Earth Changes
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
"We are commencing a voluntary evacuation," Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie said, predicting the evacuation would be complete by the evening. "We think that the levels are going to be at or very close to levee height."
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©REUTERS/Dave Kaup |
A farm building is immersed in floodwaters near Thurman in southwest Iowa June 12, 2008. |
You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist's attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.
The hospital's 176 patients, including about 30 patients in a nursing home facility at the hospital, were being evacuated to other hospitals in the region. The evacuation started late Thursday night and continued Friday morning in the city of 124,000 residents.
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©Steve Pope/AP |
Downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was submerged Thursday by the rising Cedar River. Around 100 blocks were under water, forcing some 10,000 people to flee. |
Three earthquakes originating in Lebanon were felt in northern Israel on Friday morning. Numerous citizens reported the first quake felt mostly in the Galilee.
The Geophysical Institute of Israel (GII) reported that the first quake felt at 8:30 am measured in at 3.8 on the Richter Scale; and the second and third quakes felt at around 9:15 am measured in at 3.5 and 3.4. No injuries or damage were reported.
Friday's tremors followed four separate earthquakes which were felt throughout Israel on Thursday.
There's further proof that this spring has been uncomfortably and depressingly cold -- the coldest in memory, the coldest since 1917.
Validation came Tuesday from the University of Washington, where Cliff Mass, an atmospheric sciences professor, published his new "barbecue index."
"I've gotten a lot of calls about how unusual this weather's been," said Mass. "In roughly 90 years, this is the most unpleasant year for being outside and having a barbecue."
Mass and meteorologist Mark Albright found proof of the pain after reviewing warm spring days since 1894. They tallied the number of spring days above 60 degrees.
Two of the fields are the Duri and Minas fields, operated by Chevron, and have a combined output of 379,000 barrels a day. The other is a 21,000-barrel-a-day field operated by PT Bumi Siak Pusako, which is controlled by the Riau government. Bumi's field uses electricity generated by Chevron's power plant in Duri.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa - From Iowa to Missouri, officials in the flood-ravaged Midwest were frantically sandbagging, watching weakened dams and rescuing residents from water that in some places rose knee-high, while storms threatened more damage in the Upper Plains.
Several tornadoes touched down in Minnesota's Nobles, Murray and Cottonwood counties, damaging trees and farm outbuildings, as well as in eastern Nebraska.