Jan 202020
 


Unknown

 

Nadler Says Dems Unwilling To Negotiate Hunter Biden Testimony (Fox)
Warren Joins Bernie in Jabbing Biden on Social Security (Pol.)
Lindsey Graham Broke My Heart’ (Amy Klobuchar)
John Durham Investigaties Months Before Mueller Appointment (WE)
India’s Half-Finished “Ghost Towns” Leave Middle Class In Crisis (ZH)
Boris Johnson Urged To Publish Report On Russian Meddling (G.)
World’s Richest 2,000 People Hold More Than Poorest 4.6 Billion Combined (R.)
UN Decarbonisation Target For Shipping To Cost Over $1 Trillion (R.)
Oil Firms Risk Public Backlash If Profits Put Before Climate, Says IEA (G.)
EU Could Waste €29bn On Gas Projects Despite Climate Action Plan (G.)
Huge Dust Storms In Australia Hit Central New South Wales (AAP)

 

 

Warming up for the fight. Get your gloves on, check ’em twice, practice some jabs in front of the mirror, have a last drink of water and let the trainer put in your mouthguard. This may get ugly.

Nadler Says Dems Unwilling To Negotiate Hunter Biden Testimony (Fox)

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., one of the House impeachment managers, dismissed on Sunday any notion that Democrats would be willing to negotiate on witnesses called during the Senate trial – adding that Republicans who want to block or negotiate what witnesses testify are “part of the cover-up.” Nadler, who as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee led the writing of the articles of impeachment brought against President Trump, said that all “relevant witnesses must be heard” and balked at the idea of Democrats agreeing to having former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter testify in exchange for the witnesses Democrats want to hear from.


“This whole controversy about whether there should be witnesses is really a question about does the Senate want to have a fair trial or are they part of the cover-up of the president,” Nadler said during an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation.” Nadler added that “Hunter Biden has no knowledge of the accusations against the president.” “Any Republican senator who says there should be no witnesses, or even that witnesses should be negotiated, is part of the cover-up,” Nadler added.

Read more …

The Warren campaign has noticed Bernie’s gains after attacking Biden. They want a piece of the action.

Warren Joins Bernie in Jabbing Biden on Social Security (Pol.)

Elizabeth Warren hit Joe Biden for his past stances on changing Social Security and expressed solidarity with Bernie Sanders on the issue as the two liberal senators seek to move past their recent feud. “Bernie Sanders and I established the ‘Expand Social Security Caucus’ in the Senate,” Warren said in a quick interview as she hopped into her car outside a candidate forum in Iowa. “As a senator, Joe Biden had a very different position on Social Security, and I think everyone’s records on Social Security are important in this election.” Warren’s comments come as Sanders has been relentlessly bashing Biden for his past openness to freezing cost-of-living spikes or raising the retirement age as part of larger bipartisan deals — proposals that Sanders opposed during his time in Congress.


Warren linking arms with Sanders on the issue also comes after long-simmering tensions between the two exploded into the open this week. The campaigns have been trying to move on from the conflict — which climaxed Tuesday night when each accused the other of calling them a “liar” on the stage immediately following the debate —and are largely not responding to media questions about the rift. The Social Security issue provides a potential opportunity for a liberal tag-team against Biden as both senators have long fought to expand the program and have rolled out plans on the campaign trail.

Read more …

The NYT endorsed Warren and Klobuchar yesterday. Everyone yawned. At least seeing Klobuchar praise McCain and Poroshenko means there’s no doubt where she stands. War it is.

Lindsey Graham Broke My Heart’ (Amy Klobuchar)

Transcript from Sen. Amy Klobuchar interview with the editorial board of The New York Times:

Who has broken my heart? O.K., so here we go. Lindsey Graham’s broken my heart lately in the political system. Senator Lindsey Graham has transformed from a Trump critic, who called the president “xenophobic” and “race-baiting,” to one of his most staunch supporters. He told The Times Magazine, “If you don’t want to get re-elected, you’re in the wrong business.” Just because I like him and know him really well and traveled with him and Senator McCain all over the, all over the world. I’m just more thinking of Senator McCain and how much I miss him right now because I think he would have been really strong on Ukraine and on standing up against some of the things the president did and he’s no longer with us.

And Lindsey and McCain and I were actually on the front line with former President Poroshenko in a blizzard on New Year’s Eve, and I think about this now every New Year’s Eve — because John McCain wanted to show — after Trump got elected — wanted to show those countries that we were on their side. And so of course I was disappointed with how the Kavanaugh hearing was handled. I think everyone could see me on TV to see that, but I just hope that he has the ability to rise up here, and has a very important job right now as chair of the Judiciary Committee and certainly smart enough and has shown some tendency in the past to stand up for things and I just wish he would do it again when it comes to this conduct and a whole range of issues about our judicial system.

Read more …

Meanwhile, in the background:

John Durham Investigaties Months Before Mueller Appointment (WE)

A trail of documents has reportedly led Attorney General William Barr’s handpicked federal prosecutor to focus his inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation on the first several months of President Trump’s tenure. John Durham, a U.S. attorney from Connecticut, is zeroing in on the period spanning from January 2017, when Trump took office, to May of that year. A “strong” paper trail, as CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge put it on Friday, has led the investigation into possible misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials to that time frame.

While Trump and his allies have championed Durham’s effort, Democrats have dismissed the allegations of wrongdoing during the Trump-Russia investigation and are concerned the inquiry may be an effort to discredit the work of special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump gave Barr full declassification authority for the endeavor. Barr and Durham have traveled around the world for the investigation, and Durham’s team has already asked witnesses about possible anti-Trump bias among former FBI officials.

The secretive DOJ inquiry includes scrutiny of former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI special agent Peter Strzok, and British ex-spy Christopher Steele. In October, it was reported that Durham was expanding the scope of his investigation, adding agents and resources, to examine the post-election timeline up to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel in May 2017. The “investigation into the investigators” was reported to be upgraded to a criminal inquiry later that month, which would give Durham the power to impanel a grand jury and hand down indictments. Durham has also reviewed the Intelligence Community’s conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Little else is known about the investigation other than that Durham is exploring whether a crime was committed by Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who was found by the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to have altered a document during the FBI’s efforts to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewal to continue wiretapping onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Among those known to be cooperating with Barr is retired Adm. Michael Rogers, the former director of the National Security Agency who has a history of uncovering FISA violations.

Read more …

US, EU, China, India, everyone gets their turn.

India’s Half-Finished “Ghost Towns” Leave Middle Class In Crisis (ZH)

If you thought the American housing market was a mess during the immediate aftermath of the collapse, wait until you read about what’s going in India. Rapid economic growth and the government’s gradual economic liberalization have caused the ranks to India’s middle class to boom. The emerging Hindu middle class is already reshaping Indian society: Prime Minister Narendra Modi owes his electoral victories to this group, and his reform agenda was designed with the goal of sheparding even more of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens into the higher income bracket.

Modi’s first term included several important reforms, including simplifying India’s byzantine tax system and instituting a simplified system for taxing goods and services (though some argue that it must still be simplified further. He’s also helped modernize the country’s bankruptcy laws. But as the country’s growing wealth has sparked a flight from India’s crowded urban slums to its more spacious suburbs, they’re struggling with a shortage of homes, a shortage that has been made even more intense thanks to roughly half a million apartments that have been sitting unfinished for years.

Across the country, outside major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, hundreds of developments have been stranded by developers, many of which have declared bankruptcy, or simply run out of money to finish the projects, according to the Wall Street Journal. India’s banks, already saddled with bad loans, are refusing to lend any more money to the developers. As a result, millions of Indians who put up their life savings as a down payment on a new, yet-to-be-built apartment have essentially been left bereft, with no money and nowhere to live. Most are now making ends meet by cutting out any and all luxuries, and relying on friends and family, as they wait to see if the apartments they paid for will ever be finished.

Read more …

If the Royal Family can’t unite the nation, there’s always the Big Bad Wolf.

Boris Johnson Urged To Publish Report On Russian Meddling (G.)

The SNP’s leader at Westminster has written to Boris Johnson demanding that he take immediate steps to allow the suppressed report into Russia’s interference in the British political system to be published. Ian Blackford, the leader of the third-largest party in the Commons, called on the prime minister to begin appointing members of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, necessary to allow the controversial document to be released. “It is unacceptable that your government has repeatedly and intentionally failed to take steps to establish the committee and has sought to escape scrutiny on vital issues,” Blackford writes in a letter that has been shared with the Guardian.

“The public interest and the imperative is and has always been clear: lift your sanction on publishing this report and re-establish the intelligence and security committee so that it can be immediately published,” the SNP MP added. A report on Russia’s spying activities against the UK and its attempts to penetrate the British establishment had been prepared by the committee in the last parliament, and had been made ready to publish when the election was called. Members of the committee saw evidence of Russian infiltration in Conservative political circles, but it is unclear how much of that concern reached the final document, which some sources say was watered down even before it went to Johnson.

Ministers have repeatedly said there are no examples of “successful Russian interference” in the 2016 EU referendum or an election, although there is scepticism as to whether that has been properly investigated. The report was nevertheless awaiting final clearance from Downing Street, to check it did not contain any classified information, when the election was called. No 10 said it was not possible to clear it in time, a point disputed by the previous chairman of the committee, former MP Dominic Grieve. Downing Street eventually said after the election that the report was cleared. But its release depends on the appointment of nine cross-party backbench MPs and peers to the committee’s membership, a task that falls to Johnson after consulting with other parties.

Read more …

And what are you going to do about it?

World’s Richest 2,000 People Hold More Than Poorest 4.6 Billion Combined (R.)

The world’s richest 2,153 people controlled more money than the poorest 4.6 billion combined in 2019, while unpaid or underpaid work by women and girls adds three times more to the global economy each year than the technology industry, Oxfam said on Monday. The Nairobi-headquartered charity said in a report released ahead of the annual World Economic Forum of political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, that women around the world work 12.5 billion hours combined each day without pay or recognition. In its “Time to Care” report, Oxfam said it estimated that unpaid care work by women added at least $10.8 trillion a year in value to the world economy – three times more than the tech industry.


“It is important for us to underscore that the hidden engine of the economy that we see is really the unpaid care work of women. And that needs to change,” Amitabh Behar, CEO of Oxfam India, told Reuters in an interview. To highlight the level of inequality in the global economy, Behar cited the case of a woman called Buchu Devi in India who spends 16 to 17 hours a day doing work like fetching water after trekking 3km, cooking, preparing her children for school and working in a poorly paid job. “And on the one hand you see the billionaires who are all assembling at Davos with their personal planes, personal jets, super rich lifestyles,” he said.

Read more …

Davos counts in trillions. This is just shipping. And that is just 2.2% of CO2 emissions.

UN Decarbonisation Target For Shipping To Cost Over $1 Trillion (R.)

At least $1 trillion of investment in new fuel technology is needed to enable the shipping industry to meet U.N. targets for cuts in carbon emissions by 2050, a study published on Monday showed. The global shipping fleet, which accounts for 2.2% of the world’s CO2 emissions, is under pressure to reduce those emissions and other pollution. About 90% of world trade is transported by sea. U.N. shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), aims to reduce the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050, a target that will require the swift development of zero or low emission fuels and new ship designs using cleaner technology.

In the first study into costs, researchers estimated that the cumulative investment needed between 2030 and 2050 would be between $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion, or an average of $50 billion to $70 billion annually for 20 years. If the shipping industry was to fully decarbonise by 2050, this would require further investment of some $400 billion over 20 years, bringing the total to $1.4 trillion to $1.9 trillion. “Our analysis suggests we will see a disruptive and rapid change to align to a new zero carbon system, with fossil fuel aligned assets becoming obsolete or needing significant modification,” said Tristan Smith, reader at University College London’s (UCL) Energy Institute, which was involved in the study.

Apart from more than a decade of tough market conditions, the shipping industry is also contending with the exit of many European banks from providing finance, leaving a capital shortfall of tens of billions of dollars annually. Around 87% of investments needed would be in land-based infrastructure and production facilities for low-carbon fuels, the study said. This includes investments in the production of low-carbon fuels as well as the land-based storage and bunkering infrastructure needed for their supply. The remaining 13% of investments are related to the ships themselves including the machinery and onboard storage required for a ship to run on low-carbon fuel. “Sustainable investing is here to stay,” said Michael Parker, chairman of Global Shipping Logistics & Offshore at Citigroup.

Read more …

Let’s see what shareholders have to say.

Oil Firms Risk Public Backlash If Profits Put Before Climate, Says IEA (G.)

The world’s energy watchdog has warned the oil and gas industry that it risks a public backlash by failing to act on the climate crisis in favour of making short-term profits. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said oil companies must balance their desire for near-term returns and a long-term future by playing a much more significant role in combating the climate crisis. The IEA is preparing to make its most direct call for oil companies to help tackle the climate crisis at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on Tuesday. The oil and gas industry faces “twin threats” to its financial profitability and social acceptability, according to the IEA.


“There are already signs of both, whether in financial markets or in the reflexive antipathy towards fossil fuels that is increasingly visible in the public debate, at least in parts of Europe and North America,” it said. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said: “No energy company will be unaffected by clean-energy transitions. Every part of the industry needs to consider how to respond. Doing nothing is simply not an option.” The report said that although some oil and gas companies have taken steps to support efforts to combat the climate crisis, the industry as a whole could play a much more significant role. Oil companies could do more now to help shrink the industry’s giant carbon footprint but most companies were yet to play a meaningful role, according to the report.

Read more …

Basically: be careful what you waste our money on.It’s fine to waste those €29bn on that climate action plan.

EU Could Waste €29bn On Gas Projects Despite Climate Action Plan (G.)

The European Investment Bank risks wasting €29bn (£25bn) of EU taxpayers’ money by overinvesting in gas projects which will be unnecessary under Europe’s climate action plans, according to a report. The EIB vowed late last year to end its support for fossil fuels within the next two years to become the world’s first “climate bank”, but 32 gas projects are still eligible for funding before the crackdown. The majority of these projects would waste billions of euros of taxpayers’ money, according to Artelys, an independent data science company, because they would be left as “stranded assets” in the move towards cleaner energy.

The report warns that gas investments will be unnecessary in the decades ahead because Europe already has enough infrastructure – such as pipelines and processing plants – to meet the continent’s future demand. The European commission set out a sweeping Green Deal plan late last year which aims to create a carbon-neutral EU by 2050, in part by increasing renewable energy and energy efficiency. Under Europe’s climate action roadmap, gas demand is expected to fall by almost 30% by 2030 compared with 2015 levels. But even in scenarios in which gas demand climbs higher, the report found that new investments in gas infrastructure would be “superfluous” from an economic perspective.

[..] Claude Turmes, Luxembourg’s energy minister, said it “makes absolutely no sense” that EU decision-makers are supporting investments in new gas infrastructure with public funds. “This report debunks the argument that these investments would be needed for the EU’s security of gas supply. We risk wasting €29bn on future stranded assets while locking our energy system into fossil gas addiction for the next 40 years,” he said.

Read more …

Some 90 years after the US dust bowl.

Huge Dust Storms In Australia Hit Central New South Wales (AAP)

Damaging winds produced by thunderstorms across central New South Wales have whipped up dust storms that turned daytime into night in some towns. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a series of severe thunderstorm warnings on Sunday evening for inland NSW with the associated winds generating massive dust clouds. Videos posted to social media showed dust storms descending on Dubbo and nearby towns that were so thick they blocked out the sun. A gust of 94 km/h was recorded at Parkes about 6.30pm while a gust of 107 km/h was recorded at Dubbo about 7.45pm, the bureau said.


A bureau meteorologist, Rose Barr, said Sunday’s significant rain was concentrated across central and northern parts of the state on, and east, of the ranges. Rain and hail also lashed Victoria, sparking almost 1500 calls for assistance with more severe weather on the way as bushfires continue. The State Emergency Service received 1453 calls for assistance since Sunday morning, more than 1000 of them for building damage. Many towns on the NSW mid-north coast and the northern rivers regions received between 100mm and 180mm from 9am to 10.30pm on Sunday. In the southern part of the state, high winds saw storms race overhead quickly, resulting in lower measured falls.

Read more …

Social behaviour of striped catfish.

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 20 2020

Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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  • #52824

    Unknown   • Nadler Says Dems Unwilling To Negotiate Hunter Biden Testimony (Fox) • Warren Joins Bernie in Jabbing Biden on Social Security (Pol.)
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 20 2020]

    #52825
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    And what are you going to do about it?

    Keep as low a profile as possible…

    #52827
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Where the author positions herself. Why else have a preface?
    The Durham article should be read as a signal to the Obama Administration that the fix is in. Why else make the announcement in ominous tones the focus of the Durham inquiry goes all the way back to the beginning of time, that is January 2017?

    #52828
    zerosum
    Participant

    You read my comment from yesterday.
    five members of the Biden family, including Hunter, got rich using former Vice President Joe Biden’s “largesse, favorable access and powerful position. (Joe’s brothers James and Frank, his sister Valerie, and his son-in-law Howard )”
    CALL Peter Schweizer FOR THE IMPEACHMENT HEARING

    #52829
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Nadler Says Dems Unwilling to Negotiate Hunter Biden Testimony (Fox)

    All witnesses must be heard, except for all the ones I don’t want. Right!

    Warren Joins Bernie in Jabbing Biden on Social Security (Pol.)”

    Craziest things happening every day now. Warren says Bernie – who’s on tape calling for a woman president decades ago doesn’t believe in women presidents. …Months after HRC won the popular. Months after telling her he wasn’t a great candidate and if she was going to run he would stand aside and let her. She didn’t, so he did.

    Claims a tape of Biden, doing Biden things in the past – and nothing that strange, unlike now – are “doctored”, fabricated. Huh? This is just C-Span video of you talking in Congress.

    Fake claims Bernie says Buttigeig has a “gay problem”? What?

    Notice any pattern here? Oh yeah, 100% of them are against Bernie. But on his side, his campaign guy was outed as a violent-loving death-camp revolutionary. And that’s just one guy, however it can show what kind of people he attracts. Don’t mind that so much. However, he was not fired, and everyone nearby locked their accounts so no evidence could be found. …Always the first response of innocent men. And going into a critical primary where their accounts MUST be active to chat up that support. I wouldn’t go nuts about it, because they’ve been saying the same thing for decades (and trying it, see VA, but so, so many laws) but…

    Speaking of, NBC had an op-ed that supporting Trump was illegal and arrestable crime. No joke. So if you’re a-gonna do that, what would you call the prisons where you plan to hold 1/3 of all Americans? And I’m the crazy one here. Can you think 30 seconds ahead? Nevermind.

    Back to crazy-every-day, “NYT endorsed Warren AND Klobuchar yesterday.” Of course they did. Because who the fargleblaster has ever supported Klobuchar? Nobody I ever heard of, not even the press until now. Since Harris was too vile even for the media, they’re picking the next VPs, who must be women. …Not capable people but nobody cares who they are, nobody cares what they do, nobody cares if anyone likes them so long as they’re women. …Because gender is a social construct that doesn’t exist, and there’s no such thing as men and women.

    John Durham Investigates Months Before Mueller Appointment (WE)

    But apparently can’t find any indictments. You know, like when somebody takes home 30,000 emails then erases them for a subpoena. Speaking of, how about Cheeto’s new legal team! Can I get an “Epstein” up in here? Since we see bad law sink ships, like Flynn’s legal team not only rigging him, but all of Comey’s pals from Justice were immediately hired into that law group to leak his legal defense in the background and run the show, maybe Cheeto needs to have some really, REALLY sweet blackmail over his lawyers Dershowitz et pals to keep them honest? …Honest in lawyer terms, anyway. And are they good? Well they got Epstein off!

    immediate steps to allow the suppressed report into Russia’s interference in the British political system to be published

    I’m guessing he hand-picked the people and fabricated the document, like all documents these day. “17 intelligence agencies!” (including NOAA and the Coast Guard) Remember Blair and yellowcake? How about the OPCW? OxFam rapes and trafficking? Hey both of those were overseen by the U.N.! But that is a coincidence and both of them are totally trustworthy. Ask the Skripals, they’ll tell you.

    I think he should just declassify a warehouse of documents including these and watch them all squirm about “Suppression” and “publishing”. Is it true? Meh, maybe, probably not. But I’ll bet you can find a few ten-million foreign cash used to rig the “Remain” vote.

    World’s Richest 2,000 People Hold More than Poorest 4.6 Billion Combined (R.)

    I’ve got an answer: More market rigging! More government! Ask Carney, he just said he was going to do all that AND hand more poorest money to his 2,000 richest friends, so long as they used the special discount code “Green” in the last 500 days. When the rich hire the rich to oversee the rich, what could possibly go wrong? I know: let’s ask the rich. NYT, Guardian, Murdoch: what do you say?

    UN Decarbonisation Target for Shipping to Cost over $1 Trillion (R.)

    Once again, they think it’s money. Money is a big zero, a representation, a pronoun. What they’re really saying is they need to burn $1 Trillion in oil-energy to create all the ships and trains to save $1 Trillion in energy. Translation: we must burn the town to fire-proof the town. #Winning! Everyone applauds. “You rich peoples sure iz schmart! $1 Trillion went into your coffers and we burned more CO2 than ever! How’d dat happen?” Wouldn’t it be easier to hire people and manufacture locally instead? You know, the way you violently oppose at every turn, even with impeachment?

    Oil Firms Risk Public Backlash If Profits Put Before Climate, Says IEA (G.)”

    Being “The Guardian”, they’re probably unaware of all law, profit, and finance over the last 100 years, but it’s literally illegal if they don’t? They would be instantly sued for breach of fiduciary duty and bounced off the BoD. If they had any reporters over the age of 12, and/or called anybody on earth to ask, they would tell them, but sadly it is “The Guardian”, so synapse-free for 100 years.

    Europe already has enough infrastructure – such as pipelines and processing plants – to meet the continent’s future demand.

    That’s so odd since I remember just a year or two ago Europe ran out of gas and had a panic about their supplies from Russia. So they have all the gas they need except it went down yesterday. Right! The Guardian cannot Google “The Guardian” for old articles from “The Guardian” because they are reporters for “The Guardian.” Good thing we only trust mainstream sources!

    Some 90 years after the US dust bowl.

    Yes, and Australia had the same cycle then too, and is as predictable as rain they would have it again. Just go chart it, or look at the many climate cycle charts people have posted for you. But they’re “Crazy” people who post science recordings in graph form, while the people who doctor and hide data are “scientists.”

    PS. 9 days of snow in Bangladesh with 9” accumulation, not seen in 40 years, much less a de-facto blizzard. I blame Russia, and certainly not East Anglia who lied to you about it. Not the people who “lost” the ice cores, then the satellite data, then their computer models, then… Also snowing to Mexico, California, in Saudi Arabia, greening in Libya, Africa, and the whole Silk Road…

    Nope. Those people don’t count. Only report what sells my product: taxes and slavery. The other stuff? Green all over new areas? Croplands growing? Well: “Deny everything. Admit nothing. Make counter-accusations.” Science!™

    #52830
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    John Durham Investigaties Months Before Mueller Appointment (WE)

    Yes, Dr D Rich, the fix is in. But the ignorant public must be given the illusion that the wheels of justice are turning, every so slowly in order to grind out the truth. Yes, maybe three or four years will be needed for Durham’s wide investigative net to scoop up every coup plotter in the FISAgate -> Russiagate conspiracy. And so we wait on pins and needles for the indictments, trials, and sentencing, for crimes that were obvious to the half-blind three years ago. And wait… and wait. Any day now the scales of justice will be rebalanced… waiting…

    Here’s what will happen instead: nothing. The kindling will continue to be stacked up around DC higher and higher, until that fateful day when the match is lit and the configuration begins.

    We recently learned that for centuries the Australian aboriginal tribes were smart enough to initiate periodic burns to maintain the health of their ecosystem, until the state stepped in with a better plan. Helping! We saw the result. Similarly, the governmental ecosystem requires a cleansing of corruption from time to time in order to keep the social contract between state and governed healthy. The longer the state puts off this rebalancing, the more out-of-control will be the reckoning.

    #52832
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    Damn proof reader! configuration -> conflagration

    #52833
    zerosum
    Participant

    “The longer the state puts off this rebalancing, the more out-of-control will be the reckoning.”

    We cannot influence the time line of “the rebalancing”.
    In my opinion, “the rebalancing” is already 10 years old.
    Therefore, the farther “the rebalancing” occurs, the better for me because it increases the odds that I’ll be sitting on a cloud eating popcorn.

    Going through ” the rebalancing” will not be comfortable for the survivors.
    Also, All living things must go through one of the 12 pearly gates.
    That is one time line that you can influence/choose.
    Make sure to have your chosen pain killer close by.

    #52834
    zerosum
    Participant
    #52839
    WES
    Participant

    Yup! Trust the plan! Justice is coming! Any day now!

    I also have 100 acres of consolidated moose pasture (deep swamp) for sale if you want to save the world!

    Oh, by the way Greta, my daughter wants to know how you can afford to travel, first class, all over the world while she can’t?

    Yes, Greta, how nice that daddy and the UN are even writing all your social comments for you! I guess being a totally “useful idiot” does have it’s advantages! Lenin would so love you!

    Also very nice to be able to travel on an unlimited UN environmental expense account!

    Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you by telling my daughter how you can afford to trave!l and why she can’t!

    #52840
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    It hardly matters who did/didn’t fudge this/that data regarding climate dynamics. Arguing it yea/nay only feeds the beast.

    What matters is that we have 7 going on 8 billion people, nearly all of them convinced that they deserve the obscenely extravagant and ultimately ridiculous lifestyle pioneered in Euromerica. Not only does this drive our capitalistic economy engines to extract every damn valuable thing they can in order to make (new! improved!) Smart Pet Rocks, now with enhanced privacy intrusion, but also, in doing so we systematically destroy the planetary ecosystem, one that has evolved over billions of years with recurrent restarts via comets and other disruptions, one we understand so little that we can argue if the destruction is happening even as we watch it happen. (We’re kind of cognitively cross-eyed, we homo saps.)

    What matters is that even if the current climate fluctuations are “normal”, they’re happening to 7-plus billion people dependent on ever more energy to live, especially since any reversion to more primitive lifestyles is at best going to be very painful for an enormous number of people, and at worst, impossible.

    What matters is that few people will voluntarily do without in order to make do with less, which is the only sane option we have before us, and so we’ll fight viciously and, for the most part, indiscrimately, over the dwindling cornucopia become wasteland.

    The last Dust Bowl affected far less people than such a thing would today. Worse, no one has a farm to go bgack to. It is false reassurement to point out that we have seen major climate disruption occur before things like anthropgenic climate disruption were a twinkle on a young climatologist’s master thesis title page. Yeah, we know big bad weather events happen without human intervention. This is ancient history. That this is so doesn’t negate the possibility that we’re winding up the global climate dynamo even crazier with our cute concepts of Enlightenment Modernist progress. The fact that we’re naturally about due for a repeat of previous climate changes (if that facet of natural history is determined to repeat itself again, which is not a foregone conclusion because predicting the future by the past has always been a dicey challenge) indicates that the global climate is more susceptible to alteration by human meddling than it would be during more stable periods in epochs past.

    Meanwhile, we continue with the back-and-forth while the climate goes wonky. Everyone talks about carbon carbon carbon, apparently because that carbon offset number.a catchy little tune promising a relatively painless way for us to continue living swell while supposedly doing something significant to help our descendants deal with whatever mess we leave them (and anyone who challenges that we’ll leave them anything but a disaster has access to really good drugs that I want in on). But then, so does the concept of ignoring the fact that we were and are running out of energy relative to the human population growth potential before the concept of global climate disruption entered the vernacular. Rich elitist bastards make money selling carbon offset while other rich elitist bastards make money selling the notion that we should just continue drilling and mining and burning a buncha million years of solar energy concentrated into underground hydrocarbon sediments.

    We’re in trouble regarding fossil fuels any way you look at it, and I don’t hear a single sane voiuce in any camp addressing the problem except those who recommend we start learning how to live without a power grid and factory farms.

    Here’s a funny thought: the reason the fat cats are making money selling carbon offset bullshit is because the idea was already well-established among the majority climatology establishment and the Euromerican populace, while the concept of climate change denial by definition entered the race much later. The race has already been lost. That’s usually how it is with reactionary movements: they arrive too late because they’re reacting not proacting.

    But then, it was a major reactionary who put the global wearming meme on the public news front page:

    Madge, Coal, Climatology, Power Politics

    But since we so insist on arguing whether anthropgenic climate disruption is happening:

    Early global climate chanmge models mostly accurate per current measurements

    No matter what one believes regarding climate and energy stocks, one is going to find going getting rougher, yea, much rougher, pert near soon.

    Something in the Air

    #52845
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Yup! Trust the plan! Justice is coming! Any day now!

    I also have 100 acres of consolidated moose pasture (deep swamp) for sale if you want to save the world!

    Oh, by the way Greta, my daughter wants to know how you can afford to travel, first class, all over the world while she can’t?

    Yep. Ain’t it great? Greta, Greta, Greta…
    The din is huge; much ado about nothing, dignifying even less…

    #52864
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Oh, I almost forgot: the photograph gracing this post’s header is… I rarely encounter art that stuns me with its newness and effectiveness. I’m hardly a connoisseur of art photography, but I think this is the single best such work I’ve seen. It works in so many ways on so many levels. I’ve made it my desktop background.

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