The polar vortex is at both poles. It weakens in the summer and strengthens in the winter. Whose summer and whose winter - aren't they reversed? I find that the Antarctic polar vortex is more pronounced and persistent than the Arctic one. Yikes!
The headlines say parts of the US are colder than Antarctica amid 'Polar Vortex'. The bbc.com had these news topics:
Chicago has renamed itself "Chiberia"
Chicago police say people are being robbed at gunpoint of their coats, especially Canada Goose jackets, which cost $1,100.
Beer deliveries in Wisconsin have been hit, too, as brewers delay shipments for fear their beverages will freeze in the trucks.
"Beastly Blast of Winter" is another headline
Niagara Falls is a scene from the movie "Frozen" - the video coverage showed everything with a few inches of ice.
I found this headline from the NPC Daily, an anti-Trump organization: Trump condones Polar Vortex because he wants America to be more like Russia - more collusion Here's the story and Trump's tweet that says this HERE.
The coldest place in the world will be Surgut Russia at -39.5 F then Yakutsk at -38.6F and Winnipeg follows at -38.2F. It's a race between Canada and Russia as to who will get the top medals for coldest in the world! The Canadian news is comparing Winnipeg's freezing cold temperatures with Mars. Winnipeg wins naturally. And the comparison with the west coast: Flowers are blooming in the west and snow is pummelling the east. West coast wins on that one!
Today's images were chosen by a random number generator - the first is rust on a Silverton rail car, and the second a model at the Sundance Museum in Florida. They share the number 6534.
Did you know there is a very long tradition of Russian Political jokes? I find this out from Wikipedia. The jokes start with Imperial Russia and conclude with Post-soviet Russia. They are HERE. A Bloomberg article with the best jokes is HERE.
Bloomberg's article, as with Wikipedia, demonstrates that Russian humour about the way the country is run is an unbroken tradition from the czarist era to the present day. The article's author, like me, finds that many of them aren't funny. But there are some great jokes in the article. Here is Reagan's joke.
"The CIA-Reagan Soviet joke pipeline was no secret at the time. One from a list declassified in 2013 was a particular favorite — Reagan told it repeatedly, once adding he’d shared it with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and gotten a laugh from him. The CIA version goes like this:
An American tells a Russian that the United States is so free he can stand in front of the White House and yell, “To hell with Ronald Reagan.” The Russian replies: “That’s nothing. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘To hell with Ronald Reagan,” too.
Two more from Wikipedia:
A Gulag joke: Three men are sitting in a cell in the (KGB headquarters) Dzerzhinsky Square. The first asks the second why he has been imprisoned, who replies, "Because I criticized Karl Radek." The first man responds, "But I am here because I spoke out in favor of Radek!" They turn to the third man who has been sitting quietly in the back, and ask him why he is in jail. He answers, "I'm Karl Radek."
A Stalin joke: Stalin reads his report to the Party Congress. Suddenly someone sneezes. "Who sneezed?" Silence. "First row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot, and he asks again, "Who sneezed, Comrades?" No answer. "Second row! On your feet! Shoot them!" They are shot too. "Well, who sneezed?" At last a sobbing cry resounds in the Congress Hall, "It was me! Me!" Stalin says, "Bless you, Comrade!" and resumes his speech.
Our pictures today come from Moyer Road - this is the road that Vineland Estates Winery is located on. This silver barked bush along the side of the road is very photogenic as it is. It becomes the texture for an abstract pattern created in photoshop.
