Political climate change-it’s a hoax, folks!

The July 2009 issue of The Rolling Stone contained Matt Tabibi’s “The Great American Bubble”-a story of the Goldman Sach’s hand in market manipulation.

That month the news was filled with stories of the huge profits of GS…

On July 21st of this year, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Hillary was asked about the rumours of Chelsea’s engagement. Denied, as only a Clinton can deny.

This week Chelsea’s engagement to a Goldman Sach’s banker was announced. The fact that Tiger Woods’ balls loomed largest, eclipsing the sun on state dinner crashers and even The Major Policy Speech on Afghanistan, made it a choice time to announce the literal wedding of a Clinton to a Goldman Sachs. President Obama’s loss of virginity to Goldman Sachs, almost immediately after assuming office, had all the grace of a cocktail party with Amy Winehouse.

There are political, economic & media elites and they are all talking to each other. The rest of us watch, outside in the snow, wrapped in rags.

Erik Prince is CIA–nothing compared to how Tiger has racks of platinum.

Our overstretched military, our PTSD laden military, doesn’t even have enough psychiatrists to offer them assistance, so they keep on a very questionable staff member. Record military suicides, and I guess the CIC wants his, too. Or he believes in his own exceptionalism. Tragedy must contain that element of hubris.

Last Friday, my supervisor told me there was some stimulus money that might be applied to what I think is a clumsy policy unworthy of an educational institution. He asked me to think of ways in which we might tap into that money. It is so depressing to think that stimulus money would be used in this context.

Sigh. On the “positive” side, you could own a 3 bedroom home in Detroit or Flint for $500. Which is the next predominantly black city to go down?

Inertia. The New Turpitude.

Congratulations WildlifeDirect

(Christmas card, part of a set available from the Lion Guardians)

Mongabay has awarded its Innovation in Conservation Award for 2009 to WildlifeDirect.

Copenhagen viewed from BC

Pitiful as the American approach to Copenhagen is, it is far from the lamest, even among the English speaking countries. British Columbian environmental activist Tzeporah Berman talks about Copenhagen, the Harper government, and the curse of the tar sands with the Real News.

Cindy Sheehan vs. Sarah Palin

How soon we forget.

Cindy Sheehan was the first person who galvanized opposition to the war in Iraq.

I had my problems with Cindy, who was, in my words “lionized” on spaces like dailykos.

Open Letter to George Bush

Not a flat tax

If you thought the attentiveness of the media to Sarah Palin indicated how shallow this country can go when it is in absolute crisis, you’d get confirmation from hearing the objections to an item in the health care draft, that would put an excise tax on cosmetic procedures, like breast implants, botox treatments, etc.

Odds and ends – Spirit Bear edition

(Spirit bear with her cubs)

A look see around recent science news on Veterans Day.

It matters if they’re black or white

On the central coast of British Columbia, the black bear population carries a recessive allele for a white coat. It is so common – up to 50% of the population has it in one area – that in the heart of the Spirit bear’s range up to one in five bears is white.

All the old discussions of the bear pointed out that there was no difference in the ecology of the two morphs and no selective advantage for the white form.

New research finds that’s not quite true.

veterans day

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
— Wilfred Owen

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Issac, the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, the fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there.
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not a hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not do so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Evacced to Kandor

The loading has begun.

Naikun Wind update

(The Olympic torch rides the Lootaas on the sea leg of its trip through Haida Gwaii.)

The big news is that the Burrard thermal plant has been thrown off the rolls of BC’s baleline electrical generation. It don’t count. This means that BC Hydro is now under that much more pressure to scramble to find renewable sources – like Naikun Wind – to meet mandatory targets for renewable energy sources in the province.

Naikun is thrilled with this development.

FeDoRa

Among other things he is not, Barack Obama is not FDR.

It was painful to listen to his Saturday talk, talking about those courageous men & women, who risk their lives protecting our nation. Flat & unconvincing. How in hell is the military protecting us? They are pawns.