5 September 2008

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5 September 2008Outlaw

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Jesse James1847- 3 April 1882

Jesse James

• Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw in the border state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. After his death, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West, although his robberies benefited only him and his band. Recent scholarship places him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of the frontier.

• Jesse Woodson James was born in Clay County, Missouri, at the site of present day Kearney on September 5, 1847. His father Robert James was a commercial hemp farmer and Baptist minister in Kentucky who migrated to Missouri after marriage and helped found Liberty College in Liberty, Missouri. Robert James travelled to California during the Gold Rush and died there when Jesse was three years old.

• The approach of the American Civil War overshadowed the James-Samuel household. Missouri was a border state between the North and South, but Clay County lay in a region of Missouri later dubbed "Little Dixie", where slaveholding and Southern identity were stronger than in other areas. It had been settled chiefly by migrants from the Upper South who brought their cultural practices, including slaveholding, with them. Robert James owned six slaves; after his death, Zerelda and Reuben Samuel acquired a total of seven slaves who raised tobacco on the farm. Clay County became the scene of great turmoil after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, when the question of whether slavery would be expanded into the neighboring Kansas Territory dominated public life. Much of the tension that led up to the American Civil War centered on the violence that erupted in nearby Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery militias.

• The James-Samuel family took the Confederate side at the outset of the war. Frank James joined a local company recruited for the secessionist Missouri State Guard, and fought at the battle of Wilson's Creek, though he fell ill and returned home soon afterward. In 1863, he was identified as a member of a guerrilla squad that operated in Clay County. In May of that year, a Union militia company raided the James-Samuel farm, looking for Frank's group. They tortured Reuben Samuel by briefly hanging him from a tree, and according to legend beat the young Jesse. Frank escaped. He is believed to have joined the guerrilla organization led by William C. Quantrill, and to have taken part in the notorious massacre of some 200 men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas. Contrary to legend, there is no evidence that Jesse ever rode with Quantrill's Raiders, as they would later be known.

What’s with all the hurricanes?

• Look at a satellite map, and you’ll see them lined up like Rockettes, stretching from Texas to the Canary Islands: Former Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna, Hurricane Ike, Tropical Storm Josephine. What gives?

• Four simultaneous named storms is unusual, but it’s not unprecedented. As the AP’s Seth Borenstein points out, 1998 saw four hurricanes – not just tropical storms – at the same time. And in 1995 we had five coinciding tropical storms.

• Still, it’s not every year that we see a procession like this. Borenstein explains how a number of circumstances have combined to create ideal conditions for tropical storm formation. First is a relative absence of wind shear in the North Atlantic, which can weaken storms or prevent them from developing. Then there are the winds bracketing the hurricane-formation regions, blowing from the west in the deep tropics and from the east in the subtropics, making it more likely for spinning storm systems to develop. And then there’s the slightly-warmer-than-average water, which fuels storms.

• And finally, there’s the low atmospheric pressure caused by all the other tropical storms. Hurricanes, it seems, can sometimes beget more hurricanes.

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• Beginning in 1995, there has been a big upswing in the number of Atlantic tropical storms. According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the years 1850 to 1990 saw an average of about 10 tropical storms, including about 5 hurricanes. Since 1995, the average has spiked, with the 1997-2006 average at about 14 tropical storms, including about 8 hurricanes. This increase correlates with the rise in ocean temperatures, which in turn is linked to global warming.

• So can we say that global warming is already influencing hurricanes? Not so fast. This is a matter of honest-to-goodness debate among climate scientists (as opposed to a certain other debate that is largely manufactured). A document posted on the World Meteorological Organization’s website and signed by the world’s top tropical cyclone experts agrees that there is evidence both for and against a human fingerprint on hurricane activity, and that models predict a 3 percent to 5 percent increase in windspeed per degree Celsius increase of ocean surface temperatures.

• What’s more, some scientists say they see evidence that ocean temperature goes through natural variations, such as the hypothesized Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a roughly one-degree-Fahrenheit swing in ocean temperatures said to last about 20 to 40 years. According to this theory, since the mid-1990s, we’ve been in a warm phase. This oscillation has been going on for at least the past millennium, and could very well be a cause of the recent spate of Atlantic hurricane activity, but this has by no means been proven.

Also, remember that Atlantic storms account for only about a tenth of all tropical storms. The rest, called cyclones and typhoons, are in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and their numbers have held steady.

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• Still, many scientists have observed that hurricanes have gotten more intense in recent decades, and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that it is “more likely than not” that this observed increase is partly due to human activity. What’s more the panel said that it is likely (that is, better than 2 to 1 odds) that future storms will be stronger due to global warming.

• And, as I wrote in my previous post, a paper published in this week’s edition of the journal Nature observed that the strongest storms over the past 26 years have become stronger due to increased ocean temperatures.

• But none of this is definitive. The data set of measurements of hurricanes is far from perfect, and the mechanisms of the relationship between ocean surface temperatures and storm intensity is poorly understood. What’s more, one study by the NOAA published this year found that global warming could actually decrease the severity of storms, by creating wind shear that lops off the top of the storms.

• So until a consensus emerges, those advocating action on climate change will have to content themselves with the prospect of mass extinctions, rising sea levels, withered crops, drought, and water shortages. As for whether the storms currently marching toward our coasts have been influenced by our SUVs, the jury is still out.

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McCain: End ‘the constant partisan rancor’

Republican nominee says Obama doesn’t have a record to run on

• Sen. John McCain of Arizona accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night with a dual message: Sen. Barack Obama does not have the judgment to govern the nation, whereas he himself can reach across party divisions to “get this country moving again.”

• In an address at the party’s national convention in St. Paul, Minn. — briefly interrupted when three yelling anti-war protesters were hustled out of the hall as delegates chanted “U.S.A., U.S.A.” — McCain promised to “reach out my hand to anyone to help me.”

• “Americans want us to stop yelling at each other,” McCain ad-libbed as he called for delegates to ignore the disruption.

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• It was the perfect segue for his main message of the evening.

• “Again and again, I’ve worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed,” McCain said in a call to end “the constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems.”

• “I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not,” he said.

• At the same time, McCain offered his “respect and admiration” to Obama, the first African-American ever nominated for president by a major political party.

• “I wouldn’t be an American worthy of the name if I didn’t honor Senator Obama and his supporters for their achievement,” he said.

• McCain left most of the attacks on Obama to his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and his close friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

• Their sarcastic digs — Palin in her well-received introductory speech Wednesday night and Graham in an Iraq-heavy denunciation Thursday night — freed McCain to get off a few well-chosen shots at his Democratic opponent while devoting most of his time to establishing himself in voters’ minds as a proven, trustworthy steward of American security and prosperity.

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Man Charged With Stealing $80,000 In Bras

Man, 41, Sold Stolen Bras on eBay, Prosecutors Say.

• A New York man has been charged with selling $80,000 worth of stolen Victoria's Secret bras online.

• Prosecutors said 41-year-old George Tutaya was arraigned Tuesday on charges of possessing stolen property. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.

• A telephone call to his attorney hasn't been returned.

• Prosecutors said Tutaya used eBay auction and PayPal payment accounts to sell the brassieres for about $25 each. The bras retail for $40 to $80.

• Prosecutors said records recovered at Tutaya's home in Queens link him to the sale of more than 2,000 bras. They said another 650 stolen bras were recovered in his home.

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Cat Hitchhikes 75 Miles In Owner's Spare Tire

Owner Says 'Bella Is OK’Smith said he got out of the truck, when he heard a cat in distress and realized it was his.

• Smith said the cat, Bella, was hysterical, shaky, dehydrated and tired, but otherwise OK.

• "I have to admit when she got out of that truck, she was kind of like a drunken sailor," Smith said. "She didn't have her sea legs yet."

• Bella had taken a nap on the truck's spare tire, which sits on a frame under the truck.

• According to Smith, Bella was smart enough to stay on the tire as the truck was moving.

• "She had an opportunity to jump out from there, [but] she would have been so far from home we would have lost her," he said. "The fact that she stayed so close to the truck saved her."

• Smith said Bella, an outdoor cat, adopted the couple years ago and has a special place in his wife's heart.

• "She's kind of become a fixture here," he said.• Smith said he canceled his meeting with a state

Department of Economic Security official who had driven 50 miles to get to Kearny so he could get Bella home.

• "I apologized because I had five appointments with clients that day," Smith said. "I had to take the cat back. I couldn't keep her six or seven hours in a hot truck.

• "[It] pretty much blew my day. I knew I had to get [the cat] home safe and sound," he added.

• It was either that, or, he joked, get a divorce.•A cat hitched a 75-mile ride on a spare tire under her owner's truck, Phoenix station KPHO reported.•Gil Smith, the cat's owner, was heading from his home in Gilbert, Ariz., to Kearny, Ariz., for business.

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Daily Spark

In your own opinion what do you think is the cause of all of the hurricanes? Try to provide some scientific basis for your reasoning.

When someone says the word “Geography” what are the first things that come to mind? List them.

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Today

• Geography

Elements of Geography

• There are two types of geography, Physical Geography and Human Geography.

Physical Geography

• Physical Geography-

Physical Geography includes: Rocks and Minerals, landforms, Soils, Animals, Plants, Water, Atmosphere, rivers and other water bodies, Environment, Climate and Weather, and Oceans.

Human Geography

• Human Geography-Human Geography includes: Population, Settlements, Economic Activities, Transportation, Recreational Activities, Religion, Political systems, Social traditions, Human migration, Agricultural systems, and Urban systems

Landforms

Bodies of Water (Large)

• Oceans• Sea• Lakes• Gulf • Bay • Sound• Harbor• Strait

Bodies of Water (Small)

• Delta• River• River Mouth• Tributary• Swamp• Marsh• Flood Plain

Land Features

• Prairie• Plateau• Mountain• Volcano• Archipelago• Island

Land Features

• Isthmus• Cape• Valley• Divide• Glacier• Moraine• Butte

Land

• Mesa• Canyon• Basin• Hill• Oasis• Desert• Steppe• Cataract

Land Features

• Marsh Flood Plain

Vocabulary

• The reason that you need to know this vocabulary is so that all of us can speak with a common language. I expect all of you to learn the terms and use them in class in discussions and homework/projects.

Assignment

• You will be given a vocabulary sheet. As a group or an individual, come up with a working definition of the terms.