POLAR STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS: For the second day in a row, rare polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) have appeared over Sweden. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked out the window this morning,” reports Jordan Herbst of Earth to Sky Calculus, who is in Abisko, Sweden, for a series of cosmic ray balloon launches. “I rushed outside, post-holing through deep snow to set up my camera with a good view of Lapporten.” This image shows the clouds floating over Mt. Nissuntjårro:
“Just yesterday I heard about these clouds for the first time–and today I got to shoot an incredible display,” he says. “I’m so glad to be here in the Arctic!”
Polar stratospheric clouds are very rare. Normally the stratosphere has no clouds at all. PSCs form when the temperature in the Arctic stratosphere drops to a staggeringly-low -85 C. Then, and only then, sparse water molecules begin to coalesce into tiny ice crystals — the “stuff” of PSCs. High-altitude sunlight shining through the crystals creates intense iridescent colors.
In a typical Arctic winter, PSCs appear two or three times at most. This winter is different. The clouds have nearly filled Arctic skies on dozens of occasions, with some longtime residents describing it as the best outbreak in a generation.
Dancing With Fools 
This is why Russians have dash cameras in their cars:
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I laughed all the way through that. I love those crash montages.
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I watched a couple more while I was there.
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From Media Matters:
This Week In Dumb
Quoting a QAnon Twitter account, Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo said that Trump will have a legacy of “real leadership”.
At the March for Life, Trump parroted right-wing media lies about abortion to rile up his base.
Newly released documents prove that Sean Hannity is a Trump political operative. At any respectable outlet, Hannity would be out of a job, but Fox News doesn’t care.
Fox News prime-time avoided covering record Australian bushfires until a Murdoch paper (wrongly) minimized the role of climate change.
Tucker Carlson is furious at a proposal to limit investment in companies where the board of directors consists entirely of white men.
In the wake of the Australian fires, climate crisis denialism reportedly got a big boost from Facebook.
Chris Matthews bizarrely said that “we can’t use” the word lie anymore. He then said that Republicans were using “half-truths” instead.
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What year was the lowest, flatest Mercedes Benz 4 door sedan? Saw one last night lower than the 1985 model year, but can’t place it. Of course, it could have been hobby-modified.
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Peruse WIKI
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Thank you. I surmise that it was a customized W126.
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Kobe Bryant and two of his daughters died in a Helo crash in Calabasas, CA
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Young guy still, I think he has 4 daughters. 😦
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I figured it was time to change the look of the place.
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I like blue.
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The blue is a nice touch.
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However, do not undergrind the coffee beans.
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Standard 15 minutes to the north door of the Hillside Cafe past the completely deserted St Thomas More catholic student center.
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Five people waiting for the 7 pm Mass.
Just 28 minutes to start the week.
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From a “daily briefing” newsletter that’s included in my NYT subscription…I wonder if this will have any impact on the impeachment?
In an unpublished manuscript of John Bolton’s forthcoming book, the former national security adviser said that President Trump told him firsthand that he wanted to continue freezing military aid to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens.
A draft of his manuscript was sent to the White House in recent weeks for a standard review process. You can read our full story on the news here, and five takeaways from our reporting.
What happened?
During a conversation in August with Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolton mentioned his concern over the delay of $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine. Mr. Trump replied that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation related to former Vice President Joe Biden and supporters of Hillary Clinton in Ukraine. (Mr. Trump frequently lumps together the law enforcement officials who investigated his campaign’s ties to Russia with Democrats and other perceived enemies, as he appeared to do with Mr. Bolton.)
Mr. Bolton said that he warned White House lawyers that Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients. And he said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo privately acknowledged to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Marie Yovanovitch, then the ambassador to Ukraine, had no basis.
What does this mean for impeachment?
Mr. Bolton had been near the top of the list of witnesses Democrats wanted to hear from in the impeachment trial, and the new revelations have only intensified that: House managers said in a statement on Sunday night that “there can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President’s defense and therefore must be called as a witness at the impeachment trial of President Trump.”
Democrats would need support from a handful of Republicans in the Senate in order to call witnesses. Before this news broke, most lawmakers said the chances of 51 senators agreeing to call witnesses were dwindling, not growing. Several moderate Republicans have said that they would wait until the conclusion of opening arguments and the question-and-answer round of the trial — likely by the end of the week — to decide on whether to support such a move.
Why are these revelations such a big deal?
Here’s what my colleague Mike Schmidt, one of the reporters of the story, told me:
“Until this point, Mr. Bolton had been signaling that he had something to say, but we didn’t know what he was going to say. It didn’t sound like a hollow promise, but it certainly was one that you didn’t know what was behind Door No. 1. Now there’s some significant meat on the bone.
Mr. Bolton was in this highly unusual situation where, if he wasn’t going to testify and it was going to come out in a book, people were going to say, ‘What the heck, where was this important information when there was an impeachment investigation?’ The fact that there’s a book coming has a lot of people alarmed.”
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So, is that POS Roberts going to DO something, or sit on his hands like the rest of the republicans? What is he even there for? He’s just a prop.
‘They’ can quit saying judges are non-partisan. I’ve know that to be a lie forever now.
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The Chief Justice is presiding. Leaving the discipline to others, except for matters verbal.
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We might now hope that he will be called to testify.
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Pete and his friends are on their way home, have reached Ohio. They should be here by midnight EDT.
Jill came over today. She brought over a diary she kept when she was 15 and read it out loud to me. That was WONDERFUL! She wrote in detail, so interesting. They had so many friends who were always over here, or her and Pete were off to everywhere around the countryside. They did a lot of TPing, lol. We called it that in my day, in their day they called it wrapping. In case you don’t know what that is, Doc, it’s buying rolls of toilet paper, sneaking over to friend’s houses and…decorating. Never did it myself. You throw the roll up in the trees, it falls back down, leaving streamers of TP. Their friends did it to us a couple times. I loved when they did it, it looked so cool. I’d let it stay out there for several days.
It was interesting how many times Bob and I were mentioned, things we did together, going to the mall, swimming in the pool, playing games, the show, my Lasagna praised several times. It made me very nostalgic for the good old days, when we were young and our kids were teenagers. Jill was 15, Pete was 17, I was 40 and Bob was 46.
Jill is going to have to read that book again when Pete is here. He’ll love it like I did. She has 3 more diaries.
I like the report she made about Bob saying it was time for her to call him dad and not daddy. She wrote about that, and as the days and months went by, she wrote about it again, “Blah, blah, blah, daddy. I mean DAD!” It was a hoot. By the way, she called Bob daddy until the day he died and she still calls me mama, and that’s not mom-a., it’s mum-a. Pete calls me Carol, lol. He told me he does that because I told him one time that Bob never called me by my name, I love my name, no one seems to address me by my name. So, Pete does, to this day.
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(The editor fairy was here)
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Isn’t that funny how I put the BOLD HTML on either side of Doc’s name, yet it made the rest of my comment BOLD. It wasn’t my doing.
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But mostly your ‘puter ain’t misbehaving.
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That was too large of an incorrectness to let go by, even for DWF.
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That engine looks dry, better put some oil in it:
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Don’t forget the vinegar.
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There is a lighter shade of blue which is preferable.
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