Trillion ton iceberg creaks off Antarctica

Aerial view of the iceberg
Photo: Reuters/NASA

A seriously yooge iceberg, a trillion tons--one of the largest ever recorded-- has literally snapped off the West Antarctic ice shelf! Scientists have been monitoring the 2,200-square mile for years, reports The Hindu.

"The calving occurred sometime between Monday, July 10 and Wednesday, July 12, when a 5,800-square kilometer section of Larsen C (ice shelf) finally broke away," the Swansea University said in a statement.

The iceberg is larger than Delaware, has a volume twice a that of Lake Erie and is about 1,100 feet thick.

"The iceberg weighs more than a trillion tons, but it was already floating before it calved away so has no immediate impact on sea level," the team said. It will probably be named A68 and the calving will probably be blamed on President Trump by the Democrats for not signing the Paris Climate accord.

The Larsen C ice shelf has lost over 12 percent of its total surface area from the calving. Although calving from Antarctica is a regular occurrence, the size of this iceberg will force us to watch it closely as it travels as it can pose a risk to shipping traffic.

The Swansea team also said the calving my have increased the risk of the remaining ice shelf disintegrating.

Ice shelves float on the sea, and are fed by slow-flowing glaciers from the land. They act as enormous brakes that keep glaciers from flowing directly into the ocean. 

If the glaciers held back by Larsen C split into the Antarctic Ocean, it would lift the global water lever about 4 inches, researchers believe.

The calving of ice shelves is a natural occurrence--it has nothing to do with Al Gore's global warming, but some researchers believe that it may have accelerated the process.

Warmer ocean water erodes the underbelly of the shelves, while rising air temperatures weaken them from above.

The nearby Larsen A ice shelf collapsed in 1995 and Larsen B broke up in 2002.

"We will continue to monitor both the impact of this calving event on the Larsen C ice shelf and the fate of this huge iceberg," lead investigator Adrian Luckman said. "Some of the ice may remain in the area for decades, while parts of the iceberg may drift north into warmer waters."

Human actions have lifted average global air temperatures by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius).


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3 Israeli Teens Found Murdered and Some People Try Justifying It

Susan Abulhawa wrote about the 3 teens who were kidnapped and murdered on June 12th, by some Jew-haters. Her opinion piece appears in The Hindu

The teens were found in a shallow grave in Halhed. It's obvious from where they were abducted that these kids were Jews because the community of Gush Etzion, where they were taken, is a Jewish colony in the West Bank, and besides, these teens wore yarmulkes, or Jewish skullcaps.

Abulhawa described the repercussion brought on by Israel for the kidnappings as a situation where the Israelis "has besieged the 4 million Palestinians who already live under its thumb, storming through towns, ransacking homes and civil institutions, conducting night raids on families, stealing property, kidnapping, injuring, and killing."

She also wrote that Benjamin Netanyahu claims Hamas is responsible for the killings, but said that there is no evidence for this. Of course, Ms. Abulhawa produced no evidence for her anti-Zionist claims, but I'm certain there are plenty of anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian Muslims who don't really care about evidence. Islam has played the victim for 1400 of their ongoing savagery, so this time is no different. 

When Hamas rockets fall indiscriminately into Israel and kill children, women and other civilians, Palestinians celebrate by handing out sweets. When these 3 innocent teens were taken and killed, Palestinians handed out sweets.

The Koran or Islamic "holy book" refers to Jews and Christians as apes and pigs, and is loaded with anti-Jewish rants. Many extreme Muslims really believe that Jews are not fit to live.

Abulhawa writes, "Thus far, over 570 Palestinians have been kidnapped and imprisoned, most notably a (sic) Samer Issawi, the Palestinian who went on a 266-day hunger strike in protest of a previous arbitrary detention."

You might remember Samer Issawi. He was first arrested on April 15, 2002 by the Israeli army in Operation Defensive Shield during the Second Intifada. Issawi was affiliated with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and was alleged to manufacture and distribute pipe bombs and to have fired them indiscriminately at Israeli citizens.

Issawi was convicted of being a member of an illegal [terrorist] organization, possession of explosives, and attempted murder. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison but was released in 2011 along with 1027 other Palestinian prisoners as part of an Egypt-brokered deal between Hamas and the Israeli government for the return of a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. You see, for Israel, one soldier is worth over a thousand terrorists. The deal may be crazy because it encourages more kidnappings, but this is how the Israelis think.

Back in July of 2012, Issawi was re-arrested for violating terms of his release--he left Jerusalem and entered the West Bank. He was convicted and given 8 months to serve, where he could have been given the remainder of his 26 years for his original sentence.

So Abulhawa made light of Issawi, making him sound like a Palestinian folk-hero, which he might be since he enjoys killing Jews. But for Susan Abulhawa to somehow think she can justify the killing of 3 teens in unconscionable and clearly anti-Semitic.

But Abulhawa has an interesting background that might, in part, explain her feelings about Israel, the Jews, and these murdered kids.

Her parents were born in Jerusalem and became refugees from the 1967 war. At the time, her mother was studying in Germany and her father was expelled from Jerusalem "at gunpoint," she says. Her parents reunited in Jordan and moved to Kuwait where Abulhawa was born in 1970. 

Her parents soon separated and she was sent to live with family members in Jordan and Kuwait. At the age of 10, she ended up in an orphanage, and soon came to the USA where, at age 13, she was in foster care in North Carolina.

She is well-educated and studied neuroscience but left it for journalism. In 2006, she wrote a book entitled, "The Scar of David." 

In 2013 she declined an Al Jazeera invitation to discuss the Israel-Palestine issue because 'it frankly pains me that you would conceive of such a forum." She was referring to the fact that Israelis would actually be represented on the panel and she wanted nothing to do with that. This was in spite of the fact that some of the Israelis in question sided with the Palestinians. The fact that they were Jewish, turned her off.

I have to agree with Pamela Geller when she said (and I paraphrase) "When there is  a war between civilized man and savages, side with the civilized man."

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