Shipping news and other domino effects of the Iran conflict

 

there are links about these stories on the youtube site.

All I know about this is that I was working in Liberia when a previous war closed the Suez canal, and all the big tankers had to go around Africa. This was before container ships by the way. 

We had a contract with some shipping firms to treat sialors... many small ships would go around the hump to local ports, meaning first to Sierra Leone then to Monrovia, so most of those we treated were for diseases the sailors picked up from the nice ladies there. And since I spoke some Spanish (lots of Portuguese seamen could understand Spanish) and German (lots of Polish seamen could speak German) it meant I got to see a lot of these in our clinic.

since Monrovia's artificial port is small, it meant we had to go out to the larger ships to evacuate patients which I did a couple of times.

Things are now different: Container ships for example, and LPG not just tankers... 

The video discusses the money part, about insurance coverage, and about the dark fleet to get around sanctions. 

And don't forget China. LINK 

Tanker traffic through the energy chokepoint effectively halted after the US and Israel began a bombing campaign over the weekend that has prompted Iran to respond with strikes across the region. As the world’s largest oil and gas importer, China is among the most exposed nations — while it has ample reserves, almost half of its crude imports transited the strait in December.

 And he reminds people about the Houthis who are Iranian proxies, who will probably start shelling ships from neutral countries in the Red Sea.

Translation: This will cause many ships going to Europe to divert around Africa, and also impoverish Egypt since it won't collect fees from ships using the Suez canal.

 Another change: Huge numbers of Filipinos are seamen and in danger.

There are  over one million Filipino OFW in the Middle East, and over 1000 have asked for help to come back home, mainly from Dubai.

But trouble in the area has other implications for the Philippines.

and here in the Philippines, the gov't is worried that the price of oil/petroleum products will go up. This means higher diesel prices for those of us who farm (using hand plows instead of water buffalo), higher prices for fertilizer, (even organic chicken manure fertilizer needs to be bagged and transported to the fields), higher prices for anything that has to be transported, higher prices for people using public transportation to work, and higher prices for LPG to cook food (the alternative wood means deforestation). 

So use modern solar farms? Yup. We have them being placed all over our valuable rice growing areas here but they aren't on line yet.

we  are seeing a few e-bikes being used as tricycles (which is what ordinary people here use for transportation) But  you can't use solar energy for handplows.

Or for backhoes either. 

Right now, the winter harvest is almost done, and it's too early to prepare the fields for rice planting, so a lot of farmers around here are renting backhoes to dig up the soil so they can pan for gold. We hope this won't destroy the rice paddies, but hey poor people are more worried about eating today than about possible ecological problems in the future.

(Note: We are approaching hunger season, when the money from the last harvest runs out but no money until the next harvest).

Sigh.

Why bugs and not Marmite?

Eat Bugs they are telling us.

The ecoreligion (that is even being pushed by the Pope's minions) keep pushing old fashioned living aka sustainable development: that supposedly we should go back to living in the same simple ways as our ancestors: which to anyone familiar with the rural poverty in the third world means hard work, not enough food, etc. 

So the elites have an answer to this: Bugs!

A quick google will show oodles of academic articles pushing the idea (under the religion of the great reset).

we are assured: that bugs have long been a source of protein since ancient times.

But notice: often the articles have language equating the huge numbers of societies eating bugs (broad use) as if it was the same thing as these societies eating bugs all the time as a major source of calories and protein. 

Dirty little secret: Often the bugs were eaten once in awhile: but they were not a major source of protein and calories. But reading the articles published by worshipers of bug eating you might not realize that.

I won't swear that hungry farmers won't eat them during the "hunger season" shortly before the harvest, but you know, they also eat dogs. Hungry people will eat anything, which is why the Chinese markets are reported to sell all sorts of strange animals for rich city folk to eat because they are nostalgic for the good old days on the farms when they ate anything that moved so they wouldn't starve to death.

Yum! Pangolin Fried rice!

But insects as a major source of food? 

This is not a spontaneous thing: a quick google will show this idea is being pushed by academics who are prosyletizing the Green Religion.

Nearly all of them start the same: blaming covid for disrupting the food supply chain  (uh, it wasn't covid: it was the economic shut down, but never mind)...and then saying we need to eat bugs instead (uh, this would require building this industry almost from scratch, which will take years, but never mind).

So the articles almost identically push this line of propaganda to deceive readers into thinking this was once and should again be the normal diet.

 so eat bugs or else sinner!

and maybe that is the point: it is a way to humiliate you and shame you, not because it is acutally a solution to world hunger.

The biggest problem with eating bugs is the "yuck factor".

Indeed to get over the "yuck" factor, you have to process the bugs so they don't look like bugs.

For example, the "Crickets" being fed to Australian kids are cricket chips...

Recipe here from one company.

Uh, notice something: it's mostly wheat flour.

Ingredients: 

2 1/2 cups all purpose baking flour 

1/2 cup Cricket Flours: 100% Pure Cricket Powder

and if you want to make the flour yourself, this site has instructions.

But notice something? You still have to buy the bugs from suppliers (who feed the growing bugs with robots). And then buy them after they were highly processed (or do all that work yourself).

and don't'believe the propaganda about spoiled westerners not wanting to eat bugs, so we will have to force them encourage them to do so.

Food aversion is a big problem all over the world: Those of us who worked in public health knew we had to use foods that locals would eat: and this meant knowing about local preferences, taboos, and if the food was similar to what they were used to eating. (place MRE joke here).

We ran into this in our nutrition village, where moms were taught how to grow high vitamin veggies and raise high protein animals (mainly chickens for eggs) to supplement the diet of their children who were developing malnutrition. 

I remember one article touting using fish powder in the local porridge, which sounded great until the authors admitted no one would eat it.

However, high protein non alcoholic beer using yeast powder was a cheap way to supplement protein for toddlers in our area. It was simliar to the local beers of the local folks, so it was accepted, and the moms could make it by putting a small amount of the powder into bottles and then waiting a day or two for it to brew. 

Which brings me to another question:

Why all the hype about edible insects but none about lowly yeast?

Article about yeast as a cheap protein source has a long discussion about this option.  LINK.

Yeast protein biomass (single cell protein, SCP) is a bioavailable product which is obtained when primarily using as a culture medium inexpensive various waste substrates including agricultural and industrial wastes.

With the growing population, yeast protein seems to be an attractive alternative to traditional protein sources such as plants and meat.

Moreover, yeast protein biomass also contains trace minerals and vitamins including B-group. Thus, using yeast in the production of protein provides both valuable nutrients and enhances purification of wastes. In conclusion, nutritional yeast protein biomass may be the best option for human and animal nutrition with a low environmental footprint.

 Yes. 

and we know westerners will eat yeast extract which is added to may foods , and even eaten directly as Marmite in the UK....

 

or if you are from the Land Down Under, a Vegemite sandwich

Is the new Space race everyone against Elon Musk.

 Yahoonews Dec6:

Elon Musk is "making the rules" in space, European Space Agency boss told the Financial Times.

The ESA boss urged European countries to stop enabling Musk to dominate the space industry.

Governments in Europe should give equal opportunities to internet providers, he told the FT.

Rapid expansion of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service is letting CEO Elon Musk make the rules in the sector, the head of the European Space Agency said.,

You have one person owning half of the active satellites in the world. That's quite amazing...

then you have this: China is also upset: from the South China Morning Post (which was independent and owned by AliBaba until China took over Hong Kong and is started censoring stories):

 

China / Military Why China reacted so strongly to its Tiangong space station’s near-misses with Elon Musk’s satellites The two incidents this year involving satellites from Elon Musk’s company SpaceX prompted a complaint to the UN and calls on the US to act

China is worried America wants to dominate space and some observers believe the tech entrepreneur’s company may serve that ambition

AP gives out the Chinese side of the story but of course doesn't question if it is true. Mustn't upset our Chinese masters (who lie all the time). 

The backstory can be found at BehindTheBlack, a space blog:

 

The story became news today because there was suddenly a flurry of outrage against SpaceX on Chinese social media, responding to Lijian’s statement, with much of it very likely astroturf posts prompted by the Chinese government itself.

ya think?  

but BTB notes it is so China can deflect criticism for it's own 

This announcement likely signals that China is getting ready to launch the next module to that station. During that launch the large core stage of the Long March 5B rocket will reach orbit, but only for a few days. It will then crash uncontrolled somewhere on Earth. The Chinese government knows it is going to get a lot of bad press because of this fact, and is likely making this complaint to try to excuse its own bad actions....

The crash of the Long March 5B core stage however is due entirely to a bad design that does not allow for any controlled maneuvers. Once the stage’s engines shut down after delivering the station module into orbit, they cannot be restarted, as designed. The stage must fall to Earth in an unpredictable manner, threatening every spot it flies over during that orbital decay.

 Italics mine. 

So what about their claim of the dangerous satellites?

The two issues however are not the same. Satellite orbits are very predictable, and any maneuvers required by China to avoid Starlink satellites were very routine. Moreover, if necessary SpaceX can adjust its own satellite orbits to avoid a collusion.

and by the way, Russia is also busy launching oodles of satellites.for ONEWEB. 

not a lot about that in the news, or if Musk's Starlink project is their rival. (which they deny, but hey, who wants to check if they might be lying about this and sending money to folks to slow down Musk.)

--------- 

the Green lobby in the USA govt is doing their best to screw up Musk's spaceport by using the excuse they need to do an "environmental" evaluation. Even though the Florida site is on the edge of the American space facility that has been there for 50 years.

BTB notes:

In fact, this is beginning to look like the situation in Hawaii with the Thirty Meter Telescope. There protesters blocked the start of construction, and the government, controlled by Democrats, worked with those protesters to step by step keep that obstruction active and working. If so, SpaceX faces a very dangerous situation, as it appears the Biden administration is about to do the same thing to it.

 Reminds me of how the rich elites (with a few locals) tried to block an observatory on an Arizona Apache reservation because the mountain was "sacred"....At the time I was working at another Apache reservation, where the tribe put a casino/resort and ski area on their "sacred mountain". Because jobs for the locals was an important issue, and the locals had plenty of mountain left for them to do the ceremonies.

Environmentalists are also blocking of the SpaceX tower in Texas. 

as Spiked notes: a lot of the luddites who lament modern progress have never gotten their hands dirty or faced famine.

 Not surprisingly, nations like India and China, whose populations haven’t yet reached such a luxurious level of development that they can sit around for days on end bemoaning the eco-impact of human extravagance, were not so keen on this neo-colonial attempt by Western elites to virtually criminalise certain forms of energy.

China figures a bit of pollution and smog is a small price to pay for prosperity.

But are they also manipulating the powerful "green"lobby to eliminate and discourage their rivals?

Given the silence of the green environmental movement on China's destruction of the ecosystem in the West Philippine Sea, I suspect so.

But China's ultimate goal is to take over the world, so they are pushing on many fronts to do this, including pushing environmental regulations to slow the economies of the US and Europe.

But this doesn't explain why so many others are trying to stop Musk.

How dare he do something that the governments didn't do!

LINK:

The leaders in the 2021 launch race:

50 China
31 SpaceX
23 Russia
7 Europe (Arianespace)

So NASA used the European Arianespace rocket to launch the Webb telescope from French Guiana. 

oh well: He could always move to French Guiana

when you read such stories, the rule used to be "follow the money" and "cui bono" ("who benefits").

There is a long history of how China is manipulating/funding environmental groups to push it's agenda (2018 story)

This past week, the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations wrote a six-page letter to the president of a major environmental group — the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) — asking for information regarding its relationship with the Chinese government. The letter noted; “While national discourse about undue foreign influence in the United States has largely centered around Russia, recent media accounts also highlight China’s ‘vast influence machine.’”

And they are using everything, including the covid epidemic. to weaken the west.

as Austin Bay writes:

China's pervasive and interconnected covert campaign of military and industrial espionage, intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices and political infiltration (often lubricated with economic bribes) is an immediate threat that exploits patience.

sigh. 

-------------------

update: The problem of uncontrolled reentry of discarded rocket parts is not limited to the Chinese Long March Rocket.

From InsideOuterSpace:

Heads Up: Incoming Russian Payload – Uncontrolled Reentry

Backstories that might point to the future

 Scott Adams usually has his analysis of the news, but today he notes that a famous investor is investing in a company making fusion electricity by 2024.

LINK

this article discusses the company that has this in it's plans.

Fusion (plus the newer nuclear tech, e.g. salt reactors) should calm down the anti fossil fuel civil war. And if cheap, it could help us in poor countries, or in places like China, where demand for electricity is huge and who know the green technology is a big sluggish (something few pc westerners want to admit).

------------------------------- 

in a follow up on the new medicine that might make Covid a curable disease, which if true should calm down the vax vs anti vax civil war:

the ability to treat the disease means that the hysteria and fights over limiting people's freedom vs stopping the disease by mask/quarantine/mandatory vaccines should calm down. 

True, the anti capitalism/anti big pharmy types will still hyperventillate that the drug company will make oodles of money with the medicine (never mind  it will save lives), 

and the conspiracy types will get angry that now a big powerful drug company have the power to push approval through the bureaucrats, and will find a minor side effect for them to say hey it's dangerous so don't take it,

On the other hand, one does wonder if the reason that cheap medicines like Ivermectin (70 percent prevention/treatment success) were pooh poohed,. was that there was no big money benefit behind the medicine for anyone

Sign.

-----------------------

my take on green stuff:

Pollution is bad, and much of the deforestation and damage from mines and petroleum ignores that their proposals to elimiate such stuff kills people. (get rid of corruption, place laws that limit damge, and voila, both people and environment benefit).

Take Illegal logging: Bribe the government officials, bribe the company to do it in a shoddy manner, don't replant to stop erosion. And of course, the poor people there who are desperate for jobs and money to feed their family will willingly work for you. (for very low pay of course: no unions to check for safety or decent wages).

But eliminate logging, then the poor people starve, or migrate to the big cities looking for work. Voila, slums, people who lose their family ties, lots of unemployed and street kids who take drugs to get high or make a buck, etc. etc.

Sigh.

In other words, A lot of the worse environmental damage here in the third world is because corruption allows it.

Capitalism has lifted 80 percent of the world out of poverty over the last 100 years: so stop bashing capitalism per se and teach the necessity of morality that allows trust, something that is necessaary for capitalism to thrive.

And as for those people who say give money to poor countries to help them fight climate change: Uh, you know that the money will be stolen.

I wish the Pope would push honesty and to stop the corruption instead of trendy green memes that have little or no benefit to anyone here in poor areas, but will make the rich first world activists feel self righteous and richer.

march of the toads

Mysterious toad march to top of Mt. Homanzan

Whatever motivates bufo toads to undertake a seemingly desperate and perilous annual march to the summit of 829-meter Mount Homanzan here, even at risk to their lives, reached its climax in early July. The toads spend several years on the peak of the sacred mountain before making their descent. They take more than 50 days to reach the summit and encounter numerous hazards along the way, mainly from predators....

live not by lies

 Live not by lies. Advice from

Solzhenitsyn's essay Live Not by Lies. A pledge:

Will not henceforth write, sign, or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth.

Will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation not in the presence of many people, neither on his own behalf not at the prompting of someone else, either in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, not in 

or broadcast a single idea which he can only see is false or a distortion of the truth whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science, or music.

Will not cite out of context, either orally or written, a single quotation so as to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not share completely the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue.

Will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations or meetings if they are contrary to his desire or will, will neither take into hand not raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept.

Will not raise his hand to vote for a proposal with which he does not sincerely sympathize, will vote neither openly nor secretly for a person whom he considers unworthy or of doubtful abilities.

Will not allow himself to be dragged to a meeting where there can be expected a forced or distorted discussion of a question. Will immediately talk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film showing if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda.

Will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed. Of course we have not listed all of the possible and necessary deviations from falsehood. But a person who purifies himself will easily distinguish other instances with his purified outlook.

So who is promoting lies that got my knickers in a knot this week?

Yup. Francis the merciful, with his embrace of global warming and his anti capitalism encyclical released last week that is unreadable, but does have a few good things in there for obedient Catholics to cherry pick and praise.

Reality check:

The Pope has betrayed the Chinese church, "opposed" the culture of death  being promoted by his beloved "progressive" wing of the church, while winking at those promoting it instead of punishing them.

and shall we ignore the latest scandal, where his friend diverted money donated by ordinary folk to get rid of a meddlesome priest who was investigating financial shennanigans,...yes, that Cardinal got fired, but only after he was outed by the Australian press.

so now Global Warming is the lynchpin on his fuzzy thinking in his last "encyclical:look at what's being ignored in the text?

 so what's missingt?

Jesus Christ - 2 God the Father - 0 The Holy Spirit - 2 Church Fathers - 0 Pope - 1 Salvation - 0 Heaven - 1 Hell - 0

so we have gaslighting, lies and distortion.

He  distorts history by condeming capitalism

Translation: God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, thieves, rouges, adulterers, or like those evil capitalists...

Which capitalists: These: capitalists

Yup. those evil capitalists who  have raised 80 percent of humanity out of poverty while praising socialism, that has killed at least 100 million people in the last century. 

But instead of a subtle analysis of reality, we have a Pope who quotes a 6th century bishop who pushes the "pie" theory of economics that there are limited resources so if one person is rich, it makes someone else poor: ignoring the "grow the pie" theory of macro economics that is behind the success of today's world.

the dirty little secret: poverty is not growing

.

True, the gap between the poor and rich is increasing: But not because the poor are poorer,  (I doubt the poor today are worse off than my Irish Ancestors during the potato famine). The real reason is that the rich are richer.

, but is still a problem in those societies where the economy is not growing (often because of local wars and/or local corruption.

 e.g. central Africa or the Middle East)

so the Pope should be condemning corruption, and maybe even naming names.

Here is a another graph, that goes up to 2020:

this type of thinking is not new, which is why I am so cynical.

Rremember global winter and the population bomb? And the Ehrlich-Simon bet. 

The widely-followed contest originated in the pages of Social Science Quarterly, where Simon challenged Ehrlich to put his money where his mouth was. In response to Ehrlich's published claim that "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000" Simon offered to take that bet, or, more realistically, "to stake US$10,000 ... on my belief that the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run."

the reasons have changed, but the agenda remains the same.

why the push of the green agenda now? the up coming world wide economic collapse from economic shut down to stop the covid epidemic.

 It's an opportunity to put into place the plans that have been long discussed on international forums but poorly covered in the press except for "conspiracy sites" who often distort things and can be easily ignored or ridiculed in the MSM. But if you read the articles they refer to, or if you have been involved in developmental work, as I have, all of these ideas are not new, and some of them are good. The problem? I sort of dislike elite folks making plans without asking for our opinion.

I guess that makes me a deplorable, even though I tend to be sympathetic to Bernie and Chomsky.

For example, the Pope blames the covid epidemic on capitalism and global warming, yet it was communism, the fear of being a whistleblower in a communist state, and the corruption of the World Health Organization that let the genie out of the bottle.

 the Green Agenda  is openly admitting they plan to use the covid epidemic to change the world (but you will only find this out if you read conspiracy sites that link to their pages.

Conspiracy theory? Uh, no.

I keep getting heads up to the big TED symposium of celebrities pushing this.

This virtual event, streamed free on 10.10.2020, is the Global Launch of Countdown, a new initiative to accelerate solutions to the climate crisis. Watch five curated sessions packed with more than 50 speakers, activists, actors and musicians, who share actionable and science-backed ideas, paired with moments of wonder, inspiration and optimism. Presented by TED and Future Stewards.

Phys Org summary of the meeting here and includes this quip:

With a call to "fix our climate" by 2030, Prince William on Saturday joined a global array of activists, artists, celebrities and politicians taking part in a free streamed TED event aimed at mobilizing and unifying people to confront the climate crisis....

Yes because you should let self appointed activists, artists and celebrities tell you how you should live.

This, by the way, is from 2014.

Update

A theologcal analysis of  Francis promoting a religion of humanity that leaves out the reality of God

http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2020/10/12/all-brothers-but-without-god-anymore-a-philosopher-judges-the-latest-encyclical-from

REALITY BE DAMNED.

the downside of electric cars: Blood Colbalt

The genocide that nobody sees: The ongoing civil war in Central Africa/DRC, that has caused millions of deaths (2 million? 5 Million? who is counting?).

But why are they fighting? Partly tribalism of course, but it continues mainly as a civil war against a president who refused to leave...as Austin Bay points out: follow the money.

Attention Chinese car buyers and North Americans who exalt electric vehicles and condemn petrol-powered transport: Congo's election matters because Congo's extraordinary cobalt deposits and annual cobalt production have strategic international value and therefore long-term strategic implications that will eventually affect your lifestyles or threaten your lives.

Why? Manufacturing the electric engine powering China's small "urban" electric car takes 22 pounds of cobalt. That's why China imports at least 80 percent of Congo's annual output.

WAGD post of the day: Uh Oh, WEEDS

Physorg has a post about weeds,

 "I think the future of cheap food is strongly related to the availability and effectiveness of existing herbicides," says Adam Davis, ecologist in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois and USDA Agricultural Research Service. That is, without working herbicides, food could get a lot more expensive....

If you're not in the farming industry, you might not be aware that weeds like common waterhemp and Palmer amaranth can reduce corn and soybean yields anywhere from 30 to 80 percent, and that those weeds are developing resistance to available herbicides. Like antibiotic-resistant "superbugs," resistant weeds simply can't be killed by herbicides.

and don't say "organic": we grow organic rice, and the dirty little secret is that growing it organically means a lot more work.

Also, the traditional "weed control" is by flooding the rice paddy, planting seedlings of rice (which have their heads above water) while the weeds, well, get drowned.

Bad news? This is a major source of methane, a green house gas.

So China, for example, lowered their "carbon" output by using drier methods, i.e. flooding less by doing a "dry/wet" cycle, but to do that you have to use herbicides, or spend a lot of money to pay folks to pull out weeds.

Technical article on how to control weeds in rice paddies. more here.

Why Use Herbicides to Control Weeds?

• Less labor (0.5 person-day per ha per application) and less drudgery

• Cost-effective, if practiced properly

• No need to wait for weeds to grow bigger for hand weeding

• Herbicides can differentitate between rice and weeds, even at seedling stage where it is very difficult for people to see the difference

technical article here about using plastic mulch with less flooding.

here in the Philippines, we grow organic veggies in hot houses. Alas, the typhoon took out our hot houses (along with our chicken raising farm) a couple years ago.

we still grow organic rice, but the price is higher than ordinary rice, a lot of which is imported from VietNam or other countries where they can grow it cheaper than we do, because people are paid less and more chemicals are used, and because they manage three crops a year instead of the two crops a year we have here.

Right now it is rice harvest season. We are hoping the rains stay away, but we are having evening showers, which complicate things a bit. We still use the sun to dry our rice: if it rains we have to pay the rice mill to dry it in an electric drier, since ours has been broken for two years and non one will fix it.

--------------------

and if you want to read about what happened in the past and could happen again: 

Mike Duncan Revolutions has a podcast on the famines of the 1840's, which included not just the potato crop but grain shortages due to bad weather, causing an increase of price and a domino effect that ended up crashing the economy.

business/tech Stories below the fold

Trump meets with tech leaders....



he met with them six months ago during the transition. Sounds like businessman discussing business with each other.

------------------

I read an aging Tom Cruise is making Top Gun II...
but the reality is that we don't do that type of stuff anymore.

From 1965-1969, guns accounted for 65% of air-to-air kills, the CSBA says.
But between 1990 and 2002, they accounted for just 5% of kills - with the rest carried out by some kind of missile.
"Modern air combat is almost entirely decided by situational awareness [from radar and other sensors] and missile technology," Bronk says. "All recent air-to-air kills between fast jets were one-sided, quick affairs."Most kills in the last two decades have been against enemy planes too far away to see with the human eye - which means technology often trumps pilot skill.

Via Austnbay at Instapundit.

reminds me of how StarWars used WWII films to imagine their space dogfights.

-------------------------------

Why is this news?

Trump aids joke with each other: Chelsey Clinton is aghast and gets a headline in the BBC.

BBC's anti trump bias is almost as bad as CNN...

-----------------------

some industrial giants back a new version of the carbon tax on oil/gas companies.

Under the plan, produced by the Climate Leadership Council which includes the oil giants, taxes would start at $40 per ton of CO2 and rise from there, theoretically increasing the price per gallon (3.8 liters) of gasoline by 36 cents but initially generating $200 billion to be paid as "dividends" to households.

whose households will benefit? Not mentioned in the article.


Translation: The poor will pay more for food and transportation and cooking.

The rich politicians will get money to help the poor (and pocket part or all of the money).

here, when LPG or diesel goes up, it harms the ordinary folks: Tricycle drivers get less profit, the poor have trouble buying LPG to cook with (they use wood, leading to fires and asthma in their kids). Using a handplow, thresher, and rice driers get more expensive, so the price of rice goes up. The price of transporting food and rice to the market goes up too, leading to higher prices for everything.

But never mind: The politicians will get rich.

some folks agree: from Wikipedia:

In most instances, firms pass the costs of a carbon price onto consumers. Studies typically find that poor consumers spend a greater proportion of their income on energy-intensive goods and fuel, and cost increases in energy tend to impact the poor worse than the rich.^[238] Therefore, if the revenue from a carbon tax is retained by the government, a price on carbon is expected to be regressive, similar to any policy that increases the cost of fuels and energy.

----------------------------

losing passwords costs businesses money.
yeah, I have to change them all the time for "safety" then find the business or gov't site has been hacked anyway.

Password joke of the day:.

--------------------------------

Ode to concrete

of course, that is written by someone who probably spent more time in a botique than planting rice seedlings by hand


but then reality bites:




I shouldn't talk: I prefer the reality of rural life, and do live in simplicity... except for my air conditioner and computer.

Simple living in the country is nice, but as my husband Lolo used to say: You can't eat the scenery.

And, of course, the reality of modern living is not botiques but pollution. And I am thankful for the green movement working against that.

and yes, I haz a song about that:

Concrete stops global warming?

From ABC news (Aus): Concrete products reabsorb half of CO2 produced during it's manufacture

as cement ages and weathers over time, it also absorbs carbon dioxide in a process called carbonation.

absorbs 43 % of the carbon produced when making it.

but deep inside the article comes this factoid

 What is more, this rate of absorption may actually be increasing, as an unexpected side-effect of the construction boom in nations such as China.

why? Because buildings in China don't last as long as they do in the west: The average life span is 30 years, then they are torn down and become cement chips which absorb even more CO2 and this was not in their calculations.

But the back story of that is this dirty little secret: Shoddy construction.

That is one problem with China: Quality control.

Donald Trump take note.

I would suggest moving manufacturing to the Philippines, but unless you have strict control you could run into the same problem.

in a related story, they claim CO2 admissions have remained flat for the last 3 years, 

this is because China is using less coal for energy.

and the world wide recession helps too, but never mind.

Mr Peters said it was unclear whether the Chinese slowdown was due to a restructuring of the Chinese economy or a sign of economic instability.

yes. The greens are happy, so never mind if a lot of Chinese become poorer and unhappier.

Their aim is to put us all back in the good old days. Plowing the fields with a water buffalo using flooding to kill weeds instead of chemicals. Just ignore the methane from flooding fields and the methane in water buffalo farts.

or maybe their aim is even more drastic:

Other researchers not affiliated with the study stressed that it was not enough for global emissions to stabilise, saying they needed to drop toward zero for the world to meet the goals of the Paris deal.

Translation: It's not enough to make everyone poor, just arrange a lot less people to be born.

UhOH: Mauder Minimum is coming.... 

Yes we have fans and a swamp cooler

I should note that I only started using the Aircon during the day when Lolo got sick and stayed most of the day in bed. Before then, he tended to use it for an hour to nap and then went to the farm, when it was cooler, and I just used the fan.

We also have a "swamp cooler" that evaporates water with a fan, in our dining room.

And the fountain in the center of our compound (plus the palm trees) keeps that area cooler than outside.

However, I found that if I run the Aircon on dehumidify using an extra hepa filter, it filters the air too, so I don't need to take a lot of anti histamines for my allergies: which have gotten worse with the increase in traffic (due to the main street now being one way, so our street is the other way).

Yes, I think businesses etc stay too cool, but many of them do this because of the computers. My desktop used to crash over 90 degrees when I lived in Appalachia (We didn't have an aircon because it rarely got hot there... most folks slept on the porch during August when we had a heat wave).

I am not anti green: I am against rich people bossing around ordinary people and making something that is essentially a good thing seem like it is a completely evil thing. Uh, maybe making more efficient airconditioning is the answer?

Headlines below the fold

I am ignoring the climate stuff, since the rigidity on both sides is closer to religious fundamentalism than reality and it is an upper class thing (yes, the elites marched in Manila, but one suspects that the ordinary folks didn't, except for those paid 100 pesos a head to join the march).

Fine: regulate pollution, encourage green technology, but don't destroy the economies doing it.


A lot of stuff about the Philippines being the poster child for global warming. Uh, no. It is the poster child for corruption.

Flooding because bribes allowed the building in "no build" zones, mudslides because bribing officials left illegal loggers and illegal miners to destroy the forested slopes, and many dying because they weren't warned, or because they refused to leave their homes because of fear they would be looted.

And I laugh at them blaming global warming for "typhoons and droughts". Which one is it? Typhoons bring too much water, and the "drought" we have right now is the cyclical ElNino, making the dry season worse than usual.

We are short of water now because we had to let the water out (and flood the town) because the typhoon's rains threatened a dam collapse, and now we have a drought because we don't have that water anymore... wouldn't a better dam help both these things? Or a lake diversion to store the flood water? (and I won't mention the dam that broke a few years ago and flooded the town).

more HERE at the Inquirer:

Daep points to Apsemo’s institutionalization as the key factor that helped Albay implement its “zero casualty” policy for many years and, in the process, gain worldwide recognition in DRRM for its successful programs. “The core reason behind Albay’s [preparedness] is the institutionalization. There is a clear institution to handle the situation and a clearly identified point person who will stay even if there is a change of governor,” Daep said. - See more at: http://www.inquirer.net/climatechange/zero#sthash.8w4M2FS5.dpuf

It is like the Pope blaming capitalism for the lack of clean water in slums in Kenya.-

No, the lack of clean water is due to lack of money, the lack of technical ability or maybe just the laziness of the local government, or maybe it is because corruption diverted the funds to put in pipes into someone's pocket.

The slums were caused because people preferred living there than living in mud and wattle thatched huts growing corn and starving periodically in rural areas like their ancestors.

this "all or nothing" is nonsense. Capitalism causes problems and horrible living conditions (read Dickens) and corporations themselves are corrupt, but the church should preach honesty, temperence and self control, not just condemn the evils of capitalism that has brought millions our of poverty, especially in Asia and now, thanks to China, in Africa.

related item: the Pope has visited a war zone in Africa.

But the "Christian/Muslim" part is not quite true: actually the fight between the non Bantu tribal herders of the Sahel vs the Christian and animist black Bantu farmers. It predates religion.

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Related item: Imelda's jewelry and paintings are missing.

The commission has been tasked with recovering the ill-gotten wealth amassed by the family of Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s late dictator, after billions of dollars were looted from the state. His widow became known for her excesses, symbolised by her huge shoe and jewellery collections.Yesterday experts were concluding an appraisal of jewellery seized after the family fled to Hawaii in 1986 after the popular revolt that ended Marcos’s two-decade rule. The pieces include a barrel-shaped diamond worth at least $5m (£3.3m) and a Cartier diamond tiara estimated to be worth more than $100,000.

all of this stolen from the poor in the Philippines (unless you believe the urban legend that Marcos found Yamashita's gold).

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related item: Zimbabwe's economic crash.
Uh, this happened years ago but one is happy that Slate finally noticed.

And no, it wasn't just the sanctions: most of the educated left to work in the UK or South Africa because of the government policies, including the harassment of political opposition. As for HIV: Did I tell you about the time Sister Patricia's HIV clinic was destroyed when Mugabe "cleaned up the trash" by demolishing a middle class suburb that dared to vote against him?


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the drones started as ways to spy, then as ways to zap bad guys but now:

AMAZON DRONES ARE HERE

and Jeremy Clarkson has a new job (and hopefully has attended anger management classes)

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the Martian made 50 million in China last weekend.

Hasn't hit here yet, although Hunger Games 4 is here and we will probably watch it tomorrow at the mall.

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Oh Canada!

I have heard several of Brian Fagan's podcasts on prehistory and right now have a few of his books listed on my ScribD library to read when I am less depressed...the one I am reading now is "elixir", and it discussed the irrigation in the mountains of South and east Africa, which I had seen and always wondered what those terraces were made for, since they were not used then I lived there.

One of his lectures about human evolution pointed out the "desert/wet" cycles of the Sahara had a lot to do with human evolution since it required men to improvise or die, and those that improvised survived.n

There is also one to read latnser about the ElNino and South American civilizations that I will read soon.

So today I link to this talk (video not there, but there is an mp3 link) about climate change.

and of course climate is changing, because it is always changing. So what should we do about it?

In the question and answer period, he was asked what the stricken people can do about it? “Move,” he said, “is the only option.” If the world is heating up, where would he move to? “Canada. It will be dryer, much warmer, and their politics are reasonable.”

So investment tip: invest in land in Calgary.

My cynicism is not that I don't believe that there is a major problem with pollution (there is) or that the environment is being destroyed (we see it here) or even that the climate is changing (it is) but because too many want to pull all these things together to make a top down dictatorship where the elites run everything.

As I have written before, here in the Philippines, one of the side effects of the more radical "green movement" is that it makes things worse. Keep out mining and logging, and the result is illegal mining and logging with worse poverty and environmental destruction than you would get if you regulated companies to do it without destruction.

And grow green crops and avoid pesticides, chemicals, and of course GM food, but that leads to importing food from other countries that use chemicals, pesticides and GM seeds because the local organic stuff is too expensive for the poor to eat.

Happy Easter from the Philippines

and if you want to see our church, here is a song to Mary, the Holy Sheperdess, the patron of the town, and a lot of views of the school associated with the church


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the parish is still in mourning for three members (including a nun) who were killed a few weeks ago in a car accident...the driver who was badly injured is a member of our cook's extended family, and is still in the hospital and being sent to Manila for rehab.


here is a film with photos of the farming areas in our area


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A good film about local farming. I love how they show both waterbuffalo and the handplow...the handplow is gradually replacing the waterbuffalo, because it is easier to prepare the rice fields which are thick with mud in order to plant the rice...

We have both...and two threshers. The waterbuffalo is better to plow for veggies (rice requires several plowings to to prepare the thick mud) and for fields distant from the roads, we use the waterbuffalo to pull our smaller thresher to be closer to the harvest.

There is a newer, lower carbon "dry" method of rice growing, but that requires more chemicals and so we still "fertilize" the old fashioned way: Plow under the weeds and rice straw (and add chicken manure)...after they rot and the mud is smooth, we then plant seedling, and keep the fields wet so that the weeds don't grow.

Learning something new everyday take two

In Brazil, Michelle says her kids can say "butterfly" in lots of languages, and pushes the importance of education. Good for her.

List of "butterfly" in various languages.

and if you travel to Mexico, remember it's "Mariposa" not "Mariposo".

Here in the Philippines, Bohol has butterfly conservancies for tourists and our largest "butterfly" is actually a moth.


photo from Wikipedia.


Squiddo has some photos and information on it.

We use it as a logo on some of our products (but not our rice).

Stuff below the fold

The Walter Duranty prize for lying goes to Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes, and I explain why in a BNN Rant.
yes, we believe everything they claim...

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while checking facts on the above propaganda article, I ran into this gem: Wikileaks is nothing next to China's cyberwar.
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High lead levels in used toys for kids, and in other consumer products.more HERE.

And where did the toys originate? Anyone? Anyone?

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Philippines asks for "climate change" funds...
yeah. Guess our political class needs more money.


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Suicide rate in female veterans (14/100,000) (is much higher than the suicide rate of women in general (5/100,000),
but still lower than the rate of suicide in female doctors (28-40/100,000)

I think the link is that women in men's roles have a suicide rate similar to men.
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Another day, another (adult) stem cell story. Strokes, hearing, liver disease...etc. etc.

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and the latest scare story? WiFi is making trees die...