China cull amid bird flu outbreak

December 19th, 2008

More than 370,000 chickens have been culled in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu after an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, say officials.

The outbreak is thought to be the first in mainland China since June.

Meanwhile, a man has reportedly contracted the virus in Cambodia, while Taiwan is investigating suspected infection among birds.

The death of a teenage girl from H5N1 was announced in Egypt on Tuesday, and a bird cull is also under way in India.

More than 200 people in a dozen countries have died of the virus since it resurfaced in Asia in 2003, say global health authorities.

Experts fear that the virus could mutate into one that is easily transmissible from human to human.

Migrating birds blamed

China’s Ministry of Agriculture said it received notification that the H5N1 virus had been found in two areas of Jiangsu on Monday.

The usual precautions have been imposed: birds have been slaughtered in the surrounding area, farms quarantined and disinfected, and the transport of fowl banned.

But no information has been released about the scale of the outbreak – how many birds were found to be carrying the H5N1 strain of the virus and how many of them died.

Officials say they think migrating birds might have been the source of the disease.

They are currently testing samples of the virus to check it has not mutated into a form that would pose a risk to human health, reports the BBC’s Chris Hogg in Shanghai.

More… ➡

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Posted in CrashBlogging, Pandemics, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

New Blogroll entries

December 16th, 2008

For those of you who might occasionally take a look at the other Blogs and Websites I like and recommend, you should be aware that I’ve added two new ones to my Blogroll today.

The first is The Automatic Earth which is written by Stoneleigh and Ilargi.   They describe their site as, “…a daily overview of Debt, Diesel and Dämmerung“.   Dämmerung being the German word for twilight.   An interesting combination.   This site I added based on how impressed I was with an entry I found on their site that I Blogged about earlier here.  It was excellent piece and I’m thinking that where there is smoke, there’s likely to be fire.

And the second is Canadian Paul Cherfurka’s Blog which he entitle’s “Approaching the Limits to Growth“. I could try here to say a lot of nice things about Paul’s thinking and his approach the what I call The Perfect Storm but there’s no need. If you follow the link to his Blog, he’ll lay it all out for you on the opening page. If you’re not hooked after that, you never will be.

– Research thanks to Kael for connecting me to both of these fine sites.

Posted in General, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

Thinking about a thousand-year depression

December 16th, 2008

– An excellent piece from The Automatic Earth; a Blog I’ve just started following.

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Cyclical terms like “recession” and “depression” are looking less appropriate by the day. It’s like calling the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance a “depression”.

I know the our situation is vastly different from the state of the world in Roman times, but the idea that we could be on the brink of a fundamental reset of civilization is intriguing, to say the least.

I’ve been convinced for several years that we are looking at the convergence of a set of wicked interlocking global problems — ecological problems (climate chaos, the death of the oceans, fresh water shortages etc.), energy shortages due to fossil fuel depletion, and overpopulation with the resulting pressure on the global food supply. This convergence is happening under the umbrella of the current global financial collapse that constrains our ability to respond to any of these problems individually, let alone any further problems that might emerge from interactions between them.

This unfortunate collision makes the future of our civilization very murky indeed. Writers like James Howard Kunstler, John Michael Greer, Carolyn Baker and Sharon Astyk (along with people like Stoneleigh and Ilargi at The Automatic Earth) have been warning about the possibility of a generalized, unrecoverable collapse of modern civilization for a while now. They have generally been derided by the mainstream as millennialist prophets of doom — driven more by their own subconscious fears and dark desires, their research full of confirmation bias.

The events unfolding around us now, however, cast their optimistic mainstream critics in a somewhat different light. None of them — even the Roubinis and Krugmans – have fully appreciated the severity of the world’s financial predicament. Their comforting bromides (and even their more pessimistic utterances) have been overwhelmed by events on a weekly basis. It has become clear that for all their careful analysis of trunks and tails, nobody truly understood the shape of the entire elephant.

This evident failure of comprehension brings their entire analysis into disrepute. And that should make us ask – if they failed to comprehend the underpinnings of a calamity in their own domain, what does that say about the possibility that they also failed to understand the dangers being trumpeted by the doomers they have derided?

After all, we are seeing the same outcome in the climate crisis as in the financial one – the trends are uniformly negative, and are unfolding much faster than the professionals in either field predicted. There are new signs from world bodies like the International Energy Agency that the same situation is developing with respect to the world’s oil supply – the more pessimistic members of the Peak Oil crowd appear to be heading for vindication.

So, following a “major, rapid contraction” (aka collapse), could our civilization end up staying on the mat, unable to rise from the ashes of our former glory? That’s unknowable of course, but hardly inconceivable. Several factors give that speculation some foundation.

The first confounding factor is the spectre of irreversible climate change. That could irreparably damage the world’s food production capacity through shifts in rainfall and the reduction of snow and glacial cover that supplies much of the world’s fresh water for agriculture.

The second factor is the permanent depletion of the compact, high-density, transportable energy supply represented by fossil fuels. We’re putting a lot of effort into developing electrical alternatives, of course. There are two major challenges in the way, though. The first is the relative infancy of the industry, and the fact that it will require both capital and fossil fuels to enable its continued growth. The second longer term problem is that the use of electricity requires a higher level of technology in the infrastructure needed to manufacture, distribute, store and convert it into work. This may not seem like much of a a problem today, but if our global industrial civilization goes into a decline, growing parts of the world may find the maintenance of such infrastructure increasingly difficult.

A third factor that may get in the way of recovery is the depletion of easily-recoverable resources such as metals. The decline in the average quality of various ores being mined today is well documented, and is likely to continue. While recycling can recover much of the metal currently discarded as waste, recycling facilities capable of producing enough output to feed our civilization’s needs do not yet exist. They would face the same hurdles as the build-out of electrical supplies I described above.

You might think that such a situation will take so long to develop that we will be able to address the situation before it gets quite that dire.

One consideration that works against that hope is that human beings are not, for all their cleverness, fully rational creatures. Research has shown that most of our “rational” decisions are made at a deeply unconscious level, to be dressed up with rational justifications only upon their emergence into the conscious mind some time later. The truth of this proposition can be seen all around us in the competition between environmental remediation and economic imperatives, in the obstruction of alternative energy development, in our repeated creation of financial bubbles — in all the myriad ways in which we as a society work tirelessly against our own best interests as individuals and as a species.

Even worse, events have recently shown a terrifying ability to outstrip our expectations, in both speed and severity. We may not have nearly as much time left as we think. A lack of time coupled with an inability to respond rationally (or even to accept the evidence of our eyes) does not bode well for the future of this civilization.

It’s conceivable that our current civilization will never regain its feet after this storm has burst upon us. We will endure as a species no matter what happens, of course, and it’s even probable that we will rise to new heights. It’s also quite possible that the rebirth of this Phoenix will take a long, long time and that those new heights will be unrecognizable to someone raised in today’s world of 401(k)’s, Credit Default Swaps, automobiles and gigantic concrete cities.

– To the original: ➡

– Research thanks to Kael for this.

Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, CrashBlogging, Deforestation, Desertification, Extinctions, Financial melt-down, Food Shortages, Fundamentalism, Mental Irrationality, Ocean Acidification, Pandemics, Peak Oil, Pollution, Rising Ocean Levels, Social Breakdown, Terrorism, The Perfect Storm, Water Shortages, Weather deterioration | 2 Comments »

Top investors ‘hit by $50bn con’

December 13th, 2008

Zowie!Some of the world’s wealthiest private and corporate investors are reported to be victims of an alleged $50bn fraud by Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff.

Mr Madoff is alleged to have confessed to a huge Ponzi scheme (pyramid fraud).

Reports say the main owner of the New York Mets baseball team, Fred Wilpon, and former American football team owner Norman Braman are among the victims.

Others facing losses reportedly include French bank BNP Paribas, Japan’s Nomura Holdings and Zurich’s Neue Privat Bank.

Prosecutors say Mr Madoff, ex-head of the Nasdaq stock market, has described the fraud as “one big lie”.

A federal judge has appointed a receiver to oversee Mr Madoff firm’s assets and customer accounts, while the 70-year-old banker has been released on $10m bail.

More… ➡

– do you want more of this same stuff, Sweetpea? Look no farther. Just follow this next link for another fine story of financial integrity.

And more… ➡

– This second article is from the NY Times and they insist that folks have an ID and a PW in order to read their stuff. You can get these for free just by signing up. However, a friend of mine suggests the website bugmenot.com :arrow: as an alternative to having to do these annoying sign ups. Check it out. Thx Bruce S. for the tip.

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different, CrashBlogging, Financial melt-down, The Perfect Storm | 1 Comment »

Judge gives 7 year old right to decide

December 12th, 2008

Seattle, WA (AP) – A seven-year old boy was at the center of a King County courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulation requiring that family unity be maintained to the highest degree possible.  The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried and said that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with the child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Seattle Seahawks, whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different | 2 Comments »

I’m in New Zealand

December 11th, 2008

Thursday

out there - somewhereAfter a long 24 hours of traveling, I’ve arrived in New Zealand for a three month stay.

This trip, I’ll be house-sitting for some friends here near the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. They’ve got a big house in a nice neighborhood so it’s going to be fun.

I’ll have more to say about New Zealand and my doings here but there’s not much to tell you yet.

Thursday was a bit of a dream day as I was fairly slammed from traveling. Though, in truth, I did spend time with some good friends and it was very nice, indeed, to see them after being gone for nine months. Graham came and picked me up at the airport, took me by the house where I’ll be house-sitting so we could drop my bags and then he took me back to his place for some coffee and a visit with he and his wife, Judy.   Most excellent folks.

After that, I went and tried to get my motorcycle started after it’s been sitting nine months. It was in the parking garage under Judy & Graham’s place. The starting didn’t go well. In fact, there was no starting – to put a fine point on it.

The battery was gone.   Really.   I remembered then I’d taken it out out of the bike as a device to preserve its charge. So, I went and recovered it and put it in and the starting was just as absent as it had been previously – like completely. We might say, as the battery was stone dead, that it started just like when it wasn’t there.

A closer examination showed that not only was the battery dead, most of its cells seem to have no water in them. At this point, I recalled dire warnings from several of my motorcycle buddies that I should NEVER place a battery on a concrete floor for storage. Damn, I guess there was something to their theory.

So, another long period of time went by as I found a small piece of paper and made a tiny funnel and proceeded to try to put water into each of the battery’s chambers from a plastic coke bottle I’d found in the trash. The tedium at this point was considerably relieved by talking with Bob, another American expat who is living in the same building complex as Graham and Judy (Sharon and I also own an apartment there as well but it is currently rented out). The building manager, Keith, another good friend, had brought Bob by and introduced him. That was a good thing because Bob was great to talk with and he helped me work out what was going on with the battery and how to fill it.

So, finally it was filled and into the bike it went again. Turn the key … nada, nothing, zip. Dead, dead, dead.

At this point, Bob and I pushed it up out of the underground garage into the parking lot one story up. I then turned it around, put it in third, turned on the key and gave it some choke and let it run back down the slope to see if it would start. …result? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

This wasn’t a surprise to Bob and he’d said that with zero charge, he doubted that it would run. He was, indeed, right.

this here’s what we’re talking about…Then I pulled out a small battery charger I’d bought last year, Bob said his goodbyes and I put the charger on the battery and went off to kill an hour or so while it charged.

Did I mention I was really tired from the trip? I walked up two blocks and wandered into a local pub called The Buck’s Head and had myself a Guinness, Mate. Maybe the third I’ve ever had. Mmmmm, that was good.

Then I hopped the free-bus and went up the the South City shopping center and went in and had a take-away Sushi lunch. And then it was back onto the free-bus and around to the other end of its route and off for a short walk back to the apartment complex.

I’m getting pretty good by now at putting the battery in and out of the motorcycle. So zoom, it was in – and I turned the key – lights!!!! That means it has some charge!

So, I cranked it. But, other than one cough, it wouldn’t catch and I got worried I’d run all my charge down cranking it.

I was worried about other stuff by now as well. To back off a bit and look at my story from a wider angled view, I’d just arrived in Christchurch after flying 24 hours, I’d done no more than just drop my suitcases at the house I’m to house-sit and I’d spent the next five hours – other than visiting with Graham, Judy, Keith and Bob, lurking about in an underground garage fussing with my dead motorcycle, drinking Guinness like a derelict and riding the city buses around.

I decide now that he best thing is to push the motorcycle back up to the top of the ramp to the underground garage. Good thought – Bob and I did it – no sweat.

So, I start in. Mmmmm. 450 pounds of motorcycle and a steep incline. I soon discover that I can advance it maybe five feet or so up the incline before I have to lock the brake and recover myself. Five feet becomes four. And four becomes three. This is damn hard work. Literally, I’m right on the edge of my ability to do it. I’ve got to tell you that gravity is just as strong in New Zealand as it is up north – if you were wondering.

Finally, I’m 2/3 of the way up the ramp and I’m thinking I’m going to pop a gasket or drop the bike soon. I decide to forgo the ascent get on it and coast backward just a bit to get it turned and facing downwards and then to test if it’ll start. There is no way that this 61 year old duffer is going to get that bike to the top of the ramp without and assist and no one’s around.

So, I turn it around and check that all switches and doo-dads are set as they should be and I let-er’ go. ……VaaaROOOM. Huston, we have lift off! O-weee, that was one good noise to hear.

So, a bit of garage clean up putting things away and it’s off to Bruce and Kathy’s (the folks I’m house-sitting for).

Once there, I give Alex and Tobi a call (some more good American expat friends who now live in Kiwi-land) and they agree to help me move some stuff from our storage locker under the apartment building to Bruce and Kathy’s place and then we’re all going to go out for a vegetarian Chinese dinner afterwards.

So, I’m back on the newly resurrected motorcycle again and off to the apartment complex I’ve just come from. Now I need to dig about in our storage locker and get everything (like my computer gear) that I want to take to Bruce and Kathy’s organized – before Alex and Tobi arrive. I get it done just as they arrive – I’m literally in a sweat.

All of us then proceed to Bruce and Kathy’s to drop the new stuff off and then we’re out for a great dinner and some good catching up.

And after that, it’s into bed with me to sleep like a rock.

Friday

This morning, Friday morning here and Thursday back in the U.S., I get up and start in on the computer gear. I’m on the phone with Bruce and Kathy’s ISP here to see if they can open port 25 for me so I can use E-mail server systems in the U.S. Yes, they can do that – if we switch B&K’s service from a dynamic IP address to a static one for an additional $9.95 per month. OK, I plan to pay for their broad-band while I’m here as a thank you for them letting me stay here at their place – so no problem – yes, let’s do it.

Then I’ve got to noodle around in B&K’s current hardware setup here to make sure that nothing I’m about to do will break their setup. Nope, it all looks good.

An hour or so later, their ISP has made the switch, their IP address is now static and port 25 is open. Yahoo! E-mail is up and I have presence again on the web.

And that brings us to now.

As I said, not much has happened so far since I’ve been here. But, if anything does, rest assured I’ll tell you about. Cheers!

Posted in New Zealand, Personal | 2 Comments »

Australia MPs ‘face breath tests’

December 7th, 2008

– Ah, those Aussies are a sensitive lot, eh?

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Politicians in an Australian state could be breathalysed before voting after reports of bad behaviour by MPs.

In the latest incident, New South Wales MP Andrew Fraser resigned from his frontbench role after shoving a female MP after attending a Christmas party.

Go Oz!!!In September, state police minister Matt Brown resigned after allegedly dancing in his underpants at a drunken party in his parliamentary office.

Several MPs have now backed a proposal to supply breath test kits.

“Honestly, if you are going to have breathalysers for people driving cranes you should have breathalysers for people writing laws,” New South Wales Greens MP John Kaye told the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Barry O’Farrell, leader of the coalition opposition, said he would gladly submit to an alcohol test before entering parliament.

And the Speaker Richard Torbay said he would have no problem with the idea as long as tests were voluntary.

– More… ➡

Posted in And Now for Something Completely Different, Culture - How not to do it | No Comments »

* Environment * Food Qatar looks to grow food in Kenya

December 7th, 2008

I wrote about this back in September.   This is a new trend and I believe it will become a new form of economic colonialism.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

The Gulf state has joined a growing list of rich countries that want to grow food in poor countries

Qatar has asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops as part of a proposed package that would also see the Gulf state fund a new £2.4bn port on the popular tourist island of Lamu off the east African country.

The deal is the latest example of wealthy countries and companies trying to secure food supplies from the developing world.

Other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have also been negotiating leases of large tracts of farmland in countries such as Sudan and Senegal since the global food shortages and price rises earlier this year.

The Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki, returned from a visit to Qatar on Monday. His spokesman said the request for land in the Tana river delta, south of Lamu, in north-east Kenya was being seriously considered.

“Nothing comes for free,” said Isaiah Kabira. “If you want people to invest in your country then you have to make concessions.”

But the deal is likely to cause concern in Kenya where fertile land is unequally distributed. Several prominent political families own huge tracts of farmland, while millions of people live in densely packed slums.

More… ➡

– Hat tip to Cryptogon for the story

Posted in CrashBlogging, Social Breakdown, The Perfect Storm | No Comments »

On Gay Marriage

December 7th, 2008

– I’ve been blessed during most of my adult life in having gay friends. Their strong presence in my life has helped to desensitize me to that nascent homophobia that was an inevitable part of my growing up in a blue-collar neighborhood in the 50’s and 60’s.

– Their attractions towards members of their own sex and their practices in the bedroom may be different than mine, but I simply don’t care. They respect my practices and feelings just as I do theirs. How else in an enlightened world should it be?

– Some of us (both gays and straights) have discussed this topic a lot in recent weeks with a special emphasis on California’s recent vote on Proposition 8.

– Undeniably, prejudices still run deep here in our American society. But, progress is being made – albeit, over decades. Women’s rights have improved much as has racial equality though there is still a ways to go on both. But, thus far, gay rights have been trailing behind.

– These situations are generally deplored in polite civic conversations and essays but silently condoned in far too many private hearts. I, for one, think we should each speak our minds on these things publicly and let those who are timid and on the fence, as to what they believe, see that there are many of us willing to speak up.

– As a white heterosexual male, I don’t, as they say, have a dog in this fight. But that’s all the more reason to speak up. We should not, in good conscious, leave the work of struggling for social improvement to those who are oppressed.

– So, dear readers, be clear then. I support full equality for women, all racial groups and for gays. It may not be the world we live in today, God help us, but it is what the better world of the future should look like.

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Our Mutual Joy

– from Newsweek Magazine – Dec 6, 2008

Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.

Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. “It is better to marry than to burn with passion,” says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script?

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

The battle over gay marriage has been waged for more than a decade, but within the last six months—since California legalized gay marriage and then, with a ballot initiative in November, amended its Constitution to prohibit it—the debate has grown into a full-scale war, with religious-rhetoric slinging to match. Not since 1860, when the country’s pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to biblical scrutiny. But whereas in the Civil War the traditionalists had their James Henley Thornwell—and the advocates for change, their Henry Ward Beecher—this time the sides are unevenly matched. All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections.

The argument goes something like this statement, which the Rev. Richard A. Hunter, a United Methodist minister, gave to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in June: “The Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman. The church cannot condone or bless same-sex marriages because this stands in opposition to Scripture and our tradition.”

To which there are two obvious responses: First, while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. And second, as the examples above illustrate, no sensible modern person wants marriage—theirs or anyone else’s —to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes. “Marriage” in America refers to two separate things, a religious institution and a civil one, though it is most often enacted as a messy conflation of the two. As a civil institution, marriage offers practical benefits to both partners: contractual rights having to do with taxes; insurance; the care and custody of children; visitation rights; and inheritance. As a religious institution, marriage offers something else: a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor and cherish each other—in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer—in accordance with God’s will. In a religious marriage, two people promise to take care of each other, profoundly, the way they believe God cares for them. Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

More… ➡

– Research thanks to John P.

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Posted in Human Rights, Mental Irrationality, Philosophical, Religion - The Wrong Way | 1 Comment »

No More Science at CNN

December 5th, 2008

– At a time when we’re just coming out of eight years of the anti-science Bush administration, CNN’s decision is hard to understand – even if it is economically driven. Definitely, in my opinion, it is not the right decision for the times.

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NO MORE SCIENCE….From CJR:

CNN, the Cable News Network, announced yesterday that it will cut its entire science, technology, and environment news staff, including Miles O’Brien, its chief technology and environment correspondent, as well as six executive producers. Mediabistro’s TVNewser broke the story.

“We want to integrate environmental, science and technology reporting into the general editorial structure rather than have a stand alone unit,” said CNN spokesperson Barbara Levin. “Now that the bulk of our environmental coverage is being offered through the Planet in Peril franchise, which is produced by the Anderson Cooper 360 program, there is no need for a separate unit.”

I can’t that I’m shocked by this or anything, but it’s unfortunate. Environmental reporting, whether produced by Anderson Cooper or not, could use more reporters, not fewer, and science reporting in general is likely to become more important now that we have a president waiting in the wings who doesn’t think of it as just another obstacle to be overcome on his way to dismantling the regulation of the moment. Disappointing news.

– To the original by Kevin Drum at Mother Jones: ➡

Tags:
Posted in General | No Comments »

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