Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow: The Political Page, T+15 -- February 5, 2018

Updates

February 9, 2018: first snowfall ever in parts of Morocco. 

Up to 282 cm (110 inches) of snow in the Middle Atlas. That’s more than 9 feet.

Since February 3, 2018, significant snowfall has hit several regions of Morocco, for the first time ever for some.

From February 6 to 7, up to 282 cm of snow was recorded by the National Meteorological Directorate on Jbal Habri (Ifrane) and 272 cm at Michlifen Station.

February 7, 2018: To all the new snowfall records being set this year, add another one -- Erie, Pennsylvania, has broken its all-time snow season record -- call the Kennedys -- call Algore -- they all said our grandchildren would never see snow again.

But now we have Winter Storm Liam and it's going to set more records. Mother Nature never quits. Mother Nature must not have gotten the "global warming" memo. LOL.

From the linked article:

Erie, PA, broke its all-time snowiest season record today; the previous record was set 17 years ago (2000 - 2001). The city still has 30% of its average snowfall yet to happen through spring.

As of 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, the season's snowfall total was 152.1 inches at Erie International Airport, more than 12 feet of snow. This breaks the previous snowiest season of 2000-01 which had 149.1 inches. Snowfall records date back to the 1931-32 winter season, according to the National Weather Service.

Claustrophobic yet? Island fever yet?
 
February 5, 2018:  no links but the snowfall in Moscow over the weekend was incredible; the most ever recorded in one weekend since weather records have been kept. Mayor of Moscow called it the blizzard/snowstorm/snowfall of the century. It's quite a story; easily found despite no link.
 

Original Post

 

Oh, the weather outside is frightful .... Moscow, February 4, 2018:



The headlines keep coming: now, this -- snowfall around the world --

• Moscow: heaviest snowfall on record blankets Moscow
• Grand Prairie, Alberta: snowfall nearly doubles the previous record
• China: heavy snowfall snarls world's largest rail network  
• Moscow, again: once-in-a-century blizzard
• Spain: snow brings chaos to roads in Spain -- again

Posted yesterday but re-posting

• global warming crisis fails to appear; scientists bewildered; sea level rise grinds to a crawl; half that forecast: 3.0 mm/ year? nope, now down to 1.5 mm/year
• global temperatures drop back to pre-El Nino levels: "temps drop to levels not seen in six years"
• no link needed: Trump delivered first SOTU address in 8 years that did not mention "global warming"
• EU turns to razing forests; will produce lots of CO2 (FWIW): and in the 21st century the EU is burning wood chips from the US 
• China's CO2 emissions (FWIW) jumped 4% last year: and it' gonna be worse this year, see next story
• coal futures jump 10% in China as sever cold sweeps the country
• by the way, all that talk about "demand for oil" going to go away? LOL. Asian demand for 16,000 airplanes will drive requirement for more jet fuel (i.e., US crude oil) through 2100; all that talk about the end of the fossil fuel age is just that talk: talk fake news. 

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China

Speaking of China, I've never been able to wrap my head around the history of the Far East. China has always fascinated me but try as I might, I seem to make no headway.

Some years ago, trying to keep track of cities and regions in China, I put together a pretty nice map that has actually held up over time.

From an earlier post: 

Today's there's a headline article over at Yahoo!Finance about Nanking, China, a "second-tier" city in that country with a population of over 8 million, similar to that of NYC. The best thing I ever did with regard to geography on the blog was "fix" a picture in my mind of what China "looks like." Nanking? Where is it? If it were on the US map, it would be a suburb northwest of Charleston, SC, (Shanghai) up the Yangtze River. Maybe similar to Summerville, SC, where we lived for several years. 

Last week I saw a new book at the local Japanese bookstore and without hesitation, bought it: A New Literary History of Modern China, edited by David Der-Wei Wang, c. 2017. The map above has come in quite handy, interestingly enough.

For example, there are currently four direct-controlled municipalities of China (US cities on the map):

• Beijing (Philadelphia)
• Tianjin (NYC)
• Shanghai (Charleston, SC)
• Chongqing (east of St Louis, MO; maybe I should label it Memphis/Nashville, TN)

The book is the fourth in a series being published by Harvard University on the modern literary history of various countries. The first book was on France; then came Germany; and, the third in the series was on America. I have not seen any of those but will see if they are available at Half-Price Books.

But I digress. The Literary History of Modern China has 161 essays by 143 authors, with a total of 957 pages. The introduction is 28 pages long.

I'm in the process of "cataloguing" each of the essays -- they cover the literary history of China from the 17th century, though there are references to earlier works.

As noted, there are 161 essays; I have catalogues the first 68 so I still have a ways to go. But already I'm starting to get a feel for Chinese history, as it progressed through the Ming and Qing dynasties, and into the revolution in 1916 - 1917 or thereabouts and the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and now into China of the 20th and 21st centuries.