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In Greenland ...

Headlines

Justice Dept. cancels news briefings service after sending white nationalist link

‘China is not paying for it’: Trump tariff hike hits everyone from beer brewers to book publishers

Tropical storm Dorian forms over the Atlantic ...

NBC News: ‘Heterosexuality is just not working’ ...

Justice Dept. renews fight on Trump’s right to block on Twitter

Trump’s tariffs on monkeys could ‘severe damage’ US menial research and send labs to China

Axelrod warns Supreme Court vacancy would ‘tear country apart’ ...

Martha’s Vineyard home shows Obama knows global warming’s a hoax

Trump’s Greenland gambit finds allies inside government

In a bad sign for trade talks, Trump deploys a new label for China's Xi — ‘enemy’

Macron rips up agenda for G-7 summit in fit of climate fury ...

Activist: Elizabeth Warren ancestors ‘complicit in Cherokee dispossession’

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President Trump assessing Greenland real estate under a blood moon ...

Greenland

So, President Trump is interested in the United States buying Greenland from Denmark ... see: CNBC Article. Already this pie-in-sky idea is being called Trump’s Folly mimicking Seward s Folly which was what Alaska was tagged when it was purchased from Russia in 1867 ... which has turned out to be a veritable goldmine in natural resources ... far far more valuable than the original purchase price of $8.2 million ... even in current dollars.

Greenland is the world’s largest island (over 372,000 square miles) situated between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans and considered part of North America. It’s population is less than 60,000 comprised primarily of Inuits who migrated from Canada many tens of centuries ago. About a third of its people’s lives in Nuuk, it’s capital city on the Southwestern coast. Greenland was discovered by the Viking Eric the Red in 982 and was named “Greenland” to attract settlers ... since the Vikings’ earlier discovery named “Iceland” didn’t  fare so well.

Although much of Greenland is covered with glaciers, the United States does operate a strategic Air Force Bass, Thule, in the northern part of the island under a long-term treaty with Denmark. Although Denmark has put out the Not for Sale sign, it is well known that Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, is still somewhat a financial drain on this small Nordic country.

Although it is doubtful if Trump could build a golf course or Trump Tower there, he still obviously sees longer-term benefit for the United States to acquire this big hunk of real estate ... particularly if someday global warming actually does come about.

Headlines

‘I’m worried’: Allies fear NRA has lost its power in Washington

Trump's tax cut not giving the US economy the boost it needs

Rice cookers close NYC subway ... Bomb prank? Test? ... NYPD hunts for suspect ...

Tlaib boycotts own grandmother to spite Trump

Trump scores partial win on asylum ban as court narrows injunction

Trump called the CEOs of the biggest US banks on Wednesday as the stock market plunged

Chinese, Russian warplanes in skies near SKorea ...

MSNBC: Trump supporters can’t find Greenland on the map

Blindsided: Why does Beijing keep getting Hong Kong wrong?

Fed may not have enough firepower to prevent a recession

Apple, EU set for showdown over record tax bill ...

Cathay Pacific CEO resigns due to Hong Kong airport protests

Gasp!

Global warming ... aka climate change ... aka extreme weather. We are doomed to the exigencies of carbon dioxide. More hurricanes ... rising sea levels ... more childhood asthma ... polar bears dying off ... more illegal immigration ... shrinking glaciers ... all sorts of plagues and pestilence caused by our naive use of fossil fuels.

Hold on Pilgrim. Recently we learned that Greenland’s glaciers are growing again (see: Greenland Glaciers) ... and, gasp! we are also now informed the the glaciers at Glacier National Park in Montana are not disappearing on schedule ... but, in fact, are once again expanding ... see: Daily Caller Story.

These ice-forming anomalies must also be being caused by global warming, aka climate change, aka extreme weather! No?

Afterward: I just looked up info about the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau, Alaska and got the following official word about its shrinking ... see next. The obvious question presents itself ... was CO2 spiking back in the mid 1700s?

Is the glacier retreating?

A neo-glaciation period began 3,000 years ago and ended in the mid-1700s. At this time, Mendenhall Glacier reached its point on maximum advance, and its terminus rested almost 2.5 miles down valley from its present position. Mendenhall Glacier started retreating in the mid-1700s because its annual rate of melt began to exceed its annual total accumulation. The icefield's snowfall perpetually creates new glacial ice for Mendenhall Glacier and this ice takes 200-250 years to travel from the Juneau Icefield to Mendenhall Lake. Water depth at the glacier's terminus is 220 feet. At this rate, the glacier would take several centuries to completely disappear. For Mendenhall Glacier to advance, the icefield's snowfall needs to increase, the glacier's rate of melt needs to decrease, or both.

The Audacity of Hope

Lemmings

The Barry recently said that "The question is not whether things will get better; they always do." (See: Live Statement).  I hate to burst your bubble Mr. President but hope is never a substitute for good planning and coordinated actions.  I suspect that those people who plan for their retirement by buying lottery tickets will swallow such claptrap, but this is not the kind of wispy, Pollyannaish rhetoric that should be being uttered by the President of the United States.

Mr. Obama, if you think things will get better by themselves, I suggest that you talk to anyone on the streets of Athens, or Madrid, or Darfur, or even Detroit for that matter. (I will treat my expected longer-term ramifications of the President's auto bailout in a subsequent blog posting.)  I realize that you like to "lead from behind," but, to me, this suggests that you have your head somewhat proximate to your gluteus maximus ... and you view of the road ahead is somewhat brindle-colored.

And, as for your current run to secure four more years of yuks and soirees at your Pennsylvania Ave. palace, you have chosen the motto, "Forward", an auspicious yelp from a leader who doesn't really like to lead.  This somehow congers up to me the image of a piper urging his following lemmings to brave the freezing waters of the North Sea in the "hope" they might reach Greenland.