Another Climategate? This time from BEST

BEST study confirms global temperature standstill, but the organization’s head climatologist, Professor Richard Muller, says measurements for the last decade were not included in the study’s results.

by Dr. David Whitehouse
The Observatory
November 1, 2011

Contrary to claims being made by the leader of the Best global temperature initiative their data confirms, and places on a firmer statistical basis, the global temperature standstill of the past ten years as seen by other groups.

Many people have now had some time to read the papers issued in preprint form from the Best project. My strong impression is that they are mostly poorly written, badly argued and at this stage unfit for submission to a major journal. Whilst I have made some comments about Best’s PR and data release strategy, I want to now look at some aspects of the data.

When asked by the BBC’s Today programme Professor Richard Muller, leader of the initiative, said that the global temperature standstill of the past decade was not present in their data.

“In our data, which is only on the land we see no evidence of it having slowed down. Now the evidence which shows that it has been stopped is a combination of land and ocean data. The oceans do not heat as much as the land because it absorbs more of the heat and when the data are combined with the land data then the other groups have shown that when it does seem to be leveling off. We have not seen that in the land data.”

My first though would be that it would be remarkable if it was. The global temperature standstill of the past decade is obvious in HadCrut3 data which is a combination of land and sea surface data. Best is only land data from nearly 40,000 weather stations. Professor Muller says they “really get a good coverage of the globe.” The land is expected to have a fast response to the warming of the lower atmosphere caused by greenhouse gas forcing, unlike the oceans with their high thermal capacity and their decadal timescales for heating and cooling, though not forgetting the ENSO and la Nina.

Fig 1 shows the past ten years plotted from the monthly data from Best’s archives. Click on the image to enlarge.

BestMonthly

It is a statistically perfect straight line of zero gradient. Indeed, most of the largest variations in it can be attributed to ENSO and la Nina effects. It is impossible to reconcile this with Professor Muller’s statement. Could it really be the case that Professor Muller has not looked at the data in an appropriate way to see the last ten years clearly?

(Incidently you could extend the graph back a few years before 2001 and it doesn’t make much difference because the ‘super el nino’ of 1998 and the two subsequent cooler years of 1999 and 2000 do not show up as dramatically in the Best land data as they do in HadCrut3. I would also point out that there is now an abundance of peer-reviewed literature that deals with the question of the lack of temperature increase in the past decade, so our graph’s starting point and duration is justifiable. Arguments that the time period we chose was cherry-picked to show a flat line, and that slightly longer periods would not, are incorrect. There are, of course, still those who distort the argument by saying that ten years is too short for climatic conclusions, as if ten years of data is meaningless. Also Professor Muller was asked a specific question about the last ten years, and our graph is a response to his specific answer.)

Indeed Best seems to have worked hard to obscure the past decade. They present data covering more almost 200 years is presented with a short x-axis and a stretched y-axis to accentuate the increase. The data is then smoothed using a ten year average which is ideally suited to removing the past five years of the past decade and mix the earlier standstill years with years when there was an increase. This is an ideal formula for suppressing the past decade’s data.

When examined more objectively Best data confirms the global temperature standstill of the past decade. That the standstill should be present in land only data is remarkable. There have been standstills in land temperature before, but the significance of the past decade is that it is in the era of mankind’s postulated influence on climate through greenhouse gas forcing. Predictions made many times in the past few years suggest that warming should be the strongest and fastest in the land data.

Only a few years ago many scientists and commentators would not acknowledge the global temperature standstill of the past decade. Now that it has become unarguable there has emerged more explanations for it than can possibly be the case.

To explain the combined sea-land temperature hiatus some have suggested that the oceans are sucking up the heat, as professor Muller outlines in his radio interview. This explanation is strained in my view if the land temperature stays constant. Could we really have the very special situation whereby the oceans sequester just enough heat at just the right time to keep the land temperature flat? Aerosols, postulated by some to be coming from China, don’t provide an explanation for the land temperature hiatus either. In fact, the constant land temperature puts a strain on all of the explanations offered for why the land-sea combination hasn’t warmed in the past decade or so.

We make a big deal of the temperature going up. In my view we should make a bigger scientific deal about temperature flatlining for a decade or more in the face of rising CO2 levels. If further scrutiny of the Best dataset confirms this finding we will have new questions about the nature and balance of oceanic and land warming.

The fact that Best confirms the global temperature hiatus and shows that it is apparent in land only data is significant, and in my view its major scientific finding, so far. It is puzzling that they missed it.

Obama Administration wants License to Lie Op/Ed

The Examiner
October 31, 2011

It’s not often that the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and conservative Judicial Watch agree on anything, but the Obama administration’s lack of transparency has brought the two together. Obama’s Justice Department has proposed a regulatory change that would weaken the Freedom of Information Act. Under the new rules, the government could falsely respond to those who file FOIA requests that a document does not exist if it pertains to an ongoing criminal investigation, concerns a terrorist organization, or a counterintelligence operation involving a foreign nation.

There are two problems with the Obama proposal to allow federal officials to affirmatively assert that a requested document doesn’t exist when it does. First, by not citing a specific exemption allowed under the FOIA as grounds for denying a request, the proposal would cut off a requestor from appealing to the courts. By thus creating an area of federal activity that is completely exempt from judicial review, the proposal undercuts due process and other constitutional protections. Second, by creating a justification for government lying to FOIA requestors in one area, a legal precedent is created that sooner or later will be asserted by the government in other areas as well.

Under FOIA’s current national security exemption, bureaucrats can already deny access to documents without acknowledging their existence. This was noted by the ACLU (joined by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpentheGovernment.com) in a comment on the proposal. In instances where there is a legitimate grounds for not confirming a document’s existence, “the agency should simply respond that ‘we interpret all or part of your request as a request for records which, if they exist, would not be subject to the disclosure requirements of FOIA pursuant to section 552(c), and we therefore will not process that portion of your request.’ This response requires no change to the current FOIA regulation.” Such a response would preserve a requestor’s right to appeal to a federal court.

Chris Farrell, director of investigations and research for Judicial Watch, may have the answer for why the Obama administration wants the new liar’s rule. Judicial Watch has been fighting the White House over a FOIA request for copies of its visitor logs. The White House insists, absurdly, that the documents are theirs, not the property of the Secret Service, and therefore withholdable. “Every day,” Farrell notes, “the Obama administration misrepresents and conceals the true, complete record of who is going in and out of the White House — all the while proclaiming themselves champions of transparency. It’s truly Orwellian.” The proposed new rule could add a patina of legality to the refusal to acknowledge the existence of the visitors logs as White House documents. Despite its flaws, FOIA is one of the few checks on excessive executive branch power. It should not be weakened by Obama’s proposed “license to lie.”

 

Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Released in Brazil, Malaysia…

Concerns are raised about the GMO mosquitoes which cannot be re-called.

When did the governments ask their citizens about releasing mosquitoes?

By Andrew Pollack
NYT
October 31, 2011

Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood.

GMO mosquitoes are also intended to carry out mass vaccination campaigns, as explained by Microsoft's Bill Gates.

The results, and other work elsewhere, could herald an age in which genetically modified insects will be used to help control agricultural pests and insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

But the research is arousing concern about possible unintended effects on public health and the environment, because once genetically modified insects are released, they cannot be recalled.

Authorities in the Florida Keys, which in 2009 experienced its first cases of dengue fever in decades, hope to conduct an open-air test of the modified mosquitoes as early as December, pending approval from the Agriculture Department.

“It’s a more ecologically friendly way to control mosquitoes than spraying insecticides,” said Coleen Fitzsimmons, a spokeswoman for the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.

The Agriculture Department, meanwhile, is looking at using genetic engineering to help control farm pests like the Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, and the cotton-munching pink bollworm, according to an environmental impact statement it published in 2008. Millions of genetically engineered bollworms have been released over cotton fields in Yuma County, Ariz.

Yet even supporters of the research worry it could provoke a public reaction similar to the one that has limited the acceptance of genetically modified crops. In particular, critics say that Oxitec, the British biotechnology company that developed the dengue-fighting mosquito, has rushed into field testing without sufficient review and public consultation, sometimes in countries with weak regulations.

“Even if the harms don’t materialize, this will undermine the credibility and legitimacy of the research enterprise,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, professor of international health law at Georgetown University.

The first release, which was discussed in a scientific paper published online on Sunday by the journal Nature Biotechnology, took place in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean in 2009 and caught the international scientific community by surprise. Oxitec has subsequently released the modified mosquitoes in Malaysia and Brazil.

Luke Alphey, the chief scientist at Oxitec, said the company had left the review and community outreach to authorities in the host countries.

“They know much better how to communicate with people in those communities than we do coming in from the U.K.” he said.

Dr. Alphey was a zoology researcher at Oxford before co-founding Oxitec in 2002. The company has raised about $24 million from investors, including Oxford, he said. A major backer is East Hill Advisors, which is run by the New England businessman Landon T. Clay, former chief executive of Eaton Vance, an investment management firm.

Oxitec says its approach is an extension of a technique used successfully for decades to suppress or even eradicate pests, which involves the release of millions of sterile insects that mate with wild ones, producing no offspring.

But the technique has not been successfully used for mosquitoes, in part because the radiation usually used to sterilize the insects also injures them, making it difficult for them to compete for mates against wild counterparts.

Oxitec has created Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the species that is the main transmitter of the dengue and yellow fever viruses, containing a gene that will kill them unless they are given tetracycline, a common antibiotic.

In the lab, with tetracycline provided, the mosquitoes can be bred for generations and multiplied. Males are then released into the wild, where tetracycline is not available. They live long enough to mate but their progeny will die before adulthood.

The study published on Sunday looked at how successfully the lab-reared, genetically modified insects could mate. About 19,000 engineered mosquitoes were released over four weeks in 2009 in a 25-acre area on Grand Cayman island.

Read Full Article…

Gross Errors In The IPCC Report On Global Tropical Cyclone Activity

by William M. Gray
October 31, 2011

“Intense TC activity has increased since about 1970.”  (NOT TRUE)

…“Globally, estimates of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes show a significant upward trend since the mid-1970s, with greater storm intensity. Such trends are strongly correlated with tropical SST.”  (NOT TRUE)

“These relationships have been reinforced by findings of a large increase in numbers and proportion of hurricanes reaching categories 4 and 5 globally since 1970  (NOT TRUE)

…. The largest increase was in the North Pacific, Indian and southwest Pacific Oceans.”  (NOT TRUE)

The Four IPCC reports have emboldened our politicians to come forth with the following erroneous statements –
Al Gore states in his book and movie – An Inconvenient Truth – “major storms (hurricanes) spinning in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.”  (NOT TRUE)

In November 2008 President-Elect Barack Obama said, “storms (i.e. hurricanes) are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”
(NOT TRUE)

HISTORY AND POLITICS

The US government has expended billions of dollars in recent years to promote the questionable idea that human-induced increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause dangerous changes to the global climate system. Massive government and media campaigns have been launched to promote the dangers of CO2-induced anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and related influences such as the anticipated increases in global tropical cyclone (TC) frequency and intensity as well as other severe weather events. Pro-AGW advocates have pushed to have this warming gospel accepted across the world and taught to our children in their regular school programs. AGW advocates want to worry the public as much as possible in order to be better able to increase their influence and funding support.
There has yet to be an open and honest scientific debate on the future consequences of CO2 increases and of the potential social and negative economic consequences of efforts to slow down CO2 increases. A number of pro-AGW advocates have expended considerable efforts in recent years to develop theories and in arranging TC data in order to show that global TCs are increasing in frequency and intensity in response to rising CO2 levels. Global warming advocates have had a strong desire to find and to exploit increases in TC activity as further evidence of the human-induced warming scenarios.

The IPCC hierarchy had its mind made up years ago that they would make every attempt possible to link rising levels of CO2 with increases in global hurricane intensity and frequency. They knew that if such an association could be established in the public’s mind that this could be used to help scare and induce the public (and Congress) into funding the political, economic, and environmental agendas of a large number of special interest groups. Input from skeptics or any hypothesis or data that did not link rises in CO2 to increases in TC activity was to be avoided, suppressed, or rejected. The IPCC deliberately ignored the most experienced and knowledgeable TC experts in order to preserve their desired goal of propagandizing the public to believe that rising CO2 levels were creating a growing hurricane threat. Most of the IPCC statements on TCs, as will be shown, are not supported by observations.

After the very severe US hurricane landfalling seasons of 2004 and 2005, the public was more open and vulnerable to such arguments of CO2 induced increases in hurricane activity. A group of papers were rapidly published to exploit and to justify this assumption so that the authors might be able to jump onto the warming bandwagon and increase their potential for more federal grant support, publicity, and other envisioned gains.

These papers strived to arrange their observations and physical explanations in ways to show or imply a direct association between increasing levels of TC activity with increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and rising levels of CO2. The majority of these authors who rapidly published papers between 2005-2008 had little background experience in TC research or forecasting, or in TC climatology. Nearly all of these papers were biased in the direction of implying more TC activity with rising levels of SST. Most of these papers should not have been able to get through the peer-review process. The journal editors of these papers appear to have sent them for review to known like-minded AGW sympathizers. Many of our country’s most experienced TC researchers and forecasters appear to have been left out of this review process.

Following these two disastrous US landfalling hurricane years of 2004-2005, the mainstream media (without a background knowledge of TCs and preconditioned to accept the AGW arguments) generally accepted the reality of these paper’s faulty results. This created a near panic among coastal residents over the implied coming increase of hurricane destruction that these papers indicated was on the way. Disaster stories made good press and fit in very well with the government and environmentalists’ AGW scenarios. The media, in general, chose not to discuss the views of established TC researchers and forecasters from the National Hurricane Center and many of my experienced TC colleagues who did not subscribe to such disaster scenarios.

I have been closely following the AGW debate for the last 25 years. It has been politically dominated from the start. All four IPCC reports have been slanted to support the AGW hypothesis. There has been much valuable data and analysis contained in these four reports that have been issued, but the report’s summaries have always been biased toward the organizers desired goal of saying to government policy makers that CO2 was causing increases in both global temperature, TC activity, severe weather events, etc.

I believe that rising levels of CO2 will manifest itself through a small enhancement of the global hydrologic cycle (by a few percent) but that we will see very little increase of global temperature when CO2 amounts double towards the end of the 21st century. The General Circulation Models (GCMs) on which predictions of 2-5oC (4-9oF) global warming for a doubling of CO2 are based have basic flaws and they should not be accepted. The four IPCC reports which have been issued over the last 16 years have done much harm in needlessly alarming the world over the dangers of rising levels of CO2 that are not realistic. The IPCC process has made it impossible to separate the overwhelming political nature of this effort from the desired unbiased scientific analysis.

This paper documents many of the false statements on tropical cyclones which were contained in the IPCC-AR4 and gives scientific arguments why rising levels of CO2 should have little or no significant influence on TC activity and only marginally so on global warming.

SUMMARY OF REASONS NOT TO BELIEVE A HUMAN INFLUENCE ON TROPICAL CYCLONES

This section briefly discusses:
a. Last 20-year downward trend in global TC activity.
b. CO2’s extremely small relative energy influence.
c. Lack of SST vs. TC activity correlation.
d. Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation (THC) influence on Atlantic SST variations.

LAST 20-YEAR DOWNWARD TREND IN GLOBAL TC ACTIVITY.

Although global surface temperatures appear to have increased during the 20th century by about 0.65°C or 1°F, there is no reliable data to indicate that increases in TC frequency or intensity changes occurred in any of the globe’s TC basins. Global Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE)1 shows significant year-to-year and decadal variability over the past 40 years (when global TC data is deemed reasonably reliable) but no period-long increasing trend. In fact, global TC activity has shown (red line) a distinct decrease over the last 20 years when CO2 amounts were increasing (Figure 2.1). Similarly, Klotzbach (2006) found no significant change in global TC activity during the period from 1986-2005 when tropical SSTs and CO2 amounts were rising (Figure 2.2). See section 13 for more discussion.

CO2’S EXTREMELY SMALL RELATIVE ENERGY INFLUENCE.

The energy change that will be brought about by rising levels of CO2 have been and will be for many decades far too small to cause a detectable influence on TCs. Figure 2.3 shows a vertical cross-section of the annual energy budget for the tropics (30oN-30oS; 0-360o). Note how large the surface, troposphere, and top of the atmosphere energy flux components are in comparison with the reduced infrared (IR) flux to space of 3.7 Wm-2 for a doubling of CO2 that is expected to occur by the end of the 21st century. We are now about one-third of the way (~ 1.4 Wm-2) to a doubling of CO2 from the background state of the mid-19th century. Any potential CO2 influence on TCs will be too miniscule to be isolated, and we do not know if once an influence is ever able to be detected whether it will have a positive or a negative effect on TC intensity and/or frequency.

LACK OF SST VS. TC ACTIVITY CORRELATION.

These two parameters are only slightly related in all global TC basins besides the Atlantic (Figure 2.4). Long-period SST increases should not be expected to bring about significant global lapse-rate buoyancy increases or enhanced deep cumulonimbus (Cb) convection. If global surface temperature and surface moisture changes on a climate time scale do occur, so too will upper-level temperature and moisture conditions change in a way so as to maintain global rainfall and energy budgets near their long-period average. With global warming or cooling of but a degree or so it is to be expected that average global lapse-rates and TC activity will not appreciably change.

Read Full Report…

Washington’s Black Ops against Iran

Extensive range of covert operations envisaged by US Congress

by Ismail Salami
Global Research
October 31, 2011

The US secret agenda for tightening its vice-like grip on the Islamic Republic of Iran has taken on an apparently new form after the anti-Iran alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, raised many eyebrows among experts and analysts around the world.

With a strong penchant for pushing for tougher action on Iran, the Obama administration has already imposed a series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. However, a Republican-controlled congressional committee has recently heard testimony demanding an extensive range of covert operations against the country.

The operations, which range from cyber attacks to political assassinations, are speculated to be conducted under the feeble excuse that Iran was the alleged architect of an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy to the United States. By political assassination, the US congressmen unconsciously mean the liquidation of the Iranian nuclear scientists, an act they actually started long ago.

Retired Army Gen. John Keane told a hearing of two key subcommittees of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday, “We’ve got to put our hand around their throat now. Why don’t we kill them? We kill other people who kill others.”

Also, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) poured some pearls of wisdom over others and called for “sober, reasoned discussion.”

“Iran’s leaders must be held accountable for their action,” she said, “but we cannot take any reckless actions which may lead to opening another front in the ‘War on Terror,’ which the American people do not want and cannot afford.”

Naturally, the US government, in essence, cannot afford to wage another war at least in view of the economic woes it has wrought upon the American citizens, regardless of other influencing factors.

The stone that started rolling fell into the hands of New York Congressman Peter King who made an extremely bizarre comment. He suggested that the US should kick out Iranian officials at the UN in New York and in Washington and accused them of being spies, ignorant of the fact that the UN is considered an independent international body and that the US has no authority to ‘kick out’ diplomats accredited there en masse.

Overwhelmed with a sense of false eagerness, he renewed the anti-Iran alleged assassination ploy and said excitedly, “So you have the assassination of a foreign ambassador, you have the willingness to kill hundreds of Americans — this is an act of war,” King said, “I don’t think we can just do business as usual or even carry out sanctions as usual.”

The volley of vitriolic words against Iran which issued from Mr. King reeks of blind enmity long egged on by other hawks in Washington.

In point of fact, the anti-Iran moves practically started in 2007 when US Congress agreed to George W. Bush, the then US president, to fund a major increase in covert operations against Iran. According to the intelligence officials who spoke to the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the CIA was then given a presidential approval to commence its covert ‘black’ operations inside Iran. To that effect, over four hundred million dollars were allocated in a Presidential Finding signed by George W. Bush. The ultimate goal of the finding was to cripple Iran’s religious government and the operations involved throwing support behind minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchis and other opposition groups as well as amassing intelligence about Iran’s nuclear sites.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, the intelligence officials confirmed that Bush had signed a “nonlethal presidential finding”, giving the CIA carte blanche to engage in any sabotaging activities including a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran’s currency and international financial transactions in order to destabilize and eventually achieve regime change in Iran.

“I can’t confirm or deny whether such a program exists or whether the president signed it, but it would be consistent with an overall American approach trying to find ways to put pressure on the regime,” said Bruce Riedel, a retired CIA senior official, an expert on Iran and the Middle East (ABCNEWS.com May 22, 2007).

In June 2007, The New Yorker magazine also ran a similar story by Seymour Hersh, confirming that the finding had been signed by Bush and intended to destabilize the Islamic government.

“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”

From an intelligence point of view, the fact that the US government is resorting to covert black operations against Iran rules out the possibility of a military strike against the country.

According to reports, US ambassadors in Islamabad have repeatedly asked for opening a consulate in the province of Baluchistan, a suspicious demand from the US. In 2011, the call was renewed by US ambassador Cameron Munter to Islamabad. Persistence in this demand is to be taken seriously. Baluchistan is strategically important as it is a harbor for the anti-Iran terrorist group, Jundullah, in the first place and a separatist Pakistani province in the second place.

In fact, Washington greatly favors the establishment of a ‘Greater Baluchistan’ which would integrate the Baluch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran. Military expert Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters suggests that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: ‘Greater Baluchistan’ or ‘Free Baluchistan’ (June 2006, The Armed Forces Journal). As a result, this would incorporate the Baluch provinces of Pakistan and Iran into a single political entity which can be tailored to suit the interests of Washington.

So it seems that the US harbors two main ulterior motives if this demand is answered. First, it can fulfill its dream of establishing the Greater Baluchistan, consolidate firm presence in this separatist part of Pakistan and secondly, it will be in a position to avail itself of this influence to carry out its sabotaging activities within Iran.

Earlier in 2007, the Blotter on ABCNews.com revealed the role of the US government in backing the terrorist Iranian group , which is responsible for a number of gruesome assassinations of the Iranian civilians on the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The terrorist group spares no efforts in sowing the seed of terror in the southern Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan and their lust for murder and cruelty knows no remission. The victims the group has so far claimed include many women and children who have become the direct target of their killing. In July 2010, the group mounted a pair of suicide attacks on a major Shi’ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan Province, killing dozens of worshippers and wounding over 100 people.

Although US officials deny any ‘direct funding’ of the terrorist group, they acknowledge that they are in contact with the leader of the group on a regular basis. A similar terroristic attack was launched by the same group on a mosque in Zahedan in May 2009, which led to the martyrdom of many worshippers.

Sadly enough, Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) implicitly supports the group and reportedly shelters some of its high-profile members in coordination with the CIA.

Isn’t it paradoxical that Jundullah, a terrorist group and an offshoot of al-Qaeda, is directly funded by the US government which keeps bandying about its so-called ‘war on terror’ in the world?

This is enough to cause the US to hang its head low in shame and humility.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. A prolific writer, he has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East. His articles have been translated into a number of languages.

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