Dear patient readers,
I am out of town and bandwidth challenged (plua bizarre problems like inability to send mail, and yes I could use my webmail account, but the interface stinks. I am trying to view this as some sort of lesson in patience, which, needless to say, is not my long suit). Richard Smith is ably minding the store, and will be keeping an eye out for additional posts during the day on Friday.
Impact ‘catastrophe calculator’ updated BBC
Is Amazon Misleading Us About ebooks Outselling Print Books? Me and My Kindle (hat tip reader David C)
Ex-Manager Sparky Anderson Dies New York Times. I saw some Reds games when Anderson was the manager.
Sign of the Times: Hearings on “Scientific Fraud” of Global Warming Expected FireDogLake (hat tip reader John Bougearel)
Evidence That Oil Fields Renew Themselves Tuscon Citizen (hat tip reader aet). Given the section of the paper that carried this story, it looks to be faith based science.
In U.S., 14% Rely on Food Stamps Wall Street Journal
Dead Quasar Leaves Ghost Behind Discovery (hat tip reader John M)
NASA EPOXI Flyby Reveals New Insights Into Comet Features Jet Propulsion Laboratory (hat tip reader John M)
India: Economic power house or poor house? The Star (hat tip reader May S)
Backlash against Fed’s $600bn easing Financial Times
Fed’s Hoenig on QE2, Low Rates and Future Instability Wall Street Journal
Federal Reserve Rains Money On Corporate America — But Main Street Left High And Dry Shahien Nasiripour
Why Bernanke Is Gambling Credit Writedowns
Consumers’ right to file class actions is in danger Los Angeles Times
Budget Deficits and Trade Deficits: NYT Reporters Do Not Understand National Income Accounting Dean Baker
Behind a foreclosure, danger and tragedy Miami Herald (hat tip reader Barbara Ann)
Foreclosure Fraud – Deutsche Bank Memo Notifies Securitized Loan Servicers and their Attorneys that they May have Broken the Law 4ClousureFraud (hat tip reader Barbara W)
Will Lehman Abandon Oak Knoll? East Bay Express (hat tip reader Martin L)
In typical cobblers’ children going unshod fashion, I should have alerted readers I will be on a panel today, “Journalists’ Roundtable: Perspectives on Crisis and Recovery” at noon at UMass Amherst. James Kwak of Baseline Scenario is moderating, and the other panel members are Doug Henwood and Mike Konczal
Antidote du jour:
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Attention Nackerd Cramapitalisam readers…
A Song to lighten the burden…
For when the written word fails me…
Trust in Monty…
Monty Python Mini Mega Mix
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY-8TwBymfY&feature=related
Skippy…Yves dare you to play this as the guests fill in the venue.
You have just made my day, thanks Skippy!
Skippy,
There’s a lot to love in this ‘mix,’ but the one for our times and my favorite is the seditious once a week shopping. :)
Baby pig to momma pig: They just called me a Wall Street banker.
Momma pig: Don’t cry, now. It’s not a worse insult than Homo Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapiens calling Wall Street bankers pigs.
There you have it – wisdom from a Zen momma pig.
Seditious shopping…that almost would make it fun…eh. Be careful though, seditious is ultimately sensual and you may draw unwanted attention…ha.
rene glad to have thrown you a bone.
Yves
Check out this story in the WSJ. A company in New York is selling developers on the idea of putting private tranfer fees into the sales contracts for houses and condos. Then for the next 99 years every subsequent seller of the property has to pay 1% of the sale price to the trust. And if you buy the house on the secondary market and your title search doesnt find with that nasty provision, you’ll be in for a nasty surprise later.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704141104575588510318854860.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_7
scientific fraud:
http://climate.nasa.gov/images/evidence_CO2.jpg
expand please
I’ll give you some scientific fraud for your money.
You get the full package, executive summary, references, index and discussion. You know, all that stuff that make climate change deniers little heads explode under the intellectual strain.
http://xrl.in/6ltz
http://xrl.in/6fvt
My God. Look at the horrible state of reporting in the U.S. First, for comparison sake, here is an excerpt of an article from aljazeera published on 11-05-2010:
—-
In response to their oil disaster last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic Corexit dispersants (which have been banned in 19 countries) to sink the oil. The dispersants contain chemicals that many scientists and toxicologists have warned are dangerous to humans, marine life, and wildlife.
Earlier this year on May 20, the EPA told BP it had 24 hours to find a less toxic alternative, but the EPA’s request was ignored. Then on May 25, BP was given a directive by the EPA to scale back their spraying of the Gulf of Mexico with dispersants. The Coast Guard overlooked the EPA’s directive and provided BP with 74 exemptions in 48 days to use the dispersants.
—-
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/11/201011465847225269.html
Compare the above article with its very accurate reporting to this POS article published on 11-05-2010 from Yale Daily News:
—
“This is by far the best collaborative science effort I have seen in years,” Kessler said. “Everyone worked together in order to ensure that the length of this disaster was shortened.”
A key action in reversing the effects of the spill was the use of chemical dispersants by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate the oil dispersal.
—
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/nov/05/panelists-spill-on-environmental-disasterdeep/
WTF? That second paragraph above from the Yale Daily News article is the opposite of fact. Where did that come from? Is this going to be the Powers-That-Be’s spin from now on? Bizarre.
I just left the following comment over at Yale Daily News http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/nov/05/panelists-spill-on-environmental-disasterdeep/#c42458 :
There is a major error in this article. The following paragraph is incorrect:
“A key action in reversing the effects of the spill was the use of chemical dispersants by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to accelerate the oil dispersal.”
Here are the facts from aljazeera:
—-
In response to their oil disaster last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic Corexit dispersants (which have been banned in 19 countries) to sink the oil. The dispersants contain chemicals that many scientists and toxicologists have warned are dangerous to humans, marine life, and wildlife.
Earlier this year on May 20, the EPA told BP it had 24 hours to find a less toxic alternative, but the EPA’s request was ignored. Then on May 25, BP was given a directive by the EPA to scale back their spraying of the Gulf of Mexico with dispersants. The Coast Guard overlooked the EPA’s directive and provided BP with 74 exemptions in 48 days to use the dispersants.
—-
How did a paragraph that is the opposite of fact make it into this article? No wonder the U.S. is going down the toilet.
There is another reason Why Bernanke Is Gambling. Start a Revolution Ron Paul ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiKh9Ko3mw4 ). Bernanke is trying to remove the investor class as a constituency for the Tea Partyers and Paulistas. It is pure politics.
Re: In U.S., 14% Rely on Food Stamps
A damning statistic that lends at least some weight to John Williams’ efforts at shadowstats. To my mind it is a more important figure than the almost 10% unemployment number touted left, right and center, and definitely more worrying. Perhaps this particular stat is impossible to fake???
Oil fields that renew themselves…
All non-radioactive natural resources renew themselves! The question is does the renewal happen equal to or faster than consumption (from a human usage perspective). Even if oil creation has no biological component to it, it is not likely to be renewing at a rate even close to our consumption. If it was renewing at that rate, then over the past 4 billion years we would have filled our oceans with oil and not water.
I like to say that oil and gas is renewable but that our consumption is unsustainable. I am sure someone could calculate how many barrels a year we could consume to not deplete the reserves. It would probably be something like 1 million barrels a year. If that were the case, at 85 million barrels per day, we consume around 31 billion barrels per year, or 31 million times the sustainable rate. ;)
Looking at the estimated amount of reserves and past consumption levels, we consume oil at about 5 million times the renewal/production rate.
So when you say next time the comment that we use 1.5, 1.9 our 2.x times earth’s resources, you’ll know this is just plain wrong: we would need millions of earth to continue living the way we live.
Extend and pretend they call it.
From the WSJ interview with dissenting Fed Guv Hoenig:
WSJ: ‘What’s the risk of this move looking like the Fed is monetizing the debt?’
Hoenig: ‘I think it’s a legitimate risk because we are monetizing the debt, call it whatever you will. It is buying long-term or intermediate-term Treasurys in substantial amounts, that is by any definition monetizing the debt.‘
How scandalous, that even the ‘financial press’ acts as administration apologists by employing euphemisms such as ‘looking like’ monetization.
To his credit, the lone dissenter Hoenig tells the journo-ho, in effect, don’t soft-soap me with semantic smoke.
Bernanke is a modern-day John Law, and there’s gonna be a heavy price to pay when the impoverished peasants wake up to how badly they’ve been swindled by this white-bearded flim-flam man.
Remember, most of the financial press is in New York city and whatever else the actions of the FED maybe, they are good for New York City. If fact, QE2 might just be considered a NYC bailout.
So to paraphrase the Daily News, circa 1975:
BERNANKE TO CITY: BOOM ON! ;-)
“A reporter at Barron’s financial blog complained that Amazon’s announcement was “completely lacking in informative quantitative detail.””
This has been Amazon SOP since its beginning. Do you remember how it used to fudge its revenue numbers to look profitable when it was still losing tons of money? Why would it be different with Kindle?
I recall that a recent statement by Simon & Schuster claimed that e-books, in all formats, accounted for 5 percent of revenue, so the estimate that Kindle is 6 percent of the book market is probably in the right order of magnitude, probably a bit to the high side.
For the life of me I do not understand how someone who has been justifiably skeptical about the workings of the Fed, the Big Financials and Politicians in general continues to buy the global warming….no wait, climate change scam…. hook, line and sinker.
Have you follwed the money?
How much money is there to be gained out of “Global Warming Initiatives?”
Who is going to gain corporately, nationally and individually?
Who are the leaders of the administrations that are pushing this agenda and what’s their track record of honesty and disclosure?
Why did those involved fight so hard to NOT disclose the data sets?
Why isn’t their more discussion of the fact that several of the sets have been manipulated?
Why hasn’t the Climate Change movement booted those who have been proven to have manipulated data?
Is there an inherent conflict of interest with “climate scientists” who will lose classes to teach, grant money, fancy trips to Bali that all disappear if manmade CO2 suddenly becomes a non-issue in comparison to non-manmade CO2, urban heating and solar radiation?
Bottom Line: I’m sick of the one-sided propaganda that’s posted on this issue on this site as most of it is of the belittling nature that has made the alarmists so disliked. If it’s real science, address the raw data (in context of seasonality – especially important when looking at ice coverage). I should add that using the term “denier” because of its correlation with holocaust deniers, is one of the most loathsome things I have seen in recent memory and is not something this blog should be associated with.
Hoping to see a more balanced presentation going forward….
For the life of me I do not understand how someone cannot see the difference between the workings of the Fed, the Big Financials, Politicians and of social “scientists” (as in economists) and the workings of physical scientists.
Have you followed the money?
How much money is there to be gained by denying Global Warming?
Who is going to gain corporately, nationally and individually?
Who are the leaders that are pushing this agenda and what’s their track record of honesty and disclosure?
Why did those involved fight so hard to make false and totally unsubstantiated allegations?
Why isn’t their more discussion of the fact that several of the sets have been manipulated, as in this incidence, where the climate change deniers were caught red handed?
Why hasn’t the Climate Change denier movement booted those who have been proven to have manipulated data?
Is there an inherent conflict of interest with “climate non-scientists” and “climate anti-scientists” who will lose their place at the corporate trough if they cease their global warming denial?
Bottom Line: I’m sick of the one-sided propaganda, the numerous comments on this issue on this site as most of it is of the belittling nature that has made the scientists so disliked. If the anti-scientists and non-scientists want to be real scientists, address the raw data and why sometimes it is necessary for the real scientists to adjust that data (as in the instance cited above). I should add that using the term “denier,” because of its correlation with holocaust deniers, is one of the most appropriate things I have seen in recent memory and is something this blog should do everything in its power to promote.
Hoping to see a more balanced presentation going forward….
Very well said, DownSouth. I thank you.
Just consume less – that will address the concern of which corporations will benefit from the Global Warming Initiatives – instead of buying more gadgets, be they greener.
And if there is no Global Warming, consuming less is still good for your pocket.
Either way, you and nature win by your consuming less. It’s a win-win solution and no one will be able to take advantage of taxpayer money to go to Bali.
At the Institute for Contemporary Analysis we have completed a research study of global warming and we’ve concluded it’s a primarily a phenomenon of global psyche, expressing as metaphor the confusion of numerous thought systems colliding in a breakdown of tribal structures catalyzed by globalization of communications technology.
Essentially, the phobia of global warming is an imaginary construct — like all demons are — that partakes of the ancient metaphor of drowning as a phenominazation of the overflow of ID energy. Overheating is another metaphor for the same thing.
It’s all very simple, but calls on a conceptual framework that is not well known outside of the Institute and small groups of select scholars around the world.
I would not care to go to Bali. But if someone wants to send me out to New Mexico for a few weeks, I’m available. I wouldn’t want to have a whole lot to do, mostly hit the bars and take some landcape pictures. I’m much less expensive than the big climate guys.
We can talk about global warming if you want — after a few beers and as long as there’s no football game on the tube. If you’re a reasonably hot female over the age of 30 and in good shape, we can talk all night long. ha ha.
-Professor DT Tremens, PhD, GED, NFL
Institute for Contemporary Analysis
youze guys, seriously dudes, how many global warming apostles or skeptics have even taken a single course (that they still remember) in simple statistical methods, including sample set theory, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests, Type 1 and Type 2 errors, probability distribution theory — and that’s the simple stuff.
I’d bet very few. Maybe 1 in 15, would be my guess. That means 93% don’t really have a clue. I just figured that out with a calculator. It’s mostly theological and political and that always gets the passions going.
And the ones that do know the math argue over the sampling strategies, the data and the testing methodologies, like economists argue over Viagranism or Austerianism.
They just don’t agree, because there aren’t any determinative facts. All there are are theories.
That said, politically, I’m very much in favor of green, distributed energy and not the oil/coal stuff, really. But it costs a lot more and that would be a fact that has to be dealt with by folks who are already struggling financially thanks to the banksters and their bailout buddies in DC. The rich folks like all the Naked Capitalism millionaire readers can afford it for sure. But think about the guy barely getting by.
But global warming is something different.
Professor DT Tremens, GED and Thought Patrol Squad.
Craazyman, the only thing about probability I know of is that, based on a decade long study at Framinghma MA, if your friend is happy, you have a 15% chance of being happy as a result of that and if your friend’s friend is happy, the probability of your being happy is 10%, until it goes to 0% of catching happiness 4 degrees remove, i.e. your friend’s friend’s friend’s friend.
So, smile and your friend will smile 15%-probably.
Haha, priceless. Except:
“The rich folks like all the Naked Capitalism millionaire readers can afford it for sure. But think about the guy barely getting by.”
Do you know any rich people? Stingiest people on earth. I knew a Mercedes salesman who spent his weekends driving his customer’s $100,000 cars to Arizona to register them there to avoid California’s higher registration costs.
“All there are are theories.”
In Science, theory is NOT equivalent to a hunch.
In Science, a theory is based on observable facts, and it gets modified by new facts, or, by a better encompassing explanation of the available facts.
Ergo, if there are theories, there are facts. The Theory of Climate Destabilization (which should be the proper name BTW) is based on multiple facts coming from multiple lines of evidence.
I strongly suggest you study general semantics. It’ll avoid glaring errors of logic like the ones plaguing your post.
It is quite wrong to describe it as a scam. But it also completely ridiculous to describe skeptics as deniers, and skepticism as being anti science.
I do not think there ever was any scientific evidence to suppose that the MMR vaccine causes autism. But people who were opposed to it were not appropriately described as anti-vaccination. They were perfectly OK with vaccination, they just did not think this particular one was safe. Now, they were wrong. But it helps in arguing with people who think this to characterize their position correctly because otherwise you find you have no arguments with any purchase.
Similarly, skeptics are not anti science. They just think this particular set of hypotheses has not been proven. Its a reasonable point of view. The evidence on just how great feedbacks are, and therefore just what the numbers on climate sensitivity are, are not like Boyle’s law. They are hypotheses, in an area where our understanding has a ways to go yet.
Abuse and name calling never convinced anyone. Neither did argument directed however cogently to a position they do not hold.
leroguetradeur,
Do you even know what a skeptic is? To call the global warming deniers skeptics is just as big a misnomer as calling them scientists.
They are much closer to being stoics than skeptics, but even that gives them more credit than they merit.
For the truth is that no reality and no common sense can penetrate the minds of the global warming deniers. That sort of dogmatism is not the trait of a skeptic. Quite the opposite, it is the mark of a true believer.
Do I know what a skeptic is? Yes, what I mean by a global warming skeptic is someone who is skeptical about the force of the case. He or she is unconvinced that the case has been made.
Of course, these are the people you call deniers.. dogmatists…. etc. They are not. They are people to whom the evidence looks less convincing than it does to you. They may be wrong. But they are not in denial, in the sense of, refusing to believe, or pretending not to believe, something no sane person can doubt.
If you look at feedbacks and their relation to climate sensitivity you see at once that rational and well informed people of good faith may perfectly well be unconvinced by arguments that any particular values for these things are certain beyond all reasonable doubt.
Calling people like this deniers gets no-one anywhere. They are rational and skeptical about an important and interesting, but unproven, hypothesis.
leroguetradeur,
So what about those who aren’t convinced by the evidence that the earth is round? Are they “skeptics”?
Or those who doubt the earth revolves around the sun? Are they “skeptics”?
What about those who aren’t convinced of the evidence of biological evolution? Are they “skeptics”?
What’s the difference between being a “skeptic” and being delusional? Or between being a “skeptic” and being certifiably insane?
Again, you don’t seem to know the difference.
No, there is exactly what you are assuming is not the case, a real difference between those different things and AGW. The difference is that reasonable and informed people may be unconvinced by the evidence for AGW, in at least the form of the hypothesis that asserts a doubling of CO2 will lead to rise in temperatures of 4C+.
That is the point of science which you try to assume with your assertion that people who are unconvinced are delusional, but the instances you cite are simply stuff you assume to be comparable. Its a long string of petitio principe.
You do not have to be delusional, uninformed, in denial, closed minded, a religious nut, whatever, to find the evidence for 4C+ due to doubling of CO2 unconvincing. You only have to take a different view of what the evidence regarding clouds and feedback shows about climate sensitivity.
Abuse and name calling does not alter that fact.
I have to say, I myself find the evidence reasonably persuasive, but that does not lead me either to assume it is certain, or that everyone who thinks differently is crazy. That’s just dangerous authoritarianism and has no place in genuine scientific inquiry.
leroguetradeur,
So what about those who aren’t convinced by the evidence that the earth is round? Are they “skeptics”?
Or those who doubt the earth revolves around the sun? Are they “skeptics”?
What about those who aren’t convinced of the evidence of biological evolution? Are they “skeptics”?
At what point does one go from being a “skeptic” to being a crank? Or from being a “skeptic” to being a religious fundamentalist? Or from being a “skeptic” to being delusional, certifiably insane?
Again, you don’t seem to know the difference.
Perhaps Zen offers a way out…or maybe not.
It is said in Zen that:
It’s not yes
It’s not no
It’s not both
and it’s not neither.
So, we can also meditate on this:
You doubt Man-made Global Warming, thus you exist
You doubt the absence of Man-made Global Warming, thus also you exist.
leroguetradeur,
I don’t care how you try to twist it around, but an atheist is not an agnostic. An atheist says there is no God. An agnostic says he doesn’t know whether there’s a God or not, and neither do you.
If climate change deniers were the skeptics you claim they are—-merely disinterested observers in search of the truth—-then why do they engage in the manufacture and dissemination of so many distortions, half-truths and outright lies to “prove” global warming doesn’t exist?
You make it sound as if global warming deniers are indifferent to the outcome of the debate. Any reasonable person, given the comments we see on this blog ad nauseam, can see with their own eyes that that simply is not the case.
DS, I am not twisting anything around, I don’t think GW skeptics are disintered seekers after truth, of course many have a point of view. This is a debate on which both sides feel they have a more than scientific stake in the outcome. However the point is, this is a scientific controversy. Whether the earth is flat is not. This is. In scientific controversies, to be skeptical of a given hypothesis is not to be in denial..etc …etc.
The place you see this is the question of the certainty of the evidence on feedback, clouds, climate sensitivity.
What kinds of issues to put this with? Well, when arguing in the usual hysterical way about this, advocates put it with tobacco and health, flat earthism, evolution etc. Actually, the place it belongs is some health issues where there is evidence, it does point in one direction, it is a reasonable hypothesis, but its no more than that, and doubt is entirely rational, and only depends on taking a different view of some evidence.
A useful example is the saturated fat – cholesterol – heart disease hypothesis. It has been accepted for decades, it is plausible. But we also do not know mechanisms in detail, there is evidence that is hard to reconcile with it (particularly from cholesterol lowering drug trials, and the lack of heart disease in some populations). There are commercial lobbies with a stake in both pro and contra views, namely the corn and soybean lobby on one side, and the dairy and beef lobby on the other.
To be skeptical about the link is not to be in denial or in the pay of the beef and dairy lobby. It just to take a rather different view of what we should conclude from statin trial with and without cholesterol lowering agents.
You would like to assume that the GW – CO2 link is as certain as the earth being flat, when it just is not. Its not an awful conspiracy to install world government either, its just an hypothesis with some evidence for it, some against it, and an great deal of phenomena that are not fully understood.
By the way, on the term ‘skeptic’ and ‘skeptical’. In ordinary English the expression ‘to be skeptical about X’ has the ordinary meaning of being doubtful or unconvinced.
Now you can try and redefine the terms so that the only people who we use it of are the intellectual descendants of the ancient Greek school of philosophers. Or the intellectual descendents of David Hume. Or anything whatever you want. But it will not help you prove that the people who I am calling skeptics about GW are in denial. The reason is, we will just need some other term to embody the ordinary English concept now referred to by skepticism about GW, in the sense I used the term above.
The problem is the hypothesis, it is simply not as well established as you would like to think it is. Notice that I refrain from accusing you of being in denial about this….!
lerouge,
The statement that AGW is a “scientific controversy” is bunk. Even George Bush acknowledged that human activity contributed to global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
“No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion”
If you look at the Wikipedia list of dissenting scientists, you will see that it is not long (Wikipedia says it may not be complete, but some of the noisiest critics not on the list, like Lord Monckton, have NO scientific credentials) and a large proportion is geophysicists and meterologists, meaning not climate scientists.
OK Kiddos! :-)
Before you go any further, which is already far enough.
Read this:
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/02/distinguishing-climate-deniers-from.html
Love!
I have no doubt that human activity contributes to climate changes. I also have no doubt that it has warmed, both since 1950 and since 1800. To deny that would be simply silly.
I do think it perfectly intellectually respectable to doubt whether CO2 emissions play a role as large as has been represented by the ‘consensus’ in that human contribution. I do not think this in any way comparable to doubting the roundness of the earth. And I think no useful purpose is served by calling people who have reservations, even considerable ones, about ‘the consensus’ deniers.
Judy Curry has some telling pieces on this, as does Roger Pielke Jr. Neither of whom are in denial.
Mohamed A. El-Erian on QE”
El-Erain says risks and potential costs are high and potential benefits are few.
Bernake is acting alone. It is not getting coopertion from the Treasury, from the housing agency and from the rest of the world.
QE2 may cause some excitement in the markets, but will do nothing to spur growth or job creation.
The USA’s trading partners are not impressed, either:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11697483
DEAR BEN:
“YOUR FIRED”.
You mean the LA Times is just waking up to the fact that class action rights have been hammered for at least 20 years? Every single time the right is addressed, it is curtailed – every time. There is already basically nothing left, and frankly, the rewards to the class are so ridiculously miniscule as to negate it as a realistic way of addressing grievances.
I agree that the class action is critical to enforcing rights where many are harmed a little. I think it is a really important piece of our legal system, and I think it is already almost dead. Too bad no one has any realistic ideas about the problem, or concern for fixing the abusive class actions without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Time for Change
“Meet the new revolutionaries of the Do-It-Yourself cultures in Barcelona, Tallin and Jakarta. They are modern day heroes. They do not wait for political parties or institutions to change their world; they simply do it themselves, by creating new local currencies, by working in social networks or by simply robbing the banks and redistributing their money.
The world economy is in crisis and public trust in financial institutions has hit rock bottom. As commercial banks were bailed out with billions of taxpayers money and continued to practice their old vices, many people lost faith in bank managers and politicians. They got angry at the speculative financial system that brings extreme wealth to a few and instability and unemployment to many.
Could this dissatisfaction lead to social change? Can we imagine viable alternatives? Backlight goes on a worldwide search, with sociologist Manuel Castells and philosopher Peter Sloterdijk.”
http://www.youtube.com/user/VPROinternational#p/a/u/3/IqpVe9kNbhg
Faith based science goes well with faith based money.
Thanks for the Sparky Anderson link. I well remember the Big Red Machine and the ’84 Tigers. Inexorable describes them best I think. Sparky was being modest saying he just stood aside and let them play.
Oil fields renewing themselves?
Why is that even newsworthy?
One day, robots will marry robots, producing baby robots that will grow up to be big robots.
And well-bred robots will frown upon breeding with Homo Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapiens.
That kind of robotic renewal would be interesting.
Oil is renewable,
If you have time to wait around,
But most folks won’t see it,
They’ll be deep in the ground,
The loony and the dollar,
Just passed each other on the road,
Gold smiled a knowing smile,
He was ready to explode,
Fonzie joined the ponzi
Hustling his old fans,
Hawking reverse mortgages,
Like cheap pots and pans,
The signs of rapid change,
Are everywhere you look,
Trust has fled the global stage,
As deception talks his book …
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
The abiotic theory of the origin of petroleum was standard in the Soviet Union, and is still held to by Russian and Ukrainian scientists. Whatever the scientific merits of the case, pro or con, they did find a hell of a lot of oil on the basis of its inferences.
The abiogenic origin of oil (oil derived from inorganic sources) is indeed a Russian/Ukrainian theory, but the implication that all, or even a majority of Russian geologist believe it is the significant source of the crude from the Dnieper-Donets basin (the area most often offered by proponents of abiotic theory)is unsubstantiated.
I won’t take the time to go into why abiotic postulates on oil origins in the Dnieper-Donets basin are suspect (or pertinent to this article, oil from the Eugene Island 330 oilfields off LA.), suffice it say the USGS and others in the field doubt claims made for the Russians fields, particularly that crystalline ‘basement’ rock has not been contaminated by oil from sedimentary sources.
Jean H. Laherrère conclusions are more the consensus:
“The proposed proofs of evidence of abiogenic origin in the Dnieper-Donets basin and in refilling fields are dismissed in front of real data”
“Sign of the Times: Hearings on “Scientific Fraud” of Global Warming Expected”
“Cap and trade” is on now ice, but the Democrats should encourage the Republicans to hold anti-science meetings all year long. They won’t change any science but could end like the Scopes Trial: formal victory for anti-science, but combined with its public humiliation.
The food stamp situation is not quite what it appears. Although there is no doubt a great deal of real stress, a large part of the recent rise in food stamp usage is due to a relaxing of requirements. In other words, states have changed the rules, making it possible for many people to qualify when they couldn’t before.
Details here:
http://www.clearonmoney.com/dw/doku.php?id=investment:commentary:2010:10:28-difficult_to_interpret_food_stamp_data
And…why in the world did States relaxed the rules to begin with?
Just for the hell of it? Or because it was necessary to do so ie. huge demand?
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