Iceland directs Volcanic superweapon at Scotland in revenge for financial crisis

[KallDrexx]

I sent this story to my brother for a laugh.  He told me a story about how when he was in Brazil some guy on the bus tried to convince him that earthquakes were caused by CO2 

[NowhereMan]

A right wing message board I go to because self-harm is too visible has a thread full of how this volcano is producing 2 million times the annual output of human produced CO2 and totally invalidates global warming because we aren't all dead and therefore CO2 doesn't really have any effect on the atmosphere. It's not as crazy as yours but people seem to get weird once things start going into the atmosphere and it may or may not impact the world in general.

[Righ]

A right wing message board I go to because self-harm is too visible has a thread full of how this volcano is producing 2 million times the annual output of human produced CO2

So all human activity is producing only 55 tonnes of CO2 annually? I would imagine that the windbag that wrote that piece of disinformation produces more on his own. The estimated output from Eyjafjallajokull is between 150kt and 300kt per day. If that was extrapolated over a full year, it would place around 50th on the league table of countries' CO2 output.

[Teleku]

Tale posted a link to this handy chart earlier in the thread:

[Sir T]

Volcanic Ash Update issued at 1900hrs on Monday May 24th
 
The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland became dormant over the weekend of May 22nd / 23rd. There is still a considerable amount of steam coming from the crater, according to observations carried out by the Icelandic Meteorological Office, but no ash can be seen. Earthquake activity has decreased since Sunday May 23rd; only one earthquake was recorded on Monday May 24th. There are no local reports of ashfall and no lightning strikes.
 
It is impossible to predict for how long the volcano will remain dormant, but for the present there is no risk of further disruption to aviation in European airspace.

[Cyrrex]

It's impossible to predict but there's no risk?  That last statement is just fuckstupid.

[Sir T]

Its from the Irish met office here so take that for what you will

[Yoru]

Derail time.

A little background. This coming Saturday are the Reykjavik city elections, electing both the governing city council (15 people) and the mayor. This is a big deal seeing as how Reykjavik is about 2/3 of Iceland's population and the only major city.

The usual parties have been campaigning on the usual platforms. Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (The Independence Party) wants to shrink government and privatise shit. They're also the guys who privatised the banks and fucked up in general. Samfylkinginn (The Alliance) wants to... well, god knows, they're currently in power, like it, and think things are peachy. Vinstri-Grænir (The Left-Greens) are batshit crazy and hate men. Framsoknarflokkurinn (The Farmer's Party) thinks the entire country should just go back to farming sheep and catching fish.

Everyone hates them with various levels of passion and usually vote for the people they hate the least.

Then along came this guy named Jon Gnarr. He's a comedian. He decided, on a lark, to form Besti Flokkurinn. That translates rather literally to "The Best Party". His platform was that he didn't really have a platform, he just kinda needed a steady job during the recession.

Besti Flokkurinn is currently polling in the high 50%s of the vote; as Reykjavik uses a proportional voting system, that's a blowout and means his party is likely to control 8 or more seats on the city council plus the mayoralty.

They've since developed a "platform" of sorts. And they've just released their campaign video.

Sorry, campaign music video, I should say. It's got English subtitles. And their platform statement at the end.

Icelandic politics make your country's politics look boring.

[Engels]

So, basically the Tea Party without the racism?

[NowhereMan]

It seems more like democracy by awesome.

I'm only not fully behind it because I know if it was figures I was familiar with I'd presume their total lack of political knowledge made them hilarious but dangerous and I'd never vote for them.

[Bzalthek]

Every time I see an Icelandic name I am gripped with the fear that I am suddenly becoming dyslexic again.  God.

But good on for the comedian.  I hope he wins and manages to be an honest fucker and shows people what non-lifer politicians can do.

[pxib]

All he has to do is scare the shit out of the parties in power. Like Michael Moore's school board win when he graduated highschool.

[HaemishM]

That is AWESOME. 

[Sir T]

They'd have my vote 

[brellium]

2nd Iceland volcano issues warning
Scientists say powerful Katla is ‘close to failure’

LONDON - A second, much larger volcano in Iceland is showing signs that it may be about to erupt, scientists have warned.

Since the start of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which caused cancellations of thousands of flights in Europe because of a giant ash cloud, there has been much speculation about neighboring Katla.

[Engels]

'close to failure'? Sounds like 'close to success' to me.

[Trippy]

Katla discussion here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19284.0