Whatever Happened To Acid Rain And Why Didn't It Have Any Staying Power

I saw some dead trees on the edge of a swamp the other day and recalled the iconic "acid rain" forest pictures in the 1980's. Back then, anywhere there was a patch of dead trees, people automatically thought...hmmm acid rain is killing the earth...making us sick.



Looking back, acid rain hysteria ended up as a footnote sandwiched between global cooling and the ozone hole. A lousy place historically if your job required research money. (Side note: An interesting bit of research would be finding out what those acid rain PhD's are publishing today...any guesses?)

I'll admit, I'm a child of the 80's. So looking back at that era can be tough sometimes. The clothes were awful. And now I have to admit that our attempts to terrorize the public through research were just as bad as the hair.

It started well enough with articles such as Likens (1984), "Acid rain: the smokestack is the smoking gun." That's good stuff on the face of it, Al Gore used the same imagery to great effect.



We had people out there chasing acid rain snowstorms and acid rain thunderstorms. We had tipping points, mass extinction predictions. Everything was in place. My generation was about to do something that would be remembered forever. Then...

The 1990's.

That first big Nirvana CD should have been a clue. The public was craving something more serious. We offered them the death of a salamander and the 1990's gave the public the whole damn world in peril.

I can't blame the public for taking to global warming the way they did. You are not going to make movies with acid rain showers chasing frogs. But ice hurricanes chasing actors! Whew. That's good stuff.

I guess acid rain never really stood a chance. Sure, the data never matched the claims. And the earth has natural balancing systems we didn't know about when we chose acid rain in the first place, but that has never stopped global warming. I'm not bitter (OK, a little). I just have to admit that global warming is a better product and we had a nice little run back in the day.

Just don't expect me to be sorry when you fail global warming.

The Trouble With Rubles

The big bluff is almost over. For the last several years Russian leader Putin (I'm not sure what he is calling himself these days) has put on a show of force - promising a return to Russian greatness. From warships in the Panama Canal Zone to attacks in Georgia, the Russians have been everywhere trying to reassert their old influence. And there have been the assassinations to intimidate and punish political rivals and enemies.

The growing problem for Putin is that his economy is a one trick petro pony (they have lots of other mineral resourced too, but that didn't work well with pony). All of it: minerals, crude oil have sharply declined in value and while the Russians are putting up a bold face, the economic reality will have them mothballing those ships and watching their currency devalue further.

To illustrate, the following graph shows how many rubles a dollar would buy. It's a 180 day graph and it shows the accelerating problem since August. Built at exchange-rates.org.



In some cases, workers are not getting paid and the protest in Vladivostok is an ominous sign for the Kremlin...especially since starting in that area is always a good strategy in Risk.

Putin will continue to crush dissent because he probably believes this downturn in commodity prices is short-term. Like Washington, Moscow is pumping cash into selected companies to try and buy their way out of this downturn. And also like Washington, these guys don't seem to understand that if you are willing to give your money away for nothing, it will have no value and the impact of all of this "stimulus" is deficits and a longer recession.

These troubles in Russia signal even bigger trouble for smaller countries built on the same strongman/petro economy. Venezuela has something like $65 barrel oil built into their budget. PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.), Venezuela’s state-owned petroleum company does not have the resources to develop their oil fields. Hugo has directed much of the PDVSA revenue to support his expanded social programs. Hugo will accelerate the problem if crude prices stay in the $30's for an extended period of time.

With a little perspective, one might see the positives of this global recession. Just one year ago, Putin and Hugo were looking to become regional, if not global, forces based solely on $140 oil. A 75% hair cut has funny way of curbing ambitions.

Oil prices will rebound. The global economy will recover and futures will turn up as soon as demand starts to rise - literally within days. The problem for Russia is the long-term impact to the structure of their economy. With each of these downturns, Russia is losing the social and industrial infrastructure that is not being replaced during good times because they do not have a dynamic or inventive system.

The best analogy of the economic situation in Russia is a real estate flipper being upside down on all of his mortgages. Even if, over time, the value of the homes come up to the prices you paid, the costs of holding the homes in the mean-time probably means you are bankrupt. So too with Russia. The fixed costs of the economy are established and Russia will print the Rubles it needs to run the government-owned economy. The result is further currency deflation and of course the inflation of real goods. A double whammy for an economy based on government spending.

There is probably something of a warning in there for the US as well, but why worry about Rubles? They don't hurt anybody.

Hugo: Drive By Dictator

Hollywood's 2nd favorite beloved leader was riding in his limo and spotted a nearly complete shopping mall in Caracas and said:

"They had already built a monster there," Chavez said. "I passed by there just recently and said, 'What is this? My God!"'

Which, of course, is Blago speak for "I don't remember getting any kickbacks on this project?"

Best quote from the AP writer (Via FoxNews), "[This] illustrates Chavez's tendency to govern from his gut, and to leap in when he thinks other government agencies — in this case city planners — aren't doing their job.

Of course with the ever expanding number of "Czars" we should expect similar "rule from the gut" kind of governance. Did I really see a middle class czar position named by Obama? Ugh.

Shrek Found Dead In New Jersey

Fox News has this one here.

A deer hunter discovered the man wrapped in the rug in a wooded area off the Atlantic City Expressway in New Jersey on Dec. 8, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.

Authorities have no idea who he is or who might have executed him.

"This was a very large man with very small, round, distinctive ears," said Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel during a press conference. "Somewhere, someone is missing this person."

Large man with very small round distinctive ears....




And some guy who looks like a real world Shrek.

The Wrestler...The Reviewers Are Blown Away

Mickey Rourke playing a washed up 80's wrestler with Marissa Tomei as his stripper girlfriend. I'm soooo there. Bill Simmons at ESPN got an advance copy and raved...here. With all of the crazy plastic surgery, Mickey looks like he has gone through 20 years of WWF abuse. Scripted or not, many of the old WWF guys are dead from the hell they put their bodies through.

More on Marissa. I really don't think she gets the credit she deserves. Is it the nude scenes? I don't know. But her performances in In The Bedroom, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and Welcome to Sarajevo proves she is getting better with age. Fox News had their 40 Hottest Women Over 40 list last week and she wasn't on it. Kelly Rippa was. Sarah Jessica Parker too.



Recent pic of Marissa.



Mickey...why?

Global Warming Is A Ticking Time Bomb Waiting To Go Off and Obama Has Like Minutes To Stop It

Well, that's the claim of the AP's Seth Borenstein. In his less than reasoned piece he makes the case that the Earth cooling back to 1992 levels is proof for how fast we are actually warming.

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.

Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.

Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."

"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."

U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.

The amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has already pushed past what some scientists say is the safe level.

Hysterical.

Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.

Of course, real scientists are objecting to this kind of shark jumping histrionics.

Scientists skeptical of the assertion that climate change is the result of man's activities are criticizing a recent Associated Press report on global warming, calling it "irrational hysteria," "horrifically bad" and "incredibly biased."

They say the report, which was published on Monday, contained sweeping scientific errors and was a one-sided portrayal of a complicated issue.

"If the issues weren't so serious and the ramifications so profound, I would have to laugh at it," said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma who has been critical of media reporting on the climate change issue.

In the article, Obama Left with Little Time to Curb Global Warming, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein wrote that global warming is "a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid," and that "global warming is accelerating."

Deming, in an interview, took issue with Borenstein's characterization of a problem he says doesn't exist.

"He says global warming is accelerating. Not only is it continuing, it's accelerating, and whether it's continuing that was completely beyond the evidence," Deming told FOXNews.com.

"The mean global temperature, at least as measured by satellite, is now the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years sea level has stopped rising. Hurricane and cyclone activity in the northern hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980."

Deming said the article is further evidence of the media's decision to talk about global warming as fact, despite what he says is a lack of evidence.

"Reporters, as I understand reporters, are supposed to report facts,"Deming said. "What he's doing here is he's writing a polemic and reporting it as fact, and that's not right. It's not reporting. It's propaganda.

"This reads like a press release for an environmental advocacy group like Greenpeace. It's not fair and balanced."

I would love to hear Seth Borenstein order lunch, it would probably go something like, "look man, I'm hungry, the blue plate was supposed to be here in like 5 minutes. I don't have 20 minutes to eat. My stomach is already touching my SPINE! My god hurry that food!"

Hey Seth, are you saying that It Could Happen Tomorrow? At least their hurricane ice storms were interesting.

A Lie Too Big To Fail

How rich is this? Nancy Pelosi is offended by the leadership of the Big 3 because they are begging for money with no coherent plan to stay viable for the long term. Plus they had the audacity to ride around in private jets. She thinks their leadership should be removed before we give them another penny.

I agree with that sentiment.

And that goes all the way around, only it's a lot more serious than the rank hypocrisy of our Speaker of the House.

In fact, the Big 3 management teams and congress have made almost identical mistakes in the last 50 years. Philosophically, both have lived on short business/political cycles that promote short term fudges rather than long term solutions; all while executing long term plans that always outspent revenues. Gamblers suffer from the same eternal optimism even in the face of economic reality: the difference being the inveterate gambler has a day of reckoning that may involve a kneecapping instead of a bail-out check. Pain and the threat of death: the self-checking mechanism that prevents gamblers from running up trillions in debt.

I can see the wisdom in that system.

The thing that has surprised me is the absolute silence on social security solvency, even as we have just watched the perfect model for how big programs collapse. Will a future congress and president fain surprise when the first whispers emerge that social security checks will start getting smaller?

The government has been lying about social security for years, so that much is not new. What is new is the perspective provided by the financial collapse of the government-private mortgage industry. If this isn't THE needed wake up call to take a longer view then we surely won't hear another.

The big lie is exposed in this Government Accounting Office.

Social Security’s benefit costs will soon start to grow rapidly. In 2017,
Social Security is projected to pay out more cash in benefits than it receives
in revenues.1 As figure 6 shows, after that time, the gap between costs and
income grows continuously, and, unless action is taken to close this gap, the
trust funds will eventually be depleted in 2041.

Right now, the surplus is used to fund other parts of the government, so 2017 is a much scarier date than it would appear on the face of it.

Here's the money shot.

Starting in 2017, the Treasury Department will begin to redeem
trust fund securities in order to continue to pay full promised benefits.
Specifically, in order to convert the Trust Fund securities into cash, the
government will require increased government revenue, increased borrowing
from the public, or reduced spending in the rest of the government.

When the Treasury has to redeem securities some very tough things will happen. The GAO's projections are that everything (value of securities and willing buyers) will continue as normal for 40 years. That is the same kind of thinking that backed the sales of mortgage backed securities...i.e. that the value of homes would never go down for any length of time. We just saw what happened to those kind of eternally optimistic projections.

Vaclav Klaus: Czech Republic President To Take Turn At EU President

This is rich. Vaclav is a free market guy and strong skeptic of the frothy global warming scare tactics. He has famously called Al Gore the “apostle of arrogance.”

The New York Times article is here.

PRAGUE — In the 1980s, a Communist secret police agent infiltrated clandestine economics seminars hosted by Vaclav Klaus, a fiery future leader of the Czech Republic, who had come under suspicion for extolling free market virtues. Rather than reporting on Marxist heresy, the agent was most struck by Mr. Klaus’s now famous arrogance.

“His behavior and attitudes reveal that he feels like a rejected genius,” the agent noted in his report, which has since been made public. “He shows that whoever does not agree with his views is stupid and incompetent.”

My favorite quote: “Klaus is a provocateur who will twist his arguments to get attention,” said Jiri Pehe, a former adviser to Vaclav Havel, Mr. Klaus’s rival and predecessor as president." Hmmm, pot meet kettle.

Like many people who grew up in a communist country, the cool factor of Marxist ideas and enforcers like Che and Uncle Joe is quite low.

Those who know Mr. Klaus say his economic liberalism is an outgrowth of his upbringing. Born in 1941, he obtained an economics degree in 1963 and was deeply influenced by free market economists like Milton Friedman.

Mr. Klaus’s son and namesake, Vaclav, recalled in an interview that when he was 13, his father told him to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to better understand Communism’s oppressiveness.

“If you lived under communism, then you are very sensitive to forces that try to control or limit human liberty,” he said in an interview.

After Vaclav, I'll wager the EU will find a way to end the rotating presidency thing.

David Mamet's Inspiring Speech In Protection Of Free Speech and Condemnation of the 'Fairness Doctrine'

This should be required listening for conservatives, as many of Mamet's points are understood at the gut level but here are drawn out in precise and engaging language.

Click on the BBC link here.

On political Correctness:

"It goes against the American grain. It just will not wash, for we know that it means ‘totalitarian’. How can any politics or speech be correct? A person’s politics may be acceptable or unacceptable...but to deem it (speech or politics) correct implies it adheres to the one true form which can only take place in a dictatorship."

UPDATED: How Can Hillary Even Be Considered For SecState?

Update from the NYT Clinton Vetting Includes Look at Mr. Clinton

A team of lawyers trying to facilitate the potential nomination spent the weekend looking into Mr. Clinton’s philanthropic organization, interactions with foreign governments and ties to pharmaceutical companies, a Democrat close to both camps said. While Mr. Clinton has used his foundation to champion efforts to fight AIDS, poverty and climate change around the world, he has also taken millions in speaking fees and contributions from foreign officials and businesses with interests in American governmental policies.

Obama advisers are discussing what Mr. Clinton would need to do to avoid a conflict of interest with the duties of his wife, who is said to be interested in the post. “That’s the first and most important hurdle,” said a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “He does good work. No one wants it to stop, but a structure to avoid conflicts must be thought of.”

They have done good things with that money...therefore it's OK? That's the sniff test here? I guess if I give 25% of the money to ACORN, it would be OK to rob a bank as well. UGH.

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I thought "we" already discussed this? Bill and Hillary have magically made tens of millions since he left office and most of it came from foreign governments. The library cash from the Saudis. The special consulting deals in Dubai and other middle eastern nations. The Clinton's bank accounts are just brimming with foreign dough and the media has pulled another convenient Mel Haney memory trick to pretend that the conflict of interest issues here are "nothing to notice."

Maybe this is a "helping Hillary pay off her campaign debt" thing? If it is, I would rather Obama just cut the check from his campaign account than put Billary back in a position of power while they pile up money from foreign governments.

How much money did Bill get from the Chinese Internet company? How much illegal cash did Hillary get from Chinese nationals? Who could forget their phony bundling efforts in NYC's China Town where buss boys were cutting $2000 checks like extra heapings of fried rice? Who could forget the phony addresses near the LA Airport where bags of cash were magically appearing and Chinese nationals (again) were found responsible? Who could forget all of that? The big bad main stream media...that's who.

On the other hand, if you need details about Joe the Plumbers taxes from 14 years ago, the MSM has it on the tips of their forked tongues. That kind of opposition research seems to reside in the hard-wired RAM of the MSM, while the massive conflict of interests created by Bill Clinton have never been explored.

For that matter Sean Hannity, who's dreams must consist of sweat-filled del Toro-esque vignettes of William Ayers and crazy preachers, and much of his fellow "alternative media" seemed to miss this point as well.

And the point is this: In most of the developed countries in the world, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton would never be able to serve in government again after taking these consulting fees and direct donations in grotesque amounts from foreign interests. After they left the White House, these two acted like game show contestants in one of those cash grab money boxes and now, forgetting the damn shame of this behavior, we are supposed to accept Hillary as a high federal official again.

The media will continue their search for a human interest story and ignore the political one right in front of their noses. Forget about the Fairness Doctrine, this country needs a Competence Doctrine.

Over the next week the media will ask "will she or won't she," when the better question is "how dare she..."

My Two Point Plan Alternative To The Pelosi Three Point Plan For The Auto Maker Bailout

Here's the Pelosi Three Point Plan(from Detroit News).

The auto industry's survival plan must meet several conditions, Pelosi said:

• Restructure the automobile companies to ensure their long-term economic viability;

• Meet standards for fuel efficiency that ensure the competitiveness of U.S. autos, including new fuel-efficiency standards; and,

• Deploy advanced vehicle technologies required to compete in the domestic and global market."

Here is my Two Point Plan.

• Buy Toyota and Honda with this bailout (TARP) cash and let congress run them for a few years.

• Remove all congressional restrictions on the Big Three.

GM, Ford and Chrysler won't have any more trouble selling cars in this country or any other.

A Short History Lesson For Congress As They Get Ready To Buy Into The Car Business

I can hear Barney Frank asking me if I would like an undercoat with that new Buick.

From an AP article via Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats are pushing legislation to send $25 billion in emergency loans to the beleaguered auto industry in exchange for a government ownership stake in the Big Three car companies.

I guess this is a natural fit since the only people more detested than the cheesy used car dealer is the Dem controlled congress. But before we throw the rice on this new marriage, it might be helpful to review the history of government operated car businesses. It's a beaut!

Renault (French)

After WWII the company was confiscated and nationalized. By 1981 saw Renault became the largest car maker in Europe, with a production rate of 2 million cars annually. Perhaps the road was too straight, it sought expansion towards America as well as Scandinavia. Firstly, it took major shareholding in AMC (American Motor Corporation) in 1980, which led to the production of Alliance (Renault 9) and Encore (Renault 11) in the United States. Secondly, it took full control of US truck maker Mack. The American adventure turned out to be a disaster as sales in Europe was also declining. Heavy loss led to the sold out of AMC to Chrysler in 1987, since then Renault did not return to America again.

So we have French government engineers to thank for the
Gremlin


and the AMC Pacer



Of course, the whole mess was bailed out by Nissan.

How could anyone forget the car that would fall apart as you drove it off the lot...the YUGO! It was so incredible that the factories were deliberately bombed by NATO forces during the Kosovo War.


I don't want to imply that all government owned car companies make shit cars, but I don't have to...their success at the landfills and recycled pot metal dealers speak volumes.

I would be remiss to ignore the great cars that came out of the Soviet Union.

I think they called them Mosckvithe's or something like that.

After these words (and pictures) of caution, I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing. As long as the new GM design team has Nancy Pelosi signing off on their designs and Ford engineers run new safety features past Harry Reid, this whole thing will come off smashingly well.

Commies Hate 007 Too

Poor Olga Kurylenko, she thought she was playing a movie character in a farsical movie about spy games.

Wrong.

The Ukrainian actress, who plays a Bolivian secret agent opposite Daniel Craig's 007 in "Quantum Of Solace", has also gained ire of the Communist Party of St. Petersburg, which in an open letter on its website condemned her for aiding "the killer of hundreds of Soviet people and their allies." The group's statement describes 007 as "a man who worked for decades under the orders of Thatcher and Reagan to destroy the USSR."

Now, I am not sure which Bond they are talking about, but I would guess it's the Sean Connery.

"The Soviet Union educated you, cared for you and brought you up for free but no one suspected that you would commit this act of intellectual and moral betrayal."

Now for the real reason I linked this article.

Balkanization, Should We Really Be Worried?

For the last six years, we have heard that phrase about the "rule of law" so much that maybe Valerie Jarrett tripped over herself when she said "Obama needs to be ready to rule from day one," on Meet The Press.

Maybe. But the attitude that would lead one to use the word "rule" has been popping up frequently enough to convince me that this is more than a slip of the tongue.

Soon after the polls opened up in his favor, Obama began talking about compulsory national service and a "civilian national security force" that is just as strong and well funded as the military. I wonder what such a force would do on days when they don't have to attack the bad guys? They would probably do what other national police forces do in other parts of the world...enforce the rulers' wishes on walking around everyday people. For the United States, such a force would probably end up being the official enforcer of all things "PC." Given the selective enforcement of rules or wishes that would surely ensue, such a force would probably be seen as an occupation army in a certain southern segment of this country.

I strongly disagree with Rep. Paul Broun that these things along with Obama's "spread the wealth" comments represent a new Marxism or Nazism. Quite the opposite.

Instead of a strong sense of nationalism and the creation of a renewed world power, Obama is proposing a pull-back, a blaming of his own nation for the ills at home and abroad. No, the Obama movement lacks both the outward focus and hyper-nationalism found in both the Marxist and Nazi movements.

Instead we have a fracturing country never able to unite behind any single leader as the political poles seem to drift further apart. The renewed push for the fairness doctrine (or variants thereof) will be more about punishing the other side. More of the spite-filled politics intended to infuriate and divide.

I'm reminded of Joe Biden's instincts when it came to Iraq. He proposed splitting Iraq into three pieces in a plan that was the only thing that Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders agreed on in 2006. They hated the idea because they understood what a permanently fractured country looks like. It looks like the Balkans - divided in pieces and permanently hostile.

It is exactly this prospect of Balkanization in the United States that has the rest of the world so happy with this election. Most of the world believes that an outward focused, or interventionist, United States is a major problem. In many places the US is seen as a bigger problem than terrorism. Most public polling around the world confirms that unless you have recently been ruled by a communist dictator, you probably dislike the US...by a wide margin. The polling consistently indicates that the world roots for the underdog, even the underdog that brutally represses it's people. It is probably the same psychology that makes me hate the NY Yankees, even when they play the Kansas City Royals.

That Obama has not directly addressed the heightened concerns raised by the promises of our spiteful congressional leadership is a good reason to be worried. Obama does not need the powers of "the one" to unite the country, he only has to stop politics of division and the rest will take care of themselves.

Obaaaaama, It's Time To Play