Don't put away your fur hat and gloves. North America appears to be in for another polar incursion.

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THURSDAY, FEB 20, 2014 01:12 PM MST

It still isn’t over: The polar vortex is about to hit for the third time

Next week is going to be brutal

LINDSAY ABRAMS                                                                                                                                              Original Here

The first polar vortex (Credit: NASA/Facebook)

Remember that time when a giant pattern of Arctic air descended over the U.S. and Canada, freezing everything in its path? Remember when it came back? Yeah, that’s all happening again.

Here’s Wunderground’s Jeff Masters, who completely buried the lede with something about a “major February thaw” across the Midwest U.S. before delving into this forecast of horrors:

Fortunately (?) for the Midwest, this week’s thaw will be short-lived, preventing the kind of major flooding that would result if all of the snowpack were to melt in a week. This morning’s runs of the GFS and European models were better able to handle the evolving upper-air pattern over the Pacific Ocean, and it appears that their earlier runs seriously underestimated the strength of a ridge of high pressure forecast to build over the Western U.S. 6 – 10 days from now. This ridge will be accompanied by a return of the cold “Polar Vortex” over the Midwest and Northeast U.S., bringing bitter cold temperatures and strong winds. Temperatures 20°F below normal will likely invade the Upper Midwest on Sunday, and gradually spread southeastwards during the week. The peak cold is predicted to occur late next week, with temperatures 20 – 35° below normal covering much of the eastern 2/3 of the country.

To reiterate, that’s temperatures 20 to 35 degrees below normal. Over much of the easter two-thirds of the country. We have six to ten days to prepare.

Here’s what it’ll look like:

NOAA/CPC

Sure, we were cold the last two times around. But did we truly appreciate the might and force of the original polar vortex? This mind-blowing NASA video demonstrates just what we were dealing with:

Lindsay Abrams is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email labrams@salon.com.

Posted below is an email appeal received just today from one of the few totally uncorrputed members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Alan Grayson. It exposes the most grotesgue plan ever initiated by the global corporations to enslave we-the-99%. Please read it and then sign the petition. (A donation would be welcome but is not necessary.)

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Dear David:

The United States Trade Representative has invited public comments on the "Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership." (God, even the title makes you ill, doesn't it?) The "Partnership" actually is a partnership between multinational corporations and their sellout tools in government. It features "investor-state" dispute resolution, which permits huge corporations to file lawsuits to prevent government actions that they just don't like, such as health and safety regulations.

Tell our government what you think about this huge power-grab by multinational corporations. Submit your comment here. 

This is not just a theoretical possibility. "These provisions elevate corporations to the level of nation states and allow them to sue governments over nearly any law or policy which reduces their future profits," the Sierra Club warns. The government of Canada has been sued under a similar clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for refusing to export Canada's water. Canada also has been sued for keeping a pollutant out of its gasoline supply, and for taxing windfall profits by oil companies.

Why are we even thinking about handing over our sovereign rights to huge corporations who care nothing about us? Make your voice heard, by clicking here.

Who needs these "free trade" sell-outs, anyway? Since NAFTA went into effect in 1994, the United States has lost almost four million manufacturing jobs. Moreover, huge U.S. subsidies for corn have made it impossible for millions of Mexican families to survive on the farm. NAFTA accomplished something that hardly seems possible - impoverishing both American workers and Mexican ones. Can't we learn from our mistakes? And why are our leaders treating us like sheep being led to the slaughter?

Stop this subversive betrayal right now. Click here, and click now, to put in your two cents.

The First Amendment gives us the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Anyone who has been paying attention to these Judas-kiss trade "deals" is feeling mighty, mighty "aggrieved." So do something about it: click here to try to put an end to this nonsense.

The window for comments closes on Friday. So give them a piece of your mind today.

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson
[D-Fl, 9th district]

HUNDREDS ARRESTED IN SUSTAINED TAR SANDS PROTESTS AT WHITE HOUSE

  theREALnews                                     Permalink

August 30, 2011

Hundreds Arrested in Sustained Tar Sands Protests at White House

Protests demand Obama use veto power to halt proposed expansion of Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico

CANADIANS REMAIN SAFE FROM GLENN BECK ATTACK

Blogger's Note: We Americans remain vulnerable. As you can see below, even I have been attacked by Glenn Beck. Click here to see whether you too might have been a target.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President, Waterkeeper Alliance; Professor, Pace University

Posted: February 28, 2011 09:54 PM

As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.