The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been patting itself on the back so vigorously over the past few days that I wouldn't be surprised if the statue in front of the Hoover building has both of its arms supported by slings made out of one of J.Edgar's old formal gowns.
The Feebies haven't been so excited and so visible in the papers and on the telly since they dragnetted the Unabomber after he carried out only sixteen bombings. The G-Men were very proud when they caught Ted Kaczynski by dint of seventeen painstaking years of unrelenting detective work by hundreds of Special Agents. . . and a slight assist from a fellow who banged on the door of the Hoover Building until somebody put down their danish and let him in so he could tell them that his brother was the guy they were looking for.
In the very unlikely event you haven't heard of this latest coup, the Special Agent men have once again proven that they always get their man by bagging the fellow who sent all those anthrax letters back in 2001. They put the long arm of the law on Bruce Ivins despite the fact that he had cleverly disguised himself as an anthrax research scientist thus making it practically impossible for the FBI to suspect him. It's true they didn't catch him very fast. And it's true he was right under their noses for all the seven years that the hundreds of G-Men were task-forcing and sleuthing and analyzing and profiling and investigating in the finest tradition of Inspector Clouseau. But let's not quibble, they did catch him.
Well. . . actually, they didn't really catch him exactly. I may be a little unclear on this and some of my sources may be exaggerating a bit, but what I understand they did was drive him about one quarter nuts by sort of letting him know they kind of thought they had the goods on him. Then they drove him about three quarters around the bend by letting him know that they maybe were going to arrest him. Then they put him under round the clock surveillance until he was barking like a dog and staying pretty much in the walk-in closet in his apartment except when he came out each morning to sniff and paw at the newspaper before carrying it inside in his mouth. It was a few weeks after this behavior was observed that they got the break that cracked the case wide open. The suspect was observed to have allowed six copies of his daily newspaper to pile up on his doorstep in direct violation of Section B, Paragraph 17 Line 43 of Federal Law JR6-917, and he was also very quiet in there, suspiciously quiet.
So the surveillance team finally had probable cause to get a search warrant and call in the swat team. When all was ready and the swat team guys were locked and loaded they very cleverly sent a body-armored fellow dressed like a slightly bulky UPS driver up to the door with a bouquet of flowers that was really a big honking sledgehammer. . .
Well. . . to make a long story short, the flower guy broke down the door so the whole team of other fellows could enter and secure the premises and then very efficiently subdue and handcuff the suspect. All this was done before anybody noticed that the suspect's arms and legs were kind of floppy, and he was smelling a bit ripe, and they couldn't get him breathing even after a lot of mouth to mouth and a quite a bit of pounding on his chest. So they didn't catch him, they bagged him.
So anyway, the guy they suspected committed suicide back in July a bit before they found him, so they really kind of became sure that they had got their man this time, unlike the last time when the guy they kind of thought was the guilty party sued their butts off after they gave his name to the Attorney General and he gave it to the press. He got $5 Million.
But all's well that ends well. The Anthrax Guy is in the bag in only 7 years, which is less than half the time it took the G-Men to net the Unabomber. And the FBI has now swung into action with a force of its most impressive Special Agents, the ones who stage pictures for the newspapers and magazines and the ones who speak on camera for the television stations. You know, the ones who's job it is to make us all think that the folks who eat donuts and danishes in the J. Edgar Hoover Building have a clue as to what they're doing.
If you want to read a fussy, fact oriented version of this story with prissy British language in it you can go to this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7536890.stm
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Into the wild blue yonder
Ken Mayland got me to thinking about the safety record of spaceflight after he saw the post about Scotty below and mentioned that Richard Branson is planning to fly up tourists eventually.
So I looked into the safety record of the Space Shuttle and decided that I'll leave that trip for the great granchildren.
There have been 140 or so shuttle launches. I haven't done the math but it wouldn't surprise me if all the redundancy and safety consciousness has made each of those launches as expensive as it would have been to make a new shuttle orbiter out of solid gold each time. Nonetheless, two of the launches have resulted in loss of all hands. . . I will be surprised if Branson manages much better than that one in seventy loss rate, assuming he really flies his thing.
Not that NASA has all that bad a record considering it's doing exploration. I recall from somewhere that ships sent from Spain to the Caribbean in the first 30 or 40 years had about an 80% chance of surviving the round trip.
That started me thinking and googling around about Magellan. He set out with 237 men in 5 ships to circumnavigate the world. One of those ships returned to Spain with 18 men aboard. 15 other men also eventually straggled back over the next few years - I'll bet they had some tales to tell in the bars.
Magellan himself suffered a bit of a setback during a little scrap with the Lapu-Lapus in the Phillipines. Talk about your ultimate fighting challenge. . . those were the days when men were men.
Per Wikipedia
According to the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan deployed 48 armored men, less than half his crew, with swords, axes, shields, crossbows and guns. Filipino historians note that because of the rocky outcroppings and corals near the beach, he could not land on Mactan. Forced to anchor his ships far from shore, Magellan could not bring his ships' firepower to bear on Lapu-Lapu's warriors, who numbered more than 1,500.
"When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly..."
"Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to flight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away."
Many of the warriors turned upon Magellan; he was wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear and in the leg by a native sword (kampilan). He was finally overpowered and killed, stabbed and hacked by spears and swords. Pigafetta and the others managed to escape.
"Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."
So I looked into the safety record of the Space Shuttle and decided that I'll leave that trip for the great granchildren.
There have been 140 or so shuttle launches. I haven't done the math but it wouldn't surprise me if all the redundancy and safety consciousness has made each of those launches as expensive as it would have been to make a new shuttle orbiter out of solid gold each time. Nonetheless, two of the launches have resulted in loss of all hands. . . I will be surprised if Branson manages much better than that one in seventy loss rate, assuming he really flies his thing.
Not that NASA has all that bad a record considering it's doing exploration. I recall from somewhere that ships sent from Spain to the Caribbean in the first 30 or 40 years had about an 80% chance of surviving the round trip.
That started me thinking and googling around about Magellan. He set out with 237 men in 5 ships to circumnavigate the world. One of those ships returned to Spain with 18 men aboard. 15 other men also eventually straggled back over the next few years - I'll bet they had some tales to tell in the bars.
Magellan himself suffered a bit of a setback during a little scrap with the Lapu-Lapus in the Phillipines. Talk about your ultimate fighting challenge. . . those were the days when men were men.
Per Wikipedia
According to the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan deployed 48 armored men, less than half his crew, with swords, axes, shields, crossbows and guns. Filipino historians note that because of the rocky outcroppings and corals near the beach, he could not land on Mactan. Forced to anchor his ships far from shore, Magellan could not bring his ships' firepower to bear on Lapu-Lapu's warriors, who numbered more than 1,500.
"When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred persons. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly..."
"Seeing that, the captain-general sent some men to burn their houses in order to terrify them. When they saw their houses burning, they were roused to greater fury. Two of our men were killed near the houses, while we burned twenty or thirty houses. So many of them charged down upon us that they shot the captain through the right leg with a poisoned arrow. On that account, he ordered us to retire slowly, but the men took to flight, except six or eight of us who remained with the captain. The natives shot only at our legs, for the latter were bare; and so many were the spears and stones that they hurled at us, that we could offer no resistance. The mortars in the boats could not aid us as they were too far away."
Many of the warriors turned upon Magellan; he was wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear and in the leg by a native sword (kampilan). He was finally overpowered and killed, stabbed and hacked by spears and swords. Pigafetta and the others managed to escape.
"Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off."
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Ouch! Hell hath no fury like a playgirl scorned
I suppose John McCain knew there would be pushback after he started running that celebrity ad, but I think he expected the pushback to come from Barack Obama. Now it seems Paris Hilton has taken exception to the ad, and she's now running for President. In her first campaign ad she takes on McCain where it hurts most.
Al R was out ahead of the curve on this issue but I would say Ms Hilton's presentation is more persuasive.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d
Al R was out ahead of the curve on this issue but I would say Ms Hilton's presentation is more persuasive.
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d
Political hot air about "windfall" profits
There has been a lot of media attention to the fact that Exxon's shareholders made big profits last quarter, and lots of hot air blown around by politicians about "obscene" and "windfall" profits. But I've noticed that the same politicians are not shedding any tears for the shareholders of General Motors who lost $15 Billion last quarter.
I think it's obscene that politicians, most of whom have never held a real job providing real products to real people, talk a lot about it when risk takers make profits by providing value for money, but they don't have a word to say when those same risk takers lose money. What makes this doubly annoying is that the shareholders who are being accused by politicians of making "windfall" profits are. . . us. . . because we own the oil companies through our 401K plans and pension funds.
Ken Mayland, one of the country's best economics forecasters and a long time friend of mine, makes the case about "windfall" profits much more eloquently than I can on his website clearvieweconomics.com.
Here's what Ken had to say about "windfall" profits. . .
Let’s get one thing straight here. It has been said that in the current situation the oil
industry “did nothing” to earn today’s windfall profits. This is blatantly false! Years ago,
the industry took the risks—the whole production process—in an uncertain price
environment in order to produce the supplies that currently come to market. Profits and
prices do not go in only one direction.
As previously mentioned, oil prices plunged in 1986. The industry and its shareholders
were clobbered. Investors were punished again in 1998, in the wake of the Asia economic
debacle, and in 2002, a feeble and halting recovery that was frozen by the upcoming conflict
with Iraq. None of these price and profit dampening events was generally anticipated.
Profits ARE booming in the energy industry. Tax revenues ARE swelling (a windfall!) along
with these profits. And capital spending in the industry IS growing by leaps and bounds.
But high energy prices in the industry are NOT a sure thing. It is not just me saying this.
The price-earnings (P/E) ratio of major producers falls into a 8 to 11 range, well short of the
Market P/E ratio of around 19 (through Q2, based on trailing year’s earnings). The best
investment minds in the business are essentially saying that these profits are not
sustainable, presumably because current energy prices are not sustainable.
(For what it is worth: my bet is that the Market is wrong.)
You can read the whole thing if you're interested in the Special Topics section at http://www.clearvieweconomics.com/ and you would be wise to do so if you invest. Ken has won a lot of major league prizes for economic forecasting over the years. I was at a speech he gave last year when he was being awarded one of those prizes by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics. During that speech Ken had the guts to go directly against the then common "wisdom" that the economy was already going into a recession. Well, here we are a year later and the recession almost everybody else was predicting still hasn't appeared. Ken is a lot less optimistic now about what the economy will do later this year but last year he was exactly right when he bucked the common wisdom.
I think it's obscene that politicians, most of whom have never held a real job providing real products to real people, talk a lot about it when risk takers make profits by providing value for money, but they don't have a word to say when those same risk takers lose money. What makes this doubly annoying is that the shareholders who are being accused by politicians of making "windfall" profits are. . . us. . . because we own the oil companies through our 401K plans and pension funds.
Ken Mayland, one of the country's best economics forecasters and a long time friend of mine, makes the case about "windfall" profits much more eloquently than I can on his website clearvieweconomics.com.
Here's what Ken had to say about "windfall" profits. . .
Let’s get one thing straight here. It has been said that in the current situation the oil
industry “did nothing” to earn today’s windfall profits. This is blatantly false! Years ago,
the industry took the risks—the whole production process—in an uncertain price
environment in order to produce the supplies that currently come to market. Profits and
prices do not go in only one direction.
As previously mentioned, oil prices plunged in 1986. The industry and its shareholders
were clobbered. Investors were punished again in 1998, in the wake of the Asia economic
debacle, and in 2002, a feeble and halting recovery that was frozen by the upcoming conflict
with Iraq. None of these price and profit dampening events was generally anticipated.
Profits ARE booming in the energy industry. Tax revenues ARE swelling (a windfall!) along
with these profits. And capital spending in the industry IS growing by leaps and bounds.
But high energy prices in the industry are NOT a sure thing. It is not just me saying this.
The price-earnings (P/E) ratio of major producers falls into a 8 to 11 range, well short of the
Market P/E ratio of around 19 (through Q2, based on trailing year’s earnings). The best
investment minds in the business are essentially saying that these profits are not
sustainable, presumably because current energy prices are not sustainable.
(For what it is worth: my bet is that the Market is wrong.)
You can read the whole thing if you're interested in the Special Topics section at http://www.clearvieweconomics.com/ and you would be wise to do so if you invest. Ken has won a lot of major league prizes for economic forecasting over the years. I was at a speech he gave last year when he was being awarded one of those prizes by a Nobel Prize winner in Economics. During that speech Ken had the guts to go directly against the then common "wisdom" that the economy was already going into a recession. Well, here we are a year later and the recession almost everybody else was predicting still hasn't appeared. Ken is a lot less optimistic now about what the economy will do later this year but last year he was exactly right when he bucked the common wisdom.
I wonder if Scotty gets a refund on his ticket
I also wonder if his last words were, "She's going to blow, Captain."
"The rocket successfully blasted off from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific near midnight Eastern time Saturday. It was lost two minutes and 20 seconds into launch after the stages failed to separate.
Lost along with the rocket were three small satellites, one for the Department of Defense and two for NASA, including an experimental solar sail, NanoSail-D.
Gone too were the ashes of 208 people including James Doohan, better known as "Scotty" of Star Trek fame, who had paid to have their remains scattered in space."
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=solar-sail-and-ashes-of-star-treks-2008-08-04
"The rocket successfully blasted off from the Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific near midnight Eastern time Saturday. It was lost two minutes and 20 seconds into launch after the stages failed to separate.
Lost along with the rocket were three small satellites, one for the Department of Defense and two for NASA, including an experimental solar sail, NanoSail-D.
Gone too were the ashes of 208 people including James Doohan, better known as "Scotty" of Star Trek fame, who had paid to have their remains scattered in space."
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=solar-sail-and-ashes-of-star-treks-2008-08-04
Monday, August 4, 2008
Farewell Larry McMurtry, hello Bernard Cornwell
I finished "Lonesome Dove" again yesterday (I've finished it a couple or three or four times before). What a great read. After I put it down the gravitational field of "Comanche Moon" was very strong, but I'm proud to say I resisted. I'm determined to read something by someone else before I return to McMurtry. And I'm determined that my next McMurtry will be a new one, not a re-read of an old friend. Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf can sing their war cries at me until they're hoarse, and Famous Shoes can patiently track me to the ends of the property and into my dreams. But "Comanche Moon" is going to have to be content with shining down on me from its high shelf for a while.
So I've started Bernard Cornwell's novel "Redcoat." Cornwell is also an old friend. I've been through all of his Sharpe novels, some a couple of times, and I've been through his archer novels, and I've been through his stonehenge novel; but I've never read "Redcoat" before even though I must have picked up up and looked at it in bookstores a dozen or more times. I've never before taken it home, or at least I don't think so - Linda dotes on finding second copies of books around here, and sometimes even third copies. I think I've never picked it up even though I'm very free with the wallet in bookstores, bookstores being my one consistent area of extravagance since I was a kid. I very seldom leave a bookstore empty-handed, very seldom leave one without at least a couple of purchases. As a result I have a lot of books around here, a lot, trust me.
On that subject here's a business idea for some young entrepreneur out there. I've never followed up on it. Grind up old books sorted by subject and sell specialized literary mulch to folks with too much money on their hands. Sell philosophical mulch to aging hippies who think themselves philosophers. Sell science and science fiction mulch to aging nerds. Sell historical mulch to superannuated education school Ph.Ds. Sell political science mulch to dried up old Peace Corps alums. I'm sure there are idiots who will pay a premium for ground up paper if you tell them it contains the words of folks they wish they could understand or the doings of fictional characters they wish they were. If you find one particular area of mulch is overly popular and you can't get enough copies of Nietsche to meet the demand for "Philosophical Mulch" just remember that the guvming lets folks label stuff with a few drops of the real thing as "fruit juice." Grind up a half ton of old newspapers and throw in one copy of "The Philosophy of History" at the end to transform the whole batch into intellectual gold suitable for bedding the garden of the most tightly wound college professor.
But I have digressed. . .
I've resisted buying "Redcoat" for a long time, mostly because I can't bring myself to be really interested in American revolutionary war fiction or history, just as I can't bring myself to be really interested in 18th century American politics or manners or the fiction about them. It's an odd quirk because I have liked history and fiction about just about every other war in the great saga of man. And I have enjoyed history and fiction about some of the most obscure periods and cultures imaginable. I can read Civil War military stuff, but let me start on a story or a history about the eras of Jefferson or Adams or Jackson, Grant after the war, Cleveland, etc. and soon the thing almost always ends up buried in the "read this some other day" pile.
It's an odd prejudice since the revolutionary war was an amazing victory against massive odds by a pathetic band of ill-equipped paupers led, as are most armies in most times, by incompetents who mostly survived by luck and who won only by the sheer stupid cussedness that enabled them to outlast the British. And 18th century American history is an amazing story of the preservation of a rude republic against all odds by the interaction of a cast of the same sort of alternately self-serving and public spirited, pompous and humble, vainglorious and self effacing, tawdry and noble, brutally competent and pathetically incompetent oddities who have almost always risen to leadership in all societies at almost all times.
"Redcoat" has started well with the British slaughter by bayonet of sleeping American troops who brought on and deserved their fate by virtue of failing to post alert sentries. Nine-tenths of military success is having and enabling sergeants brutal enough to ensure the little things like posting sentries too terrified of someone with rough fists and a clout behind them to fall asleep and miss seeing someone with a bayonet in front of them.
"Redcoat" will surely get slow after the good start, for the revolutionary war is a snoozer with more confusion, retreats and incidents of getting lost than the aftermath of a fraternity drinking party. But "Redcoat"is not going to end up on the mulch heap, at least not until I finish it. I'm going to finish it if I have to choke down every last word.
So I've started Bernard Cornwell's novel "Redcoat." Cornwell is also an old friend. I've been through all of his Sharpe novels, some a couple of times, and I've been through his archer novels, and I've been through his stonehenge novel; but I've never read "Redcoat" before even though I must have picked up up and looked at it in bookstores a dozen or more times. I've never before taken it home, or at least I don't think so - Linda dotes on finding second copies of books around here, and sometimes even third copies. I think I've never picked it up even though I'm very free with the wallet in bookstores, bookstores being my one consistent area of extravagance since I was a kid. I very seldom leave a bookstore empty-handed, very seldom leave one without at least a couple of purchases. As a result I have a lot of books around here, a lot, trust me.
On that subject here's a business idea for some young entrepreneur out there. I've never followed up on it. Grind up old books sorted by subject and sell specialized literary mulch to folks with too much money on their hands. Sell philosophical mulch to aging hippies who think themselves philosophers. Sell science and science fiction mulch to aging nerds. Sell historical mulch to superannuated education school Ph.Ds. Sell political science mulch to dried up old Peace Corps alums. I'm sure there are idiots who will pay a premium for ground up paper if you tell them it contains the words of folks they wish they could understand or the doings of fictional characters they wish they were. If you find one particular area of mulch is overly popular and you can't get enough copies of Nietsche to meet the demand for "Philosophical Mulch" just remember that the guvming lets folks label stuff with a few drops of the real thing as "fruit juice." Grind up a half ton of old newspapers and throw in one copy of "The Philosophy of History" at the end to transform the whole batch into intellectual gold suitable for bedding the garden of the most tightly wound college professor.
But I have digressed. . .
I've resisted buying "Redcoat" for a long time, mostly because I can't bring myself to be really interested in American revolutionary war fiction or history, just as I can't bring myself to be really interested in 18th century American politics or manners or the fiction about them. It's an odd quirk because I have liked history and fiction about just about every other war in the great saga of man. And I have enjoyed history and fiction about some of the most obscure periods and cultures imaginable. I can read Civil War military stuff, but let me start on a story or a history about the eras of Jefferson or Adams or Jackson, Grant after the war, Cleveland, etc. and soon the thing almost always ends up buried in the "read this some other day" pile.
It's an odd prejudice since the revolutionary war was an amazing victory against massive odds by a pathetic band of ill-equipped paupers led, as are most armies in most times, by incompetents who mostly survived by luck and who won only by the sheer stupid cussedness that enabled them to outlast the British. And 18th century American history is an amazing story of the preservation of a rude republic against all odds by the interaction of a cast of the same sort of alternately self-serving and public spirited, pompous and humble, vainglorious and self effacing, tawdry and noble, brutally competent and pathetically incompetent oddities who have almost always risen to leadership in all societies at almost all times.
"Redcoat" has started well with the British slaughter by bayonet of sleeping American troops who brought on and deserved their fate by virtue of failing to post alert sentries. Nine-tenths of military success is having and enabling sergeants brutal enough to ensure the little things like posting sentries too terrified of someone with rough fists and a clout behind them to fall asleep and miss seeing someone with a bayonet in front of them.
"Redcoat" will surely get slow after the good start, for the revolutionary war is a snoozer with more confusion, retreats and incidents of getting lost than the aftermath of a fraternity drinking party. But "Redcoat"is not going to end up on the mulch heap, at least not until I finish it. I'm going to finish it if I have to choke down every last word.
Here's an Augustine side meat ravioli filling recipe
Don Augustine saw my ravioli post and sent me the recipe for meat ravioli filling he got 40 years ago from his Aunt Anna Powell. Presumably this comes down from Don's grandmother, Louise Roncase Augustine, also known as Sia (Aunt) Gigette; so probably it was originally a Roncase recipe.
One day I'll do a geneology post to take this further but Sia Gigette was the wife of my grandfather's brother. She was my dad's favorite Aunt because he liked her, uh, direct and frank manner of speaking her mind on all issues. My mom often told a story about a lively conversation with Sia Gigette that went like. . . well. . . perhaps the content of that conversation is not entirely suitable for some of the tender eyes which may find their way to this blog.
At some point I will find the Grandmom Angelina Luzi recipe that mom and Aunt Mary Raimo made, or else Angela will find her way to this blog and provide it. And perhaps Charlotte or Ann or Anna will provide the Filomena Augustine recipe if they have it.
Don emailed that he makes ravioli with this filling every year with his grandchildren.
Augustine Chicken Ravioli Filling (From Don Augustine)
6 Cups of Chicken cooked and ground fine
3 Cups of pork cooked and ground fine
6 Large egg yolks (save the whites for the dough)
2 Cups of bread crumbs
2 Cups of locatelli cheese
2 Tsp of fresh nutmeg
3 Cups of chicken broth (make sure the broth is cool so it doesn’t cook the egg)
1 Tsp salt
½ Tsp black pepper
2 Tsp parsley
Refrigerate for 1 day and add seasoning if needed.
Makes enough for 10 doz. 4 inch shells, I use a one pound coffee can or a 16 oz tomato can and it’s just the right size for cutting the shells.
Note:
I usually make chicken soup and then use the chicken for the Raviolis, and when I say 6 cups it is 6 cups of ground chicken and the same for the pork it is measured after it is ground. Rule of thumb it will be about a ½ pound per cup
One day I'll do a geneology post to take this further but Sia Gigette was the wife of my grandfather's brother. She was my dad's favorite Aunt because he liked her, uh, direct and frank manner of speaking her mind on all issues. My mom often told a story about a lively conversation with Sia Gigette that went like. . . well. . . perhaps the content of that conversation is not entirely suitable for some of the tender eyes which may find their way to this blog.
At some point I will find the Grandmom Angelina Luzi recipe that mom and Aunt Mary Raimo made, or else Angela will find her way to this blog and provide it. And perhaps Charlotte or Ann or Anna will provide the Filomena Augustine recipe if they have it.
Don emailed that he makes ravioli with this filling every year with his grandchildren.
Augustine Chicken Ravioli Filling (From Don Augustine)
6 Cups of Chicken cooked and ground fine
3 Cups of pork cooked and ground fine
6 Large egg yolks (save the whites for the dough)
2 Cups of bread crumbs
2 Cups of locatelli cheese
2 Tsp of fresh nutmeg
3 Cups of chicken broth (make sure the broth is cool so it doesn’t cook the egg)
1 Tsp salt
½ Tsp black pepper
2 Tsp parsley
Refrigerate for 1 day and add seasoning if needed.
Makes enough for 10 doz. 4 inch shells, I use a one pound coffee can or a 16 oz tomato can and it’s just the right size for cutting the shells.
Note:
I usually make chicken soup and then use the chicken for the Raviolis, and when I say 6 cups it is 6 cups of ground chicken and the same for the pork it is measured after it is ground. Rule of thumb it will be about a ½ pound per cup
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Forks in the road of life
Imagine what Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix might have published if they had decided to focus their studies on theoretical astrophysics instead of applied psychopharmaceuticals.
http://www.livescience.com/space/080801-brian-may-doctorate.html
http://www.livescience.com/space/080801-brian-may-doctorate.html
Liars and takers and hypocrites, Oh my!
Deroy Murdock over at National Review (link below) has a good column on offshore drilling for oil. He makes a lot of sense throughout but the quote that really got me to thinking was
"Currently mired in red tape, Chevron’s Destin Dome field off Florida could produce within
four years. Southern California deposits could yield within five to ten years. Besides, as
Confucius said: “The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now.”"
With gas prices up near four dollars a gallon even Barack Obama is now saying that maybe he would consider letting the oil companies drill off the coasts as long as he also gets plenty of money to spread around to the folks who are researching energy sources too improbable to attract private investment. Obama is lying through his teeth of course. He has no more desire for the production of more oil than his supporters at Greenpeace and MoveOn.org do. Obama and his envirolooney supporters want energy prices high, they even want them higher than they are now. Ten dollars a gallon for gas would suit him and them fine - but not if it's going to cost him the election. So he's lying about this the same way he lied about sitting in that racist church for 20 years without ever once listening to a sermon.
But this is not to say that Obama is the only one lying about offshore drilling. President Bush is doing some mighty outrageous lying himself, and he's also doing some unbelievably hypocritical complaining about congress. President Bush has had seven years in office to do something about pressuring congress to allow offshore drilling and to allow drilling up in Alaska but he has done precisely nothing. Why he has done nothing is a very good question. The best explanation I can come up with is that he wanted oil prices higher than they were a few years ago because he was taking big satchels full of cash from his ten gallon hat wearing Texas oil buddies and taking even bigger satchels of cash from his keffiyeh wearing Saudi oil buddies. But I may be wrong. Whatever - the simple fact is that he has done nothing, nothing, about encouraging the development of new supplies of oil in this country until this year. If he had done something some of that oil might be flowing right now. He may want to allow drilling now, but he didn't want to allow drilling then when he could have made a difference.
As for John McCain, I'm not so sure he's a liar on this particular issue even though I think he's a world class in our faces liar on the immigration issue. But he certainly is being a major league hypocrite when he talks about offshore drilling now. He's been in the Senate for a couple of decades, but never before has he pushed hard for drilling offshore and in Alaska. Yet he's supposed to be a maverick with exceptionally well developed cojones according to both the English and the Spanish language media and he's certainly no coward. So I doubt he would have been quiet about the utter stupidity of not letting companies drill where the oil is if he really wanted to fight over the issue. He was, for instance, quite willing to put his cojones in a wringer big time when he fought very hard to keep the borders unguarded and to give amnesty, free education, free health care, welfare and citizenship to however many millions and tens of millions of people who can manage to sneak into the country.
All that said, Deroy Murdock is right in most of what he wrote, and Confucius was certainly right when he wrote that, "The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We need to do research on other forms of energy production, but we also need to recognize that it's going to be decades before we are able to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. So it's going to gag me big time but I may end up having to vote for McCain despite how angry he has me about illegal immigration. At least he hasn't been actively fighting against drilling for new oil all these years, as Obama and the Democrats have, and at least he understands that having gas and heating oil run up to ten dollar a gallon in the next few years would not be a good thing, as Obama and the Democrats in congress don't.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTA1MTBlMjdhMjM4NWU4NDczN2IxM2RkNGExNWRjMDM=
"Currently mired in red tape, Chevron’s Destin Dome field off Florida could produce within
four years. Southern California deposits could yield within five to ten years. Besides, as
Confucius said: “The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now.”"
With gas prices up near four dollars a gallon even Barack Obama is now saying that maybe he would consider letting the oil companies drill off the coasts as long as he also gets plenty of money to spread around to the folks who are researching energy sources too improbable to attract private investment. Obama is lying through his teeth of course. He has no more desire for the production of more oil than his supporters at Greenpeace and MoveOn.org do. Obama and his envirolooney supporters want energy prices high, they even want them higher than they are now. Ten dollars a gallon for gas would suit him and them fine - but not if it's going to cost him the election. So he's lying about this the same way he lied about sitting in that racist church for 20 years without ever once listening to a sermon.
But this is not to say that Obama is the only one lying about offshore drilling. President Bush is doing some mighty outrageous lying himself, and he's also doing some unbelievably hypocritical complaining about congress. President Bush has had seven years in office to do something about pressuring congress to allow offshore drilling and to allow drilling up in Alaska but he has done precisely nothing. Why he has done nothing is a very good question. The best explanation I can come up with is that he wanted oil prices higher than they were a few years ago because he was taking big satchels full of cash from his ten gallon hat wearing Texas oil buddies and taking even bigger satchels of cash from his keffiyeh wearing Saudi oil buddies. But I may be wrong. Whatever - the simple fact is that he has done nothing, nothing, about encouraging the development of new supplies of oil in this country until this year. If he had done something some of that oil might be flowing right now. He may want to allow drilling now, but he didn't want to allow drilling then when he could have made a difference.
As for John McCain, I'm not so sure he's a liar on this particular issue even though I think he's a world class in our faces liar on the immigration issue. But he certainly is being a major league hypocrite when he talks about offshore drilling now. He's been in the Senate for a couple of decades, but never before has he pushed hard for drilling offshore and in Alaska. Yet he's supposed to be a maverick with exceptionally well developed cojones according to both the English and the Spanish language media and he's certainly no coward. So I doubt he would have been quiet about the utter stupidity of not letting companies drill where the oil is if he really wanted to fight over the issue. He was, for instance, quite willing to put his cojones in a wringer big time when he fought very hard to keep the borders unguarded and to give amnesty, free education, free health care, welfare and citizenship to however many millions and tens of millions of people who can manage to sneak into the country.
All that said, Deroy Murdock is right in most of what he wrote, and Confucius was certainly right when he wrote that, "The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now.”
We need to do research on other forms of energy production, but we also need to recognize that it's going to be decades before we are able to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. So it's going to gag me big time but I may end up having to vote for McCain despite how angry he has me about illegal immigration. At least he hasn't been actively fighting against drilling for new oil all these years, as Obama and the Democrats have, and at least he understands that having gas and heating oil run up to ten dollar a gallon in the next few years would not be a good thing, as Obama and the Democrats in congress don't.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTA1MTBlMjdhMjM4NWU4NDczN2IxM2RkNGExNWRjMDM=
An investment opportunity
This video got me to thinking about an investment opportunity. If Obama is elected the rise of the sea is going to begin to slow. Surely by the end of his second term he will actually order the sea to recede. Now may be the time to look into low lying land along the coast in New Jersey, the Carolinas and Florida. When the sea recedes that land will become valuable beachfront property.
Also, I was just out looking at Jupiter through Linda's binoculars. But it wasn't as pleasurable as I hoped. First off, it seems to me that Jupiter's moons are a lot more dim than they were back when I first looked at them through binoculars 40 years ago. Secondly, Jupiter and its moons seem a lot harder to bring into sharp focus because they jiggle around a lot more than they used to 40 years ago. And it's not just the planets that are doing this. All the stars seem to jiggle around a lot more when I look at them through the binoculars. And, it could be my imagination, but there seem to be a whole lot fewer stars in the sky than there were 40 years ago.
I'm hoping Obama plans to heal the solar system and the universe after he gets done pushing back the seas and healing the earth. I would sure like to see the stars and planets as clearly as I did 40 years ago.
And who could have imagined Charlton Heston would appear in a video starring Barack Obama. I thought Heston was a Republican.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopkn0lPzM8
Also, I was just out looking at Jupiter through Linda's binoculars. But it wasn't as pleasurable as I hoped. First off, it seems to me that Jupiter's moons are a lot more dim than they were back when I first looked at them through binoculars 40 years ago. Secondly, Jupiter and its moons seem a lot harder to bring into sharp focus because they jiggle around a lot more than they used to 40 years ago. And it's not just the planets that are doing this. All the stars seem to jiggle around a lot more when I look at them through the binoculars. And, it could be my imagination, but there seem to be a whole lot fewer stars in the sky than there were 40 years ago.
I'm hoping Obama plans to heal the solar system and the universe after he gets done pushing back the seas and healing the earth. I would sure like to see the stars and planets as clearly as I did 40 years ago.
And who could have imagined Charlton Heston would appear in a video starring Barack Obama. I thought Heston was a Republican.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopkn0lPzM8
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Responsibilities and territories
Responsibilities in life can sometimes extend long past what you expect. Take the example of my frog.
It all started when we bought Alex an African tadpole in about 1986. In the course of events the tadpole morphed into a frog and we put it into a former terrarium bowl filled halfway with water. At that time we thought it would appreciate a dry spot to sit on so we also put a few rocks into the bowl with one of them extending above the surface of the water. Somewhere in there we also decided that he would like some company in his bowl so Alex caught a tadpole about his size from our pond and put him in the bowl. Big mistake. He tolerated the tadpole for a couple of days and then ate half of him in one night and the other half the next day. Amazingly he didn't seem any bigger after eating that tadpole than before. So we bought a couple of large snails at the pet store figuring that their shells would protect them. Another mistake, the vicious little beast managed to pry the snails off the glass of the bowl and he ate them too.
After that we left him in solitary confinement which seemed to suit him until one day we found the piece of window screen covering the bowl knocked off and the frog gone. I figured we would eventually find his mummified body somewhere behind the furniture but a couple of evenings later I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and eventually recaptured the thing after it had done several impressive broad jumps around the living room. He must have been quietly doing isometrics in his little tank in preparation for his escape because his jumps were about six feet long and about three feet high, pretty amazing since he's only about three inches long.
Meanwhile Alex also morphed, first into a high schooler and then into a college student living away from home, so I ended up as the frog's only protector and caretaker in a home where the other adult sometimes talked of putting him out on the ice in the winter. . .
So here I am, still caring for a twenty year old frog that was supposed to have a life span of a few years. But there have been compensations for my effort for efforts. For one thing the frog is a nearly perfect pet. He lives a quiet contemplative life in his bowl for days at a time unless I get forgetful of him for too long, in which case he splashes and jumps around when he sees me walking past to remind me to feed him. I choose to believe that he's appreciative when I give him a couple of pellets at such times, especially on those occasions when I can tempt him to take a pellet directly from between my fingers. Part of me suspects that he's actually trying to eat my fingers when he gums them and that he would happily eat me if he could somehow drag me into the tank, but who can say what's going on in the mind of a frog.
Another compensation for caring for the frog is that I've attained a small measure of immortality due to something I noticed in 2006 on Wikipedia when I was trying to identify exactly what kind of frog he is. I learned that in the hood he's an "African Clawed Frog" but in polite company he's more properly addressed as a Xenopus Laevis.
But I also discovered that Wikipedia falsely thought he should have long been dead because it said that his lifespan is only a few years.
So I corrected the Wikipedia article by adding an entry about "Xenopus as a Pet" and found that some wikipedians are as combative as my frog. A couple of them leaped at and dismembered my new entry the way my frog dismembered that tadpole. I put it back with a couple of more or less respectful comments about their ancestry and anti-scientific attitudes, and they promptly took it down again. So I waited a few months, as patiently as my frog, and put it back up on the site again, this time with some fake links to nonexistent sources which apparently confused them for a while because it lasted a few weeks before they took it down again. As I write this wikipedia lacks the full fruit of my wisdom, but I've won to a certain extent. The "Xenopus" entry now recognizes that the frog is sometimes kept as a pet, except when it escapes in a place with a climate like San Francisco where it is busily eating all the laid back California frogs it can get its claws on. And the "African Clawed Frog" entry recognizes that the little devils can live for up to thirty years.
For now both I and my frog will accept those concessions. But I'll be back at Wikipedia to fight again once my frog passes thirty years old in 2016.
It all started when we bought Alex an African tadpole in about 1986. In the course of events the tadpole morphed into a frog and we put it into a former terrarium bowl filled halfway with water. At that time we thought it would appreciate a dry spot to sit on so we also put a few rocks into the bowl with one of them extending above the surface of the water. Somewhere in there we also decided that he would like some company in his bowl so Alex caught a tadpole about his size from our pond and put him in the bowl. Big mistake. He tolerated the tadpole for a couple of days and then ate half of him in one night and the other half the next day. Amazingly he didn't seem any bigger after eating that tadpole than before. So we bought a couple of large snails at the pet store figuring that their shells would protect them. Another mistake, the vicious little beast managed to pry the snails off the glass of the bowl and he ate them too.
After that we left him in solitary confinement which seemed to suit him until one day we found the piece of window screen covering the bowl knocked off and the frog gone. I figured we would eventually find his mummified body somewhere behind the furniture but a couple of evenings later I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and eventually recaptured the thing after it had done several impressive broad jumps around the living room. He must have been quietly doing isometrics in his little tank in preparation for his escape because his jumps were about six feet long and about three feet high, pretty amazing since he's only about three inches long.
Meanwhile Alex also morphed, first into a high schooler and then into a college student living away from home, so I ended up as the frog's only protector and caretaker in a home where the other adult sometimes talked of putting him out on the ice in the winter. . .
So here I am, still caring for a twenty year old frog that was supposed to have a life span of a few years. But there have been compensations for my effort for efforts. For one thing the frog is a nearly perfect pet. He lives a quiet contemplative life in his bowl for days at a time unless I get forgetful of him for too long, in which case he splashes and jumps around when he sees me walking past to remind me to feed him. I choose to believe that he's appreciative when I give him a couple of pellets at such times, especially on those occasions when I can tempt him to take a pellet directly from between my fingers. Part of me suspects that he's actually trying to eat my fingers when he gums them and that he would happily eat me if he could somehow drag me into the tank, but who can say what's going on in the mind of a frog.
Another compensation for caring for the frog is that I've attained a small measure of immortality due to something I noticed in 2006 on Wikipedia when I was trying to identify exactly what kind of frog he is. I learned that in the hood he's an "African Clawed Frog" but in polite company he's more properly addressed as a Xenopus Laevis.
But I also discovered that Wikipedia falsely thought he should have long been dead because it said that his lifespan is only a few years.
So I corrected the Wikipedia article by adding an entry about "Xenopus as a Pet" and found that some wikipedians are as combative as my frog. A couple of them leaped at and dismembered my new entry the way my frog dismembered that tadpole. I put it back with a couple of more or less respectful comments about their ancestry and anti-scientific attitudes, and they promptly took it down again. So I waited a few months, as patiently as my frog, and put it back up on the site again, this time with some fake links to nonexistent sources which apparently confused them for a while because it lasted a few weeks before they took it down again. As I write this wikipedia lacks the full fruit of my wisdom, but I've won to a certain extent. The "Xenopus" entry now recognizes that the frog is sometimes kept as a pet, except when it escapes in a place with a climate like San Francisco where it is busily eating all the laid back California frogs it can get its claws on. And the "African Clawed Frog" entry recognizes that the little devils can live for up to thirty years.
For now both I and my frog will accept those concessions. But I'll be back at Wikipedia to fight again once my frog passes thirty years old in 2016.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Now I'm more of a skeptic again about global warming
This graph at the website below shows what the big kahuna of the global warming movement predicted in 1988 versus what has actually happened since 1988.
http://climate-skeptic.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/30/hansenlineartrend.jpg
The predictions that Dr. James Hansen published in 1988 are the orange and yellow lines in the graph. Dr. Hansen is the favorite climate scientist that all the global warming folks like Al Gore talk about when they want to say they have scientific proof for their beliefs.
The blue jagged line with dots are the actual temperatures measured since 1900. It's apparent that the temperatures since 1988 have not followed the predictions made by Dr. Hansen.
Since he was wrong then it seems pretty foolish to spend big money based on what he says now. And don't kid yourself, the global warming folks are talking about things that are going to cost us and our kids really big money - trillions and trillions of dollars. They're wanting to hide the money in complicated regulations, but it's still our money that will be spent.
It may very well be a good idea to do research on and develop ways to generate more electricity from nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. But from what I've seen the evidence thus far of global warming is not a good argument for not doing anything panicky and foolish.
http://climate-skeptic.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/30/hansenlineartrend.jpg
The predictions that Dr. James Hansen published in 1988 are the orange and yellow lines in the graph. Dr. Hansen is the favorite climate scientist that all the global warming folks like Al Gore talk about when they want to say they have scientific proof for their beliefs.
The blue jagged line with dots are the actual temperatures measured since 1900. It's apparent that the temperatures since 1988 have not followed the predictions made by Dr. Hansen.
Since he was wrong then it seems pretty foolish to spend big money based on what he says now. And don't kid yourself, the global warming folks are talking about things that are going to cost us and our kids really big money - trillions and trillions of dollars. They're wanting to hide the money in complicated regulations, but it's still our money that will be spent.
It may very well be a good idea to do research on and develop ways to generate more electricity from nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. But from what I've seen the evidence thus far of global warming is not a good argument for not doing anything panicky and foolish.
Baseball bat stew
Anyone who has grown more than a couple of zucchini plants knows that the squashes can grow surprisingly fast after a rain, and that some of them are extraordinarily clever at camouflage. As a result it's a rare year when you don't have to harvest at least a couple of two foot long six inch in diameter monsters. Most folks throw these on the mulch heap, and I usually do that too, but I've always hated doing that, which is why I invented baseball bat stew, not that I've ever called it that before.
Mom used to very occasionally make a somewhat similar stew but she used little meatballs that she would mix and painstakingly roll by hand, and she used regular sized zucchinis which meant she had to carefully gauge the cooking time or they would turn to mush. She also used to core out peeled medium sized zucchinis, stuff them with meatball mixture, brown them a little and then put them into her tomato gravy to cook, but she didn't do that often which makes me think Pop probably didn't like zucchinis.
My recipe is for the lazy cook - cutting up Italian sausage into small pieces is a lot easier than making little meatballs, especially if you put it into the freezer for an hour or two before cutting it. Also, a big old squash is not going to get mushy, or at least not too mushy, no matter how long you cook it. The squash will get mushy if you freeze the resulting stew, but I actually don't mind it that way so I freeze lunch sized portions for me to eat later.
Ingredients:
About 90 minutes of preparation time
1 very large zucchini squash or 2 pretty large ones
2 pounds of hot Italian sausage (it also works reasonably well with sweet Italian sausage)
12 or so garden tomatoes or 2 sixteen ounce cans of chopped tomatoes
2 large onions
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
Cut the Italian sausage into pieces about one inch long and put it in the pot with the olive oil on medium high to saute, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile chop the onions coarsely and slice each garlic clove a few times across. Also cut the ends off the squash, peel it, cut it in half and use a soup spoon to remove the seeds and pulp around them. Then cut up the squash into one inch cubes.
Throw the onions in the pot after the meat is reasonably browned and saute them a bit, then throw the squash cubes in and stir the whole mess around to coat the squash with oil as it also sautes a bit. Then dump in the peeled, seeded and roughly chopped garden tomatoes (or the cans of chopped tomatoes. Add a level teaspoon of salt. Put the top on the pot and boil it on medium low for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Add a glass of water if it seems to be two dry after it has cooked for a half hour or so.
Having a sliced Corropolese seeded split loaf on hand is a good idea.
Mom used to very occasionally make a somewhat similar stew but she used little meatballs that she would mix and painstakingly roll by hand, and she used regular sized zucchinis which meant she had to carefully gauge the cooking time or they would turn to mush. She also used to core out peeled medium sized zucchinis, stuff them with meatball mixture, brown them a little and then put them into her tomato gravy to cook, but she didn't do that often which makes me think Pop probably didn't like zucchinis.
My recipe is for the lazy cook - cutting up Italian sausage into small pieces is a lot easier than making little meatballs, especially if you put it into the freezer for an hour or two before cutting it. Also, a big old squash is not going to get mushy, or at least not too mushy, no matter how long you cook it. The squash will get mushy if you freeze the resulting stew, but I actually don't mind it that way so I freeze lunch sized portions for me to eat later.
Ingredients:
About 90 minutes of preparation time
1 very large zucchini squash or 2 pretty large ones
2 pounds of hot Italian sausage (it also works reasonably well with sweet Italian sausage)
12 or so garden tomatoes or 2 sixteen ounce cans of chopped tomatoes
2 large onions
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
Cut the Italian sausage into pieces about one inch long and put it in the pot with the olive oil on medium high to saute, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile chop the onions coarsely and slice each garlic clove a few times across. Also cut the ends off the squash, peel it, cut it in half and use a soup spoon to remove the seeds and pulp around them. Then cut up the squash into one inch cubes.
Throw the onions in the pot after the meat is reasonably browned and saute them a bit, then throw the squash cubes in and stir the whole mess around to coat the squash with oil as it also sautes a bit. Then dump in the peeled, seeded and roughly chopped garden tomatoes (or the cans of chopped tomatoes. Add a level teaspoon of salt. Put the top on the pot and boil it on medium low for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Add a glass of water if it seems to be two dry after it has cooked for a half hour or so.
Having a sliced Corropolese seeded split loaf on hand is a good idea.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Here's your chance to be a genuine billionaire
Everybody complains about not having enough money. Here's an article that explains where you can pick up enough loot to become the first billionaire on your block. We should import a few trillion dollars and use them to buy back all of the government bonds the Chinese have been buying with the dollars we send them in exchange for happy meal toys and other necessities.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/19/zimbabwe.banknotes/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/19/zimbabwe.banknotes/index.html
I finished "Streets of Laredo" the other day
I finished Streets of Laredo the other day and I even returned the book to Sam, although it was probably my book that he borrowed originally.
What a great read! Great enough so I've suspended my other scheduled reading and taken down Lonesome Dove for probably my third or fourth read. Comanche Moon will inevitably follow.
Larry McMurtry has a real knack for involving one with the characters in a story.
Uh,oh - a hummingbird just briefly visited our window feeder and contemptuously turned up his beak at the week old nectar in it. I need to get out there and clean it and the other feeders.
I'll have to wait until tomorrow to post the recipe for baseball bat stew.
What a great read! Great enough so I've suspended my other scheduled reading and taken down Lonesome Dove for probably my third or fourth read. Comanche Moon will inevitably follow.
Larry McMurtry has a real knack for involving one with the characters in a story.
Uh,oh - a hummingbird just briefly visited our window feeder and contemptuously turned up his beak at the week old nectar in it. I need to get out there and clean it and the other feeders.
I'll have to wait until tomorrow to post the recipe for baseball bat stew.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Mulberry season is over so now I can share this
A very long time ago in a place a few miles from here Aunt Nancy Luzi shared some knowledge with me that I've been mostly suppressing for lo these many years. But, now I've decided to come clean.
It was a pleasant early summer day, possibly a Memorial Day for Aunt Nancy, Uncle Pete, Camille, Johnny and Peter (this was before Laurie was born) usually came out to our parents house way out in the country a few times a summer. The Memorial Day picnic would have been a logical time for them to brave the long four mile trek from Norristown although it could have been any of the Sundays during mulberry season.
Ah, mulberry season, how can one pass on an appreciation of what that meant to kids back in the mid 1950's before sugar became the predominant source of calories in our diets. This was the era when something sweet was still a treat, the era when Sundays and especially holidays still had meaning for the good foods to be had on those days.
Anyway it was certainly mulberry season, for us kids had happily spent an hour or so gathering juicy ripe berries from the wild trees in our large quarter-acre yard and over in the trackless wastes of Harry Mandrachs enormous two acre back lot. Naturally we had eaten a lot of berries while we were picking, but each of us returned to the yard with a plastic cup or ricotta container more or less full of them. We were looking forward to eating the berries in the cups by handfuls, a whole different experience than eating them daintily one by one off the tree. But first, since we were within sight of the adults now, we rinsed them off with water generously laced with the refreshing taste of the polyvinyl chloride that leached from the hose.
But then Aunt Nancy, always a bit more fastidious than our parents, struck. And she struck hard. She pointed out that even after the berries were washed there were still little beige colored bugs darting back and forth from between the lobes of the berries.
The horror! Bugs! Exquisitely tiny bugs to be sure, but still, bugs on and in the berries, quite a generous number of bugs, at least several could be seen on each berry at any given time, and who knew how many others were hiding down in between the lobes. And they were there despite the fact that we had more or less avoided picking berries festooned with the white of bird droppings, and even after we had carefully washed the berries. God only knew how many of those little bugs were already swimming around in our stomachs. To eat the berries in the cups would only add more.
Well, suffice it to say, we couldn't eat the berries within sight of the adults after that. The more adventurous among us had to take those cups of berries all the way around the corner of the house to, uh, dispose of them by handfuls.
To this day I can't eat mulberries when I happen to pass under a loaded tree on my tractor without remembering that the bugs are there, even though it has been years since I've been able to see the tiny things without my drugstore glasses, one of the reasons I never wear those glasses when I'm out mowing or working in the woods in early summer.
I feel a lot better now that I've shared that with you. It was a lot easier to get that off my chest than it is to get mulberry juice stains out of a tee shirt when I forget to wear a maroon one.
It was a pleasant early summer day, possibly a Memorial Day for Aunt Nancy, Uncle Pete, Camille, Johnny and Peter (this was before Laurie was born) usually came out to our parents house way out in the country a few times a summer. The Memorial Day picnic would have been a logical time for them to brave the long four mile trek from Norristown although it could have been any of the Sundays during mulberry season.
Ah, mulberry season, how can one pass on an appreciation of what that meant to kids back in the mid 1950's before sugar became the predominant source of calories in our diets. This was the era when something sweet was still a treat, the era when Sundays and especially holidays still had meaning for the good foods to be had on those days.
Anyway it was certainly mulberry season, for us kids had happily spent an hour or so gathering juicy ripe berries from the wild trees in our large quarter-acre yard and over in the trackless wastes of Harry Mandrachs enormous two acre back lot. Naturally we had eaten a lot of berries while we were picking, but each of us returned to the yard with a plastic cup or ricotta container more or less full of them. We were looking forward to eating the berries in the cups by handfuls, a whole different experience than eating them daintily one by one off the tree. But first, since we were within sight of the adults now, we rinsed them off with water generously laced with the refreshing taste of the polyvinyl chloride that leached from the hose.
But then Aunt Nancy, always a bit more fastidious than our parents, struck. And she struck hard. She pointed out that even after the berries were washed there were still little beige colored bugs darting back and forth from between the lobes of the berries.
The horror! Bugs! Exquisitely tiny bugs to be sure, but still, bugs on and in the berries, quite a generous number of bugs, at least several could be seen on each berry at any given time, and who knew how many others were hiding down in between the lobes. And they were there despite the fact that we had more or less avoided picking berries festooned with the white of bird droppings, and even after we had carefully washed the berries. God only knew how many of those little bugs were already swimming around in our stomachs. To eat the berries in the cups would only add more.
Well, suffice it to say, we couldn't eat the berries within sight of the adults after that. The more adventurous among us had to take those cups of berries all the way around the corner of the house to, uh, dispose of them by handfuls.
To this day I can't eat mulberries when I happen to pass under a loaded tree on my tractor without remembering that the bugs are there, even though it has been years since I've been able to see the tiny things without my drugstore glasses, one of the reasons I never wear those glasses when I'm out mowing or working in the woods in early summer.
I feel a lot better now that I've shared that with you. It was a lot easier to get that off my chest than it is to get mulberry juice stains out of a tee shirt when I forget to wear a maroon one.
Ouch! Being filmed signing a petition to ban water must hurt
I think Penn and Teller may be a bit less popular with environmentalists after folks see this video. It's 29 minutes long but there are a lot of hilarious parts. I liked the part where they got the passionate tree huggers at the rally to sign a petition to ban water by calling it dihydrogen monoxide and telling folks that it causes symptoms like sweating and frequent urination and is often released into reservoirs and lakes and streams by corporations. The sheer cluelessness of the spokesperson that the environmental group assigned to answer their questions is also a riot.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30767_Penn_and_Teller_Take_on_Environmental_Hysteria
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30767_Penn_and_Teller_Take_on_Environmental_Hysteria
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Civilization is a bit less secure this week
Both of my brothers are down in Florida so this is one of the unusual Saturday mornings on which the issues of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, the nation and the world are not getting their proper attention. For almost 20 years John and Sam have come over on at least 90% of Saturday mornings to complain that my coffee is too strong, and then join me in applying our collective wisdom to preserving civilization. Before we began gathering at my place we met in pop's kitchen for most of the 20 years before that.
Al Russo joined us regularly in the flesh for a couple of years until he moved to Florida, and he still joins us via cell phone on many if not most Saturdays. Dave Capone has occasionally joined us over the years to bring a more progressive opinion to the discussion, an opinion that was especially welcome for novelty back before John began his move over to the dark side. Matty Raimo, back before he sadly took his last flight into the wild, wild, blue this spring, would sometimes join us when he was in town to give us the airline pilots' union perspective. Other cousins - Charles Prince, Chubby Jackinski, Sonny Raimo, Bobby Russo - have made cameo appearances over the years, especially before Pop passed away, but I'm not sure any has repeated. Wives and female cousins have also occasionally sat in for as long as they could tolerate the atavistic opinions that pass between men who have known one another well since before the entire world became messed up.
Al Russo joined us regularly in the flesh for a couple of years until he moved to Florida, and he still joins us via cell phone on many if not most Saturdays. Dave Capone has occasionally joined us over the years to bring a more progressive opinion to the discussion, an opinion that was especially welcome for novelty back before John began his move over to the dark side. Matty Raimo, back before he sadly took his last flight into the wild, wild, blue this spring, would sometimes join us when he was in town to give us the airline pilots' union perspective. Other cousins - Charles Prince, Chubby Jackinski, Sonny Raimo, Bobby Russo - have made cameo appearances over the years, especially before Pop passed away, but I'm not sure any has repeated. Wives and female cousins have also occasionally sat in for as long as they could tolerate the atavistic opinions that pass between men who have known one another well since before the entire world became messed up.
Friday, July 25, 2008
He ventured forth to bring light to the world
If you know your bible at all you will enjoy this piece of satire from the London Times. If you don't know your bible well enough to enjoy it you need to begone from this site illiterate one.
It starts like this:
"And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow."
Nothing else in it quite rises to the comic level of that last phrase in the second paragraph, but the rest has other funny spots. You can read the whole thing at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece
It starts like this:
"And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow."
Nothing else in it quite rises to the comic level of that last phrase in the second paragraph, but the rest has other funny spots. You can read the whole thing at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4392846.ece
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Surprise! There is a yellow water lily blooming in the pond
Louise Venezia's husband gave me three water lily bulbs after he, Louise and I ate the excellent cheese steak he went out and got while we were planting flowers at Mom's and Grandmom's graves down at St. Patrick's cemetary earlier in the Spring. Louise had asked me to come over and help her to do the planting when we sat together at the service for Matty Raimo.
One of the bulbs apparently didn't survive the two moves I had to make of them as water levels in the pond have receeded with the drought, but the other two plants seem reasonably healthy. I didn't expect blooms this year, but there it is. It's one pathetic little flower but it's hopefully a sign that the lillies will survive and spread to take over the pond and displace or at least hold down the algae.
Meanwhile, today I'm agitated about the subject of nuclear waste. The whole controversy over nuclear waste makes me wonder whether we deserve to survive as a species. The Egyptians were able to build pyramids 5,000 years ago that have survived quite well. A couple of pyramids could hold all the nuclear waste we can conceivably generate in the next 1,000 years. And you could tuck a couple of pyramids into Death Valley in spots where only a supernaturally dedicated hiker could reach them, spots that would bother no one. Surround them with a ten foot fence patrolled by marines who have to go into the desert regularly to train anyway and they would be safe from anything short of an invasion by Martians.
As to worrying about primitive peoples breaking into them and burning their fingers in 100,000 years I can't understand the concern about stuff like that unless we're going to start fencing off volcanos and hot springs all over the world so primitive people don't fall into them in the event civilization collapses.
Update - maybe we do have to worry about an invasion by Martians. It turns out that a former astronaut believes NASA is covering up visits by aliens - see below from an Australian site news.com.au
FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us
One of the bulbs apparently didn't survive the two moves I had to make of them as water levels in the pond have receeded with the drought, but the other two plants seem reasonably healthy. I didn't expect blooms this year, but there it is. It's one pathetic little flower but it's hopefully a sign that the lillies will survive and spread to take over the pond and displace or at least hold down the algae.
Meanwhile, today I'm agitated about the subject of nuclear waste. The whole controversy over nuclear waste makes me wonder whether we deserve to survive as a species. The Egyptians were able to build pyramids 5,000 years ago that have survived quite well. A couple of pyramids could hold all the nuclear waste we can conceivably generate in the next 1,000 years. And you could tuck a couple of pyramids into Death Valley in spots where only a supernaturally dedicated hiker could reach them, spots that would bother no one. Surround them with a ten foot fence patrolled by marines who have to go into the desert regularly to train anyway and they would be safe from anything short of an invasion by Martians.
As to worrying about primitive peoples breaking into them and burning their fingers in 100,000 years I can't understand the concern about stuff like that unless we're going to start fencing off volcanos and hot springs all over the world so primitive people don't fall into them in the event civilization collapses.
Update - maybe we do have to worry about an invasion by Martians. It turns out that a former astronaut believes NASA is covering up visits by aliens - see below from an Australian site news.com.au
FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Having at it with folks at badastronomy.com
Sometimes my judgement deserts me and I comment on other sites. Usually the results are not pretty but this discussion with what seem to be pretty knowledgeable people on badastronomy.com was very productive. I've been becoming less of a skeptic about global warming for some time. The net of this discussion is that I think I've now moved all the way over subject to a review of the material on the "start here" page on realclimate.org.
We need to do something serious about CO2 in the short to mid-term. Now the question becomes what to do and how fast.
The following discussion started with my reaction to a political post on badastronomy.com which irritated me.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 7:53 am
I thought science was supposed to be predictive. Hanson put out predictions of future temperatures. Unless I’m reading it wrong the temperatures have not followed his predictions for several years. I understand that the system is very complex and hence prediction is difficult, but why should I be willing to change my already relatively green lifestyle based on a predictive system that has failed?
And this notion of so called environmentalists living like pigs while buying indulgences in the form of carbon credits does not build confidence.
And T.Boone Pickens is a businessman ready to jump onto the environmental bandwagon for subsidies and special favors, just like those who jumped on environmentalism for ethanol subsidies, although I can’t help but like the man for answering honestly when asked why he doesn’t have windmills on his ranch. ‘They’re ugly,’ is basicly what he said.
And Phil Plait, I like your site for the astronomy but I think you’re acting more than a little like the Allah in the gristle folks on this topic.
MartinM Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
Unless I’m reading it wrong the temperatures have not followed his predictions for several years.
‘Several years’ is too short to establish meaningful trends. The observed long-term trends fit nicely with model predictions, however.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Sully,I think you meant to type Dr. James Hansen rather than Hanson. What have you read about his predictions and where? Is the notion of “so called environmentalists living like pigs” true? How do you know this?
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
“Several years’ is too short to establish meaningful trends. The observed long-term trends fit nicely with model predictions, however.”
Was there a model before the “observed long term trends” that predicted them?
It’s been said that predictions, especially about the future, are hard. Back in a younger day I spent some time going back in the history of the stock market and discovering “models” that “predicted” some aspect of it. Since I’m not rich I have to assume that making models about complex systems to predict past events does not necessarily mean one can make a model that predicts future events.
As an aside I’ll mention that I’m not a total doubter just from the simple fact that we must at some point get big enough in our activities to have effect on the overall environment. I thought and said in the 1970’s that we should start a small tax on imported oil and increase that tax gradually and predictably every year until no more oil was imported. I think we should do the same thing now on all fossil fuels, but doing that cleanly and openly and gradually is a lot different from what I think we’re going to get out of the sausage factory down in Washington if we let this train run through that place at high speed.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Mark - thanks for the correction. I read the the Hansen stuff on a link from Climate Debate daily on the environmentalist side of the list. What struck me was that the answer to the question about why his predictions had not panned out was defensive and scornful of the doubters rather than honest and illuminating. When I commented (respectfully I thought) to that effect, my comment was censored as judgemental even though I was commenting on the judgementalism of the article and some of the comments.
As to living like pigs anyone who owns a home larger than about 1000 square feet per person in his family, or who uses, even one time, a private jet on a route served by a regular flight is a pig in my personal measuring system, and he or she is a hypocritical pig if he or she purports to be an “environmentalist.” Al Gore is the archetype. What really surprises me is that he’s so dumb as to provide his enemies with the easy ammunition his life style provides. Sort of like a fat doctor smoking and drinking while he tries to convince a patient to live healthy.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Sully,
Why would you consider Climate Debate authoritative on Hansen? Please post the link to the actual discussion you are referencing.What if the house is doubling as office with employees? Does this not alter your perception or are you immune to complexity on this? Since you are obviously referring to Al Gore have you read how he is offsetting his carbon energy use?Your analogy is really poor, or good depending on point of view. Since the health effects of being overweight, smoking, and, I assume you meant excessive, drinking are blindingly obvious, than it is irrelevant that the doctor is not practicing what he tells the patient. This is, as if I should have to point this out, because the health benefits still exist for losing weight, quiting smoking, and moderating or stopping all alcohol consumption. So your argument fails to convince as the evidence is that changing our carbon consumption habits will bring many benefits whether public speakers are perfect or not. QED.
Chip Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Sully -Ha! Get real. You probably also believe Al Gore said he invented the internet and that the Nobel Prize he earned is worthless. At least those are the Limbaugh-Hannity inspired goofy talking points. Yet no mention of Republican supporter T. Boone Pickens having to give up his wealth and live in a house less than 1000 square feet in order to legitimately promote his energy independence plans? Give me a break. The truth is neither of them should and both of them support energy efficiency. Your arguments are made of straw. Have a nice day. For change try tuning in to Air America sometime.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Mark - Climate Debate links to sites arguing both sides - for the record I think the environmentalist side sites are generally more convincing than the doubter side sites, but I don’t keep a list of links, and, frankly, I’m not qualified to judge the more complex arguments.
However, I’ve read sites on both sides of the debate about the issue of Hansen’s predictions and their recent innacuracy. When a theory fails to predict I expect folks to at least be open to the possibility that the theory is flawed. Folks who merely cite dogma don’t impress me, and a lot of the environmentals seem to spout dogma.
As to “Since you are obviously referring to Al Gore have you read how he is offsetting his carbon energy use?”
Here’s another analogy for you. If a murderer feeds the poor and contributes to orphanages it doesn’t absolve him of murder. Generating CO2 is either bad or good. If it’s bad one shouldn’t capriciously generate it no matter how many trees one plants. Private jet travel capriciously and unnecessarily generates CO2, as does living in a 10,000 square foot house.
Good point about him possibly having staff in the house. If Gore has staff in the house and it’s his office he should publicize that but then I will want to know how much office and living space he rents or owns elsewhere for himself and his staff.
Subject to more info I have to assume that Al Gore wants to live like a king while he preaches like a prophet and pushes for laws to circumscribe the lives of others. He’s not the only one who wants to do that, but it still makes him a hypocrite. And, I saw the hockey stick graph he pointed to and later noted that it was statistically falsified. I don’t know he was aware that it was cooked up when he showed it, but. . . now I have to doubt his other “evidence” especially in light of the recent turnaround of the temperatures. Why I should have been surprised that a lifelong politician would play fast and loose with facts is another question.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Chip,You apparently don’t read or analyze very well.
I mentioned T. Boone Pickens earlier and my comment wasn’t flattering although I gave him some credit for honesty.
Also, I never said that anyone has to live in 1000 square feet or give up his wealth as you allege. I said that anyone who poses as an environmentalist is a hypocritical pig if he flies in private jets or lives in more than 1000 square feet. There are excellent sources on logic and usage out there for you to study if you have trouble understanding the difference between the two concepts.
UPDATE (not posted on badastronomy.com) - 4:26 PM - it was hailing a few minutes ago here in Collegeville, and it's now raining cats and dogs. Well, it's not literally raining cats and dogs, but you get the idea. We need the rain.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Sully,
Try this regarding Dr. Hansen’s original model:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
Brant D Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Sully: Saying that the models are failing currently because of a temporary decrease in observed global average temperature is silly in the long term view. If you look at the GISS data that were presented earlier in this discussion, you would see that according to your definition of a model failing or being inaccurate - predicting a warming trend when the obs show cooling - since the year 1980 the models failed in predicting 1982, 1984-1985, 1989, 1991-1992, 1996, 1999-2000, 2003-2004, and 2006. Yes, not every year is warmer than the last. Not every year has a monster El Nino event like 1998 did. Natural variability does not disappear even with GW. The models have problems, yes, but replicating a very fundamental property in our atmosphere, the relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and global average temperature, is not one of them. I find your position silly and unrepresentative of both the observations and the state of the science currently.
You mentioned that good science should have predictive power. So here is a prediction for you: the next time Earth experiences an El Nino event with an order of magnitude comparable to the 1998 event, the temporary rise in global average temperature will swamp any temporary cooling Earth may have experienced in the years beforehand. It will stick out in the temperature record just as strongly as the 1998 anomaly currently does. I also predict that the response from TeeVee talking heads will be hysterical, and well worth the popcorn and cola consumed watching them making ridiculous excuses.
Also, please don’t confuse what environmentalists say with what climate scientists and other professionals say. Environmentalist groups like Greenpeace might mean well, but scientists generally many of their claims to be questionable at best.
Ragutis Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ah… I think I figured it out. His critics are hoping Al Gore will begin living the hermit lifestyle in a cave so he’ll stop being in the public eye, raising awareness, and persuading governments to change energy policy.
He doesn’t have much choice in terms of security and travel decisions. The Secret Service pretty much dictates that. I doubt Nancy Reagan can get her hair done without a dude with sunglasses and an earpiece tagging along. And anyone with any experience in business or politics knows the value of face-to-face meetings. Teleconferencing and video-meetings are useful, but limited. A look in the eye and a firm handshake can be invaluable.
He runs offices out of his house, with a staff. So, yeah, the electric bill is sorta high. Especially since he pays 3 times the regular rate to get green power. And he’s also extensively renovated recently to improve the efficiency significantly beyond what one would expect of the typical 80+ year old home.
And you know what? Even if he was the biggest hypocrite in his lifestyle, that wouldn’t change a damn thing about the fact that AGW is real and happening. And who the hell ever said we need to adopt some ascetic lifestyle in the first place? There may be some radicals saying we should tear down the cities and return to the wild, but just about every rational person is looking at solutions for us to keep our way of life, as well as improve that of others in undeveloped nations only without releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the environment.
“So-called ‘global warming’ is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!”
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Mark S - Thanks for the patience and the link but unfortunately I don’t understand it a lot better today than I did the last time I read it last fall or so. Now that I’ve seen that site again I do recall that it was on that site that I observed a bunch of judgemental and downright nasty comments about doubters or questioners who posted but where my comment questioning some of the premises of the judgemental posters was censored by the monitor. Maybe it was just one monitor and maybe he had seen enough of back and forth on the questions, but since then I’ve been suspicious of RealClimate as at least as much a quasi-religious site as a scientific one.
Brant D. - “Also, please don’t confuse what environmentalists say with what climate scientists and other professionals say. Environmentalist groups like Greenpeace might mean well, but scientists generally many of their claims to be questionable at best.”
The problem is that non-climatologists like me have to depend on popularizers, so naturally we judge the debate based on the pronouncements of the popularizers for each side. The doubters say we can continue with our lifestyles and relax so they start with a natural advantage since no one wants to be taxed or forced to sacrifice if that isn’t necessary. The burden of scientific proof and the burden of effectively selling that proof are with those who want us to act.
And, re your prediction about the effects of an el nino. The prediction that matters is what the average global temperature is going to be in 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 etc. if we do nothing. Hansen was (trusting RealClimate.org) reasonably predictive between 1988 and 2005 but that’s only 17 years. And I understand (from other reading) that he was not so predictive re 2006 and 2007. It’s all well and good to say that data from a couple or a few years can be anomalous but not when you only have only 17 years of successful prediction behind you.
So what is a voter to do?
Brant D Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Sully: I agree that climatologists do not do a good job of communicating the science to the public, hence the overreliance on popularizers. Naturally most climatologists have the public relations ability of a bookworm, and training for this kind of work is not emphasized at all in the profession. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done. The “burden of proof” has been met, in fact was met at least a decade ago, but this point is not well communicated.
However, I also infer from your words that you expect the general public to be passive participants in this topic, receiving their information only from the TeeVee from designated media outlets. I am highly critical of this opinion. Democracy depends on active participation from the public in order to succeed. As a nation we are going to crash and burn if we make no effort to doublecheck the official sources. And that includes questions where the answers may not be particularly comforting. I understand that unfortunately many people actually do operate as passive participants currently, but that doesn’t mean it is a good idea. And if you think that this is the way things were, are, and always will be, then I can’t find much hope or a reason to care about the future.
Also, “sacrifice” is what religious people offer to deities. The word you are looking for is “investment”. It takes money to make money.
As for the prediction, I offered a prediction that could be likely be verified within the next decade or two. You keep pushing the interval of prediction back further into the future, so that it would be impossible to meet the obligation you set up. It might warm from 2010 to 2040, but what if it cools from 2040 to 2050? That’s the silliness that the AGW contrarians pull (not that you are a contrarian), and sadly it convinces people. As as for prediction, the first prediction for AGW was made in the late 19th century. It was not taken seriously back then, and rightly so (no known way to verify), but the math that predicts AGW is over a century old. And while global climate models are only three decades old, and the best ones one decade old, they have succesfully “retrodicted” the long-term warming trend over the past century. It is impossible to explain what happened in the 20th century without considering the influence of CO2. So the timespan in which we can check the theory with the observations is longer than 17 years.
Sully Says: July 24th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Brant - Very good points and thanks for the patience. I’ll review the “start here” material on realclimate.org again, more carefully this time.
We need to do something serious about CO2 in the short to mid-term. Now the question becomes what to do and how fast.
The following discussion started with my reaction to a political post on badastronomy.com which irritated me.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 7:53 am
I thought science was supposed to be predictive. Hanson put out predictions of future temperatures. Unless I’m reading it wrong the temperatures have not followed his predictions for several years. I understand that the system is very complex and hence prediction is difficult, but why should I be willing to change my already relatively green lifestyle based on a predictive system that has failed?
And this notion of so called environmentalists living like pigs while buying indulgences in the form of carbon credits does not build confidence.
And T.Boone Pickens is a businessman ready to jump onto the environmental bandwagon for subsidies and special favors, just like those who jumped on environmentalism for ethanol subsidies, although I can’t help but like the man for answering honestly when asked why he doesn’t have windmills on his ranch. ‘They’re ugly,’ is basicly what he said.
And Phil Plait, I like your site for the astronomy but I think you’re acting more than a little like the Allah in the gristle folks on this topic.
MartinM Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
Unless I’m reading it wrong the temperatures have not followed his predictions for several years.
‘Several years’ is too short to establish meaningful trends. The observed long-term trends fit nicely with model predictions, however.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
Sully,I think you meant to type Dr. James Hansen rather than Hanson. What have you read about his predictions and where? Is the notion of “so called environmentalists living like pigs” true? How do you know this?
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 am
“Several years’ is too short to establish meaningful trends. The observed long-term trends fit nicely with model predictions, however.”
Was there a model before the “observed long term trends” that predicted them?
It’s been said that predictions, especially about the future, are hard. Back in a younger day I spent some time going back in the history of the stock market and discovering “models” that “predicted” some aspect of it. Since I’m not rich I have to assume that making models about complex systems to predict past events does not necessarily mean one can make a model that predicts future events.
As an aside I’ll mention that I’m not a total doubter just from the simple fact that we must at some point get big enough in our activities to have effect on the overall environment. I thought and said in the 1970’s that we should start a small tax on imported oil and increase that tax gradually and predictably every year until no more oil was imported. I think we should do the same thing now on all fossil fuels, but doing that cleanly and openly and gradually is a lot different from what I think we’re going to get out of the sausage factory down in Washington if we let this train run through that place at high speed.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Mark - thanks for the correction. I read the the Hansen stuff on a link from Climate Debate daily on the environmentalist side of the list. What struck me was that the answer to the question about why his predictions had not panned out was defensive and scornful of the doubters rather than honest and illuminating. When I commented (respectfully I thought) to that effect, my comment was censored as judgemental even though I was commenting on the judgementalism of the article and some of the comments.
As to living like pigs anyone who owns a home larger than about 1000 square feet per person in his family, or who uses, even one time, a private jet on a route served by a regular flight is a pig in my personal measuring system, and he or she is a hypocritical pig if he or she purports to be an “environmentalist.” Al Gore is the archetype. What really surprises me is that he’s so dumb as to provide his enemies with the easy ammunition his life style provides. Sort of like a fat doctor smoking and drinking while he tries to convince a patient to live healthy.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Sully,
Why would you consider Climate Debate authoritative on Hansen? Please post the link to the actual discussion you are referencing.What if the house is doubling as office with employees? Does this not alter your perception or are you immune to complexity on this? Since you are obviously referring to Al Gore have you read how he is offsetting his carbon energy use?Your analogy is really poor, or good depending on point of view. Since the health effects of being overweight, smoking, and, I assume you meant excessive, drinking are blindingly obvious, than it is irrelevant that the doctor is not practicing what he tells the patient. This is, as if I should have to point this out, because the health benefits still exist for losing weight, quiting smoking, and moderating or stopping all alcohol consumption. So your argument fails to convince as the evidence is that changing our carbon consumption habits will bring many benefits whether public speakers are perfect or not. QED.
Chip Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Sully -Ha! Get real. You probably also believe Al Gore said he invented the internet and that the Nobel Prize he earned is worthless. At least those are the Limbaugh-Hannity inspired goofy talking points. Yet no mention of Republican supporter T. Boone Pickens having to give up his wealth and live in a house less than 1000 square feet in order to legitimately promote his energy independence plans? Give me a break. The truth is neither of them should and both of them support energy efficiency. Your arguments are made of straw. Have a nice day. For change try tuning in to Air America sometime.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Mark - Climate Debate links to sites arguing both sides - for the record I think the environmentalist side sites are generally more convincing than the doubter side sites, but I don’t keep a list of links, and, frankly, I’m not qualified to judge the more complex arguments.
However, I’ve read sites on both sides of the debate about the issue of Hansen’s predictions and their recent innacuracy. When a theory fails to predict I expect folks to at least be open to the possibility that the theory is flawed. Folks who merely cite dogma don’t impress me, and a lot of the environmentals seem to spout dogma.
As to “Since you are obviously referring to Al Gore have you read how he is offsetting his carbon energy use?”
Here’s another analogy for you. If a murderer feeds the poor and contributes to orphanages it doesn’t absolve him of murder. Generating CO2 is either bad or good. If it’s bad one shouldn’t capriciously generate it no matter how many trees one plants. Private jet travel capriciously and unnecessarily generates CO2, as does living in a 10,000 square foot house.
Good point about him possibly having staff in the house. If Gore has staff in the house and it’s his office he should publicize that but then I will want to know how much office and living space he rents or owns elsewhere for himself and his staff.
Subject to more info I have to assume that Al Gore wants to live like a king while he preaches like a prophet and pushes for laws to circumscribe the lives of others. He’s not the only one who wants to do that, but it still makes him a hypocrite. And, I saw the hockey stick graph he pointed to and later noted that it was statistically falsified. I don’t know he was aware that it was cooked up when he showed it, but. . . now I have to doubt his other “evidence” especially in light of the recent turnaround of the temperatures. Why I should have been surprised that a lifelong politician would play fast and loose with facts is another question.
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Chip,You apparently don’t read or analyze very well.
I mentioned T. Boone Pickens earlier and my comment wasn’t flattering although I gave him some credit for honesty.
Also, I never said that anyone has to live in 1000 square feet or give up his wealth as you allege. I said that anyone who poses as an environmentalist is a hypocritical pig if he flies in private jets or lives in more than 1000 square feet. There are excellent sources on logic and usage out there for you to study if you have trouble understanding the difference between the two concepts.
UPDATE (not posted on badastronomy.com) - 4:26 PM - it was hailing a few minutes ago here in Collegeville, and it's now raining cats and dogs. Well, it's not literally raining cats and dogs, but you get the idea. We need the rain.
Mark Schaffer Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Sully,
Try this regarding Dr. Hansen’s original model:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
Brant D Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Sully: Saying that the models are failing currently because of a temporary decrease in observed global average temperature is silly in the long term view. If you look at the GISS data that were presented earlier in this discussion, you would see that according to your definition of a model failing or being inaccurate - predicting a warming trend when the obs show cooling - since the year 1980 the models failed in predicting 1982, 1984-1985, 1989, 1991-1992, 1996, 1999-2000, 2003-2004, and 2006. Yes, not every year is warmer than the last. Not every year has a monster El Nino event like 1998 did. Natural variability does not disappear even with GW. The models have problems, yes, but replicating a very fundamental property in our atmosphere, the relationship between greenhouse gas concentration and global average temperature, is not one of them. I find your position silly and unrepresentative of both the observations and the state of the science currently.
You mentioned that good science should have predictive power. So here is a prediction for you: the next time Earth experiences an El Nino event with an order of magnitude comparable to the 1998 event, the temporary rise in global average temperature will swamp any temporary cooling Earth may have experienced in the years beforehand. It will stick out in the temperature record just as strongly as the 1998 anomaly currently does. I also predict that the response from TeeVee talking heads will be hysterical, and well worth the popcorn and cola consumed watching them making ridiculous excuses.
Also, please don’t confuse what environmentalists say with what climate scientists and other professionals say. Environmentalist groups like Greenpeace might mean well, but scientists generally many of their claims to be questionable at best.
Ragutis Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ah… I think I figured it out. His critics are hoping Al Gore will begin living the hermit lifestyle in a cave so he’ll stop being in the public eye, raising awareness, and persuading governments to change energy policy.
He doesn’t have much choice in terms of security and travel decisions. The Secret Service pretty much dictates that. I doubt Nancy Reagan can get her hair done without a dude with sunglasses and an earpiece tagging along. And anyone with any experience in business or politics knows the value of face-to-face meetings. Teleconferencing and video-meetings are useful, but limited. A look in the eye and a firm handshake can be invaluable.
He runs offices out of his house, with a staff. So, yeah, the electric bill is sorta high. Especially since he pays 3 times the regular rate to get green power. And he’s also extensively renovated recently to improve the efficiency significantly beyond what one would expect of the typical 80+ year old home.
And you know what? Even if he was the biggest hypocrite in his lifestyle, that wouldn’t change a damn thing about the fact that AGW is real and happening. And who the hell ever said we need to adopt some ascetic lifestyle in the first place? There may be some radicals saying we should tear down the cities and return to the wild, but just about every rational person is looking at solutions for us to keep our way of life, as well as improve that of others in undeveloped nations only without releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the environment.
“So-called ‘global warming’ is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!”
Sully Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Mark S - Thanks for the patience and the link but unfortunately I don’t understand it a lot better today than I did the last time I read it last fall or so. Now that I’ve seen that site again I do recall that it was on that site that I observed a bunch of judgemental and downright nasty comments about doubters or questioners who posted but where my comment questioning some of the premises of the judgemental posters was censored by the monitor. Maybe it was just one monitor and maybe he had seen enough of back and forth on the questions, but since then I’ve been suspicious of RealClimate as at least as much a quasi-religious site as a scientific one.
Brant D. - “Also, please don’t confuse what environmentalists say with what climate scientists and other professionals say. Environmentalist groups like Greenpeace might mean well, but scientists generally many of their claims to be questionable at best.”
The problem is that non-climatologists like me have to depend on popularizers, so naturally we judge the debate based on the pronouncements of the popularizers for each side. The doubters say we can continue with our lifestyles and relax so they start with a natural advantage since no one wants to be taxed or forced to sacrifice if that isn’t necessary. The burden of scientific proof and the burden of effectively selling that proof are with those who want us to act.
And, re your prediction about the effects of an el nino. The prediction that matters is what the average global temperature is going to be in 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050 etc. if we do nothing. Hansen was (trusting RealClimate.org) reasonably predictive between 1988 and 2005 but that’s only 17 years. And I understand (from other reading) that he was not so predictive re 2006 and 2007. It’s all well and good to say that data from a couple or a few years can be anomalous but not when you only have only 17 years of successful prediction behind you.
So what is a voter to do?
Brant D Says: July 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Sully: I agree that climatologists do not do a good job of communicating the science to the public, hence the overreliance on popularizers. Naturally most climatologists have the public relations ability of a bookworm, and training for this kind of work is not emphasized at all in the profession. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done. The “burden of proof” has been met, in fact was met at least a decade ago, but this point is not well communicated.
However, I also infer from your words that you expect the general public to be passive participants in this topic, receiving their information only from the TeeVee from designated media outlets. I am highly critical of this opinion. Democracy depends on active participation from the public in order to succeed. As a nation we are going to crash and burn if we make no effort to doublecheck the official sources. And that includes questions where the answers may not be particularly comforting. I understand that unfortunately many people actually do operate as passive participants currently, but that doesn’t mean it is a good idea. And if you think that this is the way things were, are, and always will be, then I can’t find much hope or a reason to care about the future.
Also, “sacrifice” is what religious people offer to deities. The word you are looking for is “investment”. It takes money to make money.
As for the prediction, I offered a prediction that could be likely be verified within the next decade or two. You keep pushing the interval of prediction back further into the future, so that it would be impossible to meet the obligation you set up. It might warm from 2010 to 2040, but what if it cools from 2040 to 2050? That’s the silliness that the AGW contrarians pull (not that you are a contrarian), and sadly it convinces people. As as for prediction, the first prediction for AGW was made in the late 19th century. It was not taken seriously back then, and rightly so (no known way to verify), but the math that predicts AGW is over a century old. And while global climate models are only three decades old, and the best ones one decade old, they have succesfully “retrodicted” the long-term warming trend over the past century. It is impossible to explain what happened in the 20th century without considering the influence of CO2. So the timespan in which we can check the theory with the observations is longer than 17 years.
Sully Says: July 24th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Brant - Very good points and thanks for the patience. I’ll review the “start here” material on realclimate.org again, more carefully this time.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Note to self - arrange a ravioli making party
Last night at Sam's we had a great dinner with Delores and Samuel. After dinner I got talking with Samuel about the fact that excellent meat filled ravioli are available at Russo's market in Reading. That lead to remembrance of how great it was when Grandmom Luzi, mom and Aunt Mary Raimo made hundreds of ravioli with the meat and cooked them three ways.
Is there a food better than fried ravioli with powdered sugar, especially when topped off with a hearty plateful of ravioli with gravy and at least a few of the curly kind eaten white with grated cheese?
Angela surely has the recipe and the memory of how to make meat ravioli. Marianne has the rolling machine and perhaps she also has the grinder for the meat filling. Marianne probably also has mom's ravioli cutter and sealer, but if necessary we can cut them with a cup and seal them with a fork. It takes a long time to make ravioli for a big crowd but it's one of those meals which rewards almost as much by the camaraderie of the making as in the eating.
What holiday was reserved for meat ravioli? It wasn't Easter and it wasn't Christmas. It was probably New Years Day. Did they make the ravioli with leftover turkey from Christmas? Angela will know. How would one go about getting all the pieces of this project together?
Is there a food better than fried ravioli with powdered sugar, especially when topped off with a hearty plateful of ravioli with gravy and at least a few of the curly kind eaten white with grated cheese?
Angela surely has the recipe and the memory of how to make meat ravioli. Marianne has the rolling machine and perhaps she also has the grinder for the meat filling. Marianne probably also has mom's ravioli cutter and sealer, but if necessary we can cut them with a cup and seal them with a fork. It takes a long time to make ravioli for a big crowd but it's one of those meals which rewards almost as much by the camaraderie of the making as in the eating.
What holiday was reserved for meat ravioli? It wasn't Easter and it wasn't Christmas. It was probably New Years Day. Did they make the ravioli with leftover turkey from Christmas? Angela will know. How would one go about getting all the pieces of this project together?
Monday, July 21, 2008
Finished one McMurtry, launched on another
The other day I finished McMurtry's "All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers." An excellent book. What a writer Larry McMurtry was at a relatively early age in 1972. He really makes Danny Deck interesting.
Then on Saturday over at Sam's I found McMurtry's much later novel, "Streets of Laredo." It's the last of his three epic western novels along with "Comanche Moon," and "Lonesome Dove." I listened to "Streets of Laredo" as a book tape and then also read it a few years ago, so it's characters are familiar, but still their stories grip and draw me forward. Any reader who doesn't have a positive phobia for the old west can't fail to find interest in Mr. Brookshire, Woodrow Call, P.I. Parker, Joey Garza, Famous Shoes and Lorena Parker. The only advice I'd give is that, while the three books each stand independently, "Comanche Moon," is the best starting place.
How lucky I am to have the time and the opportunity to read "Streets of Laredo" again. I may just go back and do "Comanche Moon" and "Lonesome Dove" again as well. They're long but they're fast reads. In three days I'm already halfway through "Streets," and I really haven't been neglecting any of my other urgent responsibilities, like watching the hummingbird and picking tomatoes as they ripen.
Then on Saturday over at Sam's I found McMurtry's much later novel, "Streets of Laredo." It's the last of his three epic western novels along with "Comanche Moon," and "Lonesome Dove." I listened to "Streets of Laredo" as a book tape and then also read it a few years ago, so it's characters are familiar, but still their stories grip and draw me forward. Any reader who doesn't have a positive phobia for the old west can't fail to find interest in Mr. Brookshire, Woodrow Call, P.I. Parker, Joey Garza, Famous Shoes and Lorena Parker. The only advice I'd give is that, while the three books each stand independently, "Comanche Moon," is the best starting place.
How lucky I am to have the time and the opportunity to read "Streets of Laredo" again. I may just go back and do "Comanche Moon" and "Lonesome Dove" again as well. They're long but they're fast reads. In three days I'm already halfway through "Streets," and I really haven't been neglecting any of my other urgent responsibilities, like watching the hummingbird and picking tomatoes as they ripen.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered that 32 ounces of ricotta
A few weeks ago I discovered that 32 ounces of ricotta, a pound of penne pasta and a ball of mozzarella combine into a lot more than two people can possibly eat. In this case it made two pretty sizable casseroles. One of those casseroles fed me and Linda for a dinner and then me for lunches for the next three days.
That left the other casserole which I put in the freezer. That one is now patiently defrosting. We'll be taking it over to Sam and Debs place in a half hour or so to eat with Delores who is watching Hobbs and the house and pool.
We've been visiting Delores and Hobbs, and the pool, a lot over the past couple of 90+ degree days since Sam and Deb have been out of town. And I've been thinking of Sam a lot. Last night I thought about him while eating the excellent cucumber I liberated from his garden. Home grown cucumbers really are a lot better than store bought. I may consider growing them next year.
That left the other casserole which I put in the freezer. That one is now patiently defrosting. We'll be taking it over to Sam and Debs place in a half hour or so to eat with Delores who is watching Hobbs and the house and pool.
We've been visiting Delores and Hobbs, and the pool, a lot over the past couple of 90+ degree days since Sam and Deb have been out of town. And I've been thinking of Sam a lot. Last night I thought about him while eating the excellent cucumber I liberated from his garden. Home grown cucumbers really are a lot better than store bought. I may consider growing them next year.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Filched peppers make the best lunch
I don't grow peppers in my garden because the supermarket sells peppers just as good as I can grow at home. But the supermarket doesn't sell peppers as good as ones filched from somebody else's garden. And it turns out my brother and his family left for Florida yesterday afternoon. I was in his garden picking and in his pool floating before his plane landed in Orlando. Not that the pool was quiet for my sister and her family also decided it was a good time to visit.
I considered taking some of his luxuriant Swiss Chard while I was there, but Mrs. Sully has been making rebellious noises about the amount of chard we've been eating from my own garden. So it was just as well Marianne decided to thin that out for Sam.
Sam's peppers made a very fine lunch after I fried them up with oil, garlic and a couple of eggs. And his pool will be very fine this afternoon as soon as I finish digesting. It would clearly be a sin to let that pool lie fallow on a day as hot as this. And he has some cucumbers up there that may be getting too big to leave on the vines.
I considered taking some of his luxuriant Swiss Chard while I was there, but Mrs. Sully has been making rebellious noises about the amount of chard we've been eating from my own garden. So it was just as well Marianne decided to thin that out for Sam.
Sam's peppers made a very fine lunch after I fried them up with oil, garlic and a couple of eggs. And his pool will be very fine this afternoon as soon as I finish digesting. It would clearly be a sin to let that pool lie fallow on a day as hot as this. And he has some cucumbers up there that may be getting too big to leave on the vines.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The biggest financial scandal in the history of the world
The biggest financial scandal in the history of the world is now unfolding so there are sure to be some interesting political games played over the next few months and years. Democrats are the chief scalawags involved and they probably have laundered and stashed most of the loot, but since the thievery has been proceeding more or less in plain site for 16 years it's sure that at least some Republicans have managed to glom onto some goodies as well, if only to keep them quiet during the times when they have controlled the congress.
In some ways it's a complicated scandal, and the politicians are sure to make it seem very complicated indeed as they select the five or six designated fall guys to take the rap, but at base it's very simple.
In 1992 Federal Regulators appointed and controlled by the then Democratic Congress gave Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a special dispensation to continue to operate like banks and keep all of the profits they made on loans, but without the troublesome necessity of being responsible for most of the risk on the loans and with extra special super-duper permission to violate all normal rules of banking by maintaining only a thin facade of cash reserves in their vaults. Armed with those advantages over other banks Fannie and Freddie, as they are affectionately know by political bag men, proceeded to grow like weeds.
Now I'm not a financial analyst but it's possible even for a schlub like me to make a rough estimate of how much those special regulatory perks were worth to Fannie and Freddie as they and their political contacts gorged and swilled over the past 16 years. Right now, you see, is when the chickens are finally coming home to roost and crap all over the heads of the two special banks. And the Wall Street Journal today helpfully printed a chart which shows that between the two of them they have about $80 Billion in Reserves whereas two normal banks heir size would be required to have over $180 Billion in Reserves. The special dispensations mean that Fannie and Freddie are short $100 Billion, and they've been able to be short of reserves for 16 years.
Now it's not fair to estimate the extent of the loot based on the current $100 Billion of missing reserves because the two banks have been growing fast during all of those 16 years, so I'm going to give the thieves the benefit of the doubt and assume the average shortfall of reserves has only been $50 Billion during each of the 16 years. And I'm going to assume that being allowed to be short of all that cash in the vaults only resulted in a 5% bottom line advantage for Fannie and Freddie. That would make the value of those special dispensations 5% of $50 Billion which is $2.5 Billion times 16 years for a total of $48 Billion. But that $48 Billion has a time value, just like all other cash. If we assume a conservative 6% rate of return it's actually worth about $96 Billion in current 2008 dollars.
Now Fannie and Freddie surely didn't give all of that loot to the politicians in envelopes, they only gave them a commission. How much of a commission? In this regard most politicians are actually pretty cheap in my estimation, they're mostly too stupid to be sharp negotiators. I doubt they got more than 6% or $6,000,000,000* or so, and it may well have been less even though this was the ultimate sweet deal - thievery in plain site, a very long time frame before the theft was noticed by the public, plenty of time to launder the loot, and even testimonial dinners and awards praising those politicians and Fannie and Freddie executives as public spirited citizens.
The great train robbers in London only got about $6 Million and they got a movie made about them. Here we have politicians hauling off something like one thousand times that much. It's worth at least a movie. I say it should have a cast of hundreds and be set on Devil's Island with whips, chains, snarling dogs and a special iron time out box in the sun for anyone who talks back to the warden. But, given the way politics works, the movie about this crime of the millenium will end with four or six or eight** peripherally involved folks spending a few years at a special resort whose main inconvenience to them will be lack of a masseuse on call down by the prison pool.
*$6,000,000,000 is $6 Billion. That's about five hundred big suitcases full of $20 bills neatly packaged in bank wrappers like the ninety large they found in Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's freezer down in New Orleans. It's probably a thousand or more suitcases of loose used $20's stuffed in there the way Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy would do it while, uh, disoriented, or the way Congressman Wilbur Mills and Fannie Foxe would have done it before going for a swim. Note - Fannie Foxe is not related to Fannie Mae even though they may appear to have more in common than their first names.
**It has to be an even number because the rules of Washington are that an equal number or Democrats and Republicans have to take the fall for any sizable scam, especially one that involves as unindicted co-conspirators every Congressman, Senator, Federal Judge, Treasury Department official and Securities and Exchange Commission manager who hasn't gotten around with a seeing eye dog since 1992. Come to think of it a thousand big suitcases wouldn't have been nearly enough for all the payoffs, they must have used medium sized ones.
In some ways it's a complicated scandal, and the politicians are sure to make it seem very complicated indeed as they select the five or six designated fall guys to take the rap, but at base it's very simple.
In 1992 Federal Regulators appointed and controlled by the then Democratic Congress gave Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a special dispensation to continue to operate like banks and keep all of the profits they made on loans, but without the troublesome necessity of being responsible for most of the risk on the loans and with extra special super-duper permission to violate all normal rules of banking by maintaining only a thin facade of cash reserves in their vaults. Armed with those advantages over other banks Fannie and Freddie, as they are affectionately know by political bag men, proceeded to grow like weeds.
Now I'm not a financial analyst but it's possible even for a schlub like me to make a rough estimate of how much those special regulatory perks were worth to Fannie and Freddie as they and their political contacts gorged and swilled over the past 16 years. Right now, you see, is when the chickens are finally coming home to roost and crap all over the heads of the two special banks. And the Wall Street Journal today helpfully printed a chart which shows that between the two of them they have about $80 Billion in Reserves whereas two normal banks heir size would be required to have over $180 Billion in Reserves. The special dispensations mean that Fannie and Freddie are short $100 Billion, and they've been able to be short of reserves for 16 years.
Now it's not fair to estimate the extent of the loot based on the current $100 Billion of missing reserves because the two banks have been growing fast during all of those 16 years, so I'm going to give the thieves the benefit of the doubt and assume the average shortfall of reserves has only been $50 Billion during each of the 16 years. And I'm going to assume that being allowed to be short of all that cash in the vaults only resulted in a 5% bottom line advantage for Fannie and Freddie. That would make the value of those special dispensations 5% of $50 Billion which is $2.5 Billion times 16 years for a total of $48 Billion. But that $48 Billion has a time value, just like all other cash. If we assume a conservative 6% rate of return it's actually worth about $96 Billion in current 2008 dollars.
Now Fannie and Freddie surely didn't give all of that loot to the politicians in envelopes, they only gave them a commission. How much of a commission? In this regard most politicians are actually pretty cheap in my estimation, they're mostly too stupid to be sharp negotiators. I doubt they got more than 6% or $6,000,000,000* or so, and it may well have been less even though this was the ultimate sweet deal - thievery in plain site, a very long time frame before the theft was noticed by the public, plenty of time to launder the loot, and even testimonial dinners and awards praising those politicians and Fannie and Freddie executives as public spirited citizens.
The great train robbers in London only got about $6 Million and they got a movie made about them. Here we have politicians hauling off something like one thousand times that much. It's worth at least a movie. I say it should have a cast of hundreds and be set on Devil's Island with whips, chains, snarling dogs and a special iron time out box in the sun for anyone who talks back to the warden. But, given the way politics works, the movie about this crime of the millenium will end with four or six or eight** peripherally involved folks spending a few years at a special resort whose main inconvenience to them will be lack of a masseuse on call down by the prison pool.
*$6,000,000,000 is $6 Billion. That's about five hundred big suitcases full of $20 bills neatly packaged in bank wrappers like the ninety large they found in Democratic Congressman William Jefferson's freezer down in New Orleans. It's probably a thousand or more suitcases of loose used $20's stuffed in there the way Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy would do it while, uh, disoriented, or the way Congressman Wilbur Mills and Fannie Foxe would have done it before going for a swim. Note - Fannie Foxe is not related to Fannie Mae even though they may appear to have more in common than their first names.
**It has to be an even number because the rules of Washington are that an equal number or Democrats and Republicans have to take the fall for any sizable scam, especially one that involves as unindicted co-conspirators every Congressman, Senator, Federal Judge, Treasury Department official and Securities and Exchange Commission manager who hasn't gotten around with a seeing eye dog since 1992. Come to think of it a thousand big suitcases wouldn't have been nearly enough for all the payoffs, they must have used medium sized ones.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I hope you're enjoying $4.00 Gasoline
I can't understand the talk about why we shouldn't permit drilling for new oil in Alaska and off the coasts because "it will take years to get to market." The very same folks making that argument are also arguing for massive government investments in alternative energy schemes (like wind and solar and tides and such) that will also take years and even decades to get to market.
It's not that I'm against wind and solar and tidal power, it's just that we know oil companies can find and develop oil fields, but we don't yet know how fast those alternative schemes can get off the ground and actually start producing significant energy. Solar power, for instance, still produces less than 1% of US energy needs, and the government has been "investing" in it since Jimmy Carter declared a crash program in 1970 or so.
Jimmy Carter also declared a crash government program to develop fusion power back in 1970 or so, but the believers in big government programs want to forget about that because the net result has been no energy at all.
There are a lot of dim bulbs in the Democratic Party who are addicted to pandering to the Al Gore wing of the so-called environmental movement which really wants us to freeze in the dark for our sins. Having prevented drilling in Alaska and offshore for the past 30 years they now want us to buy an argument that we shouldn't drill because it will take too long to get the oil to market.
Not that the guilt is all on one side here. Much to their shame the Republican Party has allowed this situation to continue to develop while it has held power over for the last 8 years. Republicans are now feeling good about President Bush who the other day lifted the executive order which prevents offshore drilling. But why didn't he do that on his first or his second or his six-hundredth day in office. It's true that the lifting of the executive order is not enough, Congress still has to act to lift the congressional ban on offshore drilling; but why didn't President Bush hold their feet to the fire sooner?
It's not that I'm against wind and solar and tidal power, it's just that we know oil companies can find and develop oil fields, but we don't yet know how fast those alternative schemes can get off the ground and actually start producing significant energy. Solar power, for instance, still produces less than 1% of US energy needs, and the government has been "investing" in it since Jimmy Carter declared a crash program in 1970 or so.
Jimmy Carter also declared a crash government program to develop fusion power back in 1970 or so, but the believers in big government programs want to forget about that because the net result has been no energy at all.
There are a lot of dim bulbs in the Democratic Party who are addicted to pandering to the Al Gore wing of the so-called environmental movement which really wants us to freeze in the dark for our sins. Having prevented drilling in Alaska and offshore for the past 30 years they now want us to buy an argument that we shouldn't drill because it will take too long to get the oil to market.
Not that the guilt is all on one side here. Much to their shame the Republican Party has allowed this situation to continue to develop while it has held power over for the last 8 years. Republicans are now feeling good about President Bush who the other day lifted the executive order which prevents offshore drilling. But why didn't he do that on his first or his second or his six-hundredth day in office. It's true that the lifting of the executive order is not enough, Congress still has to act to lift the congressional ban on offshore drilling; but why didn't President Bush hold their feet to the fire sooner?
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
With Kim gone to a better place I'm into a McMurtry now
With Kim done his mountain adventures and safely back in the lowlands I've moved on to a McMurtry which actually is "Brilliant. . . funny and dangerously tender" just as the Time cover blurb proclaims.
First "Kim". In a scant 411 small hardbound pages Kipling took me from the heat of Sind to the cold of the Hindu Kush and, more importantly, into the minds of representatives of more than a dozen castes, races and tribes. And he developed Kim from a wild and wily bazaar boy into a disciplined servant of the Raj in The Great Game. Why haven't I systematicly read all of Kipling's work? I've never read one of his that failed to please and satisfy, never listened to one as a book tape that failed to sadden with its ending. I shall plunder Wolfgang Books of every cheap used copy of Kipling the next time we go to Phoenixville for dinner.
Next "All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers." What can one say of McMurtry? His characters really do leap off the page. Danny, it's true, is probably a thinly disguised Larry McMurtry in his much younger days - the book was copyrighted in 1972, but still. . . such a gift to be able to move as effortlessly as McMurtry does from introspection to conversation to preposterous action and all the while hold the reader by the throat.
I've mostly avoided McMurtry's more or less contemporary fiction despite how much I liked "Comanche Moon,""Lonesome Dove," and the other two novels that dealt with Gus, Woodrow, Buffalo Hump, Famous Shoes and Blue Duck. But I think I'll also pillage the McMurtry section at Wolfgang as well when I next get there.
First "Kim". In a scant 411 small hardbound pages Kipling took me from the heat of Sind to the cold of the Hindu Kush and, more importantly, into the minds of representatives of more than a dozen castes, races and tribes. And he developed Kim from a wild and wily bazaar boy into a disciplined servant of the Raj in The Great Game. Why haven't I systematicly read all of Kipling's work? I've never read one of his that failed to please and satisfy, never listened to one as a book tape that failed to sadden with its ending. I shall plunder Wolfgang Books of every cheap used copy of Kipling the next time we go to Phoenixville for dinner.
Next "All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers." What can one say of McMurtry? His characters really do leap off the page. Danny, it's true, is probably a thinly disguised Larry McMurtry in his much younger days - the book was copyrighted in 1972, but still. . . such a gift to be able to move as effortlessly as McMurtry does from introspection to conversation to preposterous action and all the while hold the reader by the throat.
I've mostly avoided McMurtry's more or less contemporary fiction despite how much I liked "Comanche Moon,""Lonesome Dove," and the other two novels that dealt with Gus, Woodrow, Buffalo Hump, Famous Shoes and Blue Duck. But I think I'll also pillage the McMurtry section at Wolfgang as well when I next get there.
Have I mentioned that I'm feeling pretty proud of my garden
Have I mentioned that I'm feeling pretty proud of my garden this year. It may not be the biggest garden in Collegeville, but it's surely going to be the most efficiently productive two hundred or so square foot garden in the county, if not the country.
Firstly, the light bulb finally illuminated in my head about efficient layout after decades of having the answer right under my nose at least a couple of times a year when I've flown over the West and seen the round circles of cultivation, each watered by its patiently rotating sprinkler system. Theaters in the Round, stones arranged in henges, crop circles, fairy rings of mushrooms under the trees, and the large example of those ubiquitous bullseyes of crops out west, how have I failed to twig to the utter stupidity of squareness and the utter rightness of roundness for all these years?
Secondly, I've fenced the thing so well that the cute little fawns and their brutish parents have thus far inspected it thoroughly without detecting a weakness within their feeble capabilities of strength and reach. I've fenced the thing so well that my tomatoes are safe short of an escape from the zoo of something as strong as a buffalo or possessed of the reach of a giraffe. It's true there are a couple of minor flaws for correction next year. A patient rabbit has discovered at least three places where it can just reach through the two layers of fence low down to nip at the ends of Swiss Chard leaves.
Thirdly, roundness means that a single centrifugal sprinkler in the center can efficiently water the whole thing with the merest effort of adjustment of the outside tap. It's true the zucchinis have grown taller and more luxuriant than I've ever seen them and they're blocking part of the arc of the sprinkler, but that's a mere detail easy of solution next year. This year it only means that I need to run the sprinkler a bit longer to let those disfavored areas get their fill.
Firstly, the light bulb finally illuminated in my head about efficient layout after decades of having the answer right under my nose at least a couple of times a year when I've flown over the West and seen the round circles of cultivation, each watered by its patiently rotating sprinkler system. Theaters in the Round, stones arranged in henges, crop circles, fairy rings of mushrooms under the trees, and the large example of those ubiquitous bullseyes of crops out west, how have I failed to twig to the utter stupidity of squareness and the utter rightness of roundness for all these years?
Secondly, I've fenced the thing so well that the cute little fawns and their brutish parents have thus far inspected it thoroughly without detecting a weakness within their feeble capabilities of strength and reach. I've fenced the thing so well that my tomatoes are safe short of an escape from the zoo of something as strong as a buffalo or possessed of the reach of a giraffe. It's true there are a couple of minor flaws for correction next year. A patient rabbit has discovered at least three places where it can just reach through the two layers of fence low down to nip at the ends of Swiss Chard leaves.
Thirdly, roundness means that a single centrifugal sprinkler in the center can efficiently water the whole thing with the merest effort of adjustment of the outside tap. It's true the zucchinis have grown taller and more luxuriant than I've ever seen them and they're blocking part of the arc of the sprinkler, but that's a mere detail easy of solution next year. This year it only means that I need to run the sprinkler a bit longer to let those disfavored areas get their fill.
Oh for the good old days of sharecropping
If you are an average American you are now worse off than a sharecropper in the old south. Sharecroppers worked all year on land owned by someone else and then paid for the privilege by giving up half of their crop.
Well guess what, an average American now works all year and gives up more than half of his income to his overseers in the Federal, State and Local government.
Today, July 16th, is Cost of Government day according to the group Americans for Tax Reform ( http://www.atr.org/national/cogd/2008/overview.html ). The group says "Cost of Government Day (COGD) is the date of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state and local levels."
You may say that the guvmint sometimes does nice things for you with some of the money it takes from you, but of course the old landowners in the south also did nice things for their sharecroppers.
The good-hearted landowners, for instance, used to let the sharecroppers and their families eat free all year from the little plots they were allowed to keep for kitchen gardens. And they used to let them live free in the picturesque little cabins that were behind the big house on their property. They also used to let the sharecroppers drink all the water they wanted for free from the streams on the property, and the sharecroppers could even dig a well and drink free from that if they were enterprising enough.
Even the very bad-hearted landowners sometimes did things for their sharecroppers, giving them a taste of the quirt now and then, for instance, if they seemed to be having a problem with motivation.
If you've never received a letter from the IRS you probably see the government as more or less friendly and good-hearted. If you have received such a letter you know a bit about what the quirt felt like, metaphorically speaking of course.
Well guess what, an average American now works all year and gives up more than half of his income to his overseers in the Federal, State and Local government.
Today, July 16th, is Cost of Government day according to the group Americans for Tax Reform ( http://www.atr.org/national/cogd/2008/overview.html ). The group says "Cost of Government Day (COGD) is the date of the calendar year on which the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state and local levels."
You may say that the guvmint sometimes does nice things for you with some of the money it takes from you, but of course the old landowners in the south also did nice things for their sharecroppers.
The good-hearted landowners, for instance, used to let the sharecroppers and their families eat free all year from the little plots they were allowed to keep for kitchen gardens. And they used to let them live free in the picturesque little cabins that were behind the big house on their property. They also used to let the sharecroppers drink all the water they wanted for free from the streams on the property, and the sharecroppers could even dig a well and drink free from that if they were enterprising enough.
Even the very bad-hearted landowners sometimes did things for their sharecroppers, giving them a taste of the quirt now and then, for instance, if they seemed to be having a problem with motivation.
If you've never received a letter from the IRS you probably see the government as more or less friendly and good-hearted. If you have received such a letter you know a bit about what the quirt felt like, metaphorically speaking of course.
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