Why is Sarah Palin considered an expert on energy?

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So, normally, when I hear someone in the media say something more than once, I assume it's a lie. That might be cynical, but it's worked well. And John McCain's called Sarah Palin an expert on energy more than once. It's nice to validate one's heuristics every now and then, so I decided to look for evidence that Governor Palin was an expert on energy. On her bio page at Senator McCain's campaign web site, I found

She created Alaska’s Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to oversee and maintain oil and gas equipment, facilities and infrastructure, and the Climate Change Subcabinet to prepare a climate change strategy for Alaska.
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Governor Palin took on the oil companies and began a competitive process to construct a gas pipeline. Because of her leadership, work has begun on a $40 billion natural gas pipeline – the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history – to help lead our country to energy independence.

When oil and gas prices went up dramatically and the state revenues rose, Governor Palin sent a large share of that revenue directly back to the people of Alaska. She also suspended the state's fuel tax.
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As Governor, Palin is chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multi-state government agency that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources while protecting health, safety and the environment. She also serves as chair of the National Governors Association (NGA) Natural Resources Committee, which is charged with pursuing legislation to ensure state needs are considered as federal policy is formulated in the areas of agriculture, energy, environmental protection and natural resource management.
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She also served as chair and ethics commissioner of the Alaska Conservation Commission, which regulates Alaska's most valuable non-renewable resources: oil and gas. When she found corruption there, she fought it and brought the offenders to account, even though they may have been members of her own party.

I expected the least critical possible analysis of Governor Palin's background on the site, so I'm not going to criticize this. But, where's the policy expertise? She has some background in pipeline planning maybe, but energy generally? Isn't Senator McCain supposed to be Mr. Nuke? That doesn't even involve oil and gas pipelines.

Fat People and Hate Speech

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The link, unfortunately, doesn't make my point. Because it's an email I received from the New York Civil Liberties Union about school bullying laws. Now, I'm sure there's a way to feel about school bullying laws, but I don't feel it. So, let's not talk about that.

However! The subject line of the email to me, which you can't see, is "Homo, Towelhead, Fatso. Enough is enough!" This got me really worked up, and it's a flaw that the body of the web page doesn't have.

Fat people are not a protected group.

It's important that they never be. Shame, ridicule, goading, these are things we use to oppress minorities and people different from us. Well, OK. We shouldn't abuse folks for their religious dress, their gender orientations, their accents. But! The reason the good Lord gave us the capacity to abuse one another was so that we could change maladaptive behavior. Like being fat!

I know. There's like 8 guys in America that are fat because of some medical thing. It's these guys who suffer because of all the optionally fat people bringing shame upon them!

OK. There's that.

Address books and maiden names

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This is really just a gripe. I send out announcements, invitations and whatnot to married people using online applications. I don't think I'm unique in this. And yet, they always assume married people have the same last name. Right? Say I have two friends, James Johnson and Mary Smith*. I can enter them as 'Mary & James Johnson.' But, that'll sometimes anger Mary. And frankly, they could be living in sin. I don't think the protocol is really worked out in same sex marriages. But, the little announcement machine takes a first name and a last name. I could enter 'Mary Smith a' as the first name and 'nd James Johnson' as the last name, but I don't feel like I should be having to try to trick the machine.

This seems like a pretty common design flaw, so I'm griping about it.

* -- I just took the most common male, female and sur- names from this site.

German Tourist Shot on Circle Line

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He laughs it off.

Mr. Bolowski suffered a nonlethal wound, a shot clear through his right shoulder blade, apparently from behind. With Mrs. Klein and Mrs. Bolowski still at his side, he was taken to Lincoln Hospital, aware and uncomplaining....
"He feels good," said Robert Bolowski, the victim's cousin. "He's not in a lot of pain...."

I wonder if the Times will follow up after he gets his medical bill. The US is the last place you want to get injured.

The Integrity Meme

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This keeps coming up. As I've mentioned before, backing out of a no recourse mortgage is perfectly OK if your house's value has dropped below the outstanding mortgage, i.e. if you're 'underwater.' Even if you can make the payments, it's not your problem. The bank was also gambling, and they should have been way more aware of the economic environment than you.

I just wanted to make that point. Even though former Secretary Paulsen is largely discredited, his assertion that "people who can afford their mortgage payments but decide to walk away from their homes because of falling home prices were nothing more than 'speculators'" is maintaining some cultural currency.

I'll make the point again -- walking away from an underwater mortgage is the right thing to do. You're already propping up the banks through your tax dollars, you don't need to do it with your housing payments.

Not all home loans are non-recourse. It sounds sleazy, but some banks look past their culpability in approving frankly insane loans and go after the borrower. This was predictable, but it's a fad -- once this drives, say, 1.5 million people into bankruptcy I think the Federal Government will stop it. Say, 2013. Oo! Next president! I don't want to go out on a limb here, but I think it'll be Obama.

Fair and Balanced

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Nephos brought up Fox News old slogan, "Fair and Balanced," in the comments recently. Hold on, I'll check if they're still using it... they are.

Isn't it kind of nutty? 'Fair' is just there to distinguish 'balanced' as meaning something different from 'fair.' What can it mean? Here are the facts, on one side, and then we'll balance them with non-facts.

How could that possibly be attractive to a news consumer?

Why Goldman Sachs Executives Go Into Government

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So, we know there's a revolving door between Goldman Sachs and government. We also know that government jobs only pay a couple of hundred thousand dollars at most, and we believe GS people became GS people because money motivates them.

So, what gives?

[O]ne reader writes... “There is a special IRS law/code passed in 1991 that says when someone appointed to a government position needs to sell stock to avoid such a conflict of interest, then the sale will not be taxed. I wonder how many former Goldman employees working in government have used this tax loophole.”

The 5: As you know, we put Ian on the case. In the meantime, here’s a little back-of-the-envelope math turned out by CNNMoney. Paulson owned $480 million in GS stock with a cost basis anywhere between $50-240 million. At the time of his nomination in 2006, the capital gains tax break would have amounted to somewhere between $3-8 million over three years, depending on the cumulative rate of return on his investments.

There's a what? No wonder the American voter handed over control of Congress to the GOP. That's a pretty corrupt move. Can we get a role call vote on that? And did it go into effect under Bush 41?

Huh. This is the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. And it 'passed by voice vote.' It was first used under Clinton. And the New York Times discusses how Paulson could make $48M off it in 2006.

My Letter to Nydia Velázquez

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Do you suspect that your representative may be one of the House progressives refusing to pass the Senate bill as is? Write her a letter!

Representative Velázquez,

I am not sure where you stand on passing the Senate version of the health care reform bill, but I plead with you to vote to do so.

Senate Republicans have not been shy about filibustering bills. It may be the case that the Senate will be able to pass no substation legislation at all for a year, until the 112th Congress is seated.

I am not very familiar with the particulars of the health care reform bill that the Senate did pass. I was disappointed that it did not include single-payer health care, or even a "public option." However, I trust that the bill is better than nothing, and I strongly believe that nothing is the other option.

The tasks before Congress involve ending two wars, reforming Wall Street, reversing Climate Change, republicizing and reforming incarceration, ending mercenaries, navigating the downturn and investigating the crimes of the Bush 43 administration. You have been hung up for nine months on health care reform. It is time to accept victory and move on.

Yours,

RFM

Could you tell I rang the bell at NASDAQ today?

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It was down 1 1/2 per cent by 11:10 AM. If you think that's bad, it was 2 1/5 % off yesterday's close. As of this writing, it's doing worse than both the DOW and the S&P 500.

The Truth Lies Somewhere In Between

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I don't know if you've tried this, but try pointing out some obvious falsehood that we're supposed to believe to someone who is willing to engage you in conversation. They almost always say, "Well, the truth lies somewhere in between," which you can read as "I am going to sum up all of the expressed opinions I hear, and believe their rough consensus." This is why FOX News has more than one correspondent. If 8 of them say universal health care is a fascist doctrine, a viewer has to hear that's not true from 8 separate people before she or he even has a shot.

But, really, I'm just posting an XKCD strip, because it illustrated this problem so well.

Once the tipping point is reached, there would be essentially no opportunity for humans to react

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My expectation is that the Greenland Ice Sheet will start accelerating quite quickly, and one day plunge so quickly into the sea that it touches off a global tsunami, killing everyone within a topographically dependent distance from a coast. My gamble, as I don't want to live in Chicago, is that we'll have several months warning if we watch the sheet carefully, and my vague hope is that this is tens of years away.

That's just to express where I'm starting.

Canadian William Patterson suggests that tsunamis and sea level rise might not be the only problems.

Previous evidence from Greenland ice samples had suggested this abrupt shift in climate happened over the span of a decade or so. Now researchers say it surprisingly may have taken place over the course of a few months, or a year or two at most.

"That the climate system can turn on and off that quickly is extremely important," said earth system scientist Henry Mullins at Syracuse University, who did not take part in this research. "Once the tipping point is reached, there would be essentially no opportunity for humans to react."

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[Isotope biogeochemist William Patterson at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and his colleagues]' findings also suggest that it may have taken 100 to 200 years before the lake and climate recovered, rather than the decade or so that Greenland ice cores had indicated.

So, well, I guess this isn't really news. We've expected Arctic melt to shut down the "Conveyor Belt" and plunge Europe into coldness until direct warming by the Greenhouse effect compensated. But, still, the timing's important.

Are the Southern Taconics the best place to hide? Where will the cities of the 22nd Century be?

El Niño and the 2009 Hurricane Season

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Well, that's it. The 2009 Altantic Hurricane Season is officially over.

Nine named storms formed this year, including three hurricanes, two of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA’s mid-season outlook issued in August....

"We were right kind of late, but we were right." So many people feel they can call a football game at the end of the third quarter.

“El Niño is expected to reach peak strength this winter, and will likely continue into the spring. It is far too early to say whether El Niño will be present next summer,” added Bell.

Funny thing is, when I asked Kerry Emmanuel about the impact of the Southern Oscillation on Hurricanes, he asked if I meant the North Atlantic Oscillation. So, I guess this is another story he's slow to accept.

Ida's not quite done with us yet

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There's a lot of happy talk like "The NHC has issued its final advisory on this system" coming out of the National Hurricane Center. However, if you pay attention, forecaster Gerhardt also says stuff like "THE LOW IS EXPECTED TO REDEVELOP AND STRENGTHEN OFF THE CAROLINA COAST."

Ida's already killed hundreds of people in Central America, and she's coming for us. Have your go-bags close to hand.

Ida done for?

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OK, It looks like Ida is going to dissipate in the uninhabited Gulf States of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, and it's remnants will be discarded in the Atlantic, where they will move North before rebuilding serious convection.

At least Georgia's safe.

Called It

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Nephos has asked that I point out when I've been right. You may remember this little gem

I expect builders and banks both to start reaching out to management companies to rent all of these condos and houses that are starting to sit around. I don't know if there even are any national players, but that seems like a business that's going to seriously take off.

And today(PDF)?

Introduction
Fannie Mae is introducing the Deed-for-Lease Program (D4L), a program designed to minimize family displacement, deterioration of neighborhoods caused by vandalism and theft to vacant homes, and the effect these have on families, communities and home price stabilization. D4L allows qualifying borrowers of properties transferred through deed-in-lieu of foreclosure (DIL) to remain in their home and community by executing a lease of up to 12 months in conjunction with a DIL.
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Effective Date
Servicers can begin offering D4L immediately.

Servicers are third parties. This is a great business. Short sale to Fannie Mae, then a third party charges enough so the tenant can't save up to buy back his or her house, but not so much that they have to evict.

Update: I should point out that was a 25-month lag

Ida

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ACE in October was only 18 % of normal, but November is looking to be a different story.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/145613.shtml?table#contents(click for current outlook)

Four days from now, we have a 1-5 chance of having a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Ida could then wiggle East and start coming up the coast for us. This will be our first Hurricane Ida, by the way. They had to retire the last 'I' name after Hurricane Isabel attacked the Pentagon and White House simultaneously. Not to suggest Al Qaeda's involved, but you never know.

This season has a fair way to go to meet the last given estimate. So, November may be a little punchy and we could get a number of post-season storms. I suspect the Atlantic is just trying to lull us.

Instant Runoff Voting

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Minnesota's mayor was just (re)elected by Instant Runoff Voting, on the same day that spoilers threw the Gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Florida and New York's 25th Congressional District (and actually won in New York.)

So, thanks, Minneapolis, for showing us how it's done. And, rest of the country, aren't you sick of spoilers? If New Jersey voters had been allowed to show their displeasure with Governor Corzine without voting for Chris Christie, wouldn't the world be a better place?

I think the iron is hot, now, and it's time to strike.

Puzzled about Fair Marriage

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As far as civil rights issues of our time go, Fair Marriage is definitely in the top ten in terms of currency -- there are a lot of worse injustices, but Fair Marriage takes up a lot of attention (for example, yesterday's ballot measure in Maine in our political sphere. And it puzzles me as an issue.

I have kind of two pole view of politics. There are people who believe in human rights, human dignity, human freedom, people who desire the future to be better than the present and for harmony to reign. We'll call such a person a 'Malech' and use the Hebrew pluralization style to call them collectively 'Malechem.' And issues get created when a powerful, entrenched interest sees a way to seek advantage by spreading confusion. Either they feel threatened -- and we get political issues around Climate Change -- see a way to benefit -- and we get private prisons and the Iraq War -- or just want to divert attention -- and we get US Weekly. I want to be super clear here: I don't believe 'values voters' have any values. I think issues generally are thrust on an unsuspecting public by the wealthy and powerful. I know that makes me explicitly a conspiracy theorist, so let's take back the term.

Nobody's pressuring Goldman Sachs to marry anybody, and I don't believe there's a material benefit to keeping homosexuals single (although tax codes always surprise me,) so it has to be a distracting measure. But, it simply doesn't seem to be tied to anything, or get called into service in response to an upswelling of interest in anything in particular, so it's not just a generic 'focus on the irrelevant' issue like abortion. Somebody really wants to keep gays from marrying.

More married couples would probably buy more houses and adopt more children, but there's a surfeit of both. So, one might think the intention is to keep the political activism of LGBT on marriage so they don't move on to the next thing. What would that even be? Whom would it threaten?

I just don't even have a clue here. Feel free to help me out.

Green Party Nearly Wins NYC Mayoral Election

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To borrow a line from the Democrats, if a local independent candidate hadn't siphoned off 50.6 % of the electorate, Billy Talen (G) would have gotten 51.4 % of the vote, easily besting second-placer William Thompson (D).

As it was, we beat the Rent is Too Damn High, Libertarian and Socialist Worker Parties, and come in fourth with nearly half the support of the Conservative Party candidate. Go, Team!

Update: You've kind of got to love Jimmy McMillan, of the Rent is Too Damn High party. 23 seconds in to the first entry on his videos page, he claims, "We can run this campaign without any money," definitely marking him as the anti-Bloomberg.

Bad News for China and India

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So, it's now possible to sort bull semen so that dairy farmers have a 90 % chance of having a cow.

After it is collected from a bull at a stud farm, semen is mixed with a dye that sticks to DNA. A machine detects the extra dye sticking to X chromosomes and sorts the sperm. The sorted semen is frozen and sold to farmers who use it to inseminate their livestock.

(A fertility institute outside Washington is studying whether the same technique can be used safely in people. If it won approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the technology would let parents choose their baby’s sex.)

You can bet technologically advanced patriarchical cultures are working on this technology the world over. If it went into American cows in 2006, it'll go into Chinese and Indian people by 2011. So, 20 year old women per capita will drop to 0.1 in 2031, and China and India will suck the women out of Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and what have you. They will then be at war with these countries by 2041, and will have to drop their front with us, giving us some breathing room to rebuild our shattered economies far from our submerged coastal cities.

So, that's it. 32 years from today, we'll be back in business!