René O'Deay gBlog

Return to Zandria -YA Fantasy Adventure novel by Christine Norris
More-Than-Ordinary 14-year-old Ivy gets an urgent message, a desperate plea for her help, delivered by an old friend, the beautiful tiny fairy, Kaia, from the Wizard of the magical land of Zandria after an exasperating last week of school and a fight with her Mom.

Eager to escape the frustrations of school and the unhappy relations with her Mom and her baby brother, Ivy leads her best friend, Lori, through a magical gate on a non-stop adventure in a land of fantasy.

Lori, whose main interest is mall-shopping, at first finds this magical land of Zandria unreal and even begins to think she must be dreaming. What finally convinces Lori is not their encounters with Zandria's magical beings, but the drastic change from summer in their world to the deep cold chivering winter that holds Zandria hostage.

The two girls encounter another one of Ivy's old friends, the young apprentice wizard, Connor, who leads them through a land devastated by the ever-lasting winter and entirely covered with snow to the castle of Empress Lionors whose baby had been abducted by her cousin, Duke Drake of Faeolin.

Rescue of the abducted Princess has become a matter of life and death with winter prolonged for over a year and starvation threatening the people of Zandria.

The quest to rescue the princess involves winged horses, elves and fairies, dragons and unicorns, the Queen of the mermaids, and Ivy and Lori as guides to their world, the "Otherworld", where the Empress's daughter had been hidden. Both Ivy and Lori play important roles in the rescue of the Princess, then Ivy discovers that the abduction is only part of a larger plot to seize power in Zandria with the threatened return of the exiled evil sister of the Empress.

This intriguing fantasy for young adults can catch the interest of a more mature reader and keep the reader glued to the book. There’s none of the more commercial type padding seen in recent adult novels to distract from the story.

Christine expertly ties all the traditional elements of myths and fairy tales together in a most enchanting way with all the magical characters from Dragon King and Mermaid Queen to a tiny gnome skillfully portrayed.

Return to Zandria is the stand-alone sequel to Talisman of Zandria, Christine's popular debut novel inspired by the Harry Potter series.

Author Christine Norris is an avid Renaissance afficianado and an elementary and middle-school teacher. Christine has been involved with the Wizard Academies Publications, a collaborative effort involving a number of authors from around the world with stories inspired by the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. Wizard Academies Publications include anthologies of short stories and full-length books of young adult fantasies about magickally-gifted youngsters training to be the "Wizards of Tomorrow."

Find out more about Zandria and the author on the Christine Norris website.
( http://www.christine-norris.com/ )

Return to Zandria is available as an eBook at LBF Books: http://www.lbfbooks.com/

Publication is scheduled for July 28, and can be ordered at the LBF Books site.
Or ordered on Amazon at:


Book Review by René O'Deay

Time Magazine ranks my community news website among the 50 best of 2007.
- 50 Best Websites 2007 - TIME Magazine: "NowPublic now counts nearly 97,000 contributing reporters in more than 140 countries around the world. During Hurricane Katrina, NowPublic was there; eight contributors filed on-the-scene reports from London's Heathrow Airport during the August 2006 terrorism lockdown—while the regular press was forced to wait outside. On June 6 NowPublic's coverage of a storm in Oman made it to the top of the AOL and Yahoo news sites. As part of its partnership with the Associated Press, NowPublic reporters now help the wire service gather footage on the ground. 'We wanted to build a next-generation wire service that counted for the accidental bystanders, the storm chasers,' co-founder Leonard Brody says. 'And with digital capturing devices now in the average person's hand, they can be first when there's breaking news.'"
NowPublic.com - 50 Best Websites 2007 - TIME

You can check it out, but I no longer belong or recommend this program.
It is just another MLM, where I hear the directors drive $200k cars, and if you join, you won't.

Now the largest UK lottery syndicate in the UK, the Virtual World Direct (VWD) eLottery Syndicate, brings you a new way to play online games and earn money through social networking. The program called -->evo is in it's pre-launch phase, "Project Eplay."

I invite you to sign up for free now and get in on the beginning of this 'New Wave.' Launch is scheduled for July 15.

Not sure how this works, as I have never done any online gambling or very much online gaming. But it looks like it might be fun, and if it pays off. Well!

I might have to create a new site just for games.

Do be sure to let us all know what you think of this new App and how you're doing if you do sign up.

Got the invite from my new friend on -->MySpace. As she said in her bulletin: 'It was W.C. Fields who once said, “All I ask is for an unfair advantage.” ', -->the Bookwise gal

And what about those Spring Widgets? What do you think of those?

If you leave a comment and it doesn't get posted right away, that's because I am offline for a while. It will get posted if it is not spam.

René

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

Burning cleaner fuel would brighten snow and lower temperatures.

If you are really worried about the Arctic Ice melting, Scientists suggest measures everyone can use right now to prevent the Arctic Ice from melting so fast! With much faster results than trying to reduce carbon dioxide.

Irvine, Calif., June 6, 2007 The global warming debate has focused on carbon dioxide emissions, but scientists at UC Irvine have determined that a lesser-known mechanism 'dirty snow' can explain one-third or more of the Arctic warming primarily attributed to greenhouse gases.

“When we inject dirty particles into the atmosphere and they fall onto snow, the net effect is we warm the polar latitudes,” said Charlie Zender, associate professor of Earth system science at UCI and co-author of the study. “Dark soot can heat up quickly. It’s like placing tiny toaster ovens into the snow pack.”

Since the Industrial Revolution, in the past 200 years, the Earth has warmed about .8 degree Celsius, dirty snow caused the Earth’s global temperature to rise .1 to .15 degree, or up to 19 percent of the total warming.

In the past two centuries, the Arctic has warmed about 1.6 degrees. Dirty snow caused .5 to 1.5 degrees of warming, or up to 94 percent of the observed change, the scientists determined. 94 percent!

Zender said. “A small amount of snow impurities in the Arctic have caused a significant temperature response there.”
Reported June 7, 2007: Today@UCI: Press Releases

Zender suggested we could see immediate results in the Arctic from consumers reduction of energy use, using more energy-efficient appliances, use of cleaner fuels, and limiting outdoor burning and fires. (putting out forest fires?)

Less airborne soot from industry and fuel combustion would yield brighter snow, less melt. Especially since it only takes a small amount to cause a significant temperature response in the Arctic.

Here's news: NASA has been warning about the effects of black soot and dirty snow on climate for years now. NASA also reports black soot is causing an increase in the flooding and droughts in China recently.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Date:December 23, 2003: Black Soot And Snow: A Warmer Combination
New research from NASA scientists suggests emissions of black soot alter the way sunlight reflects off snow. According to a computer simulation, black soot may be responsible for 25 percent of observed global warming over the past century."

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Date: September 27, 2002:
A new NASA climate study has found large amounts of black carbon (soot) particles and other pollutants are causing changes in precipitation and temperatures over China and may be at least partially responsible for the tendency toward increased floods and droughts in those regions over the last several decades.

You can blame governments for reducing the emission limits on industrial pollutants or not even imposing or enforcing them. The heaviest-polluting coal-burning Four Corners Power Plant on Navajo lands located near the junction of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, has operated with impunity and absolutely no controls since 1960! Sierra Club Clean Air Lawsuit against the EPA

Why does the Environmental protection Agency have to be sued to force them to do their job? And even when the EPA loses, why do they still drag their feet at enforcement?

I suggest everyone help hold their feet to the fire: EPA and Congress and the President!

What I have a hard time figuring out is what those small Celsius degrees represent in fahrenheit degrees?
Surely 1 degree of Celcius is NOT 33 degrees F ?!

Maybe one of my readers can give us a clue.


René O'Deay

"Archaeologists from Leiden University and from the National Museum of Antiquities have discovered the remains of a further 3300 year old tomb in a cemetery in Saqqara. It belongs to Ptahemwia, who was the ‘King’s cupbearer’ in the time of pharaoh Akhenaton (1353-1335 BC)."

The newly found tomb provides important new information about the so-called Amarna period (named after Akhenaton’s capital city in Central Egypt).

The Dutch archaeologists are doing an incredible job on these sites. There will be some posts on Tales of King Tut's Blog with some photos and their reconstruction of tomb layouts in Saqarra.

Dutch Expeditions: Egyptian tombs

See my post about this "New" 3,300 year-old tomb: 'Who's that Sexy Mummy?'


René

Members of Dooda Desert Rock, the Navajo Protesters, Alice Gilmore, Elouise Brown, her son JC, her brother-in-law and her grandfather, Julius Gilmore, and the grandparents Alice and Julius who have lived their whole lives just down the hill from the proposed plant location. They would have to be relocated if the power plant is built.

Two other coal-burning power plants are also located within about ten miles, including the noxious Four Corners Plant, one of the largest coal-burning plants and the dirtiest polluters in the US that has operated without federal regulation since 1960.

The Four Corners Power Plant in New Mexico emits 15 million tons of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and mercury, an established neuro-toxin. The plant's annual emissions of nitrogren oxide, (NOx), are higher than any other US coal plant, totaling 40,742 tons; this amount is equivalent to the emissions released from approximately two million vehicles driven an average of 15,000 miles per year. Emissions from this plant are so extraordinarily high due to a startling and unacceptable lack of regulation. Located on a Navajo reservation, neither tribal, state nor federal emission restrictions have been placed on the plant. In 1999 the EPA recognized the need for a federal implementation plan, or FIP, to set air pollution emission limits for the Four Corners plant. However, for the past seven years the EPA has failed to finalize this vital plan. Sierra Club report

Now these people who have put up with that all these years are having to deal with the threat of another one located in their backyard.

At stake is $50 million a year income for the Navajos and 400 possible permanent jobs.

To meet the country's growing demand for energy, there are about 150 new coal-burning power plants on the drawing board.

But not everyone is thrilled about relying on coal as a future energy source.

The list of proposed new coal plants is chilling. There could be one planned for your neighborhood!

Documents about the proposed new plants on GLRC Public Radio Website.

The biggest problem I see here, is that not one seems to be aware of the new process developed by Purdue University Scientists that could make converting coal to energy or fuel completely carbon dioxide free, and possibly free of other pollutants.

I wrote about it last March Biofuels BreakThrough

Purdue reports they are pursuing patents on the process and developing equipment and other processes to make the conversion commercially feasible.

More on the Navajo Power Plants at Voices from the Earth

"Locked within two cores of ancient ice is evidence of unprecedented swings in Earth's climate throughout the ages. These icy archives tell us that large, rapid, global change is more the norm for the Earth's climate than is stasis.
according to
R. Alley, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park;
P. Mayewski, University of New Hampshire, Durham;
D. Peel, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, England;
and B. Stauffer, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland in Earth in Space, Vol. 9, No. 2, October 1996, pp. 12-13. © 1996 American Geophysical Union. on the Twin Ice Cores From Greenland Reveal History of Climate Change and More !

So scientists have known about this for 9 years, that rapid large global climate change is normal over the aeons, not stasis.

Wait a minute! Maybe you don't know what stasis is.

It's not in the dictionary.

Wikipedia on Stasis, it refers to a state of 'hypersleep' or 'suspended animation,' both terms of science fiction! A Fictional term!

And this is what the fearmongers of Global Warming want to try to induce on our planet!
Stop Global Warming? And how do you think us puny humans are going to do that? I don't care how many of us try.

It's not going to happen and will undoubtedly cost trillions, and the lives of many deprived of the necessities of life us civilized countries have come to take for granted. Disinformation is Dangerous and Deadly