2005 History

Friday Cat Blogging

The Last Friday Cat Blogging of 2005: Miko

As you can guess from the recent blockage of bloggage, I've been busy with family and work of late. Sorry.

I've been thinking of making some changes at the website for 2006:

Cat Blogging will continue, but because this year pretty much burned through my back catalog of cat pictures, so I'll publish the really good new ones as I take them. (Not that I don't have hundreds of unpublished cat photos, I take 3-5 for each one I publish, but as they are indoor cats the number of poses is somewhat limited.)

That's going to leave room for a more eclectic mix of photos, and since many of the photos I'd like to share just don't look right when shunk to 384x288, I'll be re-designing the hompage and feed for bigger photos.

I'll be refreshing the layout to support the larger graphics, and maybe replace the banner from time to time. (Once again, following Dave Winer's lead)

I'm also thinking of splitting the RSS feed into two: one related to the Hompage and general podcasts, and one for Anime and fanfiction podcasts.

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 08:34:56 PST - Link

Matthew Simmons' Address To ASPO

Peaking is actually a fact. It is not a concept", he stated. "All finite resources, unfortunately, have their limits to growth, and the faster a resources is used, the sooner its use peaks. Peaking, categorically doesn't mean running out. Peaking means further growth is over. The difference between peak oil and running out is as profound as me saying, I am getting a tiny bit hungry and I am about to starve to death. Or I sneezed, I might have cold or I am in the last stages of a terminal disease.

EV World

EV World was also granted permission to record audio at the conference, and they have a 45 minute podcast of Mr Simmons' presentation to the APSO USA Conference.

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 08:29:42 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Tory James, sink.

BTW, Cats In Sinks has loads of pictures of cats in sinks.

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 17:40:26 PST - Link

Happy Solstice!

Here's the view out my window of this morning's sunrise.

Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:14:49 PST - Link

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.

But the newspaper held the story for more than a year and only revealed the secret wiretaps last Friday, when it became apparent a book by one of its reporters was about to break the news, according to journalists familiar with the paper's internal discussions.

LA Times

Grrr.

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 08:49:59 PST - Link

Oil Shale

Searching for appropriate analogies, we enter the realm of Weight Watchers. Oil shale is said to be "rich" when a ton yields 30 gallons of oil. An equal weight of granola contains three times more energy. America's "vast," "immense" deposits of shale have the energy density of a baked potato. Oil shale has one-third the energy density of Cap'n Crunch, but no one is counting on the Quaker Oats Company to become a major energy producer soon.

Denver Post

This from a state with good wind resources an plenty of mountain locations for pumped-water energy storage systems.

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 15:58:31 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Cat. Sun. Sleep. Tory James

- Link

Hack. The. Election.

"The expert that we used simply programmed it on his laptop in his hotel room," Sancho said.

Sancho began investigating the problem after watching the votes come in during the infamous 2000 presidential election. In Volusia County precinct 216, a memory card added more than 200 votes to George W. Bush's total and subtracted 16,000 votes from Al Gore. The mistake was later corrected during a hand count.

After watching his computer expert change vote totals this week, Sancho said that he now believes someone on the inside did the same think in Volusia County in 2000.

WESH Channel 2

Funny — the things that get reported once the teflon is off the administration.

As always, BradBlog is the tip of the spear on eVoting Fraud.

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:59:08 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

This time of year, the boys find the duvet irresistable.

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 08:40:47 PST - Link

Peak Oil Hearing

Transcripts and .mp3 and .rm audio of the December 7 congressional hearing on peak oil are now online at Global Public Media

You need to hear this.

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:36:20 PST - Link

Beanball Economics

First, this headline and story from US News:

Workers continue to step up to the plate

A new government report released this morning shows that the productivity of U.S. workers surged by 4.7 percent in the third quarter, not 4.1 percent as was previously thought.

To get hit with:

Hourly compensation grew 3.7 percent in the third quarter of 2005, following the 0.9-percent rise in the second quarter (as revised). When the rise in consumer prices is taken into account, real hourly compensation declined 1.4 percent in the third quarter of 2005 and 3.1 percent one quarter earlier.

Business and Legal Reports

Say—who is this great economy great for, anyway?

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 11:37:08 PST - Link

A Jon Stewart Moment...

This Yahoo headline caught my eye...

US may make mistakes in 'war on terror': Rice

May make mistakes? — MAY? Like someone give this administration permission to continue to screw up?

Oh yeah — 2004. Nevermind. Carry on. Nothing to see here.

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:25:11 PST - Link

Word Of The Year...

Podcast

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:57:20 PST - Link

Aw, Whata Ham

Via Cunningham-Lee, a few photos from those Be Demos in Tokyo

Ueda-san (Of the Shibuya office of Metrowerks Japan) was doing the translating, he was a little hesitant in the first demo, but as the week went on he was really getting into the spririt of the demo!

Thanks for the Photos, Gary!

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 07:54:00 PST - Link

Peak Oil Hearing and Webcast from Washington DC

Understanding the Peak Oil Theory

Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
December 7, 2005
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
09:30 AM

The Committee on Energy and Commerce Joe Barton, Chairman

Webcast details TBD, at the URL above.

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:56:40 PST - Link

Welcome, OS News

Woah. Nice flurry of hits from OS news, welcome guys!

While you're here, check out:

The BeBox Gallery which has some very nice pictures of the BeBox I was given when I left Be.

The Be, Inc. Gallery which has some cool historical photos (But alas, no photo of the Launch Pad Chicken!™)

And make sure not to miss the most popular part of my site:

Paper Airplanes Loads of fun, or double your money back!

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 21:36:56 PST - Link

Let Them Burn Cake

A while back a friend (one who belives that the free market will prevent Peak Oil from being a major, world changing economic event) sent me a link to an article By Peter Huber in Forbes.

I tried my best to respond to the article, but I was not really able to devote enough time to it to really deconstruct Mr Huber's arguments.

This being the age of the internet it just took a couple of weeks before somone with the time and knowledge to take Mr Huber to task:

What is Huber stating in his article? Essentially, the same basic message: that (in Huber's scenario above) energy will become so expensive that, after investing ten units of cheap energy to produce one unit of the "final form", consumable energy, that consumable energy will still sell at a handsome profit (why else otherwise would Wall Street care to fund such a business from here to Alberta, as Huber puts it?) In short, selling very expensive energy will be a very profitable business, but no cheaper forms of energy in a consumable form will be available. Obviously, energy production in a society thus described by Huber will be at the very center of the economy, and will remain among the few profitable activities, as many other formerly profitable businesses and entire industries will be killed off by the skyrocketing energy prices. In other words, an economic shrinkage of societal scale in the scenario formulated by Huber is unavoidable.

On The Prospects Of Using AAA Type Batteries As Peak OilMitigation Devices By Dmitry Podborits

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 21:17:40 PST - Link

Worst. President. Ever.

From The History News Network at George Mason University:

• He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;

• He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;

• He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;

• He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;

• He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign ( Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);

• He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;

• He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;

• He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime.

Yahoo

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 11:27:15 PST - Link

Girls, With Rockets.

Adorable Rockets is a new blog dedicated to anime reviews. No muscle-bound super-heros here, think school girls, some magical, some with rockets, and some even have fangs.

It's just getting started, but I like the clean layout and screenshots.

Hey Rocket — have you seen Windy Tales or Kamichu yet?

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 09:34:38 PST - Link

BeBox Interview

A couple of months back I was asked to answer some questions about the Quad 604 BeBox, in the form of an online interview. You can read the interview at BeBox News

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 09:20:03 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Miko

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:36:50 PST - Link

Checking Predictions

The Energy Information Administration, an "independent statistical and analytical agency within the Department of Energy" occasionaly predicts the future.

Ron Patterson took a look at some 2001 predictions, and compared them to actual performance.

EIA: North Sea will peak in 2006 at 6.6 million barrels/day.
FACT: The North Sea peaked in 1999 at 5.947 mb/d

EIA: Mexico: 4 million barrels/day by 2010, and little decline to 2020.
FACT: Mexico peaked in December 2003 at 3.455 million barrels/day. Pemex is predicting a 14% per year decline rates.

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 07:53:45 PST - Link

A Barrel A Year Is All We Ask

The 20 gallons of gasoline made from one barrel of oil contains about 180 useful kilowatt-hours. If we divide that by say, 1/8 of a kilowatt — a generous continuous output for a fit person — we get 1440 hours of hard human work. Let's assume that a person can put out this 1/8 of a kilowatt for 6 hours per day. That is, half of the output of a top Tour de France cyclist for a continuous 6 hours (not counting breaks) per day. This means that you would need 240 days to get 180 kilowatt-hours (or more, if you are a dimmer bulb), which is minimally equivalent to one year of 5-days-a-week very hard labor by a fit human. This boils down conveniently to: ONE BARREL of oil = ONE YEAR of hard human labor.

The Oil Drum

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:34:29 PST - Link

A Sea Of Suits

This morning, Bush gave another one of his "speeches in front of people likely to clap harder at the right time", this time In Anapolis. It was a bit creepy, since the house lights were down, and any time you saw a wide shot of the auditorium, you saw a sea of identical dark suits, each sitting ram-rod straight in their seats. I've seen that movie, and it didn't end well. It's really time this president faced the great unwashed. It's really time we insist he stand before a real cross section of America. We don't like where we've been, we don't like where we are, and we don't like where he wants to take us.

It occured to me this morning that there was a point where the the Iraq war train was off the tracks:

"We've tried diplomacy," Mr. Bush said when asked about the issue today. "We're trying it one more time. I believe the free world, if we make up our mind to, can disarm this man peacefully."

At the same time he said, "The stated policy of our government, the previous administration and this administration, is regime change? because we don't believe he is going to change."

...

"However, if he were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I've described very clearly in terms that everybody can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed."

October 21, 2002 Back to Iraq

This was 6 months before shock and awe, and just one month later, (2002.11.18) UN weapons inspectors were permitted back into Iraq.

So it seems that on October 21, 2002 there was a moment when this war was not inevitable. It had to be Colin Powell's doing, we now know he was the only one in the white house that was pushing for moderation and caution, and for one brief moment it appears that he'd swayed Bush to his position. I wonder if we'll ever find out who put that train back on the tracks.

John Kerry and Jack Reed are giving the Democratic response to the Bush speech, and taking unscripted questions from the press. I've been miffed at Kerry for losing 2004, listening to him speak now reminds my why I supported him. His calm depth and command of the issues was a poor match for the campaign trail, but he sure sounds good now, and the world would certainly be a better place were he in office today. You can know that he wouldn't have been on vacation when Katrina hit, and Brownie wouldn't have been in charge. Grrr.

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:43:38 PST - Link

Four New Saudi Arabias

Instead, oil production will reflect past years of production-such as the amount produced in 1997, for example-but demand will, of course, still be solidly grounded in the present. Everyone agrees that this will happen, although most politicians shy away from acknowledging this fact.

A pamphlet called Oil Depletion and the Fate of the World sums up this situation nicely: "Even Exxon-Mobil recently stated that, due to depletion, it will be necessary to replace 80% of current production with new fields by 2015.

In other words, we need to find four new Saudi Arabias in the next 11 years just in order to keep oil production flat."

SARAH GRILLO - Vermont Cynic

Hard to believe, isn't it. With today's price for Gasoline returning to near $2.20 a gallon, it's hard to believe that things won't just keep going on like this forever, and that buying a hulking huge pickup with a half acre of chrome bumper isn't a good idea, but it's not. We'd be hearing more about peak oil if it were a real problem, right?

We are hearing about it. Not from this administration, of course. We're hearing about it from the energy companies. Instead of spending thier recent record profits on exploration, they're buying airtime and opening websites in an effort to try to soak one simple fact - oil can not be the energy of the future - into the public. Go ahead, visit the British Pertolium website. The headline, in in eco-freindly green is "Alternative Energy".

Watch for the ads. Replay them on your Tivos. They ask us to turn down our thermostats. They urge us to drive 55. They ask us about where the energy of the future will come from.

Ask yourselves why they are running the ads.

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 08:43:38 PST - Link

In The News

WASHINGTON: A part of the marble facade of the Supreme Court building has collapsed to the entry stairs below.

Structual engineers on the scene say the damage appears to have been caused by the accumulated stress upon the court of Bush v Gore decision, the cracking of the original foundation by use of torture in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, the erosion of the separation of powers, and structural stress caused by years of pressure to move the court to the right.

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:43:55 PST - Link

Shouting Movie In A Crowded Firehouse.

It's been a rare two movie weekend:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Even though and a lot of the source material was left out of the screenplay, the first half of the movie feels rushed. The pacing settles down in the second half, and the scenes play true to the images I'd seen in my head while reading the book. It is perhaps ironic that this darkest of the Potter films was the most magical, and also a has the most laughs. I wish this movie were two hours longer. (Extended DVD version, guys? Pretty Please?)

RENT: is not so much an adaptation, as it is a cinema presentation of the original Broadway production, but shot on location. The music was stirring, and the cinematography and set design were inspired. Bring Kleenex.

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:59:53 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

T-chan soaking up some sun.

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 22:54:58 PST - Link

Best. Turkey. Ever.

I'm not sure what happened — A turkey that should have taken 4 hours (16lb 8oz) took a full 5 hours before it was done (165 degrees internal temp). I was frantic that with all that time in the oven, it would be as dry as toast—but it wasn't. It was perfect. Better than any I've ever had. Ever. What did I do I right?

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 23:29:49 PST - Link

Half Full

Source: Happy Peak Oil Day? - The Oil Drum

Now, for the world - and we’re getting to the core of the story here - after 1983, the world production settles down to a pretty good straight line, and there is one more black dot - because I had to release this to the publisher before the 2004 numbers came out - so the 2004 numbers - another black dot jammed between there and the plus mark. The plus mark is when half of the oil is being produced, and that third equation, a couple of slides back, had as one of its consequences that the peak of production occurs at the symmetry point when half of the oil has been produced.

And so I got an enlarged version of this and counted forward. And that is where I got to Thanksgiving Day this year, saying that that is my estimate of the peak. Now, I did that to make the economists nervous. It really is uncertain by about three weeks on either side. (Laughter.) Now, this came across

Kenneth Deffeyes at the Bartlett Energy Conference [PDF]

Today is a day to relax, and eat well, and be with your families. Tomorrow is the day to roll up our sleves and get serious about energy.

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:19:01 PST - Link

Did I Hear You Say "Peak"?

"Quite remarkably, in the first half of 2005 the top five, the top ten and the top 22 publicly quoted oil companies all produced less crude and NGLs [Natural Gas Liquids] than they did in 2004," according to a report published in the October issue of Petroleum Review. Compared with 2003, ten companies produced less in the first half of this year. Nine companies produced less than in 2002. "Clearly, it is no exaggeration to say that the world's largest oil companies are now really struggling to hold production levels," the report says. Meanwhile, a recent study by energy consultants Wood Mackenzie shows that only a quarter of the 28 leading oil companies active in international exploration have fully replaced their production through new field discoveries. The group of companies studied represents more than 30 percent of total world oil supply. "Not only is exploration more expensive now, but it has become more difficult to achieve success, as the more accessible fields have been discovered," the study author Andrew Latham said, noting that the industry has not discovered any new "world-class" fields since 2000.

The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre

This is a little confusing at first, since the chart shows BP first, and they were up in both the first and second quarters. What the author is doing is grouping together the top 5, which as a group lost ground, then the top ten, which as a group lost ground, then the top 22, which as a group lost ground.

It's interesting to note that BP (The largest of this group) pumped 69 times as much oil as the number 22 entry: EOG Resources. If there's any gain to be had it's way out in that long tail of small producers.

Sat, 19 Nov 2005 16:37:43 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Tory James

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 07:32:57 PST - Link

Something Rotten In The State Of Ohio

I'll try to summarize here briefly. There were five initiatives on the ballot last week. Issue 1 was a controversial proposition for $2 billion in new state spending. The Christian Right was opposed (because some of the new funds might go to stem cell research), but otherwise, the Republican Governor Taft's Administration (he recently plead guilty to several counts of corruption) was pushing it hard alongside progressives in the state.

The Columbus Dispatch's pre-election polling, which Fritrakis and Wasserman describe as "uncannily accurate for decades", called the race correctly within 1% of the final result. The margin of error for the poll was +/- 2.5% with a 95% confidence interval. On Issue 1, the Dispatch poll was right on the money. They predicted 53% in favor, the final result was 54% in favor.

...

But then came Issues 2 through 5 put forward by ReformOhioNow.org — a bi-partisan coalition pushing these four initiatives for Electoral Reform in the Buckeye State largely in response to their shameful '04 Election performance led by the extremely partisan Secretary of State (and Bush/Cheney '04 Co-Chair) J. Kenneth Blackwell.

On those four issues, which Blackwell and the Christian Right were against, the final results were impossibly different — and we mean impossibly!

Huffington Post

This is chilling. This is the stick-shaker stall-warning in the cockpit of Democracy. We must get to the bottom of this before we run out of airspeed, altitude and ideas.

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:32:40 PST - Link

On Getting Things Done

Ceej blogged an interesting artical on how to be more productive.

I agree 100% with the big / dual monitor concept. More pixels is better. I've recently stepped up to two LCDs at work, and It really does help.

This bit caught my eye:

But their suggestions were surprisingly low-tech. None of them used complex technology to manage their to-do lists: no Palm Pilots, no day-planner software. Instead, they all preferred to find one extremely simple application and shove their entire lives into it. Some of O'Brien's correspondents said they opened up a single document in a word-processing program and used it as an extra brain, dumping in everything they needed to remember - addresses, to-do lists, birthdays - and then just searched through that file when they needed a piece of information.

I've used the 'plain text file' for years. In the old days (Back when monitors were 800x600) I used to keep my trusty Psion running in a text editor nect to my keyboard. As I thought of things I'd just jot them in as check box items:

[ ] Add test point to U1.4

When I'd finished the task, I'd check the box:

[*] Add test point to U1.4

This rather crude scheme was highly effective on my PDA of the era, a Psion 3a, but became far more cumbersome and unmanagable on the Series 5 — they'd "upgraded" the text editor into a miniature word processor, which wanted to "help" you format items, and the fonts changed, and they were either too big or too small, and for some reason it was really hard to stay in monospace.

I use NoteTab Pro as my text editor these days. It's simple, and unlike Word it is happy to record your keystrokes exactly as you type them. It's happy to let you indent a line without trying to "help" you by making a bullet item list. It won't paste in the formatting when you've copied a bit of text off a webpage — like you really wanted that part number in 24 point, dark blue, bold helvetica in the middle of that 12 point courier paragraph. Ah, jeez.

You can see where this is going, right? When a program does something that I didn't ask for, (which Word seems to do every other line) I loose productivity. It's not just the time to go undo the "help" I've just been "given"—it's exactly like an outside interruption. My task, which was to move ideas from my head onto the screen was disrupted, because what I got was not what I expected, and not what I wanted, and now I'm in a full context switch to try to undo somthing I didn't want, and it wasn't even my fault. Of course, the task of removing unwated formatting can be as daunting as getting an unwilling cat into a carrier for a trip to the vet. How is it an animal that can squeeze through a baseball-sized gap behind the recliner, and climb up into the springs, so that when you tip it over you have to be carefull not to activate the mechanism so as not to harm the cat, can then re-configure itself so that it cannot be pushed though the opening in the carrier which is big enough to take a regulation soccerball? And why are they black and white, anyway? The soccer balls, not the cats, who are Seal points, and one Blue point, which is more grey than blue, anyway.

Where was I? Oh. Distractions. Interruptions. Tools that interrupt you.

I spent much of last weekend using a top-name CAD package. It must have crashed 50 times. By the end of the weekend I had trained myself to save every 20 seconds or so, which was unpleasant because the program seemed to want to take 5 seconds to save a file. 15 seconds of work, 5 seconds of waiting. By the end of the session, I was in a state of clenched-fist, arm-waving frustration, drained of any interest in examining the end product of my toils.

So, back to productivity. Big monitors good. Plain text editors, Good. Programs that are written to cause distraction, bad. Programs that crash often: Very Very Bad™.

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 22:39:54 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging (Late Edition)

Miko on the monitor. Poor baby, that desk anchor will soon be replaced by a cat-hostile LCD display.

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:33:59 PST - Link

Sanity? In Washington?

Twenty-five Republicans, led by Rep. Charles Bass of New Hampshire, signed a letter asking GOP leaders to strike the Alaskan drilling provision from the broader $54 billion budget cut bill.

"Rather then reversing decades of protection for this publicly held land, focusing greater attention on renewable energy sources, alternate fuels, and more efficient systems and appliances would yield more net energy savings than could come from ANWR and would have a higher benefit on the nation’s long-term economic leadership and security," they said.

msnbc

More Good News™

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 08:46:39 PST - Link

54.64 Miles x 54.64 Miles is all we ask

The annual electricity-consumption of the United States is about 3,479 billion kWhr. PYRON solar power plants can produce this amount on 7,731 km2 (87.92 km x 87.92 km or 54.64 mi x 54.64 mi) at a yearly solar radiation of 2790 kWhr/m2. To deliver the United States annual consumption of 11,835 kW-hr for each person of the US-population of 290 million, only 26.3 m2 or 31.51 sq.yd per capita of desert would be needed. Regarding household electricity consumption of 3,547 kW-hr/yr, a miniscule 7.88m2 (9.42 sq.yd) of desert would suffice. In comparison, supplying one person’s food needs 2,820m2 of valuable agricultural land (and a lot of petroleum too). His electricity consumption produced by PYRON-SOLAR-generators requires about 350-times less land than farming.

Pyron Solar

This Pyron system is really clever, it uses plastic injection-molded lenses to concentrate the sunlight on a solar cell designed for use at 400x the brightness of the sun. To keep the cell from melting, the whole thing floats in a shallow pool of water, and cells are mounted in heat sinks which transfer the heat from the cell to the water.

Since it's floating, the entire array can be rotated with a tiny (1 watt) motor to track the sun. The only downside is that it must be mounted flat, but it looks like a 12 foot diameter array (12.56 Sq Yards) would be plenty for the average home. I can easily imagine designing homes with a re-enforced flat-roof ready for just such an array.

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 08:50:51 PST - Link

Ahnald Strikes Out

All eight of the ballot inititives on the ballot here in California have gone down to defeat, including all four of the initiatives that Schwarzenegger placed on the ballot.

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 07:18:59 PST - Link

Well, There Is One Thing He's Really Reaaly Good At.

President Bush and the current administration have borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 presidents combined, a group of conservative to moderate Democrats said Friday.

CBS News

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 21:19:24 PST - Link

Matthew Simmons Interview

I believe we are either at or very close to peak oil. If I'm right, then we have to assume that five or 10 years from now we'll be producing less oil than we are today. And yet we have a society that is expecting, under the most conservative assumptions, that oil usage will grow by at least 30 to 50 percent over the next 25 years. In other words, we would end up with only 70 percent of the oil we have today when we would need to have 150 percent. It's a problem of staggering economic proportions — far greater than the temporary setback of a terrorist attack on energy infrastructure — that could end up leading to more geopolitical fistfights than you can ever imagine. The fistfights turn into weapon fights and give way to a very ugly society.

Grist Magazine

I think Mr. Simmons is spot on his predictions, but I disagree with him on drilling ANWAR. Not yet. Not while you can still buy a Hummer. (And get a HUGE tax break if you claim it's for business.)

I watched the 'live debate' episode of The West Wing last night. I was sorely dissapointed in the discussion on energy, the Republican position was written as "the free market will save us" and the Democratic position was "Renewables - blah - blah - blah". We're in a Very Bad Place™ when we can't even fictionalize politicians really facing the cold hard facts on energy.

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 08:04:10 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Tory James

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:35:33 PST - Link

Oily Calculations

The International Energy Agency, the oil sector monitoring body, on Wednesday said that oil prices by 2030 would be 50 per cent higher than today if Saudi Arabia did not muster the political will to invest billions of dollars in new production.

Fatih Birol, the group's chief economist, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Saudi Arabia, the most important oil producer, might not make the investment needed to ensure production met the strong demand growth in China and India.

"It is not a problem of availability of reserves or capital. We need to be sure that the increase in production will be high enough and a sustained production capacity increase policy is in place. That will need sustained political will," he said. Saudi Arabia has plans to invest $14bn to raise output capacity from 11m barrels a day to 12.5m b/d by 2009, according to a report by Samba Financial Group, a Riyadh-based bank.

Financial Times

Hmm.

11m barrels per day at $60 a barrel = $660 million dollars per day.

Invest $14bn (About 21 days of sales) to keep the price stable...

12.5m barrels per day at $60 a barrel = $750 million dollars per day.

Or - Keep the 14bn, and let the price rise 50%..

11m barrels per day at $90 a barrel = $990 million dollars per day.

Which of these two business plans do you think the Saudis will follow?

If course, of you've read "Twilight in the Desert" you'd know that it may be geologically difficult for Saudi Arabia to raise production at all, and that $14bn (and more) may be needed to just stay even.

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 07:53:05 PST - Link

Joe needs...

From M at Language Geek

OK, so this is the latest blog meme... You type "[your name] needs" into Google and see what it comes up with.

Okay, M, I'll bite:

Joe needs his Tampa tamer.

Joe needs two cracking matches to avoid going down to reserve and he is capable of doing it if everything is right.

[Trader] Joe's needs sign and mural artists.

[Smokin'] Joe Needs You.

Joe needs an editor.

Joe Needs Your Help!

[The Average] Joe Needs your Help.

Joe Needs Food Badly.

[Army} Joe needs another History of the Game

Joe Needs Good Commentaries

Joe needs to try a number of different things..

[Every] Joe Needs His Jane.

[The last thing] Joe needs is more bad luck.

Joe needs to come back to Australia sometime.

Joe needs the American people to listen to what he has to say.

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:26:07 PST - Link

100% Of Your Daily Requirement Of Bummer

I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with "right track" and "wrong track" but missing the number of people who think the answer to "How are things going in America?" is "Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination."

PEGGY NOONAN in the Wall Street Journal

Peggy jumps to the conclusion that it's all to big for a president to deal with. No, Peggy. It's just too big for this president to deal with, and his hard right social, and hit neocon economic politics, are exactly the wrong prescription for what ails this country.

May I remind Ms. Noonan, in this administration, politics trumps policy.

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 08:45:25 PST - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Tory James, in repose. He's in repose often.

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 07:53:28 PDT - Link

NOC knocked...

Sorry about the outage, but Hurricane Wilma apparently took down NTT/Verio's server farm in Boca Raton yesterday morning. This is the first time I've ever noted an outage, and it took a catagory 3 hurricane to do it. My guess is that there are meetings happening today to figure out how to prevent it from happening again.

In any case, it looks like the Network Operations Center ops team was up all night to get things back on line. Thanks for your work, guys. I have to think you'd have prefered spending the last 24 hours dealing with the effects of the hurriane on your homes and families.

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:29:26 PDT - Link

A Liberal By Any Other Name - or - You Know That Word You Keepa Usin'? I Don' Think It 'A Means What You Think It 'A Means.

Here is the liberals' problem in a nutshell: More than 30 percent of Americans happily answer to the appellation "conservative," while 18 percent call themselves "liberal." And yet when questioned by pollsters, a super-majority of more than 60 percent take positions liberal in everything but name. Indeed, on many if not most issues, Americans hold views well to the left of those espoused by almost any national Democratic politician.

In a May survey published by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 65 percent of respondents said they favor providing health insurance to all Americans, even if it means raising taxes, and 86 percent said they favor raising the minimum wage. Seventy-seven percent said they believe the country "should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.'' A September Gallup Poll finds that 59 percent consider the Iraq War a mistake and 63 percent agree that US forces should be partially or completely withdrawn.

Eric Alterman in The Nation

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 07:02:37 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

T-chan. Miko. Red Office Chair.

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:46:16 PDT - Link

More Mirrors

With 354 MW of solar electric generating systems (SEGS) parabolic trough power plants connected to the grid in Southern California since the mid-1980s, parabolic troughs represent the most mature CSP technology. To date, there are more than 100 plant-years of experience from the nine operating plants, which range in size from 14 MW to 80 MW.

Solar Paces

A deeper analysis can be found in their report: Solar Parabolic Trough [pdf]

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:10:36 PDT - Link

A Mighty Wind

...one of the company's V90, 3.0 MW offshore wind turbines has to generate electricity for approximately 6.8 months before it produces as much energy as is used during the manufacturing lifetime. This, they say, means the turbine model earns its own worth more than 35 times during its energy production lifetime.

Furthermore, compared to the V80-2.0 MW offshore wind turbine, the 6.8 months constitutes an improvement of approximately 2.2 months over the lower capacity model.

If installed on a good site, the V90-3.0 MW wind turbine will generate approximately 280,000 MWh in 20 years - thus sparing the environment the impact of a net volume of approximately 230,000 tons of CO2, as compared to the figures for energy generated by a coal-fired power station.

Renewable Energy Access

I keep wondering how it would look if you design for an 80+ year life for the tower, and replace/refurbish the generator on a 20 year schedule. After all, the Golden Gate Bridge is over 80 years old...

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:17:43 PDT - Link

What's That Buzzing Noise?

Flaying away with a stick at a hornets' nest while loudly proclaiming "I will stay the course" is an exercise in catastrophic leadership.

Zbigniew Brzezinski in the International Herald Tribune

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:12:56 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

T-chan

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 09:53:01 PDT - Link

The Silence Before The Storm

Some Iraqi troops went a step further, saying they were only awaiting word from the marja'iya before turning on American forces. Although many Shiites are grateful for the overthrow of Saddam, they also are suspicious of U.S. motives. Those suspicions partly stem from the failure of the first Bush administration to support a U.S.-encouraged Shiite uprising against Saddam in 1991. Saddam suppressed it and slaughtered thousands.

"In Amariyah last week, a car bomb hit a U.S. Humvee and their soldiers began to shoot randomly. They killed a lot of innocent civilians. I was there; I saw it," said Sgt. Fadhal Yahan. "This happens all the time. If they keep doing this, the people will attack them. And we are part of the people."

Sgt. Jawad Majid chimed in: "We have our marja'iya and we are waiting for them to decide when the time to fight (the Americans) is, when it is no longer time to be silent."

TOM LASSETER Knight Ridder Newspapers

Read this.

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 08:42:40 PDT - Link

New Job!

The really great news:

I've got a new job.

The (somewhat) bad news:

I don't get to talk about it here.

My new gig is at a start-up in deep-stealth mode, so I won't even publish the name of the place (yet).

If you look back though my blog, you'll find realating to my job I've always been careful to link to third party press releases and articles, or I've waited until the product is in the customer's hands before publishing my own photos. You can expect more of the same. I'll talk about it when I can, but in the meantime: <stealth-mode>.

I hadn't really been looking for a start-up. I had applied at a couple of big companies, And I thought the interviews went well, but in one case I was told that what they really wanted was a manager, and in another case the interviewer said 'from your resume, it looks like you're one of the first 3 people I'd want at a start-up'. I took that as a compliment, but my peculiar mix of skills wasn't a good fit.

I really clicked with the people at the new gig, and after a very few minutes I was thinking "I could do this", and after a few more minutes, it was "I really want to do this."

So — here I am, back in a start-up. I start Monday.

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 10:11:55 PDT - Link

Left vs Right

Kevin Drum over at Washington Monthly has been looking into the Left vs Right split, and he's linked to a remarkable table from the National Election Studies website which tracks the Conservatism Index from 1964-2002.

I've plotted that data (averaging '76 and '80 for the '78 value) to come up with this chart. Red is more conservative, Blue is more liberal.

I'm not sure why their data shows a consistant offset to the conservative side, but it's pretty clear that from Johnston to Nixon to Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush to Clinton to BushII the country hasn't really moved much one way or the other. We're a pretty purple bunch, after all.

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:07:43 PDT - Link

Pencil And Paper

Pencil Revolution is an engaging blog about pencils. Yes, Pencils. Real ones, made from incense cedar wood with a graphite core. There really is something comforting about the feel of a real pencil, and sharpening them with a hand-cranked sharpener has the feel of ritual.

Since reading the blog I've begun keeping a couple classic #2 pencils in my bag, next to my mechanicals: a Pentel Forte black .5mm, Red and Blue at .7mm, and my favorite - a 2mm yellow lead in a draftsman's mechanical lead holder (With a yellow cap!). The 2mm yellow lead has become very hard to find, a couple years back I ended up having to order two packs from a shop in Canada. They are perfect for highlighting while checking schematics, the line is narrow and clear, it won't cause ink to bleed, and unlike marker pens, yellow lead doesn't stain my fingers.

I don't know what it is about Pencil and Pen companies, both the Pentel and Staedtler have high gloss, but user-hostile websites.

You'll need some paper to go with your pens, and the best notebooks are made in Italy by Moleskine Matias turned me on to these legendary notebooks a couple years back, and since then I've become a big fan. The cover is solid, but they lay comfortable flat. The paper is sturdy, takes erasures well, and has a yellowish tint that is comfortable to read in full sunlight. Notebooks come with an elastic band to keep them closed, and a built-in ribbon bookmark.

As an engineer, I prefer the style with squared rulings — they're great for lists of parts and sketching out schematics. You can find them in fine art stores, and at Moleskine US

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:55:30 PDT - Link

Door Number Two

You know, this whole Harriet Miers nomination has me flashing back to the game show Let's Make A Deal. Harriet is like the gift wrapped box - we don't really know for sure what is inside, but we know for sure it's not a goat (a long-running gag on the show was to open a door or curtain to reveal a farm animal.) So — the Democrats are standing there, in thier Raggedy Ann costumes, biting thier nails, staring at the box, and the Right Wing of the Republican party (I repeat myself) is demanding Monty Hall to give them a look behind Door Number two.

Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:11:28 PDT - Link

Back Of The Envelope Calculations

I saw an ad during one of this morning's news shows that got me thinking.

I didn't catch who the ad was from, but the message was clear: 20,000 windmills would be required to supply electricity to the city the size of Paris, then there was an image of the Eiffel tower with three gaint blades. I guess the idea was to make 20,000 sound like an impossibly huge number, and that for that fact alone, we should look elsewhere for energy.

Not specified in the ad was what the meaning of "Paris" — is it the 2 million in the core city, or is it the 10 million in the greater metro area? Anyway, I thought I'd pull out my HP calculatator and take a whack at the USA.

The Energy Information Administration provides a few starting points.

2003 U.S. Production (Net Generation) = 3,883,185 Million Kilowatthours

That's 3,883,185,000 Megawatt hours in a year.

That's 10,638,863 Megawatt hours per day

That's 443,285 Megawatts (average)

Modern windmills are in the megawatt range, and they cost about $1/watt, so to replace all of the electrical power used in the USA, we'd need 443,285 windmills, at a cost of 443.2 billion dollars. That sounds like a lot, until you think that to date we've spent nearly half of that on the war in Iraq. It's less than the ammount that will be added to the national debt — this year alone.

Now realistically speaking, we'd never get 100% generation for each windmill site, and there are transmission loses, so a derating factor would have to be applied, just as a swag we'll call it somewhat less han 50% so we need an even 1,000,000 windmills. That's a trillion dollars, or about what we'll be adding to the national debt in just 19 months.

A million is a whole lot of windmills, but on the other hand, the technology it no more complicated than a modern automobile, and GM alone sold nine million cars and trucks globaly in 2004. Now I have to think that if we set out to build a million windmills, we might be able to find some economies of scale.

If 20,000 windmills for Paris sounds like a lot, remember that over twice that number of new cars are sold each day, in the USA alone.

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:47:02 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Another in the series of Palmer cats on red office chairs...

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:27:58 PDT - Link

Thoughtlets: On The BeBox

Andrew's put together a nice story about the BeBox release with loads of links to Be resources. Domo, Domo!

BTW, that's a first generation "We Be Geeks" pocket protector. I really can't remember who came up with the idea, for these but they were quite popular at trade shows. And you know, these things are really useful. I wonder why they went out of style...

I saw an add for temporary tattoos in one of those magazines that the airlines put in thier seat pockets and thought we should get some. That was one of the really great things about being at Be, if any of us had ideas for viral marketing JLG would jump onboard.

At one point, a group at Apple had rented a movie theater for a mid-morning show, and someone there invited the Be engineers along. We asked JLG if we could give out t-shirts, and he gave us a dozen which we left on random seats before the show. I don't know if we snagged any new employees from that, but it did help build goodwill.

I think it was that showing that gave me the idea to put slides up in the theater promoting Be. It was around the time of the Star Trek movie featuring the Borg. When I got back to the office I brought the suggestion to JLG, and within minutes we'd rented a slot in two major markets in Silicon Valley, (It was not very expensive back then) and artwork was being sent to a place that could make the slides. The slides said:

Resistance Is Not Futile.

www.be.com

They ran for a month or so in a couple dozen theaters (the ones most likely to contain future Be employees and customers.) I never did get to see it on the big screen. (Sniffle)

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 10:10:30 PDT - Link

BeBox Still In The News (But Not Good News)

12:25-1:26 am Three uniformed police officers search my flat and interview my girlfriend. They take away several mobile phones, an old IBM laptop, a BeBox tower computer (an obsolete kind of PC from the mid-1990s), a handheld GPS receiver (positioning device with maps, very useful when walking), a frequency counter (picked it up at a radio amateur junk fair because it looked interesting), a radio scanner (receives short wave radio stations), a blue RS232C breakout box (a tool I used to use when reviewing modems for computer magazines), some cables, a computer security conference leaflet, envelopes with addresses, maps of Prague and London Heathrow, some business cards, and some photographs I took for the 50 years of the Association of Computing Machinery conference. This list is from my girlfriend's memory, or what we have noticed is missing since.

Guardian UK

You know, those guys would need a Very Big Truck™ to take away all of that sort of stuff from my garage.

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 16:35:05 PDT - Link

Happy 10th Birthday, BeBox!

It was 10 years ago today that the BeBox was first shown to the public at the Agenda Conference. I've found a handful of photos from that show to put in the new Be, Inc Gallery. I also dropped in a few photos of the first run of BeBoxen, which were assembled in the Be offices in Menlo Park, and a bunch of pictures from Macworld Japan, 1997.

Photos of my BeBox (Signed by all the employees on my last day) are here.

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 10:53:26 PDT - Link

About Okonomiyaki

The LA weekly reviews an Okonomiyaki shop in LA.

I make okonomiyaki myself at home, using this receipe, which also contains the charming and immortal bit of HTML formated prose...

And it will taste well with

beer.

Somehow that just cracks me up. The formatting makes it look like we're in for a whole list of food an beverage pairings, but the list contains just one item. beer.

He's right on that, by the way.

Oh yeah, the Chinese yam is called nagaimo. I always leave a ring of the skin on it, if you peel the whole thing with a potato peeler it gets too slippery to hold. In fact, the first time you work with nagaimo you will be freeked out at how slithy it is. (But it really tastes great!)

It's a lot of work to make them, so anytime I make them I make a few extra to freeze for lunch. They're pretty good re-heated in the microwave.

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:49:43 PDT - Link

Podcast - The Seasons Stories 2: Spring - a Ranma 1/2 Audio Fanfiction

This is a Ranma 1/2 audio Fanfiction. No, it's not a new story, it was first published over 10 years ago. Spring is the second in an arc of four stories which have come to be called "The Seasons Stories" in the Ranma 1/2 fanfiction world.

Enjoy, and please let me know if you like what you hear.

P.S. I'm much happier with the recording quality of his one.

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 15:06:40 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

T-chan, Tory and Miko. I used the flash to fill, but you can still make out the patch of sun that attracted them.

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:48:39 PDT - Link

New York City and Colorado Photo Album

I've added a new photo gallery of images taken on my recent vacation to New York City and Colorado. Enjoy!

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 12:31:54 PDT - Link

The $3 Threshold

has dropped 10% below last year's, starting in August. It's "a huge change" that he previously thought would take years.

Factoring out the few days of panic buying after Katrina, demand for gasoline has "been down 6% to 15%, depending on the store," says Jay Ricker, president of Rickers, a chain of 33 convenience-store stations in Indiana. "When we crossed the $3 threshold, that was a defining moment, getting people to think more about their driving."

If so, it's a much-discussed moment. Automakers had been saying it would take an extended period of $3 gasoline, and some shortages, to get Americans to drive less or switch to fuel-efficient models.

USA Today

To think, when I bought my Prius last year, people told me I'd never make up the added price of the hybryd system in gas savings. I wonder if they would say the same thing today.

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:07:24 PDT - Link

Rita May Have Caused More Damage Than Katrina

"The impact on the rigs is something that’s never been seen by this country before," said Daniel Naatz, director of federal resources for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. ODS-Petrodata, which provides data and information to the industry, reported 13 rigs already seriously damaged or destroyed by Rita. Platform damage still is being assessed, said Tom Marsh, ODS analyst

MSNBC

The Oil Drum has a list of rigs that are Beached, Sunk, Missing, Aground, and Upside Down.

Oil is one thing, many of us can make cut-backs in our driving to save 5 or 10%, we could probably deal with the loss of 1.5 million BL/Day in the Gulf. What I'm worried about is Natural Gas. If it's a cold winter, things could get Very Bad™.

Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:07:24 PDT - Link

Got Arctic Ice Sheet?

One of these positive feedbacks centers on increasingly warm temperatures. Serreze explained that as sea ice declines because of warmer temperatures, the loss of ice is likely to lead to still-further ice losses. Sea ice reflects much of the sun's radiation back into space, whereas dark ice-free ocean absorbs more of the sun's energy. As sea ice melts, Earth's overall albedo, the fraction of energy reflected away from the planet, decreases. The increased absorption of energy further warms the planet.

"Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold," argues NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos. Moreover, these feedbacks could change our estimate of the rate of decline of sea ice. "Right now, our projections for the future use a steady linear decline, but when feedbacks are involved the decline is not necessarily steady—it could pick up speed."

The National Snow and Ice Data Center

You know those levees in NOLA? You need to rebuild them stronger. And Higher. A lot higher.

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 16:07:26 PDT - Link

Whas That A Shoe I Heard Falling - And Why Did It Splash?

Surging energy prices, low personal savings and the higher cost of borrowing have combined to produce a record level of overdue credit card bills.

The American Bankers Association reported Wednesday that the percentage of credit card accounts 30 or more days past due climbed to an all-time high of 4.81 percent in the April-to-June period. It could grow in the months ahead, experts said.

ABC News / AP

I just tracked down a receipt from June 16. Gas was $2.48 / Gallon on that date. It's now $2.92 at the station arround the corner. It's up $0.44 or nearly 18% higher today.

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:46:35 PDT - Link

Brother Can You Spare A Subcompact?

"We are seeing people who are driving $40,000 Suburbans trading them in on $15,000 Corollas," said Mathews, who manages a dealership in a state where big trucks and sport-utility vehicles rule the roads. "The last 30 days have been unlike anything I've ever seen in the automotive industry."

Washington Post

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:46:35 PDT - Link

Rep. Bartlett's 2005 Energy Conference

Representstive Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) held an energy conference on September 26th, Unfortunately C-Span has not sheduled a re-run, but you can read the transcripts at his website in [pdf] or in lovely HTML at Energy Bulletin: [1] [2] [3]

He was also on the Washington Journal call-in show this morning (Warning: Link decay in 15 days)

I really hope a torrent of this conference becomes available, the bits I caught were outstanding.

P.S. Rep Bartlet spoke about this article by Matt Savinar.

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:23:52 PDT - Link

Wired Rave Award

Sometimes good things happen at bad times. On September 1st, as the images of people crying for help in NOLA were on the television, something very good, and very long awaited happened to me—I got something very nice in the mail.

I’d like to publicly thank Christine and the rest of the Rave Awards team at Wired for making this possible. There aren’t many opportunities for an engineer like myself to get this sort or recognition for the work that we do, and it means a very great deal to me that I now have such a substantial memento.

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:32:02 PDT - Link

Hou Have GOT To Be Kidding me.

(CBS) — CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate it's response following Hurricane Katrina.

CBS

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:55:03 PDT - Link

NYC

Wife and I spent four days in NYC last week, seeing many of the classic tourist sites. It was my first trip, so my image of the city was mostly based on what I'd seen in movies and on television, which gave me a very distorted view. Manhattan is a friendlier, less gritty and safer place than I'd been lead to expect. (Why is it that so many dramas based on crime and violence are filmed there?)

The subways are great for getting around, we picked up Metro Cards first thing and were able to sort out the train-route uptown-downtown scheme within a few minutes, and only once ended up going in the wrong direction.

I've yet to go through all of the photos, but if I come across any that are really good, I'll sprinkle a few here.

Mesa Grill? Go for the smoked shrimp cake, it was outstanding! The Grilled Tuna Steak was a bit uninspired, however. I recommend the Sea Scallops and Roasted Sirloin of Beef at the Gramercy Tavern

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:24:00 PDT - Link

"We Have Lost Control" - Greenspan

Bitter disagreements over global economic policy broke out into the open yesterday as the French Finance Minister claimed that Alan Greenspan had admitted America had "lost control" of its budget while China warned the US to drop demands for radical economic policy changes.

In an extraordinary revelation after a meeting between Thierry Breton and Mr Greenspan, M. Breton told reporters: "'We have lost control,' that was his [Mr Greenspan's] expression.

"The US has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorised without any control [from Congress]," M. Breton said.

"We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today. The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit."

The Independent [UK]

Bush stayed on vacation when Katrina hit New Orleans, when he should have been in the Whitehouse. Now with Rita, he's flitting about the country as the acting FEMA director. Mr. Bush, you have to understand that you can save a lot of jet fuel by staying at home. You have a situation room, you know. That's where you belong when we have a situation.

Besides, the bigest problem you face is not in the Gulf States, it's in your budget. You can't fix that from Colorado Springs.

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 08:46:00 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Miko getting his ears cleaned by T-chan. (Awww.)

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 07:29:21 PDT - Link

Humor

I ate at the Mensa Grill last night, it took an hour to figure out the menu.

Mon, 19 Sep 2005 08:08:49 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Miko

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 19:37:18 PDT - Link

Potemkin Power - or - JUMP!

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

msnbc

Go ahead and jump.

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 09:30:47 PDT - Link

SPECIAL REPORT:'Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Katrina

FEMA ordered the Red Cross and Salvation Army not to go into the New Orleans disaster zone, although the National Response Plan directs FEMA to work with all agencies, public or private, that wish to assist and are qualified. The Florida Airboat Association had 300 boats fully equipped, their pilots trained, but FEMA never authorized their help. FEMA rejected three tankers filled with drinking water donated by Wal-Mart, forbid Jefferson Parrish to accept 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel provided by the Coast Guard, and cut emergency communication lines, according to Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish president. Under his direction, the Sheriff reconnected the lines and posted armed guards.

The U.S. Forest Service offered water-tanker aircraft to fight the fires; Amtrak offered trains to evacuate the city. FEMA "has yet to accept the aid" of the Forest Service, and "dragged its feet" on Amtrak's offer, said Sen. Landrieu almost a week after Katrina came ashore. James May, president of the Air Transport Association, told the Associated Press that Homeland Security didn't even contact his association for assistance in evacuation until three days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

The Navy offered the assistance of the crew of the U.S.S. Bataan, an amphibious assault ship in the area when the hurricane hit, but FEMA underused the services the first few days. Capt. Nora Tyson, the Bataan's commanding officer, told the Chicago Tribune she had 1,200 sailors who "could be on the beach plucking through garbage or distributing water and food," that the ship could have opened its operating rooms, and provided medical personnel and 600 beds to the relief effort, that its helicopters could have been flying rescue missions, that it could have made as much as 100,000 gallons of drinkable water a day, that the police could have used the ship's electrical system to charge their radios— "but I can't force myself on people." Tyson did send a landing craft loaded with food and water up the Mississippi to New Orleans, and ordered her helicopters into the air to assist in rescue operations, but FEMA was slow to request assistance. Donald Rumsfeld was reluctant to order military assistance, deferring to FEMA to provide the leadership, although the Department of Defense had legal authority to act during a state of emergency to protect life and property.

SPECIAL REPORT: 'Unacceptable': The federal response to Katrina

By Walter M. Brasch

EDITOR'S NOTE: We recommend that our readers print out this incisive special report and read it in print. The author is an award-winning syndicated columnist, professor of journalism, and a former emergency management official. This article is an in-depth look at the Bush policies that created the atmosphere not only for an ineffective FEMA response during the Katrina catastrophe, but which may have contributed to additional property destruction and deaths than should have occurred. — Smirking Chimp

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:25:11 PDT - Link

Disgrace

How this could be—how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century—is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace.

MSNBC

This too is Real News™.

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 19:31:28 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Cousin Pete experiments with time travel.

Photo: B. Palmer

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:43:16 PDT - Link

Lessons Unlearned

The lesson of Katrina, after all, is not that the White House is bad at handling hurricanes. The lesson is that the Bush White House doesn't care much about whether things actually work. This is why they screwed up Iraq: they had an idea of what they wanted to accomplish, but figured that good results would take care of themselves as long as they applied energy and conservative principles. It's why the Medicare prescription bill turned out to be such a Frankenstein's monster: they knew they wanted to give seniors their pills, but they didn't really care much about actually implementing a sound policy. And it's why Republicans are conducting a war on science these days: to them, science is just something that gets in the way of what they want to do. The fact that eventually you're going to run aground if science is against you doesn't seem to register with them.

Washington Monthly

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 09:39:38 PDT - Link

Two Strikes And We're Out

"We certainly can't stand another storm," said Tom Bentz, vice president and senior energy analyst for BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. "That's why people are watching the storms out there now."

Two hurricanes and a tropical storm were churning in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. None of the current storms are forecast to enter the Gulf.

Yahoo News

Katrina made landfall in Florida on the 13th Anniversary Of Hurricane Andrew.

Andrew was the 1st named storm of 6 in 1992.

Katrina was the 11th named storm in 2005.

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 20:36:44 PDT - Link

Hurricane Katrina-Our Experiences

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina. When individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness would not have set in.

Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our encampment grew to 80 or 90 people.

From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the f***ing freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Daily Kos

Funny thing, isn't it — the natural inclination of people in need to gather together to form governments in their common interests.

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 22:01:26 PDT - Link

I Just Got Back From A FEMA Detainment Camp

He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

Above Top Secret

Just read it. It's Real News™.

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:29:49 PDT - Link

Shouting Movie! In A Crowded Fire House

The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

...

But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

Salt Lake Tribune

Tue, 06 Sep 2005 21:29:49 PDT - Link

Pendulum. Stops. Here.

On second thought Mr. President, resign.

It's nothing personal, sir, it's just that your administration's handling of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina has at long last exposed that the most closely held doctrines of the neoconservative movement are diametrically opposed with the principals of good governance.

To borrow your own words, what you need to understand is that you, personally, have failed this nation, and your strict adherence to neocon policies have caused damage to this nation that will take generations to repair. You need to go, and you need to take your neocon buddies with you.

It is now abundantly clear the bumbling cascade of 'intelligence' mistakes that led to the war in Iraq, and the inept execution of the post-war reconstruction cannot be chalked up to malice or incompetence. Occam suggests that the efforts in Iraq have been guided, chapter and verse, by the neocon rulebook. We see the tragic results every day.

It is now abundantly clear that the unconscionable budget deficits are a direct result of your callus disregard of simple mathematics. Your tax cuts provided temporary solace to your strongest supporters, corporate profits are up, but in every other measure the economy has performed worse for the vast majority of Americans under your guidance and polices. Look today, Mr. President. The Dow Jones, NASDAQ, S&P 500 are all lower due to your policies. Your trickle-down policy has trickled out

It is now abundantly clear that every action you have taken in the past demonstrates that you are the wrong man to lead this nation forward. Your priorities are not our priorities. Your goals are not our goals. Your vision for America is not our vision for America.

Mr. President, this summer Cindy Sheehan stepped forward put a face to this nation's doubts about the Iraq war. She asked a question you couldn't answer, about a war that shouldn't have happened. There is no doubt to her moral standing to ask that question.

Mr. President, there are many more questions we'd like answered — questions that don't have such a face behind them. Questions about global warming, the environment, the economy, tax policy, oil, renewable energy, the rising costs of health care, drug policy, education, stem cells research, evolution, and intelligent design. We have questions about the separation of church and state, civil rights, privacy rights, reproductive rights.

Some of these are trick questions, we already know your answers, and on issues of fact, you disagree with the facts, and on issues of opinion, your opinions are in opposition to the majority.

Mr. President, the ropes are beginning to slip through the hands of your supporters. The pendulum, held overlong in place by corporate interests and their wholly owned media subsidiaries, has today begun its overdue swing back the middle. Like the city of New Orleans, you stand today at the high-water mark of neo-conservatism. Like the city of New Orleans, the clean-up will be an effort that will take generations.

Mr. President, at long last, for the good of our nation, for the good of the world, it is time for you to go.

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 10:16:42 PDT - Link

Long-term Ambitions

Faced with one of the worst political crises of his administration, President Bush abruptly overhauled his September schedule on Saturday as the White House scrambled to gain control of a situation that Republicans said threatened to undermine Mr. Bush's second-term agenda and the party's long-term ambitions.

New York Times

Yeah, Bush, that's what you really needed to spend this Saturday doing. I guess there wasn't anything more important to do today.

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." — Grover Norquist

Mission accomplished, Grover. All it took was a bigger bathtub. A much bigger bathtub. A New Orleans sized bathtub. Is this what you had in mind? Your conservatives have been in power for four and a half years, remaking the Federal Government in your conservative mold. Are you happy with the results? Did you spend the last 5 days standing in your attic up to you neck in poisonous waters, waiting for your model conservative government to come knocking?

Nearly four years after 9-11, and the first time the Department Of Homeland Security is called upon to serve its charter the first thing they do is wastes lives and time in a truf battle with the Governor of Louisiana. Was it because she is a Democrat, Grover?

This threat was moving slowly so slowly it took days to arrive, and was so big it could have been clearly seen by the naked eye from the surface of the moon. If the DHS couldn't deal with that, how well will they do against a terroist threat? Four years, and untold billions of debt later, and this is what your conservative model of Government comes up with?

Back in 2000, FEMA (Now run by a man who was pushed out of his last job - policing horse shows) placed three threats at the top of the list. 1) A terrorist attack in NYC. 2) A Hurricane-caused flood in New Orleans and 3) A major earthquake in San Francisco. Two out of the three have happened on Bush's watch, and nearly four years after 9-11 the conservative government response to the Flood in New Orleans less organized, and less effective, less timely.

For those of you who live near Earthquake faults, (yes, those of you near New Madrid too.) stock up. Two weeks of food and water per person, and you're going to need a shovel to dig a latrine. We now know that you must be prepared to fend for yourself if Bush finds himself in a position to reprise his famous line: "lucky me — I hit the trifecta".

Sat, 03 Sep 2005 23:57:03 PDT - Link

Indifference Is A Weapon Of Mass Destruction.

Floor Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich:
The Supplemental for Hurricane Katrina

WASHINGTON - September 2 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave the following speech today on the House floor during a special session to provide relief money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:

"This amount of money is only a fraction of what is needed and everyone here knows it. Let it go forward quickly with heart-felt thanks to those who are helping to save lives with necessary food, water, shelter, medical care and security. Congress must also demand accountability with the appropriations. Because until there are basic changes in the direction of this government, this tragedy will multiply to apocalyptic proportions.

"The Administration yesterday said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees. Did the Administration not see or care about the 2001 FEMA warning about the risk of a devastating hurricane hitting the people of New Orleans? Did it not know or care that civil and army engineers were warning for years about the consequences of failure to strengthen the flood control system? Was it aware or did it care that the very same Administration which decries the plight of the people today, cut from the budget tens of millions needed for Gulf-area flood control projects?

"Countless lives have been lost throughout the South with a cost of hundreds of billions in ruined homes, businesses, and the destruction of an entire physical and social infrastructure.

"The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction.

"Our indifferent government is in a crisis of legitimacy. If it continues to ignore its basic responsibility for the health and welfare of the American people, will there ever be enough money to clean up after their indifference?

"As our government continues to squander human and monetary resources of this country on the war, people are beginning to ask, "Isn't it time we began to take care of our own people here at home? Isn't it time we rescued our own citizens? Isn't it time we fed our own people? Isn't it time we sheltered our own people? Isn't it time we provided physical and economic security for our own people?" And isn't it time we stopped the oil companies from profiting from this tragedy?

"We have plenty of work to do here at home. It is time for America to come home and take care of its own people who are drowning in the streets, suffocating in attics, dying from exposure to the elements, oppressed by poverty and illness, wracked with despair and hunger and thirst.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the United States the 78,000 National Guard troops currently deployed overseas into the Gulf Coast region.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the US the equipment which will be needed for search and rescue, for clean up and reclamation.

"The time is NOW for federal resources, including closed Army bases, to be used for temporary shelter for those who have been displaced by the hurricane.

"The time is NOW to plan massive public works, with jobs going to the people of the Gulf Coast states, to build new levees, new roads, bridges, libraries, schools, colleges and universities and to rebuild all public institutions, including hospitals. Medicare ought to be extended to everyone, so every person can get the physical and mental health care they might need as a result of the disaster.

"The time is NOW for the federal government to take seriously the research of scientists who have warned for years about the dangers of changes in the global climate, and to prepare other regions of the country for other possible weather disasters until we change our disastrous energy policies.

"The time is NOW for changes in our energy policy, to end the domination of oil and fossil fuel and to invest heavily in alternative energy, including wind and solar, geothermal and biofuels.

"As bad as this catastrophe will prove to be, it is in fact only a warning. Our government must change its direction, it must become involved in making America a better place to live, a place where all may survive and thrive. It must get off the path of war and seek the path of peace, peace with the natural environment, peace with other nations, peace with a just economic system."

Sat, 03 Sep 2005 10:34:42 PDT - Link

Anguish

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gave a heart-wrenching an interview (.mp3 file) to WWL-AM. (Via Scripting News)

CNN's transcript does not come close to expressing the anguish, desperation and anger in the voice of the mayor.

Real News is that information you need to keep your freedoms. This is Real News. It is critical to your understanding of what is happening in New Orleans to listen to this.

Katrina opened a tear in the fabric of society, and tens of thousands of Americans have fallen through. The first to fall were the elderly and poor, those with no cars to drive themselves out of town. The first to fall were those with no money left at the end of the month for a bus ticket. The first to fall were those who simply had nowhere to go, and no way to get there.

But there were may be some 350,000 houses lost to the floods, these houses were home to perhaps 1,000,000 people. Those with jobs, and cars, and money for gas, were able to get out of Katrina's path, but now, their homes and jobs are underwater. They got out, but they have no where to go back to. Soon their credit cards will max out, and what then can they do? Where will they go? There may be 100,000 souls on the streets on New Orleans today, what will the rest of us do when the next 100,000 are forced from their motels, and then the next 100,000, and then the next 100,000, and the next 100,000...

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:11:18 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Tory James

I didn't really feel like cat blogging today. I've been glued to CNN, CNBC, and the web all week, and the news from New Orleans just keeps getting worse. Yes, I've given to the Red Cross (Thanks, Amazon, the Red Cross Website was too busy to get in) but it doesn't seem like enough. We're not doing enough.

My chair is comfortable, there's phones, television, internet, electrical power, water, clean clothes, a bathroom and a shower. If I'm thirsty I walk downstairs to my well-stocked refrigerator. If I'm hungry I pull something from the freezer and pass it through the microwave. If that runs out I can walk on clean, dry sidwalks the two minutes to the closest store. Civilization, such as it is.

Then I turn on that TV. The people in New Orleans have none of that, not even the dry land. They're waiting for help on rooftop islands, or chasing false rumors of help, chest-deep in foetid water. One day. Two days. Three days. Four days. Five days. Civilization makes way for survival.

The president was on TV "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." If I'd have been interviewing him I'd have read him the riot act, right then, right there on national TV. This was one of the most predicted disasters in human history. It was in the top 3 of FEMA's worst-case catastrophies. Mr. President, in fact, EVERYONE ANTICIPATED THE BREECH OF THE LEVEES.

Everyone but you, Mr. President.

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:54:23 PDT - Link

NOLA images

From Hunt101 via Kathryn Cramer, An image of the break in the levee.

The red roof is clearly visible on Google Maps

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 10:59:58 PDT - Link

Katrina, 24 Hours Later

As the sky clears, the true extent of the damage is slowly being seen. New Orleans was spared the direct hit, but the damage is extensive, and flooding continues. The news on TV seemed to be on top of it, I saw plenty of reporters standing in the wind and rain, but these were pinpoint views, from safe locations scouted out before the storm.

As the day went on, it bacame clear that Katrina missing the heart of New Orleans only meant that the worst of the damage was moved to Mississippi and Alabama, where the reporters were fewer, and further between.

A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new .hurricane proof. Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina's fiercest winds were well north. The breach sent a churning sea of water from Lake Pontchartrain coursing across Lakeview and into Mid-City, Carrollton, Gentilly, City Park and neighborhoods farther south and east.

Times-Pikayune

I think they are talking bout this bridge, but I'm not positive — the local coverage uses neighborhood names not found on google maps. It looks like the flooding is to the east of this bridge.

There are also reports of devistating flooding in the Ninth Ward, which is to the east of the canal in the center of this map.

My heart aches.

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:28:42 PDT - Link

Katrina - After Landfall

It's nowhere close to over, but it now looks like NOLA was spared the worst. Time to exhale — just a little. Hang tight, and my thoughts are with you. — J

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:14:36 PDT - Link

Katrina - Before Landfall

For those in the path of Katrina, please stay safe. Take care of your families, take care of yourselves. My heart and thoughts are with you. — J

Sun, 28 Aug 2005 21:20:12 PDT - Link

Friday Cat Blogging

Miko

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:19:37 PDT - Link

Systray Icons Missing

Some Windows XP installations show a peculiar defect in that some systray (system tray, nowadays also called notification area) icons disappear or, rather, do not appear, when the system is booted and the user logs on. The problem is even more prevalent on systems with autologon. The most frequently affected icons seem to be the speaker icon (sound volume) and the power/energy icon.

...

Francesco Saverio Ostuni wrote: "... I found a solution for me that works perfectly. I simply went to My network Places and on the left pane I chose to Hide