow a period of sleet and freezing rain. Most of the time, though, it has been cold enough to keep salt from making much progress in melting ice. The icing was so bad that for a time I was contemplating crawling out a window to clear my front steps! The lock on the back door is frozen solid and won't turn and the front has a storm door that was blocked by ice. It took my landlord's wife and his son's girlfriend about 15 minutes to break loose enough ice to get my storm door open just halfway.

My landlord and his company plow snow when they aren't digging holes and hauling dirt and stone. I spoke to him Wednesday night about 8:00 PM when he was plowing snow in Hamburg. They were still at it at midday on Thursday. His wife told me that in addition to I-78 being closed, Old US-22 which parallels I-78 was reduced to a single lane in many places.

I just looked out the window towards I-78 a few minutes ago and the only vehicles I saw were two PennDoT plow trucks moving westbound.