Buffet Brings Billions

"Mr. Buffett plans to give away 85 percent of his fortune, or about $37.4 billion, all in Berkshire stock. Of that amount, he will channel the greatest share, about $31 billion, into the Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, dedicated to improving health and education, especially in poor nations, is already the United States' largest grant-making foundation, with current assets of almost $30 billion. Mr. Buffett's huge contribution may permanently solidify that philanthropy's standing as the biggest and most influential organization of its kind. Mr. Buffett will join Mr. and Mrs. Gates as a trustee of their foundation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/business/26buffett.html?th&emc=th

Maybe they'll get Bono to sing for them.

The Ethanol Hype

If your gut tells you there's something obscene about turning food crops into fuel---when as many people on this planet are starving as are shoving their fat bellies behind the steering wheels of their similarly bloated SUV's---trust it. The current ethanol rave is a mix of motives, most of them greed, pork, politics, and bad ecology, not to mention a number of hidden costs the Times article doesn't even got into, such as pollution by the ethanol plants and the general dependency of agribusiness on subsidies and petro fuels and chemicals.

"Despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy saving, at least 39 new ethanol plants are expected to be completed over the next 9 to 12 months, projects that will push the United States past Brazil as the world's largest ethanol producer.

"The new plants will add 1.4 billion gallons a year, a 30 percent increase over current production of 4.6 billion gallons, according to Dan Basse, president of AgResources, an economic forecasting firm in Chicago. By 2008, analysts predict, ethanol output could reach 8 billion gallons a year.

"...the current incentives to make ethanol from corn are too attractive for producers and investors to worry about the future. With oil prices at $70 a barrel sharply lifting the prices paid for ethanol, the average processing plant is earning a net profit of more than $5 a bushel on the corn it is buying for about $2 a bushel... And that is before the 51-cent-a-gallon tax credit given to refiners and blenders that incorporate ethanol into their gasoline."

It's still a matter of calories in/calories out. Given the colossal stupidity and greed of the current crop of politicians overseeing the national non-system of energy production and consumption, expect to be forcefed this disaster for years to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/business/25ethanol.html?pagewanted=1&th&adxnnl=0&emc=th&adxnnlx=1151330786-Oghw7UbfDyx8sxDWCDl3JA

Black And Green

I had the opportunity today to counter a friend's promotion of McCourt as the Green candidate for governor. Where that took me may be of some general interest:

As sympathetic as I am to Green values, as much as I have admired McCourt as an irrascible humorist and maybe even humanitarian, how can I possibly take him seriously as a political force? Greens have railed against Democrats who supported Kerry, but now they promote McCourt, who was one. What is the difference?

Why should I not believe that McCourt went Green as a self-indulgent act of personal aggrandizement? Why should I believe that behind him is a political strategy of any merit? If I am to believe today's article, he just spoke with Kerry's sister because he heard "John's going to run again?" But he can't back him now because he's pissed at him? Is McCourt simply engaging in name-dropping here? What is going on? Kerry has finally taken a lead antiwar position among his peers, however suspect his motives, unlike when McCourt supported him in 2004.

Why should I believe that the folks who solicited him are a viable political force? Aside from the initial attraction of a few thousand party converts that any narrowly-known third-tier celebrity would draw, what broader appeal can he generate? For those of us who thought Cobb's selection was a mystery, this one compounds the problem. McCourt's glibness wears thin pretty fast. Humor is fine, but the color of political humor these days is black, not green---in either sense of the word.

McCourt's selection was silly, and with each new utterance he is personally looking sillier to me. I don't laugh at silly things any more. I have enough silly things with bush. I think McCourt's selection betrays progressives' passion. He is a fish that has been dropped (albeit of his own volition) into the wrong pond, to everyone's detriment, including his own.

While he "anchors down" in Woodstock for the summer with his organic lettuces, spinning fantasies about making Spitzer his State executioner, the entire weight of federal law enforcement is bearing down in Miami on a pathetic little impoverished group of Black Muslims, as the MSM characterize them (although there are countless numbers of splinter groups that are only tenuously Muslim), who fantasized killing all the devils and played into an undercover sting. Gonzalez himself took the mics today to celebrate this great feat. bush will probably comment, all in a preposterous misrepresentation of a phenomenon that not only predates 9/11, but goes back half a century, to when disenfranchised young black men traded the shackles of the white man's christianity for yet heavier shackles of another abrahamic faith, all in an effort to bring some discipline and belief to lives that an oblivious world had exploited and discarded. I saw the "lesson plans" of such a group 20 years ago, prophesying the fruit of Islam flying space ships over the cities of the devil and dropping bombs on their children; these phantasies were standard rituals for hyping each other. I suppose this could be shocking to folks who have never looked at the underbelly of our tidy little deluded world, but the point is, there are thousands upon thousands of such scenarios that the power of the tyrants in Washington could exploit at any moment, in furtherance of their gospel of fear and hate, creating a false proof of the great new bogeyman, the home-grown terrorist (however much help he may get from paid undercover agents).

I am no bleeding heart, but this is an obscene spectacle, watching the DC tyrants prey on these people, confusing their values, their faith identities, safely attacking the poor, uneducated, and darkskinned who don't vote in the first place, don't vote for bush in the second, and are utterly without any resources of their own. I can imagine the rest of the story. Mainstream Muslims will disown them. The media will exploit every little detail of family and neighbor, who will variously react in their defense, or in surprise, or in distancing. At some point, some liberal attorneys will take up their cause, out of opportunity or genuine concern, and slowly this mess will wind its way through the courts, where, depending on fortune, power, and justice, the cases will be thrown out or scapegoated. Probably no politician, whether s/he knows better or not, will risk calling this filthy spectacle what it is. Or maybe one will rediscover his soul. Or maybe some TV station or paper will graft on some gonads and search out the truth. Maybe.

The lesson, of course, as we watch this profoundly corrupt administration thrust its war, fear, and terrorism into the upcoming elections, is, First they came for...

So McCourt's jokes will go on, but I for one am not laughing.

http://www.newpaltznation.com/MalachyMcCourttoRunforGovernor1.htm

Sherry Boehlert's Parting Gift

As exasperating as his votes could be from a progressive's point of view, it was difficult to despise this guy when you met him. He could present an affect of amiability and even humility, and occasionally he cast a vote which seemed to redeem his moderate-Republican career of trying to be everything to everybody, at least for the moment.

Now, near the end of his time in Congress, Sherry has done a most commendable thing. Telling CNN just moments ago (in a welcome break from their incessant coverage of a very minor "plot" by a bunch of apparent black Muslims in Miami who fell for another terrorist sting operation) of his frustration with colleagues (primarily in his own party) who resisted the evidence of science on global warming, the congressman called on the National Academy of Sciences for a current assessment: Yes, Virginia, the earth is warming alarmingly, and we are promoting it.

Chairing the House Committee on Science, Boehlert has more often than not, championed science over belief, at a time when most politicians spin their own realities and the GOP seems driven by ideological and supernatural hysteria. We join him in hoping that this latest finding is persuasive with the foot-draggers.

He may have been writing a summary for his own congressional record last month when he responded to efforts to frustrate passage of his committee's organic act codifying the NOAA:

“'I’m going to take some time to lay out my position on this amendment because it raises an important issue that is too often subject to demagoguery.

“'I think it’s fair to say that no one in this Congress has been more vocal than I have been about the need for federal agencies – and the Congress, for that matter – to encourage open scientific communication. I have strenuously objected when agencies or Congressional committees have appeared to unfairly constrain or intimidate scientists...'"

Ah, that the nature of these awful times bends us in gratitude for such small favors.

http://www.house.gov/science/press/109/109-279.htm

-Controversial Rove Scheme To Expand The Base-

w was quoted as willing to do anything within reason to help GOP prospects in the upcoming midterms, particularly after unwelcome disclosures that the Pentagon still documents homosexuality as a mental disorder. Offered a place of honor at the prez's right, Rick Santorum demurred: "I'm OK with the esthetics," he said, "but doesn't this play into the Democrats' charge of inadequate armor?" 

How Congressional Earmarks Promote Corruption: Hastert Et Al?

"House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.

"A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns.

"In all three cases, Hastert and Reps. Ken Calvert and Gary Miller say that they were securing funds their home districts wanted badly, and that in no way did the earmarks have any impact on the land values of their investments. But for watchdog groups, the cases have opened a fresh avenue for investigation and a new wrinkle in the ongoing controversy over earmarks -- home-district projects funded through narrowly written legislative language..."

ESchmeltzer offers a great link for more information:

http://sunlightfoundation.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062102210.html?referrer=email

Political Garbage: No Permanent Bases

Last month a couple of Gillibrand supporters pointed to her "position" on "no permanent bases" in Iraq as evidence of an antiwar stance. Although the phrase may convey some symbolic sense (that allows you to represent it as you like), it is a political euphemism lacking quantification; one could hedge on what "permanent" means for decades in the current scenario of receding horizons.

But consider last Tuesday's vote in the House and you really get an understanding of what a safe (empty) piece of muttering this garbage is: by better than 3:1 the majority of Republicans voted against it. Logically, then, Gillibrand's "antiwar" position, as reflected by this "issue," aligns with the majority of house Republicans.

A mere fifty congressmen supported permanent bases---including three Democrats:

Democrats: Barrow, Boren, Marshall

Republicans: Barrett (SC), Beauprez, Bishop (UT), Blackburn, Brady (TX), Burgess, Cole (OK), Davis (KY), Deal (GA), Drake, Feeney, Fortenberry, Foxx, Franks (AZ), Gingrey, Gohmert, Green (WI), Hyde, Johnson, Sam, Kennedy (MN), King (IA), Kline, Lewis (KY), Linder, Lucas, Lungren, Daniel E., McHenry, Miller (FL), Miller (MI), Myrick, Neugebauer, Norwood, Pearce, Pitts, Poe, Price (GA), Ryan (WI), Schwarz (MI), Sessions, Shadegg, Shuster, Smith (TX), Souder, Thornberry, Tiahrt, Westmoreland, Wilson (SC)

Six Did Not Vote:Democrats: Davis (FL), Evans, Napolitano
Republicans: Cannon, Hunter, Nussle

There is no substitute for requiring candidates to state clear and unambiguous positions in order to win your vote. Politicians will rarely give you any more than what you demand of them, and they will just as rarely turn out to be better legislators than they were candidates, no matter how much you may want to believe in them.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/12170

bush's Missile Defense: Hit Or Mess

Those worried about baby star wars might want to contemplate the status of bush's present system of interceptors. Given the results so far, we would as likely hit Topeka as North Korea's pending launch (has anyone clued the little idiot in the white house in on the stupidity of this idea?). Of course, wasting money is another matter, but then our elected officials would just have to put in another earmark to maintain their buddies in the defense industry:

"Eleven ground-based interceptors in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California, the cornerstone of the administration's new system, have not undergone a successful test in nearly four years and have been beset by glitches that investigators blame, at least in part, on President Bush's order in 2002 to make the program operational even before it had been fully tested.

"A little-noticed study by the Government Accountability Office issued in March found that program officials were so concerned with potential flaws in the first nine interceptors now in operation that they considered taking them out of their silos and returning them to the manufacturer for 'disassembly and remanufacture.'

"'Quality control procedures may not have been rigorous enough to ensure that unreliable parts, or parts that were inappropriate for space applications, would be removed from the manufacturing process,' the report says.

"...In recent days, Pentagon officials have remained coy about the capabilities and alert status of the system, leading to speculation that they may be preparing to try to shoot down the North Korean missile, believed to be the first trial of a long-range Taepodong 2. The missile is thought to be capable of reaching U.S. bases in Japan, the U.S. territory of Guam and possibly Alaska or Hawaii..."

I guess there's always luck, but in an administration for which the prime principle is directing government to concentrate wealth and power, don't expect any of the organs concerned with the public welfare or protection to function predictably.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missile22jun22,0,2552862,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

-Sold To Lauder @ $135M-

The 1907 Adele has been prominent among five Klimts recently on loan to the LA County MOA---and for sale. While the oge may not share the LATimes' appraisal of Klimt among the pantheon of modern masters, believing that he imperfectly resolved conflicting values of design and composition, the 1907 Adele was poised at the right moment---when the supply of iconic paintings is low and the flow of obscenely swollen private funds is strong---to occasion some impressive bidding. http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-klimt7apr07,0,4456750.story?track=tottext

Klimt's 1907 'Adele 1' Sold

We discussed the exhibition and offering of the group of Klimts in a spring post. The Bloch-Bauer clan have sold the lead painting to the Lauder museum on condition of permanent display, but fuller details of the negotiations are still not fully known; LACMA had been a favored contender. The disposition of the "lesser" paintings in the group is an open question, but it appears, based on the 'Adele' transaction, that dollars alone won't tell the tale.

Art both contains and transcends history. The story of this portrait is worth your efforts: its standing in the development of modern painting, the mythology of the gold, especially the intricacies of its reflection on the commissioning family, the ever-suggestive intrigue of romantic involvement, the painting's seizure by the Nazis, and the family's successful struggle to have it returned from the Austrian government.

http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-klimt21jun21,0,1674325.story?track=tottext

Guard Ordered Into NOLA

You can't say the people didn't ask for it. Faced with an absolutely incompetent hierarchy of political leaders---from Nagin through Blanco through FEMA to bush---they reelected their bumbling mayor. And with a shaky police force that folded in the face of Katrina, violent crime is doing its best to surpass even its pre-hurricane records: enter the Guard.

"NEW ORLEANS - Gov. Kathleen Blanco ordered National Guardsmen to help police patrol the city for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, following a bloody weekend that brought fears of crime disrupting the city's delicate reconstruction.

"At Mayor Ray Nagin's request, Blanco ordered 100 troops — and committed to send 200 more soon — and 60 state police troopers to head to the city Tuesday to support the Police Department. Six people were killed over the weekend, including five teenagers in one incident.

'"The situation is urgent,' Blanco said. 'Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it."'

Yeah. Let's jawbone them into civility. Folks, we are south of the Potomac here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_national_guard

-Next Project For Svalbard Consortium?-

As envisioned by Edward Hicks... 

Norwegian Polar Bears To Guard Seed Vault

Norwegian dream? Who you gonna call if global warming does in the polar bears?

"OSLO -- It sounds like something from a science-fiction film -- a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside on a secluded Arctic island ready to serve as a Noah's Ark for seeds in case of a global catastrophe.

"But Norway's ambitious project is on its way to becoming reality today when construction begins on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to house as many as 3 million of the world's crop seeds.

"Prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland were to attend the cornerstone ceremony this morning near the town of Longyearbyen in Norway's Svalbard Islands, roughly 620 miles from the North Pole."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/06/19/norway_to_begin_work_on_arctic_vault_for_seeds_in_case_of_global_disaster/

Happy Father's Day to OGE!

I MISS YOU DAD!
LOVE, FARCE

No Ed Secretary Left Behind

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Cabinet members go, the education secretary typically sticks to domestic matters. But Margaret Spellings has put her own stamp on the job -- a passport stamp.

"In less than a year and a half, Spellings has traveled to Afghanistan, England, Egypt, France, India, Italy, Japan, Jordan and Russia. Next up are Greece and Spain this month."

Thanks to D for this one.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/06/16/education.secretary.travel.ap/index.html

NYTimes Does Soccer: Exercise In Uber-Gay

Be warned: this is probably not satire. But it should be: everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask about what makes the footballer mystique so gay, I mean, great...

"After England's 1-0 victory in its World Cup opener against Paraguay on Saturday, won by a free kick mistakenly rebounded into the goal by the opposing captain, the team was exhausted. A bigger disappointment, for aesthetically minded soccer fans, was that Mr. Beckham's tresses — normally the beau ideal of the soccer world's array of aggressively directional haircuts — were just tired. His previous dos have included a frosted fauxhawk, blond cornrows and a confection of rooster's peaks, but on Saturday Mr. Beckham's hair was, like his game, neatly prostrate and minimally styled. Mere gel, in soccer, is a letdown.

"'The British players are tidied up now,' said Howard McLaren, the creative director of the Bumble & Bumble salon in Manhattan. Was there a tinge of disappointment in his voice at the recollection of what Mr. Beckham's fauxhawk did for men's grooming during the last World Cup in 2002, when the look was widely imitated?

'"If you look at the long hair of players from Argentina and Brazil, they are constantly pulling it out of their mouths, which can be distracting,' Mr. McLaren added. 'But they are willing to pay that price for the way their hair looks.'

"When you are viewed from overhead on a television set for hours on end, hairstyle is substance..."

And then he takes off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/fashion/thursdaystyles/15SOCCER.html?th&emc=th#Scene_1

-CR vs.US-

US striker Brian McBride/Czech defender Thomas Ujfalusi

Ignominy: CR 3, US 0

"I think the players as well as coaches are a bit shocked right now," defender Eddie Lewis said.

"We didn't play well. We didn't compete. We didn't make the plays," said goalkeeper Kasey Keller, one of many U.S. players criticized by coach Bruce Arena. "It was just a shame. We definitely gave the game away, and that's what we're frustrated about."

Jan Koller, the Czech Republic's 6-foot-8 forward, scored five minutes in, and Tomas Rosicky added goals in the 36th and 76th minutes. The United States managed one shot on goal and showed little of the spark that earned it an opening 3-2 upset over Portugal four years ago, when it advanced to the quarterfinals in its best performance since 1930..."

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=370907&cc=5901

-Deep Impact-

NASA probe impacts nucleus of Tempel 1, 07.04.05. 

Calculating Asteroid Deflection

The good news is, we can apparently do the simulations. The better news: Bruce Willis isn't involved (or Ben Affleck).

"Researchers have utilized the number-crunching brainpower of Red Storm—a supercomputer at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Red Storm, a Cray XT3 supercomputer, is the first computer to surpass the 1 terabyte-per-second performance mark—a measure that indicates the capacity of a network of processors to communicate with each other when dealing with the most complex situations—in both classified and unclassified realms."

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060614_asteroid_computer.html

-Display Of Antarctic Land Mass Without Ice Shield-

 

GRACE: ASTEROIDS, CRATERS, GREAT DYINGS, AND OIL

In a moronic editorial this morning, the NYTimes reports satellite evidence for the largest asteroid impact in planetary history, an immense crater under the Antarctic, the god or devil of the Permian-Triassac extinction 250M years ago, an event greater by a factor of 4 or 5 than that of the collision that caused Mexico's Chicxulub crater 65M years ago. The point of the Times editorial seems to be that evolution is hugely affected by geological cataclysms, a real "duh." The piece doesn't do much science, such as explaining how satellite evidence for the crater can date it.

"At this very moment, twin satellites — part of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or Grace — are in polar orbit above the earth. They were built in Germany, launched from Russia in March 2002, and their mission home is at the University of Texas. One purpose of the mission is to map fluctuations in earth's gravity.

"...Recently, researchers using data from Grace announced that they had found the possible remains of an enormous crater a mile below the East Antarctic ice sheet — the result of an impact that may have wiped out 90 percent of life on earth some 250 million years ago.

"To look back to that catastrophe — called the Permian-Triassic extinction — you have to imagine all of earth's continents merged in a single great land mass surrounded by a single great ocean. It's possible that the collision that caused this newfound crater — four or five times as big as the crater from the impact that is believed to have extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago — may have helped create a rift that began to drive the continents apart."

The Times doesn't refer to previous research on the impact connection to the 250M extinction, including the 1997 reports and discussions of the shocked quartz---a commonly accepted earmark of impact events---related to that time (speculation in 1997 regarding the location of the impact was generally confined to the southern hemisphere, especially around Australia).

Nor does the Times refer to new evidence for the impact theory reported in 2001: "extraterrestrial gases trapped inside special molecules, known as Buckyballs, in ancient soil layers."

Again, there is no mention of the accumulating evidence reported in 2004 when researchers studied old borings from oil exploration:

"The team, led by geologist Luann Becker of the University of California, Santa Barbara examined undersea drilling samples taken by oil prospectors in the 1970s and '80s and since held in an Australian lab. They also studied ancient layers of Earth now exposed on land Down Under and in Antarctica.

"Dated to the time of the mass extinction, they found breccia, a porous rock often linked to impacts. And they uncovered tiny glass beads and material known as shocked quartz, which has been fractured in several directions. These can be indicators of the extreme heat generated when a large, high-speed extraterrestrial object slams into the planet.

"...The findings point to the existence of a 125-mile-wide (200-kilometer) crater called Bedout off the northwest coast of Australia. The ring-like structure had previously been identified as a possible impact crater by seismic data and a map of gravity variations in the area..."

The editorial doesn't contemplate the role of oil in the evolution of our modern science, how our very perception of geological---and biological---history is influenced by research that supports oil exploration. Readers who have followed the links above may wonder with me, if GRACE would even exist without some relevance to the industry. Whatever the nature of the connection between prehistoric impact craters and oil---the porosity of their beds, their contributions of hydrocarbons, their precipitation of techtonic forces, or their mere role in killing off the organisms of future energy---there is a deep irony in the notion that the great dyings of prehistory fuel modern life, and that our awareness of those ancient catastrophes is to some extent a corollary of our efforts to maintain that modern life.

Bill Gates Sr. recently justified the estate tax in his explanation that much of today's accumulated wealth has been enabled by government-supported research that yielded opportunities for capitalized technology, suggesting an ethical and practical dynamic for returning some of that wealth to the prime engine of its generation. And that thought closes yet another cycle of life and death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/opinion/13Tues4.html?th&emc=th

Wonders Of Vitamin D?

Who knows?

"Once seen as merely a defense against rickets, vitamin D has in recent years gained recognition as a major force that acts throughout the body. It improves absorption of calcium, controls the growth of cells (both healthy and cancerous), strengthens the immune system and seems to rein in overzealous immune system cells that cause diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

"In March, an article in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings called vitamin D deficiency 'a largely unrecognized epidemic in many populations worldwide.'

"'...The daily allowances for vitamin D are outdated,' says Anthony Norman, a professor of biochemistry at UC Riverside. 'I would recommend 1,000 IU per day for all ages, with a maximum of 2,000 IU. I'm considering taking 2,000 IU myself.' And, he adds, current evidence suggests that even 10,000 IU — overkill by anyone's standards — would probably be safe..."

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-vitamind12jun12,0,1845578.story?page=1&coll=la-home-health

Gore Vidal On Al Gore

Al Gore's commodified environmentalism has resurrected him as the moment's darling of the liberals---but, as quoted by Stephen Marshall of GNN, Gore Vidal has the clearer picture:

“'Well, although we are cousins, and I was a friend of his father’s, I’ve always thought he was absolutely pointless as a politician. He’s just another conservative southerner.'

"In fact, Al Gore’s voting record as a senator was surprisingly conservative until he rolled his eye toward the White House. Throughout most of his career, he was pro-life and had an 84% anti-abortion rating from the National Right to Life Committee. From 1979 – 81, he voted five times on the side of a Republican sponsored rider that granted a tax exemption for schools like Bob Jones University that discriminate on the basis of race. He was openly anti-gay, calling homosexuality 'abnormal' and 'wrong...' Gore was...a strong supporter of the gun lobby – ultimately voting against the critical 1985 legislation for a mandatory 14-day waiting period for handgun purchases...He voted in Antonin Scalia...

"Pulling his hat down so that his eyes are shadowed from the sun, Vidal continues his effortless assault on Al Gore: 'Another border-state, southern lover of the Pentagon…there was never anything the Pentagon asked for that Cousin Albert wasn’t down there giving it to them; he voted for the first war in the Gulf...'"

And his environmentalism?

"Occidental is one of the worst corporate polluters in the world. In its most scandalous case, an Occidental subsidiary dumped thousands of tons of toxic chemical waste near the residential area of Love Canal, New York, causing birth defects, miscarriages, and incidences of cancer in the nearby community. But Gore remained a friend of the company. And the company, a good friend to Al Gore.

"...Occidental funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the Clinton/Gore Democrats over the course of their two-term administration. In return, Gore maneuvered to facilitate Occidental’s acquisition of oil drilling rights in the Elk Hills National Petroleum Reserve outside Bakersfield, California. Long held as a federal oil resource, Elk Hills represented the largest turnover of public lands to a private corporation in American history. It tripled Occidental’s U.S. petroleum reserves, increasing the company’s stock value by ten percent. Gore later admitted to controlling between $250,000 – $500,000 worth of shares through a family held trust..."

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/2301/Some_Inconvenient_Truths_About_Al_Gore

The Hunt for Zarqawi

"Ali Abbas, 25, a labourer, had just got home on Wednesday when, shortly after 6pm, the first of two huge blasts shook his house. He was only 300 yards from where the F-16 aircraft dropped two 500lb laser-guided bombs.

"'It was so close I thought my uncle’s house next door had been attacked,' he said.

"In the calm that followed, Abbas rushed out to help. He found his uncle unharmed, but as they looked across the fence they saw that the neighbouring house on the edge of a date palm grove was a smouldering wreck..."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2220222_1,00.html

-Still Doomed-

 

The Demise Of "Deadwood" Brokered Again

For those of us who would prefer to grow old with the incredible characters of Deadwood---one of the half-dozen greatest TV series ever broadcast---the deal for the final, fourth "season" is not satisfying, but it at least offers the creators the chance to set a tombstone on it, unlike so many shows that just cease to exist.

"As angry e-mail messages streamed into HBO offices — and the end date for the actors' contracts approached — Mr. Albrecht (the chairman of HBO) and Mr. Milch (the show's writer) searched for a compromise. Last weekend, Mr. Milch rushed to New York and proposed a final idea. By the end of the meeting they struck a deal: two two-hour final episodes to run next year. Last Sunday night, just after the deal was settled, Mr. Milch said he was 'deeply gratified' that the show would return, at least for a farewell bow. 'I've always known that the support for this show was not a mile wide,' he said. 'But it was a fathom deep."'

What we do not know, of course, is whether Milch's new project will be worth the cost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/arts/television/11mcki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th

From left: Mary Matalin, Hillary Clinton, Ann Coulter

Bitchfest Rages, Or Maybe Whimpers

What they get out of this, of course, is free publicity. At the risk of succombing to sexism: these are three prime-time bitches. (OK, so are Bill Frist, Bill O'Reilly, and Bill Buckley.)

Hillary, of Ann: "Perhaps [Coulter's] book should have been called 'Heartless.' I know a lot of the widows and family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. They never wanted to be a member of a group that is defined by the tragedy of what happened. (It's)unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I've known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country."

Ann, of Hillary: "I think if she's worried about people being mean to women she should have a talk with her husband. This is, I remind you, Bill Clinton's wife. [And I'm the one who's] mean to women? She may know the 9/11 widows, but you and I know Juanita Broaddrick."

Mary Matalin, of Ann and Hillary: "People run around calling [Republicans] extra-chromosome and Hitlers and Nazis, and nobody says anything. She calls someone a harpie and you'd think that the whole world's on fire."

Do you really want to read more about it?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/9/114904.shtml?s=et

Toward A Democratic Economics

Thomas Palley argues that this is the time for Democrats to replace the tired GOP myth of free markets with a responsible new economics model. Doubtless true. But it's also true that this is the time for the Dems to replace just about everything on the spectrum of neoconservative ideology and practice. Unfortunately, with the exception of a handful of progressives, Dems don't seem to have the will to replace an empty roll of toilet paper. And I think Palley overlooks the extent of corruption that chains so many Dems to the Reagan-Clinton-Bush altar of corporatism.

Still, it's nice to contemplate the broad acceptance of a responsible economic theory:

"Now, due to a combination of failed policies and policy excess, the continuation of Republican economic policy dominance is an open question. The economic recovery following the last recession has been the weakest since World War II. And most importantly, there may be increasing support for the belief that the Republican Party is less a party of small government and efficient markets, and more a party of profits for big business and tax relief for the super-wealthy.

"These developments create a momentous opportunity for Democrats, but at this stage they face a choice between a phoenix and a cuckoo response.

"...The cuckoo strategy is being pressed by so-called 'New Democrats,' who aim for a softer version of the current policy program, inaugurated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. According to this strategy, Democrats should use the current moment to occupy the economic policy nest created by Republicans and redecorate it. This would involve continuing with the themes of budget austerity, free trade and deregulated markets that Republicans pioneered. However, these themes would be softened by 'compassionate' initiatives like greater income supports for the poor and tax incentives to help low-paid workers save.

"Significant steps toward such a strategy have already been taken by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who has established his Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. The goal is to build an intellectual infrastructure that can be paired with the political expertise of the former Clinton administration, thereby establishing policy hegemony within the Democratic Party.

"In sharp contrast, a phoenix strategy would build on the progressive legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, bringing back to life the economic logic and vision that inspired them. This is a far more difficult enterprise, that not only aims to wrest control of the policy debate, but also to redirect it. Instead of merely making minor adjustments to the Republican framework, a phoenix strategy would dramatically alter understandings of the nature of markets and their relation to society..."

Guess which camp will likely lay its plank in the party platform.

http://www.tompaine.com/

A Penny For The Old Guy

Mr Z, he dead. A penny for the old guy. Can you imagine how long the oge would last with a $25M bounty on his head?

What is sad here, or infuriatingly sad here, is the accompanying death of at least one innocent. I don't know about the woman and the spiritual adviser. Odd, but the only thing I could think of on hearing this news was, how many collateral casualties did we calculate this fool was worth? Or do we even think that way?

"Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in an American airstrike on an isolated safe house north of Baghdad at 6:15 p.m. local time on Wednesday, top American and Iraqi officials said today. Islamic militant Web sites linked to Al Qaeda quickly confirmed the death, saying Mr. Zarqawi had been rewarded with 'martyrdom' for his role in the war here.

"...Six people were killed in the strike: Mr. Zarqawi, his spiritual adviser and four other people including a woman and a child, the military said. The strike had been accompanied by a ground assault involving American and Iraqi troops."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1149825600&en=d6d9b3b68ae5cc4a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Another Tale Of Street Art

David Cyr sends a personal reminiscence:

"After 911, I couldn't reach JSO by phone and the police wouldn't let anyone without a neighborhood ID get in below 14th, for a week. So when the barriers were lifted, I spent some time with her, and captured some Nikkon moments... you know, to remember the place, just in case the whole Apple was blown up someday. Attached is a photo that I took in NYC, near her apartment. Try to imagine how boring and drearily depressing this abandoned building would be, if lumpen elements had not freely expressed themselves upon it, thereby giving it an electric sense of place. This is the neighborhood where most of the 'NYPD Blue' exterior scenes were done. Can't you just hear their energetic theme music when you look at this photo?

"... at Brooklyn Tech was a kid named Marwan Makki... During classes he would produce much coveted paintings on the clothing of his classmates. At night he would paint the City. On some of those nights the NYPD would ruin his week. After HS he didn't go to college or art school. He pursued his art education, in what could be called an experiential way. Occasionally he showed up in the Magazine of the Sunday Times (back when it seemed worth reading). He started traveling to other countries, and found that his reputation had preceded him. But instead of being arrested, he would be met at airports by adoring fans of his art (sometimes referred to as "art crime"). As for your reference to the element of 'class warfare' involved with the suppression of graffiti, consider this excerpt from a promotion for an Australian exhibit Marwan participated in. When describing the artists, the curator articulates the political nature of this art form: 'artists whose gallery-based work has evolved from a history of interventionist practices and direct engagement with the street."'

Thanks, David

-Bowery Graffiti-

Post 9/11, Courtesy David Cyr 

Stalked By Eunuchs

A survivor of an encounter with a couple of India's hijras tells his tale. Their weapon? Threats that they may do "something unseemly." Is Freddy Kruger taking notes?

"They are eunuchs or otherwise transgendered people by birth, accident or choice. Something between male and female, they are shunned by Indian society as unclean. Many make a rough living through prostitution or by crashing weddings, birthday parties and other festive occasions, threatening to disrupt the celebrations with vulgar behavior and to bring bad luck unless they are paid off. And now they were in my living room.

"I don't know how they found me, but I didn't want to provoke them; some hijras are known to grow violent, and the bigger one could easily take me down. But I also don't like being bullied for money, so I thought it best to smile blandly and feign incomprehension. They were undeterred, trailing me from room to room in the wilting heat.

'"Mister, baksheesh,' the smaller one said, more insistent now, tugging at my shirt and pawing at my pocket. Then she reached into the bosom of her sky-blue sari and pulled out a wad of bills, like some scene out of a bad movie, so that there was no mistaking what she wanted. I kept playing dumb..."

Bad movie indeed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-eunuchs7jun07,0,2335578.story?track=tottext

Mexico: Left, Right, And Futbol

At least their parties seem to give them a choice down there. And some circus too, even if they're light on the bread.

"Rarely have Mexican voters faced such a stark choice as they do in this election, with conservative Felipe Calderon and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador standing clearly on opposite sides of a wide ideological divide.

"Three polls released Tuesday showed the two men in a statistical dead heat less than a month before the July 2 election.The debate was a last opportunity to reach voters ahead of Mexico's first game in soccer's World Cup on Sunday. Whoever loses Tuesday's debate might find it difficult to make up ground in this soccer-obsessed country, especially if Mexico progresses to the tournament's second round..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-debate7jun07,0,2800016.story?track=tottext

Intelligence Is A Dirty Business

The latest batch of declassified CIA documents bring few major surprises: the US had no formal policy on Nazi war criminals; the CIA knew where Eichmann was; the Soviets infiltrated West German intelligence; the US tried to use former Nazi officials for intelligence; these men sought to save themselves by appealing to the interests of the Soviets as well as the Americans.

The cold war rolled on.

"The C.I.A. was told by West German intelligence that Eichmann was living in Argentina under the name Clemens — a slight variation on his actual alias, Ricardo Klement — but did not share the information with Israel, which had been hunting for him for years, according to Timothy Naftali, a historian who examined the documents. Two years later, Israeli agents abducted Eichmann in Argentina and flew him to Israel, where he was tried and executed in 1962.

"The Eichmann papers are among 27,000 newly declassified pages released by the C.I.A. to the National Archives under Congressional pressure to make public files about former officials of Hitler's regime later used as American agents. The material reinforces the view that most former Nazis gave American intelligence little of value and in some cases proved to be damaging double agents for the Soviet K.G.B., according to historians and members of the government panel that has worked to open the long-secret files.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/world/americas/07nazi.html

-Ed Ruscha Monument, Lost?-

As it appeared 05.22.06 

More War On Populist Art?

Or would be "public art" be more to the point?

"Americans don't much like art. They never have. Art remains a minority interest, despite exponential growth in the size (and number) of museums and the market during the past 50 years.

"That popular indifference pretty much explains the wanton destruction last week of one of the best public murals in Los Angeles. Between 1978 and 1987, Kent Twitchell painted a gigantic work on the north side of an older downtown office building at 1031 S. Hill St., near the intersection with Olympic Boulevard. (It's half a dozen or so blocks from Staples Center.) The Ed Ruscha Monument was the most important painting by the noted muralist. Now it's gone, painted over without authorization in a flat, putty-brown color, the way one might redecorate an unfashionable den..."

http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-murals6jun06,0,4211898.story?track=tottext

-No Different Than A Subway Car-

 

NYPD WASTES $ ON GRAFFITI COPS RUINING LIVES

Readers may know from past posts that the oge is sympathetic to graffiti artists. Admittedly, I don't want to see spray paint on the Guggenheim (most of the time) or at the Cloisters, but there are vast spaces in the Big Apple only enhanced by street art. The sides of subway cars are one of them. During the heyday of graffiti, I waited on station platforms in anticipation of the exuberant form and color the next arriving train would display. Even if some of it was gang signatures, I thought it a better application of a kid's time and energies than stick-ups.

The drama of an express train racing through the station with elusive flashes of painting was a special experience.

I am not quite alone in feeling this way. As I recall, H. R. Giger noted at the end of an early visit to the city that the graffiti was the only contemporary art of any value that he saw. Of course, graffiti, like other proletarian art, doesn't lend itself to Christies' auctions or other venues of commodification.

If the mayors' offices (all of them, for the past 40 years) hadn't had their heads up their posteriors 24/7, they might have set aside areas for graffiti, even paid the kids instead of sending them to jail. Or maybe some did try, and I missed it. Or maybe I'm oversimplifying, and the graffiti medium draws its strength from an element of illicit tension. But now we have a 70-man police squad with modern resources wasting taxpayer dollars and putting even more kids in jail.

In any event, this article profiles one of the cops and one of the kids in one of the more poignant stories you may read today. There is a lot of sociology going on here, on a lot of levels. And almost all of it reduces to class warfare.

"Earlier this spring, when he was arrested, Joey Rotelli wasn't sure what was going on until he recognized Officer Nino Navarra of the Citywide Vandals Task Force. The two men were not friends. But they were not strangers, either.

"Their acquaintance dated back seven years, to the night when a 17-year-old Rotelli sneaked into the Brooklyn train yard where New York's graffiti police were stationed and spray-painted the word 'Acid' on the side of an antique subway car.

"...This is an aggressive period for New York's graffiti police. Arrests for graffiti are up sharply: 2,585 in 2005, more than double the number from 2004, according to Lt. Jeffrey Schneider of the Citywide Vandals Task Force.

"On April 26, Rotelli became one of those statistics, putting an end to a long game of cat and mouse. Rotelli was on the task force's 'worst of the worst' list, meaning he was considered one of the city's top 100 offenders. But Navarra was not exultant. There were stretches of time, Navarra said, when he had hoped Rotelli would shake the habit.

"'At some point, I think he did try it,' said Navarra, 41, 'but then he fell into his old ways.' Rotelli was a teenager, knotted up with grief and anger, when Navarra first met him. His mother had died the year before, and the household was out of kilter; that year, he recalled in an interview, the family ignored Christmas. Navarra went to the door and spoke to Rotelli's father, a city sanitation worker. Rotelli tried to scramble out a back window but soon he was sitting down with Navarra. They talked about his friends, about smoking angel dust, about the graffiti world and why he was in it..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-graffiti6jun06,0,4569485.story?track=tottext

NYPD MafiaCops Convicted

These sociopaths should have waited for Iraq and a nice lucrative defense contract:

"Calling their crimes 'the most heinous … ever tried in this courthouse,' a U.S. district judge Monday promised to sentence former New York police detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa to life in prison for moonlighting as mafia hitmen.

"...The two men were arrested last year in Las Vegas, where they had retired after serving a combined 44 years on the police force. Eppolito, who is fat and garrulous, left New York to pursue show-business aspirations and found a few acting jobs, such as Fat Andy in Goodfellas. His friend Caracappa moved to a house on the same block.

"A series of underworld figures testified that Eppolito and Caracappa worked as informants and hitmen for Anthony 'Gaspipe' Casso, an underboss for the Luchese family. Burton Kaplan testified that Casso paid the two $4,000 a month, plus lump sums for murders. For pulling over Eddie Lino's car at a traffic stop and shooting him in the head, he said, they were paid $65,000..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mafia6jun06,0,2144650.story?track=tottext

Czech General Election Questioned

In some ways, it's reminiscent of Ohio 2004.

"Prague- Representatives of the Civic Democrats (ODS), the Green Party (SZ) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) have condemned the statement by PM and Social Democrat (CSSD) chairman Jiri Paroubek who questioned the validity of the general election today.

"On the contrary the Communists (KSCM) said they agreed with Paroubek and they would take it into consideration whether the party would join the CSSD election complaint. The KSCM executive committee will decide on it at its meeting on Tuesday, KSCM deputies' group head Pavel Kovacik told CTK.

"Paroubek said that his party would check the possibility to file a complaint on suspicion of the elections' invalidity with the Supreme Administrative Court. At the same time he refused to accept the CSSD failure and he accused the ODS, which won the elections, with dirty practices.
KDU-CSL chairman Miroslav Kalousek said that the elections were legitimate though 'a number of dirty tricks' were played during the election campaign.

'"It is cheap, nothing more can be said about it,' ODS deputies' head Vlastimil Tlusty told CTK commenting on Paroubek's statements."

And they have their own version of Abramoff and Boulis:

"Tlusty also denied Paroubek's statement that he had contacts with the murdered controversial businessman Frantisek Mrazek..."

http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=192049

-May Have Been Drenched In Red Space Sperm-

Godfrey Louis, PhD, Mahatma Ghandi University 

Good Grief, Tom Cruise Has It Right After All!

"As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.

"In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.

"Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit .) "

It is hard for the oge to understand how this got published in the first place; peer review sure as hell can't be what it used to be...unless he sent a check to the long arm of Jack Abramoff. It looks like the editors didn't even wait for the DNA testing. Of course, it could be space prions, which would make this an instance of mad alien disease.

Most disturbing, however, is the association of the red rains with the theory of panspermia. I thought the spruce pollen was bad this year, when clouds of the yellow stuff wafted across the yard, and the cat turned ochre rolling in it...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/02/red.rain/index.html

Thanks---I think---to D for pointing out this one.

-Smek-

Ned Lamont may not be a progressive's hero, but he at least has avoided photo ops like this.  

Accepting Civil War

Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that the forces for civil war in Iraq are so strong that our only option is to back off and let it happen. He is probably right, that even proposals (like Biden's) to partition the country would fail, given the extent of division not only between but among the various factions. In our state of delusional political antisepsis, however, don't wait for a politician to adopt this stance; instead, expect the misery to go on under the deranged apologia that we must or can fix things first.

We are in the simple position of having assumed the British empire's role in an anachronistic nightmare; no imposition of some Western notion of borders, boundaries, or governments can address the underlying history. We have seen this horror repeatedly as colonial powers withdrew their yokes from the peoples throughout Asia, Africa, South America, and even southern and eastern Europe.

We could occupy Iraq under a quiescent policed state with a million troops, or we could destroy it, but neither of those options is realistic. The current default of a continuing ineffective presence, which is in fact no more than procrastination and face-saving, will only exacerbate the bloodletting, in that we put more deadly arms and skills into the hands of the factions.

It is increasingly likely that our involvement will be brought to an end through some sensational or incremental humiliation, most likely at the expense of the troops sent there by politicians too cowardly to face the results of their own stupid calculations. In the least dreadful scenario, we may simply exhaust ourselves as Iraq descends in chaos, and manage to drag our sons and daughters out of there with some tainted shred of respect for their efforts.

"CIVIL WARS can be especially atrocious as neighbors kill each other at close range, but they also have a purpose. They can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.

"England's civil war in the mid-17th century ensured the subsequent centuries of political stability under Parliament and a limited monarchy. But first there had to be a war with pitched battles and killing, including the decapitation of King Charles I, who had claimed absolute power by divine right.

"...And so it must be with Iraq, the most haphazard of states, hurriedly created by the British after World War I with scant regard for its rival nationalities and sects. The sectarian hatred — erupting during the Saddam Hussein era and at full boil since his ouster — is now inflicting a heavy toll in casualties.

"Attempts by U.S. and British forces to stop the killings are feeble; it would take many times as many troops as remain in Iraq to make any difference. Nor can the fundamental factors that are causing the violence be reversed at this point, certainly not by fielding more Iraqi army and police units..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luttwak2jun02,0,1955042.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

CEO Compensation=6.6% Of Company Profits!

Forget the old excuse that managers comprise so small a number among a company's workforce that their compensation is insignificant. Maybe once upon a time, but not today in our new era of corporate robber barons:

"The $5.5 million that former Gateway Inc. Chief Executive Wayne R. Inouye made last year amounted to 89.4% of the company's annual earnings. At Broadcom Corp. in Irvine, CEO Scott A. McGregor was rewarded with a pay package that equaled 15.7% of the company's 2005 profit.

"The salary, bonus and stock given last year to chief executives at California's 100 largest publicly traded companies averaged 6.6% of their companies' annual earnings, according to The Times' annual executive compensation survey.

"...Underlying the profit percentages is a continued escalation in executive pay. The CEOs earned a combined $1.32 billion in 2005, up 20% from 2004. Nineteen executives earned $20 million or more, up from 12 in the previous year..."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-execpay30may30,0,2461666.story?page=1&track=tottext

The Collapse of Iraq: Basra In Chaos

This time it's Shiite factions---various parties, interests, gangs, whatever you choose to call them, slaughtering each other, along with a few Anglos. This was supposed to be the easy piece of the country, that the Brits got. If Maliki can't jawbone them into law and order---and he can't---then who you gonna call?

"Iraq's new prime minister made an urgent visit to this increasingly lawless city on Wednesday, imposing a state of emergency and ordering leaders to cease their violent struggle for power and allow order to return to this oil-rich region.

"Once seemingly immune to the violence that has plagued the rest of the country, Basra Province, the heart of Iraq's Shiite south, has sunk into chaos. Shiite political parties and their militias are fighting to control the provincial government and the region's oil wealth, contributing to some of the worst rates of killing since the invasion, with 174 killings in the past two months — double the amount from the previous two months, according to the Basra police..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/world/middleeast/01basra.html?th&emc=th

-Late Paleocene Mammal-

Uintatherium was distantly related to the horse, elephant, and whale. At 10-15', it was the largest herbivore of the era. Ranged North America and Asia. 

New Data: Paleocene Arctic Averaged 74 Degrees

Just after the great extinction, the earth warmed drastically. Most theories envision the release of vast quantities of CO2 and methane (23x more effective as a greenhouse gas). Newly published evidence from suboceanic samples drilled by the Arctic Coring Expedition, a project of the International Ocean Drilling Program, establishes a warm, land-locked, fresh-water Arctic sea hosting huge expanses of primitive flora until the geology changes. Given this dramatic revision of climate history, one can imagine the oil companies paying close attention; is someone (from the biogenic oil camp) addressing global warming with a familiar, "Bring it on?"

"The first detailed analysis of an extraordinary climatic and biological record from the seabed near the North Pole shows that 55 million years ago the Arctic Ocean was much warmer than scientists imagined — a Floridian year-round average of 74 degrees.

"The new analysis confirms that the Arctic Ocean warmed remarkably 55 million years ago, which is when many scientists say the extraordinary planetwide warm-up called the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum must have been caused by an enormous outburst of heat-trapping, or greenhouse, gases like methane and carbon dioxide. But no one has found a clear cause for the gas discharge. Almost all climate experts agree that the present-day gas buildup is predominantly a result of emissions from smokestacks, tailpipes and burning forests.

"The samples also chronicle the subsequent cooling, with many ups and downs, that the researchers say began about 45 million years ago and led to the cycles of ice ages and brief warm spells of the last several million years..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/science/earth/01climate.html?th&emc=th

Technical data:

http://www.ecord.org/exp/acex/vol302/index.html#Drilling%20location%20maps

-Countdown 08.18-