CapitalistImperialistPig

Matt Sludge has up a story about protestors calling for the resignation of the head of the National Hurricane center. This looks like a Rovian disinformation campaign to me, but who knows. There are some idiots on our side too. SILVER SPRING, MD – Hundreds of concerned citizens and leaders from across the nation will join Hurricane Katrina survivors Wednesday to call for the resignation of the heads of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the NOAA Headquarters just outside of Washington, D.C. During an 11 a.m. demonstration, advocates will demand that NOAA stop covering up the growing scientific link between severe hurricanes and global warming while insisting on real solutions to the problem of global warming. The protest comes at the start of the 2006 Hurricane season, which officials at the NHC predict will be “a hectic, above-normal tropical storm season.” Speeches begin at 11 a.m. EDT and protestors will carry dra...

Brad Delong links to another uber cool tool from Google. In particular, the example is great for looking at the so called demographic transition - the link between per capita income growth and population growth. The initial configuration plots fertility versus per capita income for most of the worlds countries. You can set the graphs in motion to see how things have changed over the past 30 years. The tool also allows you to select individual countries and display their tracks. Very interesting cases are China, India, Mauritius, The Bahamas, Korea, Botswana, and Saudi Arabia. I also like the fact that it pretty clearly seems to show my idea that low fertility precedes rather than follows economic growth. Almost every country with low fertility, however poor, seems to accelerate toward advanced country income levels.

Henry Paulsen, our new treasury secretary designate, seems to be both highly qualified and very Green. He is chairman of the Nature Conservancy and a very generous donor to environmental causes. Brad Delong has this Mr Paulson is expected to be a stronger figure within the administration. He has been chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs since June 1998. He was paid a total of $38.8m last year, $30.1m of that in retricted stock. He has worked in government before, as a member of the White House domestic council from 1972 to 1973 and served as an assistant to the secretary of defence from 1970 to 1972.... "Paulson will make a fantastic treasury secretary but it is hard to see any economic policy of consequence being made in the remainder of the Bush term," said Mark Zandi, chief analyst at Moody's Economy.com. "The president is engulfed with the problems in Iraq and the attempts at reforming social security and the tax system have fallen flat. The only possi...

I should write about Haditha , but it's just too damn depressing. One rumor has it that the evidence against the Marines includes a cell phone picture taken by a Marine of another Marine shooting a woman and her children as she knelt begging for mercy. So why did he take the picture? Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters." An image from a videotape shot by a Haditha journalism student Nov. 19 shows what appears to be a morgue after an alleged retaliatory raid by U.S. Marines. (Associated Press) The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who w...

Brad DeLong quotes Paul Krugman: Paul Krugman on James Hansen Paul writes: Swift Boating the Planet - New York Times: A brief segment in "An Inconvenient Truth" shows Senator Al Gore questioning James Hansen, a climatologist at NASA, during a 1989 hearing. But the movie doesn't give you much context, or tell you what happened to Dr. Hansen later. And that's a story worth telling, for two reasons. It's a good illustration of the way interest groups can create the appearance of doubt even when the facts are clear and cloud the reputations of people who should be regarded as heroes. And it's a warning for Mr. Gore and others who hope to turn global warming into a real political issue: you're going to have to get tougher.... Dr. Hansen was one of the first climate scientists to say publicly that global warming was under way. In 1988, he made headlines with Senate testimony in which he declared that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is chan...

Bush decides that the best way to honor those who have given life and limb for his stupid war is to give them more company. Our nation mourns the loss of our men and women in uniform. We will honour them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives, by defeating the terrorists, by advancing the cause of liberty and by laying the foundation of peace for a generation of young Americans," Bush added. The US death toll in Iraq is now about 2,470 and has increased by more than 800 since the president's last Memorial Day wreath-laying at Arlington Cemetery, in the Washington suburbs. About ten times that many have been severely wounded, losing limbs, suffering brain damage, etc. The carnage among the Iraqi's in the civil war Bush started is many tens of times as large. The sorriest aspect of this is that the Bushies have apparently now decided that they can't win, or at least can't win without raising taxes, and so have decided to expend a few more thousan...

I am going to attempt to phase out haloscan comments. After having three long (and no doubt brilliant) comments trashed by haloscan today, I am fed up. At some point in the future I will remove the feature from my blog. I may also start replying even to haloscan comments in the regular blogger comments.