Being Properly Prepared

A quote from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

"I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for." said Alice. "it isn't very likely there would be any mice on the horse's back."

"Not very likely, perhaps," said the Knight; "but, if they do come, I don't choose to have them running all about."

"You see," he went on after a pause, "it's as well to be provided for everything."

It is like the old Boy Scout motto about being prepared, real men always carrying pocket knives, and having a loaded concealed firearm on you.

-
-
-
-
-
-

Fragile Wetlands

In the news this morning I read that the “Spill Threatens Louisiana's Fragile Wetlands.” Unless you live right on the Gulf Coast, or your livelihood is directly affected, I don't think most people care. Not much at all.

Just like most people don't care if the Maldives are washed away. Any more than they care about Bangladesh (or New Orleans) getting flooded. Just as long as they can keep driving their gigantic, poor fuel economy SUVs, and the air conditioners at their homes and offices work real well, they are so self centered that they really don't care at all.

My own personal experience is that young people in their 20's and 30's are worse about this arrogance than older folks. I don't see the idealism of youth. I see the greed and arrogance of youth. And this is not just an American phenomenon. Worldwide we see that people just don't care.

How society can possibly deal with this baffles me.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Derringer

The term derringer is a misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the early 1800s. The derringer type of hand gun is the smallest configuration in a given size of bullet. This has made it the gun of choice for concealed carry for many years. In the past derringers were frequently used by assassins (such as John Wilkes Booth), and women because they are easily concealable in a purse or even as a stocking gun. Sometimes people think of the derringer in connection with gamblers.

I was out in the desert this morning with the dog several miles away from civilization test firing my new Cobra large bore derringer. This derringer was made in America, and is a two shot version. It comes with interchangeable barrels for either .38 special (but not the higher pressure +P version) or Federal .32 H&R Magnum rounds.

It is an incredibly small and light firearm. Sometimes I have wanted a handgun that is smaller and lighter even than my titanium frame .38 special snub-nose revolver. This derringer is perfect. My only comment that is less than 100% positive is the high trigger pressure required. My goodness, you really need to squeeze very hard on the trigger for it to fire. But I suppose in way this is a safety feature.

-
-
-
-
-
-

What The Hell Is Wrong With Great Britain?

Proportional representation and one-man-one-vote are not things one discusses in polite company in the United Kingdom. What seems to be the problem with these folks?

I can't understand why the normal British people put up with a system where one person's vote counts for much more than another person's. Apparently white rich people still openly control things in Britain, and there is no pretense otherwise.

It becomes more clear all the time why the American Revolution had to take place and why it was successful. I guess this is what you get when you still have a monarchy and no formal constitution or bill of rights. The rich white folks still think they are the plantation owners. No doubt the poor white folks also think they are better than immigrants and people of color too. Sicko!

-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

"Probe of blowup in Gulf of Mexico oil spill is an important inquiry: An editorial
By Editorial page staff, The Times-Picayune
May 09, 2010, 6:46AM

BP is still trying to contain its Gulf of Mexico oil spill -- and that must remain priority No. 1 as the disaster enters its fourth week.


The Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns and collapses into the Gulf of Mexico on April 22, two days after a blowout in its exploratory well.But federal investigators are about to launch another important task: public hearings to determine what went wrong at Transocean's Deepwater Horizon rig. Their findings should inform a national debate on how to prevent similar disasters in the future.

Officials with the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service will begin the joint hearings this week. Already there are troubling questions about the role of BP, Transocean and other firms working at the well when it blew up April 20, killing 11 rig workers and unleashing environmental disaster.

Survivors are suggesting that prescribed safety procedures to cap the well were not being fully followed when the explosion occurred. An attorney for an eyewitness told The Times-Picayune that BP and Transocean started to remove a mud barrier in the well pipe before a final cement plug was installed, an account supported by assertions from workers involved in other lawsuits. Removing the mud prematurely would have weakened control of the well during an emergency.

BP declined to comment on the allegations.

The hearings should also shed light on the massive failure of the blowout preventer, a 450-ton series of valves manufactured by Cameron International and placed atop the well as the last line of defense against a blowout. Even though preventers have had documented troubles, including problems identified previously by BP and Transocean, the industry has considered the contraptions to be "fail-safe."

That clearly is not the case.

Finding out why the preventer in this particular case failed is not enough. Regulators must also examine the standards used to build and test the mechanism, and whether they are appropriate. The United States, for example, does not require the acoustic back-up system to activate the preventer that's required in Brazil, Canada and Norway.

Ultimately, the hearings should lead to important reforms to better prepare the oil industry and the government to respond to this type of massive failure in deep waters.

The failure of the federal levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina exposed how the Corps of Engineers failed to account for residual risks in the system, essentially assuming that it was infallible. The oil industry and regulators did the same when it came to blowout preventers.

And that doomed the Deepwater Horizon."
-
-
LINK: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/probe_of_oil_well_blowup_is_an.html

-
-
-
-

Family

There is an old saying that “You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family.” The implication being that one does not necessarily always like the members of one's family.

Upon reaching what the kids think is adulthood, a large number of children decide that they do not respect their parents, do not agree with much of their parents' wisdom, don't have to obey their parents' wishes or rules, and in fact many kids actually go so far as to start disliking their parents immensely. There is no doubt that in some (perhaps many) cases the kids are right, and they have come to a responsible and reasonable decision. Their parents are addicted to drugs or alcohol, have regularly employed physical violence against the kids, are not hard workers, are unmotivated, and are not able to set goals and then follow through consistently to achieve them.

This kids-dislike-parents phenomenon is well documented and publicized.

What is not so well publicized is that many parents feel much the same way about their kids. When parents realize that their 30-something is still working on getting a four year college degree, is dishonest, rude and arrogant, mostly just enjoys listening to rock music and taking drugs, is not into satisfactorily pursuing a career, and that their child not only dislikes them but their values too, it is entirely appropriate for the parent to come to the conclusion that one doesn't like what this child-person has morphed into.

When a child is still young enough to change a parent has the obligation to continue doing everything possible to help this young person become a responsible adult. But once the kid reaches age 30 all bets are off. Ben Franklin didn't like his son at all, and he was totally estranged from him. Other examples are not difficult to find. It is a pity, but this sometimes happens. Perhaps sometimes when it does it is because the parent has such a strong personality that their kid has no choice but to divorce himself entirely from the parent in order to find his own way.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Gordon Brown

It looks like they are going to have to pull British Prime Minister Gordon Brown from his official residence at #10 Downing Street kicking and screaming. Maybe they will need to tase him. Watching that fat, arrogant, half blind Scotsman being tased would certainly get some hits on You Tube.

For many years I worked under and reported directly to Gordon Brown. He was my mentor. He was a brilliant and classy guy, but he was a different Gordon Brown. He was the President of Bruce Foods Corp., not the British prime minister who forced out Tony Blair using unethical tactics.

Britain is looking like a tin pot, banana republic central American dictatorship, or maybe some corrupt African country. A little third world country where the entrenched leader refuses to step aside, even though the opposition candidate got vastly more votes in the election. This is not democracy. I begin to see now why America could not tolerate them as bosses and had to seek independence.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Solar Energy

As a lifelong committed leftist, tree hugger, pinko environmentalist, I hold a strong interest in solar energy. The El Paso Solar Energy Association (EPSEA) is the oldest solar energy group in America, and I am a lifetime member. I guess the only issue which surpasses energy conservation and renewable energy to me is the desire to protect marine mammals.

The EPSEA sent me an article today which contained this picture. Amazing! Apparently no place in America gets more sunlight than El Paso, Texas.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

The Louisville Flood

The photographer Margaret Bourke-White is why I am familiar with the great flood of 1937. When the Ohio river flooded 1 million people were left homeless and 385 people were dead. At its peak the water rose reached 57 feet (17 m) in the Louisville area, setting a new record. 70 percent of the city was under water at that time. Martial law was declared in Evansville, Indiana where the water level was at 54 feet (16 m). It took nearly three weeks for the water to fall below flood stage.

She took a picture shortly after the flood showing mostly black people lined up to receive free bread. Behind them was a billboard showing a happy white family and their dog driving along and smiling like a bunch of fools. The billboard said, “WORLD'S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING” and “There's no way like to American Way.” This picture is still famous today more than 70 years later. I bought this particular copy of the pic at a Margaret Bourke-White exhibition in Amsterdam several years ago.

What the billboard said was grossly incorrect. It was nothing more than blatant government propaganda trying to keep the poor of America from rising up in some kind of an insurrection or a revolution.

Wikipedia says, “The 1937 flood was so unprecedented, civic and industrial groups forced authorities to create a comprehensive plan for flood control. The plan involved reducing Ohio River flood heights by creating more than seventy storage reservoirs. The plan was not fully completed by the Army Corps of Engineers until the early 1940s, but it has drastically reduced flood damages ever since.”

Now in 2010 the Louisville area is experiencing comparable flooding to what it saw in 1937, prior to these 70 dams and storage reservoirs being built.

There is virtual consensus among all the real climate scientists (I just ignore the right-wing phreaks and the various lunatic deniers) that as levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere increase global warming will increase, and the severity of storms and weather will increase. Some parts of the globe which previously had received enough rain to raise food crops will become deserts, and almost everywhere we will see increasingly strong storms. Perhaps we are witnessing signs of it already.

-
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_River_flood_of_1937
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Greece Is Screwed

I went to Greece one time. I flew over the Greek Islands, and in Athens I visited the wonderful Parthenon on Acropolis Hill. This was in the 1970's and at the time Greece was a poor, third world country. Now in 2010 protestors are dying in Greece. There is a massive uproar among workers and the middle class because people don't want any “belt tightening.” The Greeks have been living way far beyond their means for a long time. They are true pros at living on borrowed money and OPM (other people's money). The Greeks have no desire to be poor again. Tax evasion is a Greek national pastime.

Imagine that Greece simply defaulted on all of their government debt. They didn't pay interest or principal. Just gave the big Greek middle finger to all the people, pension funds, banks, and countries who have bought their debt. The Greek national government would still be running an 8.5% budget deficit! This situation is looking more hopeless all the time. These guys lied to get into the European Common Market, and they have been adding onto and hiding their debt just like Enron every since. Just like alcoholics or drug addicts.

I forecast that Greece will repudiate their government debts, and that they will leave the Euro zone. Whether this departure will be voluntary or not is almost irrelevant. But once they set the example the floodgates will be open for the other PIGS like Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and maybe even Italy. Belgium isn't really that far behind.

Their only option is a severe currency devaluation, which they can't do when they are still using the Euro. This is one of the really valuable options which both Britain and America have. Devaluation is not nice or polite, but it can be useful.

It isn't cool to kick someone while they are down, but: Greece is the same country that has been demanding the Elgin Marbles back from the British Museum. Forgetting of course that the Greek government already sold these precious marble statues to the Brits one time. They are much safer in London sitting to the left as you walk into the British Museum...right near the Rosetta Stone. These dishonest Greeks would probably just take out a second or third mortgage on the Elgin Marbles if they did get them back.

What a horrible mess. There have even been genuine suggestions that the Greeks begin selling off their islands. This is much like a young person graduating from college with a useless degree like philosophy or political science (my major), owing $100,000 for student loans and another $100,000 to various Visa and Master Card accounts. Just plain screwed. Big time.
-
-
LINK: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/greek-end-game/

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

2010 Prius

2010 Prius, originally uploaded by Paul Garland.

When I took the doggie out to walk in the desert this morning the sky was beautiful.

I have almost 5,000 miles on the Prius now and I am still getting more than 60 miles per gallon.

Scorpion Plant

Scorpion Plant, originally uploaded by Paul Garland.

NOAA Map Of Oil in Gulf of Mexico

I have had a life long love of maps. Now with GPSes, computerized topo maps, and Google Earth I no longer own many paper maps.
-

But paper maps are still neat. Cartography is cool. Click on this map and it will enlarge.
-

-

-

--

-

-

-

-

-

--

-

-

-

-

-

--

-

-

--

-

Roundup Resistant Weeds

For 25 years I worked for a food processing company. When I retired I had been the General Manager of our European Division for 15 years. One of the products we made was Mexican Food items like taco shells and tortilla chips. These are manufactured largely from corn which has been cooked into a form where it will make a dough, like wheat flour. In American English we use the same word as in Mexico to describe this, Masa. Normal corn meal is like sand – you can mix it endlessly in water, but it won't ever turn into dough. The masa is baked and then fried in hot oil to make taco shells or tortilla chips.

Even though the corn used to make our masa was supposed to not be genetically modified, the DNA of the Monsanto Roundup-ready corn has contaminated much of the corn in America. The same cross contamination has happened to soy beans.

With this Roundup-ready corn the farmer can spray large amounts of the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) on his fields to kill the weeds, but his main crop is not affected. The overall Roundup-ready line of herbicides and GMO seeds accounts for roughly half of Monsanto's sales of $12 billion. Monsanto's annual earnings (EBIT) are in the range of $3 billion, resulting in a net income (profit) of about $2 billion per year.

Even though I am a life long environmentalist, on this issue I found myself at times sitting across the table from anti-GMO groups like Greenpeace Europe. Once I was talking with an old man who was at the end of a long career with Cargill. I knew him well, and he was close to retirement. He also was concerned about the unknown effects of this genetically modified corn, and he told me that one of the earlier products had to be killed just before it went on the market due to it being toxic/poisonous to certain people.

Now it seems that farmers in America, Australia, China, and Brazil are beginning to have a real problem with Roundup-resistant weeds. Weeds which are not killed by this herbicide. The New York Times reports that “Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.”

When we try to buck Mother Nature things seem to go wrong much of the time. This is a good article. If you've got the time you should read it.

LINK: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Dachau

From Deutsche Welle:

Sixty-five years after the liberation by US forces of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, German President Horst Koehler spoke at a ceremony there, thanking former prisoners for their work in keeping the memory of the Nazis' crimes alive.

Some 650 former inmates of the camp took part in the commemoration ceremonies on Sunday, during which Koehler called Dachau an important reminder of Germany's darkest period.

Before giving his speech, Koehler laid a wreath at the site of the former crematorium. He is the first German president to visit the memorial, located near Munich in southern Germany.

Dachau was set up in 1933 and was the only camp to operate for the entire 12 years of the Nazi regime. It also served as a model for other camps later constructed across Germany and in countries occupied by Nazi forces.

Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945 by US troops. The first inmates at the camp were political prisoners, but soon Dachau also held Jews, Sinti and Roma, gays and people classified as "asocial" and "criminal" by the regime.

In total some 200,000 people from across Europe were held at Dachau - more then 43,000 people died or were killed at the camp. When US troops arrived on April 29, 1945, they found around 32,000 prisoners.

Two decades after its liberation, the site became a memorial thanks to the work of surviving inmates. The memorial and museum receive around 700,000 visitors each year.
-
-
-
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5530195,00.html
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Bill Moyers Finale

The final Bill Moyer show was on last night. It was superb.

I especially liked his interiew of Jim Hightower: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/watch2.html

-
-
-
-
-
-

Ronald Rayguns

President Raygun began his political career as a Democrat. He later flip-flopped and switched over to the Republican party.

This guy was known for his good looks and his personal charm and charisma; not his ethics and certainly not his intellectual abilities.

His almost religious faith in smaller government and deregulation has been great for rich people. The gap between the middle class and the rich has expanded greatly since his time as President.

Deregulation has damaged the American dream for middle class and poor people more than just about any other radical idea of the twentieth century. This bozo was one of the very worst things to happen to America in the twentieth century.

-
-
-
-
-
–
-

Bill Maher

Oil Spill Catastrophe

The news media is reporting today that British Petroleum downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic accident in the offshore oil drilling rig which exploded and burned.

My response is, “Duh, Yes. Of course. Just like all the other oil companies do.”

BP had to file a 52-page exploration plan and environmental impact analysis before their project could be approved. But when the congress and the president are all encouraging deregulation and “looking the other way” this is exactly what happens. The regulators will not properly regulate if it means that their careers are damaged or they get fired. Even a retard could figure this one out (I use the word retard because that is what Obama and his closest advisers call the Liberals and the Progressives).

Keep in mind that this same level of government regulatory zeal and incompetence is what is looking over the country's nuclear power stations.

The Republicans and in fact many Democrats too made this all happen by their blind faith in deregulation. This idea began back in the time of Ronald Rayguns. It was a terrible idea back then, and over the years it gradually got even worse. It has now almost destroyed the American economy and has done terrible damage to the middle class and the environment.

It is about time to admit that “deregulation” is a really bad word. Like the word Nazi.

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

The Dali Lama

The Dali Lama and Barack Obama are both on Twitter. Think about that all of you old geezers who are afraid of Twitter.

Good advice:

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-