Dakota Beacon

Twin Lakes is a complex of two large lakes just east of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in the interior of the state of Alaska. The lakes are 40 miles northeast of Port Alsworth, which is located on private land within the preserve, and which is also the site of the park's field headquarters, and about 170 miles from Anchorage. The excerpts below are from the journal of an adventurer in Twin Lakes:

August 6^th          Clear and calm. Almost too warm. I would like to see some rain. The waterfall across the lake is about to run dry… The thermometer in my cooler box under the moss reads forty degrees. Under the really deep moss I am sure the temperature would read even lower. And here it is close to eighty degrees today.

August 7^th          The sun is getting up later… Really warm today, too warm. I ran a check on temperature. Forty degrees in my cooler box, seventy-eight degrees in the cabin, ninety-four degrees in the sun, and the lake water sixty-six degrees in the shallows. That last reading really surprised me, and I promptly went for a swim…. This is the warmest day I have ever seen here at the lakes. I didn't even build a fire.

August 8^th          ... Let's have some rain. Every day I have been watering what is left of my garden.

August 9^th        … Heavy gray clouds. Might bring some rain. The lake is rising slightly. Must be the warm weather has been acting on the snowfields in the high mountains. No sign of game at all. Strange I don't see a caribou on the slopes now and then… Fishing at the mouth of Hope Creek has been poor. Where have the fish gone?

December 19^th Plus thirty-two degrees. The cold is preferable to a spell like this, with heavy wet snow being dumped from the spruce boughs all through the day.

December 25^th … A plane! It was Babe's 180 Cessna. He looked like a skinny Santa Claus as he landed and stepped out with sacks and boxes. He asked how long the lake had been frozen over. Lake Clark had closed up only three days ago.

January 7^th      Plus seven degrees and calm… I hiked down to the connecting stream. It was still open. I doubt it will ice over this winter... No sign of caribou or any other game.

January 18^th    Almost like summer. A plus twenty-two degrees.

January 20^th    Plus two degrees.

January 22^nd   Three and a half inches of fluffy snow. Plus fifteen degrees.

January 31^st    Snowing. Plus eighteen degrees… January has not been the cold month I expected it to be. What will February bring?

February 6^th    Plus eighteen degrees.

February 12^th  A strong breeze and plus twenty-five degrees.

February 13^th  Snowing. From down the lake a strong wind is blowing big flakes. Plus thirty degrees.

February 14^th  The heat wave continues. Plus thirty degrees.

February 15^th  Clear and calm and plus six degrees.

February 21^st  Plus twenty-six degrees. Snowing and blowing.

February 27^th  Plus twenty-six degrees and driving snow.

February 28^th  No wind. Plus twenty-eight degrees and overcast.

March 2^nd        Plus eighteen degrees. With a full moon, I don't understand why it continues so mild.

March 3^rd        Overcast and plus twenty-seven degrees. Snow curling from the peaks like smoke.

March 4^th        Plus twenty-four degrees… A trip up the lake on this very clear day. Rocks rattling down the mountains now and then were the first hints of spring.

March 5^th        Plus twenty-six degrees.

March 10^th      Plus thirty-two degrees. This weather will mess around until it is too late to get cold again until next winter.

From the above excerpts, one could deduce that the weather in the interior of Alaska is both warmer than that, say, of North Dakota yet still very much colder than a “southerner” could tolerate...

These excerpts come from naturalist Richard Proenneke's journal of his cabin building adventures in Twin Lakes country, Alaska in 1968-69 that are documented in the book “One Man's Wilderness” by Sam Keith. They are factual throughout. To reach any conclusions from these excerpts, however, I strongly suggest reading the entire book to place them in the proper context. We will return to this subject after a revealing discussion of the monetary and national security costs of scientific research performed throughout the world by the United States for decades.

United States Spending on Scientific Research $150 Billion/Year!

A 2019 staff report by the United States Senate's “Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations” of the “Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs” lead by Republican Chairman Rob Portman and Democrat Ranking Member Tom Carper is linked below:

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-11-18%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20-%20China's%20Talent%20Recruitment%20Plans.pdf

The Senate report reveals that U.S. taxpayers now spend over $150 billion a year on scientific research throughout the world and exposes how American taxpayer funded research has contributed to Communist China's global rise, especially over the last 20 years.

A Judicial Watch article dated November 25, 2019 summarizing the 105 page report is linked below:

https://www.judicialwatch.org/corruption-chronicles/communists-working-in-u-s-steal-billions-in-taxpayer-funded-scientific-research/

The following is a link to Investigative Journalist Sharyl Attkisson's coverage of the story:

https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/12/china-has-allegedly-stolen-billions-of-dollars-worth-of-american-science/

Global Cooling/ Global Warming/Climate Change

After the reader has begun to fully grasp the amount of taxpayer funding (or mortgaging from future generations through borrowing or money printing, whichever way you prefer to look at it) in the area of scientific research, let's review how the significant “climate studies” portion of this funding may typically be administered.

• Grants in various areas of “climate study” are applied for by researchers, competing with each other for the funding.
• The “winners” perform the research and are paid after a final research document is provided.
• Inconsistent or non definitive results may suggest further refinement in subsequent studies.

Now suppose that the aggregate results of a particular study initially do not reveal anything significant? This is where the “cherry-picking” can begin. Similarly to the selective excerpts from the adventurer's journals listed above. the “good news” regarding climate change is presented slightly, and too often significantly, out of context and added to the multitude of positive “proof” that “climate does indeed change”. This is why the buzzwords were changed from “Global Warming” to “Climate change”. Who would dispute that climate does, in fact, change?

The outrageous spending reveals that the world scientific community that studies climate change is not just a “cottage industry”… it has become a worldwide “education oligarchy” that is curiously dependent on income that comes from “proving” that climate does change! It is no longer enough to suggest that the earth is warming, since that premise has been shot full of holes over the decades by the whole of the raw data produced in full context by courageous scientists. Rare scientists that DARE to resist the view of the majority that depend on their livelihood for the “correct” results. Courageous scientists who are publicly ridiculed and scorned for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

The “alternative facts” during the winter of 1968-69 at Twin Lakes, Alaska

Let's again look to pages from naturalist Richard Proenneke's journal:

June 22^nd         … I got some really sad news in my mail. Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

July 20^th          White frost on the potato leaves. They wilted a bit with the warming of the sun.

August 27^th      A frosty morning.

August 28^th      Clear and frosty at 4:30 AM.

September 8^th    A white frost and a light crust on the sand of the beach. A trace of new snow on the peaks.

November 28^th Thanksgiving day. Clear, calm, and a minus four degrees.

November 29^th A thin overcast and minus two degrees.

December 2^nd  Minus twenty-two degrees and the continuous complaining sounds of the ice.

December 4^th  Not a breath. Minus thirty-two degrees.

December 5^th  A full moon sharply focused in the very clear air. Minus thirty-two degrees. The ice is now twelve inches thick.

December 6^th  A yellow pumpkin moon and minus thirty-five degrees.

December 7^th  Clear, calm, and minus thirty-eight degrees.

December 8^th  A mild thirty-six below zero. Near sunrise seems to be the low reading.

December  9^th Minus thirty-four degrees.

December 17^th Minus nineteen degrees and not a twig stirring.

December 27^th … It was minus five degrees when I decided to hike down to the lower end.

December 31^st Clear, calm, and minus thirty-four degrees.

January 2^nd     Forty-five below. A land without motion. In the dead of winter nothing seems to move, not even a twig on the willows.

January 3^rd      Doldrum-still and minus forty-five degrees.

January 9^th      What do you know? Here comes Babe in the T-craft on skis, his exhaust stacks streaming out two vapor trails. “Cold down here,” he greeted. It was thirty-five below. “Lots warmer up high.”

January 12^th    Minus thirty-six degrees.

February 3^rd    Clear, calm, and thank the Lord! Forty-eight degrees below zero. That full moon has brought another chill to this land.

February 4^th    Minus fifty-one degrees. Clear and cemetery-still.

February 5^th    Minus forty-eight degrees. When I turned in at ten o'clock last night, it was fifty-four below zero. Now the moon is past the full. I think this will be the record low temperature for the winter.

March 15^th      Clear, calm, and minus twenty-eight degrees. Spring five days away, but this country doesn't know it.

March 16^th      Clear and calm. Minus twenty-two degrees.

From the above excerpts, one would properly deduce that it gets brutally cold during winter in the interior of Alaska with little or no respite from the “deep freeze”. “Alternate facts” are as true as “Facts” (both highly misleading) when they are presented out of context (cherry-picked).

Oh, what could have been...

What could these climate research dollars alternatively have been used for? More research to create “clean coal”? More research to find effective programs in our public education system to prevent the obesity that is “poverty” in America? Or would paying off major portions of the national debt with these currently wasted funds place our children in a better fiscal position to lead us in the future?

To our elected leaders, we must say with one loud voice, what Ricky Riccardo said to Lucy… “You got some serious esplainin' to do!”

Love = Work + Courage

Plague Postscript

Every citizen not at high risk of serious health problems or death from the “plague” may insist on the right to get back to work while the most vulnerable portions of our population continue in “quarantine”... as their thoughtful fellow citizens continue to lovingly assist them in doing so. We are AmeriCANs… we CAN do this… without destroying our future! “Quarantining the Healthy” was a once in a “hundred years” departure from economic reality that could kill millions more than the “plague” if left to continue for very much longer!