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So how serious is the USA about AGW . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO4XQLvss5Q&feature=player_embedded#

Just another bunch of rent seeking greenie freeloaders.

The teaparty may be on the verge of its first proxy victory:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTk0YTE3MGViNjBmOTZkY2E3MzRmMGU0YmI0MWVhYzU=

Vit:

Can I brag on my kids for a moment?

My elder daughter was accepted into the "TOPS" (Talented Offerings in Programs for the Sciences, in what is clearly one of the most tortuous acronyms ever) curriculum two years ago. This is the elite program in the GTA for students who are interested in math, science, and engineering. She was one of 40 children picked out of 2,000 applicants.

Today, we learned that my younger daughter, who wrote the entrance exam last month, was also accepted into the program. Most of its graduates earn some kind of scholarship to university (over $1.8 million last year, for 40+ graduates). I'm very proud of both my girls, and I know they will continue to excel and exceed expectations.

Congrats, KevinB. Parents are allowed to be proud of their kids -- and why not?

In most cases, how they turn out isn't just accidental.

Congratulations on having and raising two smart young women.
All the best to you and your family.

Pat

I know the following isn't part of the usual political discourse that this site focuses on but I learned something today that might save any SDA reader hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars if they're attending any events at the 2010 Olympics and buying tickets through unofficial channels.

I wrote all about it here. Hopefully this will help someone!

Irate Labor Leaders Press Obama on Proposed Health Care 'Cadillac' Tax
Labor leaders say you can't have it both ways.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/11/irate-labor-leaders-press-obama-proposed-health-care-cadillac-tax/

Either way, Obama is hooped on this one.
I'm luvin' it.

Tired of global climate change? Want something fresh to consider for the end of the planet? Have I got something for you.

http://www.daily.pk/norway-time-hole-%E2%80%9Cleak%E2%80%9D-plunges-northern-hemisphere-into-chaos-14311/?hnbgfv

*
the multi-talented jack layton... not just for breakfast anymore...

"The NDP leader also garners the largest proportion of
mentions for serving as a babysitter."

*

KevinB - Looks like the girls picked up some pretty fantastic talents from their mother, eh? congrats!

Congratulations KevenB, batb says it all.

Why can't Canadians get these jobs that pay $ 4.1 MILLION DOLLARS?

Oh yeah,because we're not Terrorists

"Informant paid millions to infiltrate Toronto 18 testifies"

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/749191--informant-paid-millions-to-infiltrate-toronto-18-testifies?bn=1

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/01/11/12427356.html

Globe, Monday.

Fusty old bureaucrat Tom Kent writes about tax reform, which includes higher taxes to deal with the recently-incurred stimulus deficit.

Of course, the Harper government appears unwilling to spend all the allocated stimulus funds, so perhaps the deficit problem will turn out to be overblown.

Kent: "There are, of course, illusionists who claim that public expenditures can be slashed enough to balance the books."

I don't know the numbers, but you can kill the regulatory agencies, boards and commissions, and you can eliminate all subsidies to business and to extremist activist groups to save a few billion for starters.

Kent's version of "tax reform" goes like this: "We will not have a reliable financial system until dollars are treated equally, until dividends, realized capital gains, gifts, inheritances, trusts, royalties, fees, interest, government rransfers, lottery winnings and all the rest are liable to the same taxes as wages and salaries."

It reminds me of the "Single Tax" idea of ex-Liberal MP Dennis Mills.

Maybe this is a good idea, maybe not. But the real tax reform we need is to streamline the system, to eliminate the loopholes and subsidies that distort the economic decisions of Canadians. No more "encouragement" or phony "incentives" to do this or that, activities that are not profitable. Eliminate the distortions, return to maximal productivity and profitability, economy rolls along smoothly, poverty is reduced, social programs can be reduced and eventually eliminated.

Kent says we need a "clear statement of direction now re the broadening of the tax base" that he recommends, since "Mere suggestion of the reform will again be angrily denounced by some of the people who now ride free.".

This is exactly my attitude toward the elimination of regulatory agencies, activist group funding, and similar free-riders. They'll squawk like hell -- but who cares?

Meanwhile, back at the WUWT ranch.

IPCC Scientist: Global cooling headed our way for the next 30 years

Or maybe not.

The original post went up earlier today, followed by an expected shootdown by Joe Romm over at the Climate Progress corral. Then an update was posted at WUWT stating that the 'IPCC Scientist' claiming he was misquoted.

Get your beer and popcorn and watch the show.

In case your interested nv53,

"Fusty old bureaucrat TOM KENT",is the POS bureaucrat that in the 1960's started the MASSIVE changes to Canada's immigration system.

Globe, Monday.

Editorial part deux about women and "power". This one deals with representation in Parliament, the legislatures and other elected assemblies.

"Canada ranks 47th in the world for the proportion of women in its national parliament ..."

So what? Do we have to be first in everything?

The editorial notes some of the reasons that women might avoid going into politics, including the long hours, the travel, absence from family and the "rude, frat-boy antics" in the legislatures.

Weren't the latter mostly unheard-of until the Trudeau years?

"political scientist Sylvia Bashevkin dismisses the idea that the uncivil atmosphere in Parliament presents the main barrier to women getting involved in politics. In her new book Women, Power, Politics: The Hidden Story of Canada's Unfinished Democracy, she argues the far bigger problem is the private 'discomfort' too many men (and women) feel about putting women in positions of power".

A. k. a., "racism". Yawn.

She calls for a return of public funding for women's political organizations such as the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.

But the NACSW has always been comprised of loudmouth activists, and it has done nothing that actually helps women. It's just another extremist group that was a waste of tax dollars.

Bashevkin also wants political parties to have a defined quota of women candidates.

This demonstrates that "affirmative action" is all about quotas, despite the furious denials of clowns like Sideshow Bob Rae. Political parties are private organizations that should be able to nominate candidates however they please. If the press reports on their methods and the public doesn't like them, they can place their votes elsewhere. Plus, nowhere is it written that a woman must be represented by another woman or a man by a man in the lawmaking bodies. And what happens if the parties just don't find enough candidates? Do they have to resort to press gangs?

An organization called Equal Voice is attempting to lean on the parties to voluntarily accept more women candidates. Meanwhile, Sheila Gervais, former national director for the federal Liberals, has proposed that the political parties get a special taxpayer-supported subsidy based on the number of women they get elected.

This is completely anti-democratic. And, again since political parties are private organizations, their tax subsidies should be abolished.

Now, a Parliament full of women like Margaret Thatcher or Kate McMillan would be a joy to behold. And the Sylvia Bashevkins and Equal Voices would be deliriously happy, right?

Way to go KevinB. As the father of two girls (one a Bejing Olympian) I can appreciate the great pride you must feel for their success. Makes one want to brag, though I must point you have done no such thing in my opinion.

Bravo

Wow, it must be "Proud To Be A Dad Week". But seriously folks, there is no better feeling when your child makes you proud. Being a (good) parent is something of a lost art in some circles, where it's the nanny state's job to nurture our prodigies. Way to go.

btw, out of curiosity, what do people in TOPS make of the climate-gate fiasco? Are we raising a generation of scientific researchers or followers?

From Saturday's NP,

When the annual seal hunt begins this year, Miss Newfoundland and Labrador plans to hit the ice with relatives who go sealing every year. Sara Green made the decision after an animal-rights group doctored a photo of her taken at the recent Santa Claus parade in St. John's and posted it on Facebook. The altered picture has her covered in blood with a hakapik in her hand, surrounded by bloody seal carcasses. "When I saw it, of course, my jaw dropped, I couldn't believe it," Ms. Green told The Telegram. "But you know what? It made me so motivated to raise the support for the Canadian seal hunt and get out there and get more people educated on it." Ms. Green's stand is attracting attention. "In the last 24 hours, I've gotten tremendous support from fellow Newfoundlanders and Labradorians."

If two years living in St. John's taught me anything, it's never, ever, &^&( off a Newfie woman! Guess some others are learning that lesson now.

Security from Liberal Ontario Premier McGuinty.

Top Ontario policeman charged with crime.

Some security.
…-

“Ontario to appoint Crown to prosecute OPP chief

The Ontario government is going ahead with plans to appoint one of its own Crown attorneys to prosecute Julian Fantino, even though it tried to stop criminal charges against the Commissioner of the OPP from going ahead.”

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2430438
...-

"While you were busy hating Harper (Part 2)…
Posted by Joanne on 12 January 2010, 8:36 am

…he was busy looking after Canadian security."

http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/01/12/while-you-were-busy-hating-harper-part-2/#comment-72140

"Abdulmutallab’s Sex is on Fire

I’m outraged at Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it landed in Detroit using a bomb hidden in his underwear. He’s a despicable human being, but sometimes after something terrible happens, it takes us awhile to really grasp the damage done.

Enter my status as a fan of the rock band, Kings of Leon. I was on Matt Bruce’s “The Captain’s America” radio show last week when he mentioned how Abdulmutallab’s placement of his explosive was kind of ironic, considering his vision of heaven includes a reward of 72 virgins that are, according to one Saudi scholar, free of phlegm, feces, urine, menstrual cycles and have the “strength of 100 men in eating, drinking and sex.” Not only is he not a martyr, which would guarantee his entry into the sexual paradise the radical Islamists consider heaven to be, but his, umm, “tool” to enjoy that heaven was probably damaged in the process.

Thanks to that insightful analysis by Mr. Bruce, not only did an unappealing image burn into my brain, it gave a whole new meaning to the Kings of Leon’s hit song, “Sex on Fire.” Now, whenever I go to rock out the drums to that song on Guitar Hero, I have to think of Abdulmutallab and the sole casualty of his attempted attack. I then become distracted, miss the notes, and get made fun of by the girls I’m trying to impress.

And I know, I know, the press reports did not say that his man-parts were burnt, but they did say he was treated for second and third degree burns on his inner thighs. You don’t need to be an anatomy major to know that, unless he was majorly size-challenged, he had to suffer some damage down there.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2426502/posts

Claudia Anderson, Getting to Know You

In those early days, the U.S. military in Afghanistan, for all its famous night-vision goggles, was blind to what has become known as the “human terrain”—the people it had come to liberate...

Today efforts are being made to change that, as the military draws on a culture of “lessons learned”—the systematic practice of looking back at mistakes to see what can be done better. The generals in charge of the counterinsurgency strategy being implemented in Afghanistan are graduates of the hard school of Iraq, where the United States also paid the price of ignorance. Now, the generals—notably U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief David Petraeus and the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal—are working through multiple channels to build their forces’ ability to relate to the Afghan population...

David Hambling, Pentagon Scientists Target Iran’s Nuclear Molemen

Iran’s nuclear facilities may be deeply-buried in a “maze of tunnels” — making them hard to find and even harder to destroy. But the Pentagon is working on some new technological tricks for exactly this kind of mission...

'OTTAWA -- A memo sent to airports and airlines across the country urged them to "exercise increased vigilance" due to an undisclosed threat in the wake of the failed bombing of an American airplane in December, Transport Canada confirmed Tuesday. The new warning remains in effect.

Maryse Durette, a spokeswoman for Transport Canada, told Canwest News Service Tuesday she couldn't say what intelligence specifically led to the memo's release. But CBS reported on Friday that Mr. Abdulmutallab told U.S. officials of about 20 other Muslim men who had been trained in Yemen for similar attacks.'

Profiling of muslim males to begin in 3.2.1..

Hungarian Physicist Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi proves CO2 emissions irrelevant in Earth’s Climate

For years now, we have been told that science is dedicatedly attempting to find out how the Earth’s Climate works. With all possible seriousness, the most publically vocal of these scientists, those working for the UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), have for the last several years blamed the warming they “found” on Carbon Dioxide. With the release of the CRU (Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia) email database, it is very clearly apparent that the scientists involved with the IPCC were doctoring data to give a specific result. That result was designed to look as if CO2was causing climate change, warming the earth due to Human activities.

It can be reported now that this theory has been solidly disproven by Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi and Dr. Miskolczi’s work will make history."

"Climate scientist and fellow Hungarian, Dr. Miklos Zagoni in his paper “CO2 Cannot Cause any more “Global Warming”” dated December 2009 describes this discovery and its meaning. Dr. Zagoni beautifully sums it up all up:

“Since the Earth’s atmosphere is not lacking in greenhouse gases [water vapor], if the system could have increased its surface temperature it would have done so long before our emissions. It need not have waited for us to add CO2: another greenhouse gas, H2O, was already to hand in practically unlimited reservoirs in the oceans.”

Dr. Zagoni explains:

“Earth type planetary atmospheres, having partial cloud cover and sufficient reservoir of water; maintain an energetically uniquely determined, constant, maximized greenhouse effect that cannot be increased further by emissions. The greenhouse temperature must fluctuate around this theoretical equilibrium constant; [change] is possible only if the incoming available energy changes.”"

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7715-Portland-Civil-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d12-Hungarian-Physicist-Dr-Ferenc-Miskolczi-proves-CO2-emissions-irrelevant-in-Earths-Climate

It is already working !!

Chris Mathews screams and yells and goes berserk, says Sarah doesn't know anything. The guy is scared sh!tless.

If Beck has more audience than all MSNBC pundits put together, imagine what Saracuda will do to tingly leg himself!!

Al Gore's (AGW) Indulgences Report.
...-

"Robert (08:00:00) :

Imagine that! Carbon trading is a dream come true for criminals and fraudsters."

...-

"Carbon trading fraud in Belgium – “up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities”
12 01 2010

From the Guardian:

Belgian prosecutors highlighted the massive losses faced by EU governments from VAT fraud today after they charged three Britons and a Dutchman with money-laundering following an investigation into a multimillion-pound scam involving carbon emissions permits." (more)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/12/carbon-trading-fraud-in-belgium-up-to-90-of-the-whole-market-volume-was-caused-by-fraudulent-activities/#comments

Never fear, Capt. Condom will be here — in time for the Vancouver Olympics.

And he's bringing 250,000 safe-sex sheaths with him to hand out on busy street corners and in bars and clubs.

"You'll be seeing Capt. Condom, Methadone Man and Bi-Curious Man," said Lucianno Colonna, spokesman for SafeGames 2010 Thursday. "There's really no limit and you can expect to see lots of different characters. We're encouraging the volunteers to be creative."

There'll be more than 200 volunteers hitting the streets in superhero costumes to hand out packets containing condoms, lubricant, glow sticks, handwarmers and safe-sex information.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/2010wintergames/story.html?id=2420316

Capt. Condom will be packing 250,000 rubbers to Games

By Damian Inwood, Canwest News ServiceComments (6)

Never fear, Capt. Condom will be here — in time for the Vancouver Olympics.

And he's bringing 250,000 safe-sex sheaths with him to hand out on busy street corners and in bars and clubs.

"You'll be seeing Capt. Condom, Methadone Man and Bi-Curious Man," said Lucianno Colonna, spokesman for SafeGames 2010 Thursday. "There's really no limit and you can expect to see lots of different characters. We're encouraging the volunteers to be creative."

There'll be more than 200 volunteers hitting the streets in superhero costumes to hand out packets containing condoms, lubricant, glow sticks, handwarmers and safe-sex information.

http://www.montrealgazette.com

Nuclear science becoming dangerous in Iran.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/bomb-kills-iranian-nuclear-scientist/article1427957/

Forget Europe—the Chinese like seal

Canada takes seal industry promotion to Beijing
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 12:05pm - 4 Comments

What’s the best way to tick off anti-seal hunt advocates? How about introducing a high-profile seal-fur fashion line on the runways of Beijing. That’s what Fisheries Minister Gail Shea plans to do Tuesday as part of her campaign to market Canadian seal products in China. “There’s huge market potential here,” Shea says. Just as the European Union implements strict sanctions on Canadian seal, China has proved to be a big buyer. And it’s not just seal fur that draws in the big bucks; seal-oil capsules made from blubber are also selling well. “The Chinese eat anything,” says Wayne Mackinnon, one of the seal-industry executives travelling with Ms. Shea. “And they simply don’t understand why you would put one animal over another. I suspect that over the next decade, the Chinese market alone could take all the seal products that we could make.”

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/01/12/forget-europe%E2%80%94the-chinese-like-seal/

I've heard they like organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners too, but if it can save one regional Atlantic industry sinkhole from another decade of government handouts....

"Green jobs stimulus will cost $135,000 each"
"...from Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research:..."

"Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy. That’s what the wind and solar industries require – at a minimum – to exist. All the president did today is throw more money at an unproven technology that is not economically viable in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the only winners in this latest taxpayer giveaway will be Wall Street money managers and corporate interests in the wind and solar industry.

“If the president really wants to create an environment that will foster economic growth and job creation, he need not look any further than the domestic oil, gas and coal industries. These three industries and energy sources built this nation. For the administration to continue to ignore this fact and to keep the vast resources that taxpayers own under lock and key at the Department of Interior is irresponsible and a disservice to the American people."

Via HotAir
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/12/green-jobs-stimulus-will-cost-135000-each/

A historic first!!!!!

A Toronto Star columnist actually says that the state went too far:

But I don't accept the premise, implicit in the law, that any of us – including a 16-year-old girl – are such delicate creatures that we require such paternalistic intervention by the state, police and Crown attorneys.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/749013--dimanno-tillman-case-patronizes-women

Maybe they ARE waking up to their impending doom... then again... Naw.

Sometimes I wonder why we are required to pay taxes.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/funds-and-etfs/funds/scotiabank-ottawa-in-standoff-over-offshore-fund/article1427559/

I read today in the NP that people in the gangs that were exchanging gunfire that killed Jane Creba are still being tried for this crime that happened over 4 years ago. The muslims 18 that were going to blow up Toronto (don't say it, I know what you are thinking) are also going into their 5th year. How many millions has been spent on these never-ending trials. Check any criminal, let alone civil trials, and years go by, witnesses die, people forget what happened then the perpetrators just walk anyway.

2 years ago a woman who owned a restaurant in Barrie had the previous owner set the place on fire for the insurance money. Burned down the core of Barrie costing millions, she plea bargains to implicate the arsonist and she receives zero jail time!

The judge who said Turdeau's Rights and Freedoms Act would be a field day for lawyers was right on.

The Burial of Hope: the Hillbillies of ill repute.
(H/T Moniker)

"Despite the negative images of the Clintons shown in the highly publicized new book 'Game Change,' Bill and Hillary Clinton are virtually all alone in defending themselves."

...-

"Game over: The Clintons stand alone

A new book is out with a highly critical but unsourced portrait of Hillary Clinton. This familiar occurrence — it’s happened too many times to count over the years — has usually been greeted with an equally familiar response: A fast and furious counterattack from the Clinton inner circle.

What’s notable about the highly publicized release of “Game Change,” however, is the virtual silence from the Clinton camp. The lack of public outrage seems to mark the sputtering end of what was once known as the Clinton political machine and underlines a fact that onetime Clinton loyalists acknowledge: The book’s primary sources about the former candidate and current secretary of state are her own former staffers and intimates."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31345.html#ixzz0cR12EwSP

But, but they said the "super battery" is just around the corner !? Again.

[Detroit -- As automakers aggressively pursue electric vehicles, a study released today shows the cost targets behind the plans are unlikely to be achieved, making it hard for consumers to recoup the extra cost of buying electric.]

[ With both of these studies coming to the forefront within weeks of each other, it’s hard not to look back at comments Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen made in September 2009. He commented on the Volt’s high asking price, stating, “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.”]

Yet our beloved media keeps on pushing 'Pie In The Sky' .

Not flaming the musical selection but was that discordant jumble of musical instruments Jazz? I couldn't bring myself to listen to it. Was that a good rendition of a type of music that I just can seem to understand?

Seriously, it sounded terrible to me. Was that a well done piece of jazz?

[ It's discordant jazz. ~ Vitruvius ]

But, but they said the "super battery" is just around the corner !? Again.

[Detroit -- As automakers aggressively pursue electric vehicles, a study released today shows the cost targets behind the plans are unlikely to be achieved, making it hard for consumers to recoup the extra cost of buying electric.]

[ With both of these studies coming to the forefront within weeks of each other, it’s hard not to look back at comments Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen made in September 2009. He commented on the Volt’s high asking price, stating, “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.”] detnews.com

Yet our beloved media keeps on pushing the 'Pie In The Sky'.

@Dave 3:53

Dave, try this one:
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Fugitive+Saxena+returned+Thailand+ending+year+judicial+marathon/2158817/story.html

13 years, and that was just the extradition hearing.

The answer to your never-ending trial theory: Lawyers make money!

The longer, the more convoluted the trial process, the more money the lawyers make. The process uses the right to a fair trial as the reason but a fair trial doesn't take 5 years or 13 years for the extradition. Look at Karlheinz Schrieber. Almost 10 years, I think, before his court battle ran out. The pols kicked it around for another year, however.

"The real-world measurements showed CO2 to be largely irrelevant – “the global warming on Earth’s surface between 1950 and 2000 is pretty much due to CFCs,” he concluded. “The models say that CO2 is a major greenhouse gas but the facts show otherwise.”

New Univeristy of Waterloo study finds CFCs, not CO2, to be the cause of recent global warming

Posted: January 09, 2010, 12:41 AM by NP Editor
Lawrence Solomon,

Climate change is real and man-made, explains University of Waterloo professor Qin-Bin Lu, author of a new study published this week in the peer-reviewed journal, Physics Reports.

Professor Lu also explains that the climate change crisis is over. Thanks to an international environmental treaty, the planet is no longer in peril. We have, in fact, begun a long cooling period that will bring Earth’s temperatures back to normal.

The man-made cause of global warming is not CO2 and the international treaty that saved the planet is not the Kyoto Protocol. Rather, says Dr. Lu, the true cause of global warming has been CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, a class of chemicals that was once widely used in aerosol cans and refrigeration. As CFC use soared in the decades following World War II, he explains, the globe started warming dramatically. The world stopped warming dramatically when government regulations began to phase out CFCs, an event that culminated in the western world in 2000. Almost immediately afterward, in 2002, the world began to cool as CFCs started to diminish in our atmosphere.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/01/09/the-ozone-hole-did-it.aspx#ixzz0cRM8B9u4

maz2 - You mean to say that the Clintons and the media have given up on that 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy' thing?

The media helped Bill Clinton spin boldface lies. Both he and the media got away with it back then and so the media was emboldened to go onto bigger fish - hope&change, climate alarmism, terrorism as man made disasters, ..

Zeppo, wonder how many millions that cost us? Canada truly is the sucker nation of the world. Just read in NP that the teen who shot a Windsor police officer got 53 years in jail. Compare this to our legal system.

The judge took responsibility for not sentencing the man to jail when he was up before him for an earlier crime. Never heard this happen in Canada.

'The shooting of Const. Rettig occurred less than six months later. "Regardless of how one may look at it, I tend to think, ‘Well, did I make a mistake?'" Judge Jackson said. "In hindsight, I think that . . . it's very possible that someone could have lost their life because I did not look at things the way I should have in the first place."

Al Gore's Weather (AGW): It's a fact.

SDA gets results.

"*The weather has brought this particular problem on us,".
...-

"*Water Emergency in Jackson"

"the city has suffered roughly 70 water line breaks since Wednesday of last week, when freezing temperatures began taking their toll on the city's infrastructure."

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/water_emergency_in_jackson_011110/

Kate, just thought you might be interested in the source for this anomolus cold snap - according to the Pakistani's its Norways fault!

http://translate.google.no/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fnyheter%2Furiks%2Farticle3460872.ece&sl=no&tl=en

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments. I put it down to 90% of the girls' efforts, 9% of their mother's, and 1% of mine. Apparently, I was there at inception.