Sent to me by a friend in Clifton who heard the same thing I hear all the time. Crazy.

Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened as it dumped heavy rains on Haiti on Saturday, threatening floods and mudslides in a country where hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless more than two years after a devastating earthquake.

Lashing rains and high winds were reported along parts of Haiti's southern coast and in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, where more than 350,000 survivors of the 2010 earthquake are still living in fragile tent and tarpaulin camps.

Intermittent power outages affected the greater Port-au-Prince area in the early hours of Saturday as Isaac bore down on the impoverished Caribbean country.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said at 2 a.m. ET that Isaac was 55 miles southwest of Port au Prince and moving northwest at 13 mph.

It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, the NHC added.

Its center was expected to pass over Haiti's southern coast early Saturday. The NHC warned there was a possibility Isaac could reach hurricane intensity before making landfall in Haiti.

Pigeon racers are mystified after hundreds birds disappeared in an they have now dubbed the Bermuda Triangle.

Only 13 out of 232 birds released in Thirsk , North Yorkshire, on Saturday by a Scottish pigeon racing club made it back to Galashiels, Selkirkshire.

It follows a summer in which hundreds more have vanished in the same area.

Keith Simpson, of the East Cleveland Federation, said pigeon racers across the region had all suffered massive losses since the season started in April - with many losing more than half of their birds.

Some fanciers are considering stopping flying the birds until they establish why so many failed to return.

"Summer weather was miserable - now there's proof," says this article out of Sweden.

According to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), on only six days this summer did the temperature reach more than 25 degrees Celsius in Stockholm.

Last year, Stockholm had 28 days with summer weather, ie days with a minimum temperature of 25 degrees. This year, just six days met this definition - 4 days in July and two in August. Recent summers have not even come close to having as few summer days.

Gothenburg had only five summer days this year. Malmo had nine, about as few as last year.

Note: this video does not imply the world is going to end in 2012... but it sure is a striking collection of signs of the times.

Extreme weather, Earth Changes, earthquakes, sinkholes, floods, drought, snow, mass animal deaths... and perhaps most symbolically of all, the US flag falling at an Olympics medal ceremony.

This is just a snapshot of events from around the world during the first two weeks of August. Has the Universe got your attention yet?

Dallas County, Texas, and several nearby towns and cities in the Dallas area are currently being forcibly sprayed with toxic insecticides as part of a government effort to supposedly eradicate mosquitoes that may be carriers of West Nile virus (WNv). The mass sprayings, which are ramping up all across the country, involve blanketing entire areas with chemicals sprayed via airplanes, a highly controversial protocol that threatens not only all other insects and animals exposed, but also humans.

According to the City of Dallas, more than 380 state-confirmed cases of WNv have been reported throughout Texas this year, and at least 16 people in the Lone Star State have died in conjunction with the virus. The specifics of these cases and deaths have not been publicly released, but authorities insist that the situation is serious enough to warrant a series of at least three conjunctive aerial sprayings throughout Dallas County, including in Highland Park and University Park.

Aerial spraying chemicals linked to causing Colony Collapse Disorder

The chemical product being sprayed is known as Duet, an "advanced dual-action mosquito adulticide" that contains both sumithrin, the active ingredient in another mosquito pesticide known as Anvil, and prallethrin. Both chemicals are known to be highly-toxic neuropoisons that target not only mosquitoes, but also bees, bats, fish, crickets, and various other animals and insects.

Sacramento, California - Wildfires that have destroyed homes, forced evacuations and caused road closures prompted California Governor Jerry Brown to issue an emergency proclamation today for three northern California counties at their request.

"I find that conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist due to the fires in the counties of Plumas, Shasta, and Tehama," the governor said in his proclamation. "The fires have destroyed residences and threaten thousands of homes and other structures, causing residents to be evacuated, roads to be closed, and emergency shelters to be opened."

The Ponderosa Fire near Manton in Tehama County has now burned 24,323 acres and is 50 percent contained. The fire was started by lightning on August 18 and has spread to neighboring Shasta County.

Thousands of people have been ordered to leave their homes as the blaze in thick forest threatens rural communities. About 3,500 homes in an area along the border of Tehama and Shasta counties are threatened as the fire continues to expand.

On Saturday, the Shasta County Sheriff's Office closed Highway 44 between Shingletown and Viola and evacuated area residents from at least 700 homes. Since then, security details have been patrolling the evacuated areas and will remain until the residents are allowed to return to their homes.

"At this time it is too early to speculate when Highway 44 road closure will be lifted," the Shasta County Sheriff's Office said this morning. "Law enforcement and fire personnel are evaluating the fire. We are looking at the weather and safety conditions hour by hour in hopes to allow the residents to return to their homes safely."

"Resources are stretched thin and fire suppression activities are still in effect," said the sheriff's office. "We do not want to lift closures prematurely and open up the area with unsafe conditions."

A tropical storm gathering strength in the Caribbean forced the U.S. military on Wednesday to postpone the latest hearings for the five detainees charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as officials evacuated staff members and others from Guantanamo Bay.

Tropical Storm Isaac is forecast to make landfall Saturday morning near the U.S. naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba, according to the National Weather Service. It is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday.

On Wednesday, a military spokesman at the Guantanamo detention center said most of the detainees are housed in concrete structures that can withstand the effects of hurricane-force winds; those who are not will be transferred to secure structures. Officials said they are also preparing to evacuate nonessential personnel, representatives of human rights groups and reporters from the island.

Residents of the base, meanwhile, were told to expect destructive winds and were advised to secure loose objects in their yards that could "become projectiles."

The last major storm to threaten Naval Station Guantanamo Bay was Tropical Storm Tomas in November 2010. It passed just east of Cuba but brought heavy rain and 60 mph winds, causing substantial flooding in the region.

Close to 100 tows sit motionless in the shriveled Mississippi River along an 11-mile stretch outside of Greenville, Miss. For every day a single towboat sits idle, it costs about $10,000. So when you've got at least 97 of them stranded, those costs start piling up quickly.

As the Midwest experiences its worst drought in 50 years, the Mississippi River is hitting water levels not seen since 1988, a year viewed by those in the industry as a benchmark of hard times. Back then, hundreds of barges sat idle near the same location that they're sitting today: Greenville.

Until now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had successfully kept river traffic moving by dredging the river, keeping it at a depth of at least nine feet along its 2,300-mile length all summer, only closing ports here and there temporarily.

But barges and towboats have now piled up near Greenville, forcing the Coast Guard to close an 11-mile stretch to shipping this week. That closure will really start to pinch shipping operators who use the country's inland waterways to deliver a host of commodities, goods and products across the U.S.

An amateur shutterbug happened upon a stunning scene as a pod of humpback whales emerged from the water as a curious crowd of watchers gathered around.Retiree Bill Bouton was driving in San Luis Obispo, California on Saturday when he glanced over at the coast to see a group of the massive mammals feeding in the shallow waters, which has been occurring occasionally in the area over the past few days.

The 69-year-old managed to pull his car over and set up his camera tripod near the water's edge to capture snapshots of the event.

Boaters and kayakers in the waters had cameras of their own poised to take pictures, fearlessly advancing toward the hungry animals, typically from 39 - 52 ft (12 - 16 metres) in length with an average weight of around 79,000 lb (36,000 kilograms).

Bouton explained on NBC's Today Show on Monday how he had spent most of the morning that day trying to photograph birds nearby but had been unsuccessful finding any compelling subjects.