The "Loop Current" Is Collapsing; Ice-Age A'Comin'!

The term thermohaline circulation (THC) refers to the part of the large-scale ocean circulation that is driven by global density gradients created by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. The adjective thermohaline derives from thermo- referring to temperature and -haline referring to salt content, factors which together determine the density of sea water. Wind-driven surface currents (such as the Gulf Stream) head polewards from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, cooling all the while and eventually sinking at high latitudes (forming North Atlantic Deep Water). This dense water then flows into the ocean basins. While the bulk of it upwells in the Southern Ocean, the oldest waters (with a transit time of around 1600 years) upwell in the North Pacific (Primeau, 2005). Extensive mixing therefore takes place between the ocean basins, reducing differences between them and making the Earth's ocean a global system. On their journey, the water masses transport both energy (in the form of heat) and matter (solids, dissolved substances and gases) around the globe. As such, the state of the circulation has a large impact on the climate of the Earth.

Unlike In Europe, Losing Your Job in the USofA Can Cost You Your LIFE!

TDSWJS "Black" Correspondent, Larry Wilmore, on the 150th Anniversary of Secession

The South's Secession Commemoration

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You Need A License to Drive a Car, Own A Gun, But Not To Reproduce

Here's some pretty good evidence that society needs to pay A LOT more attention to those whom it permits and/or encourages to breed. These people are just plain, fucking shit-house-rat crazy.

Remember: these fucking assholes WANT the world to end. (And I, for one would be absolutely, inexpressibly, unutterably delighted if it did, but just for them.)

NOW They Tell Us? Oy!

So it appears to be turning out that a LOT of stuff that was cobbled into the "health care" bill last year has ALWAYS been of "dubious" legality, efficacy or practicability, absences, lacks, and failings of which Congress were/MUST HAVE BEEN-- or at least certainly SHOULD HAVE BEEN--informed, given their intimacy with the laws and their construction.

Writing in a piece called "What We Should Have Known All Along about Health Reform CJR today, Trudy Lieberman (one of several STELLAR talents over there; Ryan Chittum is another) synthesizes reports from sources which seem to indicate the legal trouble in which the "health care" bill now finds itself was indeed forecast. And that advice which opposed these measures was ignored.

Given the efforts to obscure these uncomfortable facts, it would appear to any observer with more acuity than a scallop that SOMEBODY indeed know, and did their best to disguise those facts until the measure was already signed into law.

And, in addition, now that the fog has cleared somewhat, much the worst that anyone critical of the measure predicted would eventuate seems destined indeed to come to pass: higher prices, less coverage, more interference, all of it.

The Shamwowers always said they were gonna hafta revisit this bucket of warm spit. Promoting reheated, tepid GOPuke policies as 'reform, and claiming thereby the mantle of FDR was a base and dishonorable tactic. Serves 'em right.

The Tea-baggers: The Party Of Narcissus

Absent from the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM V, 2011) will be the diagnosis of "Narcissistic Personality Disorder." This has occasioned some conflicts among the communities of practitioners and academics in that particular region of the mental health field.

Which is too bad, because NPD pretty perfectly encapsulates the mass psychoses which seem exclusively to motivate the deluded followers of Palin, the yobs on "Fox News" their faithful acolytes, and the rest of the grifters who have taken over the GOP.

Tell me this doesn't sound EXACTLY like EVERY T-hadist you ever encountered:

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
• Rarely acknowledges mistakes and/or imperfections
• Requires excessive admiration
• Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
• Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
• Lacks empathy: is unwilling or unable to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitude.

Really! Exactly! And in DSM IV, you needed only to match any four 'symptoms' to the patient to have a diagnosis. Most of the T-hadists I ever encountered, and those most prominently displayed on TV, present with the whole, complete array of 'em.

Obama: Standing on Our Shoulders, Shitting on Our Heads

I knew all I needed to know about this grinning, jug-eared, skeevy shitheel when I heard him fellating the ghost of Ronnie Raygun and disparaging the "excesses" of the 60s and 70s. If it hadn't been for those goddamn 'excesses,' this glib, garrulous fucker wouldn't be where he is today.

You Must LOVE Big Mother

I wish I thought this was a fake. It will be seen on a loop in every Wal-Mart store which has the screening equipment to carry it.

I think I saw some suspicious looking Ay-rabs over by the diapers...

Keeping WikiLeaks Alive! http://213.251.145.96/

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WikiLeaks relies on its supporters in order to stay strong. Please keep us at the forefront of anti-censorship and support us today. You can also read more about WikiLeaks, our mission and objectives.

Mr. Deity and the Goody-Two-Shoes

Question: Is NOT being able to kill with your thoughts a bug or an app?

("Sell EVERYTHING, quickly....")

The Day The Dollar Died

Jolly Holidays -- Let's BURN Sumpin!

What's the difference between a "luminaria" and a "farolito"?


Burning things is a big part of the solstice festivities in lotsa places. If you happen to live in or near south Louisiana, take a tour up (or down) the River Road Xmas Eve and watch the bonfires on the levee.

Every year over one hundred 30 foot plus tall bonfire structures are built of wood, firecrackers, and occasionally bamboo along the Mississippi River levee near the town of Lutcher, Louisiana. These bonfires are laced with kerosene or lighter fluid, then all are ignited simultaneously at 7 p.m. US Central Standard Time to welcome the arrival of Papa Noel on Christmas Eve.

The bonfires have been explained as long ago before the Levee's were built, to help friends of the family find the inlets or slips coming off the river to the homes of those they wanted to visit on Christmas Eve. But more likely a good way to encourage the children to help keep the inlet clear of the continuous build-up of washed up debris and driftwood.

Today, each family or street of families comes together and starts building usually the Thanksgiving break from school. They have limits now as to size and construction due to mishaps in the past. But Christmas Eve if its not a “Cajun Snowstorm” is enjoyed with a bonfire, pot of gumbo, fireworks, and a lawn-chair. All are welcome to join the merriment, now even special sternwheelers, paddleboats, or riverboats offer bonfire cruises down the Mississippi River.

It is a Christmas Eve tradition, unless it rains, then it is promptly changed to a New Year's Eve tradition. You will always see the displayed pirogue with Papa Noel being pulled by his special alligators, lead by Alphonse.

Who's Up For A Movie? "Inside Job" Is Downtown

Showtimes

Century 14 Downtown Albuquerque
100 Central Avenue, Albuquerque, NM
10:40am 1:50 4:50 7:40pm

Inside Job is the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, Inside Job traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.

Lonely? Try TSA!

"Your Home Town?"

It's 1984 and The Boss has out a KILLER new album: "Born In The USA." It goes platinum, plus. One of the charts is called "My Home Town." In it there's a lyric I want you to ponder, seeing as how it was written in 1984, over 25 years ago: "The foreman says these jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back." Not to your home town...

Why not? How did he know?

Fast forward to 2010, and pundit/critics like Thom Hartmann are touting a new orthodoxy to reclaim "our country" from the plutocrats, oligarchs, aristos, and their minions in the political and business classes. The key is to somehow 'return manufacturing/jobs' to the economy. Hartmann and others have a variety of schemes to accomplish this, but it seems to me that these pretty uniformly overlook, or simply ASSUME to have solved, a principle dilemma of the "we'll just rebuild" argument.

It is this: You're gonna need A LOT of MONEY to build and re-build the infrastructure which has gone to rust and ruin over the past 30 years. There is nothing left of the previous structures; they've been stripped to the walls. You'd have to start over again from scratch. You'd have to bring it up to speed, too: high-speed rail, super-diesels, mass trans, energy efficiency, everything ...But that is gonna cost a shit-pot of shekels; it's a beeeg investment.

And we already know the Gummint cannot do it; it's hamstrung by corporate interests which are still busily extracting every possible cent from the existing chaos, and so doesn't want to; so Gummint CANNOT invest the necessary resources.

And the corpoRats don't wanna rebuild ANYTHING. It wouldn't be a good investment. We're a "down-market" anymore. We have been hollowed out, and no it's on to the next apparatus for the corpoRat otherfuckers. They need "us" less and less as a market; they're just about done with "us."

TSA Gangstas -- "TSA Gangstas"

The TSA ground "security" and gate personnel are the reason I'll not soon likely take any flights. I think the "inspectors" are selected from Mickey D's rejects, for stupidity, arrogance, tactlessness, and belligerence. They seem actively to despise the travelers, and to enjoy the harassments they visit upon us. They have, to an individual, NEVER been further from home than the transportation terminae they infest.

12-Year Old Inventor Makes Homeless Shelter From Trash

This is pretty great, but not his first success.

12-year-old Max Wallack stole the show at Design Squad’s Trash to Treasure contest with his “Home Dome.” The contest asked kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions.

The dome provides shelter for the homeless and is made from plastic, wire, packing peanuts, and flargstin. Pretty much, trash.

The trash-plex looks like a Mongolian yurt, and let Max walk away with $10,000 and a Dell laptop. He also got a trip to Boston out of it. But Max had this to say, “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”

There's more at the link above.

Chevron Cares!

Via Terraalert:

The Yes Men are at it again! And this team they have teamed up with Rain Forest Action Network (RAN) and Amazon Watch to go head to head with Corporate Giant, Chevron.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the Yes Men, they are a duo of activists who use pranks and humor to draw attention to the atrocities done by large corporations against those who, too often, can't fight back.

They are infamous for taking on Exxon Mobile, BP and Dow Chemical, and now they have set their sights on Chevron, who recently spend a great deal in order to finance an expensive PR campaign entitled "We Agree."

The We Agree Campaign can best be surmised as a means with which to con consumers into believing that Chevron has the publics' best interest in mind. But Slogans like "Oil Companies should support the communities they're a part of" stand in stark contrast to the fact that have yet to address their role in refusing to clean up the toxic pollution it left in the Ecuadorean Amazon. RAN reports that " the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste polluting Ecuador’s rainforest could lead to as many as 10,000 Ecuadoreans dying of cancer by 2080."

The Yes Men, RAN and Amazon Watch have responded to Chevron's underhanded attempt at green washing with a hilarious satirical website and fake press release in an attempt to shed light on the dubiousness of the original ad campaign.

Recently, they also released a brand new site: ChevronThinksWeAreStupid.org . This new site endeavors to enlist your help in making Chevron accountable for their actions. Just click on the link, and submit your own Chevron spoof ad, just like the one featured in this article, made by Funny or Die , of a real Chevron commercial.

The Morning After*

*After Murkins reveal themselves to be too fucking stupid for self-gummint (and the electorate once again demonstrates why I fear the "plebiscite."

Michael Moore & Rachel Maddow Discuss Right-Wing Election Violence

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

An Urban Legend Captured Aborning? Like A New Star

A report of some strange doings in France recently has been circulating on Facebook and elsewhere, I'm sure. The headline is garish: "Baby Dies As Group Jumps From Window Fleeing The Devil."
The story unfolds:

Baby Dies In Mass Jump To 'Flee From Devil'

1:43pm UK, Sunday October 24, 2010
Alex Watts, Sky News Online
A baby has died and 10 people have been injured after they jumped out of a second-floor flat window, apparently thinking they had seen the devil.

Police are investigating the incident which took place in the early hours in the small town of La Verriere, west of Paris.

(This foto appears exactly as it did, free of context, and floating in the story)

The baby was four months old and officers said many of the injured were children.
"Thirteen people were in an apartment on the second floor when, at around 3am, one of the occupants heard his child crying," said Odile Faivre, the deputy prosecutor in Versailles.

"The man in question, of African origin, who was completely naked, got up to feed his child, at which point the other occupants took him for the devil.

He was seriously wounded in the hand after being stabbed with a knife before he was thrown out of the apartment, via the door."

The 30-year-old man then tried to force his way back into the room.
"That's when the other occupants tried to escape by jumping out of the window, panicked by a fear of the devil," said Ms Faivre.

Police are questioning the naked man as well as another man who jumped from the window with a two-year-old girl in his arms.

Seven of those injured - who were African, possibly from Angola - were taken to hospital for emergency treatment.

Detectives are trying to find out if the group jumped voluntarily or were forced to jump.

My first reaction to reading this was that it had to be some kind of a send-up, a satire of some sort. The provenance of the story is Britain's Sky News, also a Murdoch property, if memory serves; sort of Faux Nuze--East. It veritably reeks of archetypal urban legend material: naked, hysterical Africans acting abysmally stupidly in some really obscure, yet plausible locale in the West, and tragedy, involving an "innocent baby" ensues. A sort of reverse Babar?

Of course it is possible that it is a true account of a real event, too. Independent verification could not be established. Google only produced references from other sites to this story.

Who DID NOT KNOW This Was Coming?

Via Crooks&Liar VideoCafe:


Woody is satisfied simply to repeat the discourse C&L employed:

Boy, this is getting ugly. Rachel Maddow talked with Eugene Robinson about the voter suppression and intimidation tactics coming from this group the King Street Patriots last night. Here's more on the latest turn of events from TPM Muckraker.Voter Registration Group Targeted By TX Tea Party Group Received Threats:

A group trying to register voters in Houston received threats and emails containing racist slurs after being targeted by a local tea party group accusing it of "voter fraud."

In emails obtained by TPM, the group Houston Votes was accused of being "a bunch of white guilt ridden assholes, NIGGERS and greasy mexican spics," "fraudulent Marxist pigs," and "American hating A-holes."

"We received a couple of threats and several harassing e-mails," Maureen Haver of Houston Voters told TPMMuckraker. "There have been several efforts, I think, just trying to race-bait and stir racial tension and part of that I think is just based on what we've received in messaging from them."

"It's really had a chilling effect on our office," said Haver, adding that one of the e-mails was reported to the FBI

.
You can read the emails at TPM's site. They're not safe for work.

As Digby noted:And lest we think this is just some unaffiliated cranks:

King Street Patriots leader Catherine Engelbrecht even went as far to as to accuse the group of being the headquarters of the New Black Panther Party.

The good news is that the Tea partiers don't have a racist bone in their bodies. Just ask them They'll tell you so. (It's just the "bad ones" they don't like.)

And from TPM:

True The Vote also put together a video raising the threat of voter fraud which features soaring music. "Think it can't happen in your town? Think again!" reads one message. "Our elections are being manipulated. By the RADICAL LEFT," the video says.

The video originally featured a doctored photo of an African-American voter holding a poorly photoshopped sign -- featuring Comic Sans font -- that read "I only got to vote once." That part of the video has since been edited out.

Aftershock: Robert Reich on his NEW book

Still in the pay of the Owners, Reich says "Murka" will overcome these divisions. He has to be "optimistic." It's what he gets paid for.

Me? I doubt it. Obama's election REALLY WAS a "Rubicon" of sorts. After it, White folks can see the end of their dominance looming in the distance (20-30 years until they lose the 'majority' and all that that means), and it scares the living shit out of 'em... Even the most obdurate, troglodytic of 'em has some vestigial awareness of the evils and injustices the White power structure visited upon the "others." They KNOW if they'd beenj treated the ways they treated the "others," they'd be primed for revenge once they got power. And they don't expect any different from those whm the Whites have formerly oppressed.

The Pukes are the party of White Power. Whites, finally, aren't gonna concede without a bloody fight.

Public Understanding of Wealth Disparity in the USA: Case Study in the Successful Application of Hegemonic Propaganda

I know that sounds a pretty pretentious, up there, all those tendentious words.

But I, who have had the opportunity to ask, and to analyze the answers, can attest that if you ask 100 random Murkins in the Mall if they think they are susceptible to propaganda, 90 of 'em will deny they are or would be influenced by propaganda. The graph above radically dispels that conceit.

Americans have a really distorted view of how wealth is distributed in this country.

This chart is from a paper called "Building a Better America One Wealth Quintile at a Time" by Dan Ariely and Michael I. Norton.

The top row shows the actual distribution of wealth in America. The richest 20 percent, represented by that blue line, has about 85 percent of the wealth. The next richest 20 percent, represented by that red line, has about 10 percent of the wealth. And the remaining three-fifths of America shares a tiny sliver of the country's wealth.

Below that, the "Estimated" rows show how different groups think wealth is distributed. As you can see, in people's misinformed minds things are much more equitable.

Matt Yglesias explains what's interesting here:

What’s interesting here is the extent to which the public vastly overestimates the prosperity of lower-income Americans. The public thinks the 4th quintile has more money than the median quintile actually has. And the public thinks the 5th quintile has vastly more wealth than it really has.

You can easily see how this could have a giant distorting effect on our politics. Poor Americans are simply much, much, much needier than people realize and this is naturally going to lead to an undue slighting of their interests.

Indeed. It's fine if reasonable people have different ideas about whether we should extend the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. Or think estate taxes are unfair. But when we have those debates, it's critical that everyone has a clear understanding of how things really are. We're becoming a plutocracy.

An interesting chap called the Yorkshire Ranter (DOTOF, Moonboo) registered a viable contrary opinion.

MEANWHILE...From MoJo comes this useful display:

If actual money were represented in Congress--
--this is how the House of Representatives would look, where "Big Labor's" (the rust-colored dots on the left) share is about 37%, and "Big Money" controls the rest.

Here's the summary of how many members of the House would be owned by each sector of the economy based on donations/contributions.

Sector | # of members:
Labor 159; Finance, insurance, and real estate 159; Health 26; Agribusiness 23; Lawyers and lobbyists 20; Miscellaneous business 18; Energy and natural resources 10; Defense 7; Transportation 6; Communications and electronics 4; Construction 1; Unfilled seats 2

Message to My Congresscritter, Martin Heinrich

Breaking with usual sentiment and tradition, I tried to engage in a bit of actual communiction with my congresscritter today, to discover--to receive reassurance that--if he were one of the approximately 100 brave souls who have publically pledged to reject the recommendations of Prez. Shamwow's Catfood Commission if those include raising the retirement age, or reducing Social Security/Medicare benefits. His web-site leaves one with the impression that the LAST FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD he wants is to hear from constituents. I sent this message to his campaign office, but they ignored it. So here is, an open letter to my Congresscritter:

Sir:
I am a 'senior," retired constituent who agrees with the sentiment expressed by Dean Baker in a column today. "The Social Security Pledge v. The Old Politics," in which he points out (the money quote for our purposes here):

If President Obama believed in "new politics" then he would encourage members to say where they stand on cutting Social Security benefits. Then voters would be given the opportunity to set the country's agenda, not a bunch of political hacks and Wall Street cronies who were too incompetent to see the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy.

Of course, the public does not have to wait for President Obama to pass judgment. There is a pledge to protect Social Security that has already been endorsed by more then 100 members of Congress. The pledge is very simple. It commits members of Congress, or candidates, to oppose cutting Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age.

It doesn't get any simpler than this - even a member of Congress can understand it. The full text is available at the Campaign for America Future's web site.

Given the simplicity of this statement, it is reasonable to assume that any member of Congress or candidate who does not sign on supports cutting Social Security benefits. There really is no other plausible conclusion.

There is really no arguing with that. So it was to reassure myself that, if Mr. Heinrich has not yet signed such a pledge, it is a mere oversight which he will repair post haste now that the opportunity is presented so handily, that I take the opportunity to make this inquiry.

Please assure me that Mr. Heinrich has indeed pledged to protect the bought-and-paid-for "benefits" already won for the Nation's workers.

RSVP.

Sincerely, etc...

Reverse CitUnited? Nah. Dat Boat Done Already Sailed!

Correspondent and FBriend Kevin Gosztola, who writes on OpEdNews blog, opined there today:
Too Late for Democrats or Voters to Do Anything About Corporate Money This Election Cycle

In it, he lays blame for the failure of even the miserable, petty compromise, the DISCLOSE Act, to get through the Senate this year on the Democrats. But this is only partially right.

The cause of the crisis lies, greasy and reeking, in the robed laps of the SCROTUS.

All 59 of the Dim/Ind Senators voted for cloture. Two Pukes (the Mainers?) didn't vote, and 39 Pukes voted against. I am not an apologist for the Dims or St. Barry, but this seems not to be explicitly at their feet.

However, it is also true that nobody in the Senate, Dim or GOPuke, really WANTED it to pass. But that is the consequence of the acknowledged venality and corruption of the institution as a whole, of the corpoRat colonization of the Legislature, not merely the mendacity of the (arguably weaker, inferior) "party."

And since it didn't pass this time, there's no way it will pass later when those who benefited from the deluge of unregulated funds will be loathe to strangle that goose with "unnecessary" regulation.

In any case, it's moot. It's a done deal. It's over. This is now settled law, once through one election.

The only way to reverse is if one of the Opus Deists is rendered incompetent ("dead" would work, but there are other conditions such as dementia and/or catatonia which would suffice) such that St. Barry --who I am certain will be the LAST "Democratic" president of my life-time (I'm 65)-- may nominate the replacement and break the fucktard/wackloon Opus Deist bloc's corpoRatist stranglehold... It's really the only hope we have to reverse CU; a vain hope in the extreme. We have passed the point when there was any political solution to this issue.

We passed that point on the very day the decision was issued.

The puzzling thing to me in ALL of this was the way the Obama DoJ kept the case alive, despite an Appellate decision against CU, which they COULD have let stand. St. Barry was under no legal or precedential compulsion to pursue it. The case was granted cert under the Busheviks, was argued once in March '09, and again in Sept, 09. There was ample opportunity for the Shazamers to drop the case. Elena Kagan argued the Gummint's case, iirc.

That they did NOT abandon the case when there was such opportunity to do so suggests to me that the Shamwow and the Dims saw some advantage in it for themselves.

Banksy Does "The Simpsons"

Not so far-fetched...

Just Sheets Short of a Full N.B. Forrest

David Niewart, via C&L:

Gummint Is Defective: It is at least potentially democratic

Corporations, on the other hand, are perfect...tyrannies: forP. yksmohC on "Antipolitics."

Since the end of the Second World War, at least, relentless corpoRat propaganda has blamed the Gummint for EVERYTHING.

Whyzatt, do ya think?

Quantum Theory: The Simultaneity of A and Not-A

Minds "trained" to strict Aristotelian logics are often derailed by the assertion that something "material" can both be what it is and what it is not at the same time. Robert Anson Wilson offers some intriguing insights and persuasive examples (see, also, Count Alfred Korzybsky and "General Semantics"):

RT (formerly Pravda) Investigates Endemic USer Financial Chicanery

There is no shortage of irony that dispassionate analysis of USer corruption and official incompetence in dealing with it should come most reliably from Russian and Arabic (Al Jazeera) media. (I first heard the Joe Walsh hit, "Life's Been Good..." on shortwave on Radio Moscow. True story.)

Michael Moore Joins The Symphony of the Obvious

Yes, as Moore and dozens of others quite rightly recognize, Obama & the Dims should be, in fact, pointing daily to the fact that they are STILL struggling to correct conditions left cavalierly behind by the vanquished Busheviki--who, of course, are not "departed" at all, due to Cheney's chicanery in getting a lot of political jobs reclassified as civil servants, but still retain no small amount of local autonomy within the bureaucracy.

This is wise advice. But overlooks a couple of important points. One is that, because they were (understandably, if also deplorably) unwilling to bring the Bushevik war criminals to the bar, Obama's do not have a daily public reminder of the malfeasances and high crimes of which the current conditions are the direct consequences.

Another, and to me the more salient difficulty for this analysis is the uncomfortable fact that the real reason Obama's even IN office at all is to make the people FORGET the decades of clusterfux promulgated by the WHITE oligarchy. He's quite simply a (willing?--Is the Nobel Peace Prize his reward?) scapegoat.

If he were to make the "Bush (Clinton/Bush/Reagan) Did It" complaint stick, as he would have to do to retain his cred with his base, he'd be defeating the very reason for his presidency, which is to allow himself to be MADE the author and responsibility for the failures.

So that's his dilemma (tri-lemma?: He & the Dims have to (rightly) insist that they were left a mess, and the Pukes have obstructed every effort to clean it up, but he can't without 1) a constant provocative reminder such as a trial, which he won't pursue for understandable but cowardly reasons. Besides if he did, he'd be essentially undoing the very work he was put in place to effect.

Yeah, it's complicated

This Is NOT Good! The Energy/Water Aporia: Not Enough H2O = More War

Water is moving closer and closer to the center of the contentions around the intersection of two vital human needs: energy and hydration. Perhaps people tend to overlook how MUCH of the power upon which they depend is provided by water, either captured behind a dam, or boiled and pushed through vanes a steam. There may--many experts do not qualify it; they say there WILL--soon be warfare to determine which interest prevails when there is not enough for both.

Rising Energy Demand Hits Water Scarcity 'Choke Point'

by Peter Boaz and Matthew O. Berger

WASHINGTON - Meeting the growing demand for energy in the U.S., even through sustainable means, could entail greater threats to the environment, new research shows.

The study was carried out by Circle of Blue, a network of journalists and scientists dedicated to water sustainability, and could have implications not just for the relationship between energy demand and water scarcity in the U.S. but elsewhere in the world, as well. "It is not just that energy production could not occur without using vast amounts of water. It's also that it's occurring in the era of climate change, population growth and steadily increasing demand for energy," explained Circle of Blue's Keith Schneider, who presented the findings in Washington Wednesday.

"The result is that the competition for water at every stage of the mining, processing, production, shipping and use of energy is growing more fierce, more complex and much more difficult to resolve," he said. About half the 410 billion gallons of water the U.S. withdraws daily goes to cooling thermoelectric power plants, and most of that to cooling coal-burning plants, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Meanwhile, climate change is leading to decreased snowmelt, rains and freshwater supplies, says Circle of Blue.

One of the things missing from the discussion, then, is the recognition that saving energy also saves water, the group contends.

The U.S. government has not been blind to the conflict between energy and water needs. The first part of a report commissioned by the U.S. Congress in 2005 laid out the consequences of not paying enough attention to water supply issues in increasing energy production. The second part, which would have laid out a research agenda and begun developing solutions, has yet to be made public, says Schneider.

He says the U.S. Department of Energy has declined repeated requests to explain why the report has not been published.

Energy demand in the U.S. is expected to increase by 40 percent as the U.S. population rises above 440 million by 2050. The water supply will not be able to support that growth, Schneider says.

Renewable sources of energy will certainly be a large part of trying to meet that energy demand, but these, too, come with a hidden water cost.

In 2009, the U.S. dedicated 23 million acres of public lands in six states for new solar electricity-generating plants as part of its economic stimulus package, which apportioned nearly 100 billion dollars for clean energy projects. Though the plan appeared promising, environmentalists soon began to point it could have damaging, unintended consequences. Schneider notes that criticism of the impact the water-cooled solar plants could have on water priorities in the U.S. Southwest even came from within the government.

"In arid settings, the increased water demand from concentrating solar energy systems employing water-cooled technology could strain limited water resources already under development pressure from urbanization, irrigation expansion, commercial interests and mining," wrote Jon Jarvis, then head of the National Park Service's Pacific West Region, in a February 2009 internal memo. "Solar generating plants that use conventional cooling technology use two to three times as much water as coal- fired power plants," Schneider noted.

In other countries, the threat of water scarcity is even more pertinent.

Egypt, for example, has a population of approximately 82 million, but an annual water quota of about 86 billion cubic meters - and the population is expected to rise by more than 10 million people in the next decade.

Yet 30 European blue chip companies are set to invest 560 billion dollars over the next 40 years to build solar power plants in North Africa as part of the Desertec Industrial Initiative. Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have agreed to work with the initiative. Comparing this project with the U.S.'s, Schneider notes that in an environment that faces even greater water scarcity than the southwestern U.S., such projects could prove disastrous. Circle of Blue calls the intersection of a rising demand for energy and diminishing supply water a "choke point", but energy development - whether of the fossil fuel or renewable variety - is just one aspect of the water scarcity crisis that is unfolding in various regions of the globe.

Yemen is widely seen as the place where this scarcity will hit first and hardest.

"Analysts are worried Yemen could be the first country in the world to effectively run out of water," said Christine Parthemore, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where she studies the intersection of natural resources and security issues. She spoke at a separate event Wednesday.

Yemen, which has no rivers and cannot afford desalination, is drawing water at around 400 times its replacement rate, she says, and this looming crisis is compounding other issues in the region, like the fact that Yemen has become a key recruiting spot for groups like al Qaeda.

"We are about to see water wars in the future," said U.S. General Anthony Zinni. "We have seen fuel wars; we're about to see water wars."

(Published on Thursday, September 23, 2010 by Inter Press Service)

Well, Do Ya?

Copyright, Sept. 2010, by John Konopak (with the skilled assistance of pal/foto-shopper extraordinaire, Forest Taber, Searsport, ME.)!

X : You Are Here

Via BAD SCIENCE/Discovery Mag:

That’s here, that’s home, that’s us.

On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there [...]

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.”
- Carl Sagan

Ted Rall's America: Epi # 64~~Price at the Pump

"Mook Court": Two Outta Two On TDSWJS Sept. 9

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Why "We" Were/Are STILL In Iraq.

As the story immediately below here on this blog, and many more, over the last several weeks, announces, the USer "combat" role in Iraq has been "reduced." This reduction while mainly cosmetic, still bolsters the insistance on understanding why "we" were there in the first place....

Some folks think it was a personal vendetta, GWB vs. Saddam. Others still maintain it was to get rid of Iraq's (non-existent) WMD. Still others repeat the falsehoods about the 9/11 attacks. Not true, any of it.

The PNAC--which got was the power behind getting Shrub appointed--took us into Iraq to play their part in the Great Game: the geo/energy politics of Central Asia, which has diverted--and beggared--"Euro" empires (including ours) for 300 years.

The PNAC-loaded Busheviks invaded Iraq for four reasons, mainly, all implicated (dictated) by "that old Kissingerian real-Politik":

1) To (re-)establish a USer military presence in the oil-belt, after Usama bin Laden sent his pals to politely ask us to leave Saudi Arabia; which we did, peremptorily...

2) To control the distribution of Iraqi oil. (OIF--Operation Iraqi Freedom--really WAS originally scheduled to be called Operation: Iraqi Liberation. No, really. Would I shit you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
You can't make this shit up!)

3) Protect Israel's northern front from Saddam. The original plan was to divide Iraq into three sectors which would then be so fragmented and splintered that they'd never again pose a threat to Tel Aviv.

4) Put pressure on Iran's regime, and foment unrest among rest of the Kurds not in Iraq. The partitioning scheme--which Biden favored, to protect Israel-- would also have wrecked serious havoc in the border provinces of Turkey, Syria, and Iran.

I enumerate these only for accounting, not hierarchical purposes.

Associated Press Issues "Style" Edict on Obama Admin's "End of Combat"

Anyone who's ever toiled at any desk on any newspaper anywhere in the country, and possibly in the whole world, knows what the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook is: the wire-bound gospel of newspaper/reportorial usage; the 'last word' on what it was and was not acceptable to call, name, or describe anyone and anything; the unarguable authority on punctuation, abbreviation, anagrams, and citations. For journalists for the last 75 years, at least, the AP Style Book was The LAW!

So, when AP issued a whole, quite long and extensive "Stylebook note," amending the Stylebook to account for certain awkwardnesses, inconsistencies, and dubious claims in discourse surrounding the much ballyhooed withdrawal, last week, of the "last of the US combat troops from Iraq, it is significant. Via Huffpost:

At some point in the last two weeks, you may have been told by someone in the news that combat operations in Iraq were over, and that the last combat troop had left the country. Well, the Associated Press is not having any of it, and in a memo from their standards editor, Tom Kent, the law in this regard has been laid down, in no uncertain terms: "To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials."

The rest is highly instructive.

Gawd Bliss Jackie & Dunlop!~

Albuquerque Is The State's "Worst Speed Trap" City

Via the daily fishwrap, our own Abq. Urinal:

Group Ranks ABQ as State's Worst Speed Trap City
By Astrid Galvan
Wednesday, 01 September 2010 18:15
The National Motorist Association opposes red light and speed cameras

Drivers beware: Albuquerque has been named the state's worst speed trap city by the National Motorist Association.
The group, which opposes red light and speed cameras, ranked Albuquerque the highest in speed traps based on data from the National Speed Trap Exchange, according to its website.
It defines a speed trap as any use of traffic enforcement "focused on extracting revenue from drivers instead of improving safety." That could include speed cameras, red light cameras, or police officers stopped in roadways using a speed radar gun, the website says.
The state Transportation Commission banned red light cameras on state and federal highways in May.
The organization said it wanted to warn weekend holiday drivers about the cities with the most speed traps.
Las Cruces was second on the list as the city with the most speed traps with a population of 100,000 or less.
For those traveling the region this weekend, Tucson and Flagstaff have the most speed traps in Arizona, while Colorado Springs and Littleton ranked highest in Colorado.


Read more: ABQNews: Group Ranks ABQ as State's Worst Speed Trap City http://www.abqjournal.com/abqnews/abqnewseeker-mainmenu-39/23666-group-ranks-abq-as-states-worst-speed-trap-city.html#ixzz0yO0MrFkj
Subscribe Now Albuquerque Journal

I Am Objectively Pro-Miscuity!

Some missed episodes of Mr. Deity, the smartest blasphemers, heretiocs, and sacrilegious apostates on the Webz:
Jun28, '10


July 18, '10


August 03, '10

"That's Bullshit": Sam Seder & Net Neutrality

"Woody, Why Ya Gotta Talk So Dirty?" -- DILLIGAF?**

This message was left for me on my Facebook account:

For someone who has a degree in literature, journalism, education and philosophy I can't help but marvel at your choice of words to describe your feelings and opinions. I have friends who are sensitive to such language, even though I understand the need to preserve Freedom of Speech and Expression, the "vernacular" of the day? I find it narrow, violent and limiting in it's appeal to connect in a dimensional way. I have no right to ask you to "curb your enthusiasm" only to reconsider whether you are effective in communicating this way. It's basically a one dimensional, "common" way of speaking/yelling out. For me it's hard to get past that verbage and actually appreciate your ideas. Is it really essential to the cause/message you are sharing/imparting?

I replied:

Given my credentials/record/vita/life, you'd might imagine that I introduced profanities, crudeness, childish mockeries, and the like, in a conscious rhetorical strategy?

Call it a rhetorical "shock doctrine."

My conceit is that I am a rhetorical insurgent, planting rhetorical land mines and booby-traps all over the landscape.

I hope that, after I've pissed a little on your cheerios, you won't see Obama's name and not also see "Shamwow." That you won't see "Deficit Reduction Commission" without also reading "Cat-fucking-food Commission," with all its attendant passion. That when you hear about the 'differences' between the 'parties,' you also recall me: "The only difference is when they fuck ya, the Dims use a lube, the Pukes go bareback."

Even if you quit reading after the first time I offend, you'll remember the offense.

I learned in a psychology course: You can't unsee.

**DILLIGAF -- An acronym I learned in the Air Force in the '60s: "Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck?"

Keiser Report №69: Markets! Finance! Scandal! (RT)

When I Listen To this Skeevy, Venal SOB Equivocate, I Want To Beat Him Unconscious With A Limb I Cut Off his Child

These fuckers meddle around and fuck up people's lives and they NEVER pay ANY price for their mendacity, venality, concupiscence, corruption and the violence they inflict on those of whose existences they ar scarcely aware... We gotta figger out a way to make 'em squeal!

Just Crazy, Hairball, Mad drops On 40-50 Foot Waves

In Fiji, Tahiti, and Hawai'i, accompanied by some very cool Congolese club music.
Way cool...

Her name Is Cristina; I Bet She's From Latvia, And I Love Her

Dogs Bark; Politicians (& Everybody ELSE) Lie

A Twister Snakes Across Dine'h Country At Chinle

The Turning Worm?: Anne Applebaum Criticizes Bush, GOPukes, For Excesses, Derides "Memory Loss"

Gee, nobody could have EVER anticipated that putting a mixed-race person in the White House for the first time in history could have caused the slate of the past 30 years to be wiped clean, now could they?

Hillary would have had the same fate, except that it wouldn't be race but gender the focus would be on.

You have to regard the Obama period as the elites do: a sort of palate-cleanser, a neutral-flavored morsel designed to wipe the taste of the shit from the previous 30-40 years off the tongues of the White electorate, while it is still a majority, and to make the next recrudescence--probably Jebbie--look like a delicate, fabulous treat...

The only way the people would have known they were supposed to remember would have been if the SCUM (SoCalledUnbiasedMedia) had had a nice, juicy, treason/war crimes trial to follow, when Shazama's DoJ prosecuted the departed Busheviki for their myriad, manifest, and manifold mis- and malfeasances in office. The CorpoRat press is not gonna remind the People of the Press' pitiful, pandering performances in permitting those events to pass unnoticed in the first place.

I must say I am surprised to find the author of the sentiment upbraiding the body politic for it's amnesia as well as offering puoi8nted reminders of Bushevik responsibility in these matters is (former?) neocon stalward Anne Applebaum.

BP Scaling Back Cleanup Efforts After Pretending Oil is Disappearing in the Gulf

Via Crooks&Liars:

This is really just disgusting. There's no way in hell all of those millions of gallons of oil and dispersants that poured in to the Gulf are just gone. Billy Nungesser, President of Plaquemines Parish, LA is at the end of his rope here and I don't blame him. BP is saying that they can't find any oil and are pulling assets out of the gulf for cleanup and the Coast Guard is letting them do it.

Digby has more on this latest dog and pony show from our media -- Dismissing The Gusher:

I posted yesterday about the emerging meme that the BP disaster was not big deal and today Brad Johnson at Grist puts that meme in perspective. Read on...

As the AC360 segment notes, Billy Nungesser isn't buying this either. They went out there and saw for themselves how much oil is still on the water.

Check out the Update, on the site...

Americans Are NOT Dumber Than Dog Shit. No, Really!

Has Jennifer Gone Too Far???

From the invaluable ONS (Onion News Service)

Jennifer Aniston Adopts 33-Year-Old Boyfriend From Africa

Just Say "Fuck It!" It's the Buddha Way!

Who gnu? All that chanting, meditating, balancing and the rest of the Buddhist regime can be reduced , in the West, to one simple maxim: "Fuck It!"

Saying 'Fuck It' is like massage for the mind - relaxing you, releasing tension, giving up on things that aren't working.
John C. Parkin argues that saying Fuck It is a spiritual act:
That it is the perfect western expression of the eastern ideas of letting go, giving up and finding real freedom by realising that things don't matter so much (if at all).
This is The Fuck It Way.
It works very simply: if you're feeling stressed about something, say 'Fuck It'… you feel instantly better.

Capitalism Hits the Fan: Professor emeritus UMass, Amherst, Richard Wolff

Economist, author, Professor emeritus UMass, Amherst, Richard Wolff, speaks about the current economic crises, its' roots and what we can do about it.
Filmed by Paul Hubbard at Brown University, Providence RI on 12-2-09

The Latest Mr. Diety: Season Three, Episode 5: The Special Gift

Archimedes' Steam Cannon

Think that a half-cup of water is harmless?

Think again.

Watch this video, and don’t even consider trying to do the same thing at home.

A one-pound projectile traveling at the speed of sound with 10 times the kinetic energy of an AK-47 bullet is not a toy. This experiment was performed under carefully designed and controlled conditions.

Curious? Read on.

Prelude
In episode 54 the MythBusters took on the myth of Archimedes’s steam cannon, and after a gentle lob of a few feet, the myth was busted. A large boiler-driven cannon was used for the show’s finale.

Being frustrated with the outcome, having a visit to MIT in their schedule, and remembering last year’s Archimedes’s death ray collaboration, the MythBusters asked us to take a look. They wondered if there was a simple, plausible solution compatible with da Vinci’s vague drawing and explanation of Archimedes's steam cannon.
The drawing has been interpreted as a direct injection concept, where water rapidly sprays into a hot breech and the resulting flash of steam launches the projectile.

But, some back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest otherwise. A 540 °C (1000 °F) copper breech can provide a heat flux of roughly 100,000 kiloWatts per square meter to water that is in direct contact with its surface. And if water can be sprayed onto the breech in a uniform 1mm thick layer, 2,000 kiloJoules of energy per square meter of surface will produce 400 PSI steam—a pressure that would generate a reasonable projectile velocity.

The pressurized steam must be generated quickly, before the projectile exits the cannon, perhaps in 0.005 seconds. But at 100,000 kiloWatts per square meter, the breech can only provide around 500 kiloJoules per square meter in such a short time, not nearly enough energy to produce high-pressure steam.

Our conclusion? Direct injection is not likely to produce much more than a burp (.mov, 0.23 Mb).

In 1981, Sakkas (see figures 23-25) recreated Archimedes’s steam cannon and incorporated a wood board into the concept to hold the projectile in place while some pressure developed, although da Vinci’s drawing does not show a similar feature. Even so, this produced a fairly low velocity projectile (perhaps 70 mph) that traveled only 50 meters.

Are You "Poor?" If So, You Don't Need Me To Tell You Your Fucked.

Report: Poor People Pretty Much Fucked
DECEMBER 10, 2003 | ISSUE 39•48

WASHINGTON (ONS)— According to the results of an intensive two-year study, Americans living below the poverty line are "pretty much fucked," Center for Social and Economic Research executive director Jameson Park announced Monday.

"Although poor people have never had it particularly sweet, America has long been considered the land of opportunity, where upward class mobility is hard work's reward," Park said. "However, our study shows that limited access to quality education and a shortage of employment opportunities in depressed areas all but ensure that, once fucked, an individual tends to stay fucked."

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, 34.6 million Americans were living below the poverty line in 2002.

"Not only are the down-and-out fucked, but the number of down-and-out fucks is growing," Park said. "Conditions of disadvantage are often passed from one generation to the next, making it especially difficult for young people to emerge from the cycle of poverty."

"Man, my heart goes out to those poor fuckers," Park added.

America's increasingly rigid class system worsens the situation for the poor.

"After analyzing the economic performance of U.S. households over the past several decades, we concluded that class mobility, while steady in the '70s and '80s, declined in the '90s," Park said. "About 40 percent of families ended the decade in the same economic strata in which they began it. That's up from about 35 percent in the '80s. That's good news for those sittin' pretty, but it spells 'fuck you' to the poor."

As a result, Park said, there are more poor people, and those poor people are much more screwed than poor people were a decade or two ago.

"As the split between the upper and lower classes grows, and the middle class continues to shrink, we're moving closer and closer to what can only be called a 'no way out, dude. Sorry, you're fucked'-type situation," Park said. "Not only are the poor fucked at the moment, but any chance they once had of changing their miserable lives is pretty much gone, too. Essentially, they're fucked for all time."

The CSER study identified four major poverty groups within the U.S. The first two groups—one composed of disenfranchised blue-collar workers, the other made up of members of poor rural populations—have been adversely affected by the nation's gradual shift to a technology-based, global economy. Researchers have dubbed disenfranchised blue-collar workers the Factory Fucked, while members of poor rural populations are called the Farm Fucked. Park characterized the individuals in these two groups as "fucked from the get-go."

The other two rapidly expanding groups of poor fucks are the suburban poor, whose members can't afford the rising cost of such basic necessities as healthcare, and the urban underclass, whose members are found in the nation's troubled inner cities. Researchers termed these groups the Recently Fucked and the Utterly Fucked, respectively.

Economist Harold Knoep said there's little reason for sympathy.

"In a healthy capitalist economy, some people are going to be out-competed," Knoep said. "I'm sorry, but some of those fuck-ups have fucked themselves. I am not condoning an anarchic 'fuck or be fucked' ethos, but I can hardly get behind a welfare state that punishes the unfucked by fucking all equally."

While he expressed concern for the nation's poor, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said increased funding for social programs isn't the answer.

"Nobody's saying poor people aren't fucked," Hastert said. "But what about all the people in this great nation who are not fucked? If the financial resources of the economically stable are diverted—through some well-intentioned but fiscally irresponsible social-service program—to the people who are fucked, where does that leave those who were sailin' along fine? Fucked."

Ed Cranston, an under-employed, Detroit-area machinist who made $14,000 last year, said he was not surprised by the report.

"They say I'm fucked?" Cranston asked. "Shit, man, tell me something I don't know."

I truly admire the Onion. They do this stuff with a convincingly straight face. The only "tell" is the straightforwardness and candor of the admissions by the "interviewees" regarding the conditions and chances of the poor. Gummint officials do not typically tell either the press or their clients that they are "fucked." Otherwise it's the goddam truth.