The glaciers of the southern cone - Patagonia and Chile - are melting fast! My mom visited them 15 years ago

2012 Cape Horn Celebrity Cruises

Ship: Celebrity Infinity operated prominent 14-day South America and Cape Horn itineraries during early 2012.
Route Highlights: Itineraries typically departed from ports like Valparaíso (Santiago), Chile, or Buenos Aires, Argentina, navigating the Chilean fjords, the Strait of Magellan, Ushuaia, and rounding Cape Horn. Key Ports: Ushuaia, Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt, and Stanley (Falkland Islands) depending on the specific voyage variant. Santiago remains the capital and largest city of Chile, while Valparaíso is a completely separate coastal port city located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) to the northwest.
 My husband and I are on the Celebrity Infinity (February 2012), and I think the trip from Buenos Aries to Valpariso is much better because you get to see wonderful scenery and several glaciers from 7-10 PM the evening we sail from Ushuaia. I believe on the trip from Valpariso to Buenos Aries, you may miss the opportunity to see most of it because it's very early in the morning, on the way into Ushuaia.It was great for seeing the glaciers between Ushuaia and Punta Arenas as well as the Chilean fjords after Punta Arenas. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/1501325-which-way-around-the-horn-is-best/ Rio to Valparaiso route Jan 21 - Feb 4. The weather around the horn was PERFECT!!! Even the naturalist on board commented as to how smooth is was!

 My Mom said it was "so smooth that the captain went around twice"!! Really? Maybe that was a joke by the captain...He turned the boat around! wow. It was not a joke. 

now 8% of those glaciers are gone already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctYoKLzfJAE&t=13s

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02845-6

Megadroughts by end of century - I think that is too conservative of a projection.

Since 2021, the Nilus project has been experimenting with artificial glaciers at a site near the El Morado glacier, which lost 19 percent of its volume between 2010 and 2018. It is not the only victim: the neighboring Echaurren Norte glacier has already lost more than 60 percent of its mass and is expected to disappear within 30 years.

“It’s not an individual concern. Not even a national one. It’s a global concern,” says Goldschmidt, about the loss of glaciers.
https://thebulletin.org/2025/09/goodbye-glaciers-hello-engineered-ice-cones/

they're freezing the run off melt water in the winter - just like in Ladakh!! 
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nJBy9EgQOlU

1936 trip around the horn vid 

Mom at 20 years old for her university sorority photo b4 traveling to 39 countries (over 56 years)

 

Mom broke her junior year high school prom date's heart when she started dating someone else - according to his brother reporting back at the high school reunion decades later (awkward)...She was then installed as "Job's Daughters Queen" for her senior year of high school - "chosen by a formal member vote before being installed" - so she led the weekly masonic meetings of the high school young ladies. My mom's family didn't get television till the last couple years of high school! Wow. Mom read books all the time and she was the salutatorian (2nd highest GPA) of her high school class of 180 students. She was also on a debate team that went to a national championship at the red rock ampitheater in Colorado - her junior year. 

 The National Forensic League (NFL) National Tournament was hosted in Denver, Colorado, and held its final rounds and award ceremonies outdoors at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre...and featured events tied directly to the surrounding region. While individual debate and speech preliminary rounds were traditionally held in local classrooms, the National Speech & Debate Association historical records highlight that President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent an official greeting...

The town yearly parade and festival featured a Tilt-A-Whirl, a carnival ride invented in Minnesota! 

Mom's first boyfriend was a young man who became a Navy seal ...he was also a bread delivery worker while in high school and then he became chief of security at the Minneapolis airport...so Mom would drop in to say hello every time Mom traveled. 

 Gene grew up in ....  He enjoyed fishing, friends and sports and was fondly known as “Shamrock” during his ....High School days....He was drafted into the Navy and graduated from the Underwater Swimmers School (UWSS) in Key West, Florida. He traveled the world on Navy ships.

 My mom had two other suitors who were officers in the military - one in the Air Force as an officer who got his undergraduate degree at Princeton (he later formed his own mechanical engineering firm after he worked for US Steel out of Pennsylvania).... Another was in Navy intelligence and he told Mom that the U.S. next war would be in Vietnam - that was in 1963....

My mom also dated an early rock band guitarist musician for a summer in the early 60s...and the hometown Hotel Owner also tried dating mom....and most infamously mom dated the captain of the University swim team...

 My parents flew to Cozumel Mexico for the Honeymoon, day after the wedding, April 1965

After my mom married my dad then my mom traveled to 39 countries (a couple of them, Italy and Cozumel Mexico, a half dozen times each)!! Wow. Mom's local town newspaper announced that her husband got a high-level job. hahaha. That was only for two years as Chief Deputy Officer for the Attorney General of the state.

Meanwhile my mom's dad continuing building his successful HVAC duct installation company (taken over by the sons) that is still going strong today - it first unionized and now is employee-owned yet kept its founder name.  

 Here is my mom going around the Cape Horn in a cruise ship after my dad's passing 15 years ago and 55 years after the first photo! Wow. She knit that hat and she continues knitting today....

 

1) China, 2) Japan (airport of Tokyo), 3) Lithuania, 4) Latvia, 5) Estonia, 6) Russia, 7) Germany, 8) Austria, 9) Spain, 10) Portugal, 11) France, 12) England, 13) Ireland, 14) Mexico (Cozumel over six times starting with her honeymoon in 1965), 15) Costa Rica, 16) Tunisia (Earthwatch dig of Roman floor mosaics), 17) Morocco, 18) U.S. (most of the lower 48, Alaska and Hawaii, at least twice), 19) Romania, 20) Denmark, 21) Chile, 22) Argentina, 23) Uruguay, 24) Brazil, 25) Iceland, 26) Sweden, 27) Norway, 28) Netherlands, 29) Italy, 30) Greece, 31) Guatemala, 32) Poland, 33) Canada, 34) Algeria, 35) Vatican City, 36) Singapore, 37) Wales, 38) Scotland, 39) Jamaica

Well that's 39 countries!! wow. My mom worked in newspaper advertising after her undergraduate degree in English (minor History). Then she went back to University for a master's (where she taught remedial English writing at the University for a year)...that changed to a teaching degree. She worked as a teacher for a couple years when she met my dad, dated, got married, until she had her first baby...Then Mom volunteered (editing and writing articles) for a neighborhood newspaper in Minneapolis and Mom volunteered at a Minneapolis Presbyterian church, even as chairman of the board for a couple years! (a couple blocks from my childhood house) also - and Mom did accounting for my dad. 

Then my mom owned and operated the legal newspaper for the town my parents retired into...around 1992 is when she bought the newspaper that is still operating today (but it got bought by a regional owner of several town newspapers so there is less of a local focus in the reporting). After eight years Mom sold it to another town newspaper who then got bought by a third larger town newspaper (so they operate three newspapers regionally now).

Then my mom volunteered at the local library that was going to be shut down by the county - so the town took it over based on private fundraisers, all volunteer-run. My mom ran the "collections committee" for 15 years with several other volunteers as Mom did the cataloging of the new books. Now she has handed over the managing of that collection committee to another volunteer but mom still catalogs some of the books - and recommends other books for the town library.

Mom also helped organize the civic club managing of the town's historical museum at the former town jailhouse! This is the oldest town in the state - over 180 years old. The civic club also organized the Memorial Day treats (coffees/cookies) at the town cemetery. 

Mom was given a "lifetime achievement award" along with a couple other town civic club organizers - a few years ago - (I got to hold an umbrella over my mom while it rained as we sat waiting to receive the award) and the civic club shutdown after 100 years! Wow. Too many women are officially working to keep the civic club going. Membership petered out over the years.

The museum volunteers created a new committee just to manage the museum and they are doing a spectacular job.

  widely recognized as the birthplace of Minnesota's permanent Euro-American pioneer settlement and lumber industry, having been founded in 1838–1839,... the first commercial sawmill on the St. Croix River started operating on August 24, 1839. ...Historic Status: A large portion of the community is preserved on the National Register of Historic Places.

how to make your own Xylitol Spearmints to save $165!!

 Order organic xylitol crystals by the pound (at 1/5th or 20% of the price of the premade xylitol spearmints aka $11.50 a pound vs $14 for 1/4 pound)  so - $46 for four pounds organic xylitol crystals including tax/shipping vs $224 for the premade - a savings of....$165!!

  buy silicone candy molds (135 cubes) or $3 for 

Silicone Crushed Ice Tray (165 cubes) and $10 for organic spearmint essential oil

  134 to 150 grams of granulated cooking xylitol (same as one bottle of premade xylitol spearmints) in 165 mL of volume of ONE silicone crushed ice tray. So four of those trays = 1 pound or four bottles of xylitol spearmints. 

Place the xylitol in your pan over medium-low heat. Heat it slowly so it melts down to a clear liquid. Do not let it boil or burn. [1, 2, 3]

Cool and Flavor: Take the pan off the burner and let the liquid cool for a minute so the hot syrup does not spatter. Stir in the spearmint oil quickly and thoroughly. [1, 2, 3]

Molding: Work fast because xylitol hardens very quickly as it cools. Pour or drop the liquid mixture into your silicone molds

 

Why bring back the Eisenhower "maximum income" tax rates on the rich? 91% on $2.5 million income or above + oil tax

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/07/trump-windfall-tax-big-oil-iran-war 

 The usual reason for imposing an ordinary income tax rate on short term gains is to tax investors and dealers in securities and futures contracts for whom the making of a market in commodities and stocks, and the speculation in their short-term price movements, is their ordinary business, such that the gains are, in fact, their ordinary income.

https://taxfoundation.org/blog/higher-rate-short-term-capital-gains-questionable-policy-choice/ 

Only the top .1% of the US in annual income would pay this 91% tax rate that Eisenhower had from the Truman era.  

 The 91% top marginal income tax rate was enacted during the Truman administration under the Revenue Act of 1950, which raised individual rates to fund the Korean War. Right before this act, the top individual rate sat at roughly 82.1% ...In 1940, the top federal income tax rate on income above $200,000 was already 66 percent. As war spending accelerated through 1941 and 1943, rates climbed further. By 1944, the top marginal rate peaked at 94 percent. It remained above 90 percent — sitting at 91 percent for most of the period — continuously from 1944 through 1963.

 https://danismart.substack.com/p/a-note-on-the-numbers-what-the-91

First, the 91 percent rate kicked in on income above $200,000 — equivalent to roughly $2 to $3 million in today’s dollars. Second, fewer than 10,000 households in the entire country qualified. This was not a broad tax on success. It was a ceiling on the accumulation of dynastic wealth by a tiny fraction of the population, during a period when that fraction was doing extraordinarily well.

The economy, meanwhile, grew faster than it has at any point since....

 At 91 percent, that slice would generate approximately $1.0 to $1.3 trillion in taxes. The current 37 percent top rate applied to the same income generates roughly $400 to $520 billion. The difference — the additional revenue a restored top rate would theoretically produce — is somewhere between $600 billion and $800 billion per year.

 https://www.warresisters.org/war-tax-resistance/

That group estimates 80% of U.S. debt is spent on military funding and a new record of 58% of income tax will now go to the military in 2027!!

 

https://www.warresisters.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/FY2027-pie-chart-web.pdf 

 At least the top 5 to 10 major U.S. weapons contractor CEOs have total annual compensation packages well over $2 million, with median total packages ranging from $19 million to $23 million each

Phebe Novakovic (General Dynamics): ~$25.9 million

Kathy Warden (Northrop Grumman): ~$25.3 million

Christopher Calio (RTX): ~$24.8 million

Kelly Ortberg (Boeing): ~$23.5 million

Jim Taiclet (Lockheed Martin): ~$23.4 million

 The chief executive officers of the top five U.S. weapons contractors receive guaranteed base cash salaries between $1.2 million and $1.8 million annually, supplemented by short-term cash performance bonuses ranging from $2.8 million to $6.6 million per year

Did my Irish Rodger Hanly or Hanley ancestors convert to methodist via Sparling marriage in Canada or before in Ireland? Still not sure where

 I got the answer! Fascinating. https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~jksparling/genealogy/d0006/f0000605.html

 Susannah and Roger were married in the Church of Ireland in Killaloe Diocese in 1831 and Emma was baptised there at the end of the same year. I believe at that time marriages still needed to be CofI [Church of Ireland, Anglican] or RC [Roman Catholic] legally, so it’s hard to tell if they were practicing Methodists at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killaloe_Cathedral 

 Killaloe Cathedral dates from the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic periods and was completed in 1225.

 Susannah Sparling (John5, Philip4, John3, George P2, Peter1), born Apr 1808 in Killaloe, Clare, Ireland; deceased 9 Jun 1898. She emigrated in 1842 in St Marys, Perth Co, Ontario, Canada, Rodger "Rody" Hanley, born Jan 1812 in Ireland; deceased 16 Jul 1894. 

Did Hanley convert to Sparling's Methodism in Canada? Or did Sparling convert to Hanley's Irish Catholicism? And then Emma Hanley (Irish Catholic) converted to Switzer's Methodism...? I found the answer (at least according to AI)

Mary Ann Hanly (born August 23, 1853, in Perth, Ontario) belonged to an Irish Palatine family of Methodist (specifically Wesleyan Methodist) heritage, rather than Catholic. Her parents, Rodger Hanly and Susanna Sparling, came from Irish Palatine roots in County Limerick and Tipperary associated with early Methodism in Ontario ..

So Rodger Hanley probably converted to Methodism in Canada and not Ireland... 

1) Sparling was a Palatine-German name of a family that moved to Ireland and then married a Roger aka Rodd Hanley (my great-great-great grandparents). They moved to Canada, give birth to Emma Hanley who then married Henry Switzer, my great-great grandparents 2). 

My mom returned back to her Canadian roots with her grandmother, Alvina Switzer, the daughter of Emma Hanley.

Alvina Switzer married Thomas Chappell 3) - my great-grandparents - they were both already Methodists even though the Chappell family moved from England to Canada - and Thomas Chappell went to Methodist seminary in Chicago, even becoming a Methodist preacher, as my great-grandfather. He was an itinerant horseback preacher in Canada then who would camp out surrounded by wolves. 

They moved to Devil's Lake North Dakota to a parish that had a dirt floor as my mom's grandmother told my mom.

That was around 1901....

As we can see - Roger Hanley and Susan Sparling had a HUGE grave memorial in Canada - so they must have been successful farmers. My mom says that Emma Hanley still had a "Palatine" background - meaning that Susan Sparling was Methodist since she was also a Palatine-Irish. But was Roger Hanley also methodist? 

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/157473080/roger-hanly 

 

So we know there was a mass conversion of the German Palatine-Irish to Methodists and that would include the Sparling family and the Switzer family.... but what about the Hanley family?

 

 Johann Adam Legier (often later recorded as LeGear) is indeed tied to the historic German Palatine migration of 1709.  He was born in the 1600s and he was part of the Palatine move to Ireland. He married a Sparling in Ireland...

 

So there were several generations of Irish-Palatines or German-Irish that married each other before moving to Canada and the U.S.

But once they were in Canada they married into Irish families directly.

 

 John SPARLING, Blanshard township
John Sparling (1812-1871) settled in Blanchard Township in 1842, along with his uncles, Peter and Christopher Sparling and his older sister and brother-in-law, Suzanne and Rody HANLEY. His younger brother, Frederick, joined them a few years later. This was an Irish Palatine family from County Tipperary and County Limerick. They were Wesleyan Methodist. John was elected to the District Council and was Captain of the local milita. He was later appointed Justice of the Peace and moved to St. Marys where he built a fine stone house which still stands at --. He relocated to the United States with his second wife and younger children in 1862 in the face of a political scandal. His adult children stayed behind to farm or pursue careers in the Methodist Church and teaching.
Contact person: Lois Sparling, Calgary, Alberta,

 https://historyireland.com/the-palatines-in-ireland/

  The general opinion of these ministers is almost universal: that the root cause of the famine in Ireland was ‘popery’. Relayed in the following works and centring on the supposed stagnancy bred in Irish peasants by Roman Catholicism, they help to illustrate the contemptuous attitude that many Methodist ministers held towards that religion.

 that's harsh!!

 

The Didache is the original Apostles Creed? Academic book by Vicar Dr. John Alan Garrow says yes

 https://cdn-static.supadu.com/baker-academic-us/pdf/Excerpt_9781540970138.pdf

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVsts-Uj4ro

Did the Didache Hide Christianity's Missing First-Century Documents? | Dr. Alan Garrow

closer to the "sayings of Jesus" than the Gospels...

 A "Jewish Christian" teaching book for Gentiles...

 https://bakeracademic.com/products/9781540970138_the-didache-discoveries

 Alan Garrow (DPhil, University of Oxford) is vicar of St. Peter's Church, Harrogate, United Kingdom, and is a member of the Sheffield Centre for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies.

https://www.alangarrow.com/anglican-ministry.html 

 https://www.alangarrow.com/uploads/4/4/0/3/44031657/apostolic_decree_english_website.pdf

https://www.alangarrow.com/uploads/4/4/0/3/44031657/missing_epistle_english_esource.pdf 

 

Why the AI "scientifc consensus" about abrupt global warming is totally wrong

 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4607703/

 Some authors believe [And AI CLAIMS THIS IS THE SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE WRONG] that CH₄ fluxes from subsea permafrost, more than 80% of which occur in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), will depend on rates of CH₄ production in gradually thawing sediments [6], while subsea permafrost will remain frozen for millennia [7]. Others believe that permafrost failure caused by long-lasting warming by seawater due to sea-level rise and global-change-induced warming, which in the twenty-first century is very pronounced over the ESAS [8], will destabilize massive gas reservoirs, leading to large-scale CH₄ releases, including release of pre-formed CH₄ long preserved within and beneath subsea permafrost [9,10].

............ 

 The other factor that AI is not considering is the Aerosol Masking Effect research of Daniel Rosenfeld's research group as this is also excluded from current climate modeling. Rosenfeld's research discovered that a 40% decrease in coal production heats up Earth another 1 degree celsius global average. This means the "scenario" of reducing co2 emissions from coal actually heats up earth faster as James Hansen now emphasizes that the main cause of global atmosphere temperature increase is from the increase in renewables.