Nissan will be taking early reservations for their Leaf all electric car, in April. It's a token hundred bucks down payment, but it gets you in line for one. Pre sales start in August, with delivery of the first ones in December.

That's my new name for this weather event that's hitting today across the deep south, a snud storm. Snow, on top of all the mud we have now. Sure has been an unusual winter so far. I wonder if we will get a repeat of the storm of the century this year? It *is* a new century after all, heh.

Here is an article that goes into the difference between creating wealth, which you absolutely need in order to have a good economy, as opposed to the notion of creating an artificial income, or how I have been putting it, wealth re-arrangement, which dilutes the economy and will lead to eventual bankruptcy, if and when that wealth rearrangment becomes the primary area for "jobs".

Now, what is interesting to me about this particular piece, is that the author is coming from a US far left perspective, but he understands that you can't have any sort of safety net or advanced social programs type society without *first* creating enough wealth to be sustainable. He correctly identifies that wealth is grown, mined, and then combined in numerous ways by manufacturing..and that's it. The rest, although it might produce an income, is not wealth creation, and the wealth creation part must always be larger (or at very respectable percentage thereof) than the wealth dilution or rearrangment part of the economy, or you eventually fail. He groks what "no free lunch" really means, and that you can't pour six gallons of prosperity from the five gallons of produced wealth bucket.

A few articles and updates on the Vermont secession movement.

A former head economist at the IMF, after having to deal with smaller nations with corrupt leadership and banks, has some stern warnings for the US. The rise of the financial "industry" to unprecedented levels as a percentage of the economy is the main reason for the economic downfall of the US, as it takes more and more of the profits out of the true wealth creation system built up over generations, and shifts this wealth into fewer hands. He has seen it so many times before, that he warns that we must deal with it ourselves, as no other outside force can make us deal with it, as they can sometimes do with smaller nations, to force the changes necessary. As Russia fell under the oligarchs depredations after the fall of the USSR, the US is also under similar oligarchs control. They have seized power, have undue crony influence in government, and nothing will be "fixed" by any of the efforts taken to date, except to "fix" more firmly in place these oligarchs in their positions of power and influence.

  He is recommending, as a near emergency measure, nationalization of the big vampire banks, then orders and oversight to write down alleged assets to true worth, to just get it done now, then reorganization and sales back into the private sector with stricter controls on size, with no more "too big to fail" entities, and some regulations with teeth in them on the new emerged banks, one of which I hope is a near total ban on artificial derivatives bets. I can't parse this recommendation any other way than a regular and necessary bankruptcy and overseen reorganization, with changes in leadership, then accompanied by policies so that the changes in names at these leadership levels don't result in just more oligarchs. I do disagree with him on sales back into the private sector, I think private banking being able to create money, then charge for this as principle plus interest, is simply not fair, nor wise. I would rather this remained in the hands of government, risky as that is, we at least have some smidgen of control over it that way, with a banking system similar to the North Dakota state bank model, and then "we, the people" won't be held hostage by private for profit concerns with any further extortion attempts.

      Besides that, he makes some sense. He doesn't see an FDR method of just government spending and bailouts and so on working to help us avoid the "greater" depression that could be immediately ahead, he says that risks global systemic collapse, with far worse consequences, so he recommends another Roosevelt's solution, Teddy, as in "trust busting".

As an example of an oligarch, although not directly stated in the article as such, I would say it is alluded to, he gives this example, a quote from Bernanke before the fall: ""The management of market risk and credit risk has become increasingly sophisticated. ... Banking organizations of all sizes have made substantial strides over the past two decades in their ability to measure and manage risks."" His reply to that? Of course, this was mostly an illusion.

Of course, again, he is genteel and a global economic diplomat. Not having to be burdened with such niceties, I'll call what was said by Helo Ben a bald faced lie, told by a professional confidence man, a bunco artist, and not an illusion as in they just didn't know, except as part of a misdirection to deceive, as any confidence trickster would use words. "They", and he, knew full well what was going on, because it was all part of the Great Heist these oligarchs have pulled off as part of their coup.

A review of national rankings on environmental scores

2010 Environment Performance Index overview article

Main site for the study and report, a lot of large pdf downloads

A little from the official press release:

"Iceland's top-notch performance derives from its high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway - all of which have made substantial investments in environmental infrastructure, pollution control, and policies designed to move toward long-term sustainability.
Occupying the bottom five positions are Togo, Angola, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and Sierra Leone -impoverished countries that lack basic environmental amenities and policy capacity."

Iceland and reforestation? I am interested in this, having a preconceived notion of "no trees" there...I went and looked, found this. It used to have a lot of forests, and they got cut down and used. What happens is that trees grow really slowly there and the original viking guys who moved in were going on regular European time scales and just didn't realize how slow this really was. As a result, they lost 97% of their forests, and now have to carefully replant and nurture, to try and get some back. Looks to be a multi century job to do this to me, although it is apparently moving right along. My personal "cool place, could live there" index just went up for Iceland a big notch because of this.

Anyway, how did *your* nation do?

The big thinking about natural disasters in California is usually topped by contemplating "the big one", a huge earthquake, and forest fires after long drought spells are common, and recently some serious rains caused flooding and mudslides.

Researchers are now warning, though, that they need to put as much thought and planning into what could be "the big one" for rainfall as well, or what they term an "Ark storm", dwarfing recent rainfall amounts and also lasting much longer, a super storm that could stall over the state and lead to catastrophic flooding, at major infrastructure destroying level. Similar storms have happened in the past, so it is almost certain they will reoccur.

Ahh, what a lovely little plant. Here I was worried this garden was toast, but now I see this little green shoot of progress.

Let me bend over so that I make look closer at this little lovely and see what we have growing here. It looks to be a sprout from those "new and improved magic hybrid garden seeds", that must be it, that pack that came from that helpful man in the nice suit that stopped by one day and sold to me, he said it would save my garden..then he drove off fast before I got a chance to thank him.

Well, looks like it worked! Yes, 99 bucks for a packet of seeds *does* seem expensive, but nothing good was growing here for some years now and he was just so sincere and knowledgeable..knew just all about gardening, all the fancy words and stuff in latin that I don't know what they mean but sure sound complex and impressive..all scientifical and all.. he said he represented the official best government approved gardening science..so it must be OK, I trust them..he even flashed me some sort of government "official magical garden" badge....means he is "regulated" somehow.. approved...and the seed package is stamped with a "seal of approval, guaranteed"! thingee.. and I noticed *all* my neighbors on the block bought some, too, they all bought the new magic hybrid seeds for their dried up gardens as well..so it just *must* be OK then...I mean, *everyone* is doing it...and they were telling people about these new magical seeds on the TV news...

Anyway, good, the seeds are finally sprouting and are now growing! My garden is saved! All our gardens are saved! I need to get much closer though, need to see these new hybrids, see what they look like...maybe I can figure out what fruit or vegetable they are supposed to be...odd..the seed packet here isn't real clear on that ..hmmm..just says "unlimited and magical amounts of fruits and vegetables will be yours effortlessly, forever and ever! No work required, just 'put your seeds to work' for you! Then, it's just magic!"...hmm..hmmm.. I guess, hmm, fine print here.. no fertilizer required, no water, no weeding or hoeing required..hmm..sure a lot of claims on this packet..but..I paid 99 bucks for it, it's on the TV, government says they work, the helpful smiling man in the expensive suit says they work, and he speaks scientifical, so it has *got* to work!

Anyway, let me look closer, now that they have sprouted.....

  Ouch! Hey, a spike! The dang thing is covered in sharp pickers like a cactus! What's up with that?? Ewww, now I am getting all itchy! ***^%!!ing shiny leaves, should have seen those.. scratch scratch scratch.... Hey, this plant is growing like crazy, looks like a kudzu vine! OMG! sniff..sniff.. feeling a little woozy here, need to sit down maybe..and...and... what's that odd smell..sniff.. sorta like tomatoes a little..noo..shoot! I've smelled that before! AAAAKKK! Deadly nightshade!

*thump*

I've mentioned numerous times now that the Better Place project was the company to watch for the big breakthroughs and deployment of all electric vehicles. (and really cheaper ones coming from china once their quality gets standardized better). This is because they are addressing the whole stack, the cars (getting them designed and built in quantities by a major firm, which is Nissan/Renault), plus the charging infrastructure (charging points all over, plus easy battery swap out design), plus paying for the thing (they keep the upfront costs down in regards the battery packs, you get the car, they retain ownership of the batteries in most instances). Here is another update on their project.

One disappointment for me though is they still (as far as I know, might have changed there...) don't have plans for a pickup or delivery vehicles in the first deployments. I would have gone there first before general sales. To me, pickups make some sense for cheaper electric vehicles because they are designed to haul some weight in the first place, plus more room, plus so many of them are used commercially, giving the owner's business deductions, making them more affordable.

    There is also the fleet sales angle, a common design bought in larger quantities. Although there are of course sedan fleet sales (examples would be municipalities buying police cars, etc, plus taxicab companies), I think the market there is heavily skewed towards work trucks and vans. Plus fleet sales lead to the fleet being parked and serviced in common maintenance areas, making initial deployment of charging stations a little easier.

  Now what would be slick there, this is just a for instance, these theoretical companies that bought electric fleet trucks, might work a deal so their workers could get financed electric commuter sedans as well, directly through work and better costs achieved therefore, as an option they could take. So a simultaneous rollout of work trucks plus getting electric sedans out there on the road to build public mindshare that electric vehicles can "just work" for most purposes.

Blood and money, both are valuable, which is more valuable? It's a remarkably fair choice, everyone gets to choose by their actions what they think is more valuable.

What an amazing coinkydink. Hours after the supreme court decision to not close the chicago canal/lock system, with the resultant expected more legal fights coming, the army corps of engineers says they found evidence that the asian carp might already be present in the great lakes.

Mere hours later..whut..a..coincidence

  As in "oh well, horse is outta the barn, too late, whoops..nothing to see here now, move along.." Like.."hey, look down on the sidewalk here, right in the middle of all this burnt out rubble stuff... a pristine passport..wow..it looks like exactly the dude we claimed was flying all them tarist planes! Wow, we b lucky to find this conclusive evidence, when everything else on the planes was all burnt up!"

I am *really* tempted to go in the closet and retrieve and don my extra thick aluminum chapeau on this one with the asian carp, but I'll let it slide this time. I am twitching though...

As if we didn't have enough past historical record to show what invasive species can do to the great lakes, the el supremos have denied an emergency injunction to close some Chicago access canals that connect to Lake Michigan. Said waterways move ship traffic to the Mississippi, and are valuable in that regard, but the actual value of the other aspects of the great lakes is much greater than the value of that shipping. This would be the last ditch attempt to stop some invasive species of Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. They basically take over once established, think "swimming kudzu", they hit the beginning of the food chain heavy, and will wipe out the fisheries and also cause a lot of boating endangerment. They have actually killed people because they get huge and spook easy and literally jump far into the air and people in boats hit them. And being voracious eaters, they destroy the food chain for the other fish.

  Growing up and seeing what the sea lamprey and alewife invasion did to the lakes, simply unimaginable scenes of dead fish feet deep in the water extending out to the horizon, most of the regular native fish wiped out, and how ludicrously expensive and difficult it was to try and correct that problem, I mean it took years and years and billions to get a handle on it,I am just left flabbergasted with their response. And the obama administrations going along with not closing those access canals, sheesh. They are going to wait until AFTER it is too late to stop it cheaply. Their alleged barriers are not going to work forever, as has been already proven elsewhere where they have been tried. The only thing that works is a strict land barrier. Despite the Dems claiming high ground status on the environment, this is THE worst possible reaction to what is clearly a looming major environmental catastrophe.

The devastation in Haiti should be a wakeup call to..well, people anywhere..of the necessity of not totally relying on local infrastructure and "just in time" business models and "government" to always be effective and to sustain you and to be intact and functional. I don't care where you live or how much "money" you make, your reality can change in a matter of minutes, from nice and "wealthy" and comfy to "OMG does this suck"! It doesn't matter if you live in a cradle to grave pure socialist state/region/nation, or some place that is rather loose with all aspects of society, closer to anarchy than not. Natural disasters and rapidly changing political events can and *do* happen, and guaranteed, in a lot of situations you won't be given any notice at all, just left to deal with the situation the best YOU personally can.

Take stock, run this through your head (or make a list or a spreadsheet), activate a checklist of life's necessities, and what the status of your personal backup solutions are.

What will you do if the taps stop working, where is the next water, and after that source, the next after that, and how will you deal with acquiring it and making sure it is safe to drink?

If something weird happens, and you can no longer get to a functional store..how long can you last with what food you have, and will you still be able to cook it? Where is the next source of food, and the one following that?

Your home, your shelter, what happens to it if something as simple as the power going out occurs..and this outage lasts for weeks maybe, or perhaps even longer, how functional is your abode with even that minimal disruption? Does your home instantly change into a big no utilities tent, or what? How about your heating and cooling? Suppose it is destroyed, then what, what are your backup plans for having a minimal shelter, and where will this shelter be located?

If there is a breakdown in local "civilization", how secure would you be *really*? What happens if there are no functional police or fire or emergency health services? How far are you from areas that could get REALLY bad if those governmental services were disrupted for an extended time period? What happens if normal transportation is blocked, suppose you need to relocate "someplace else" because of where you are being untenable, what are your plans, your mode of travel, what can you transport with you?

These and other similar questions are important, whether you think so or not, because planetary wild cards just don't care what you think or "believe".

You cannot possibly plan and prepare for every single possible wildcard or black swan type event, but you can chip away at the most likely or probable for your particular situation, and develop -in advance- remediation steps that can go a long way to help, and might not be all that difficult to pull off.

Here's a simple experiment I have recommended to people over the years to test your readiness, only takes one full weekend. Sort of fun in a way.

Friday night, shut civilization and just in time delivery and easy access to all of modern life down in your home/apartment. Shut it down. Turn the water off, the gas, the electricity, all of it, including your waste disposal tubes, those can become unusable and in fact back up during some times and reverse flood your pad with some disgusting stuff. Did you know they make expansion plugs to seal the john off so this doesn't happen? Stuff like that.. Make believe none of that works, make believe there is no store to go to, no "relief" efforts, no tap water, no electricity coming into the wall socket, no nuthin, just what you have handy. Make believe your money "doesn't work" anymore, your cash is worthless, your credit cards don't work, and all your neighbors and people around you are in the same situation. It still won't represent large scale physical damage to your abode, or you being injured on top of that, but it's a good approximation of what to expect should something like that happen in your area. Wargame it out, take the same amount of time doing this as you would normally blow on watching some movies or sports shows or playing some games. (note:not saying hurt yourself or chancing your water pipes freezing by turning the heat off, but it is something to contemplate. Most buildings will start freezing up solid and start to lose pipes after just a couple of days with no heat going to them. You could also lose local firefighting efforts in such a situation, now think about people lighting emergency fires in sinks and bathtubs and waste baskets to try and stay warm..and yes this has happened a lot before)

Now, do that, or a mild approximation depending on how skilled and prepped you are, and live until monday morning, see how you do. The areas you need to work on become immediately apparent.

Here is a time magazine slideshow of the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti--and I have a long ago acquaintance who went through the 9.x whatever in Alaska back in the sixties, which is 100 times stronger than this 7. His remembrances to me, huge full sized trucks thrown up into the air like king kong grabbed them.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1953257,00.html

So we have earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, icestorms, and a LARGE variety of potential rather awkward geopolitical and economic events that could take place, and a lot of them falling into the "not very nice" category. Ever actually been inside the thick of a wide spread general riot/breakdown of social order/zero effective government situation? I have, très suckee there. It goes from medium OK civilization functioning to..well..hope you never have to go through that. All sorts of stuff can happen in this modern world, and it doesn't matter where you live or what your status is when they occur.

interesting side note, and this really is a sidenote, with the above slideshow, something I have commented on before: In slide eleven, despite time magazine being a premier professional publication, not a single six figure making editor or proofreader or reporter or copy guy in the whole shebang knows the difference between a bulldozer and a trackhoe. This goes to show the widening blue area/red area urban/rural coastal big city/flyover areas split. Any four year old kid or older in my rural area could have noted this distinction and caught that really obvious editorial mistake. This is just part of a huge list I have accumulated, call them clues, over the past several years, that I keep in me brane about this widening disconnect in our society, how people in one general group really don't have clue one about the other group, and a lot of misconceptions occur (I am sure it works both ways also). You (well, I mean me) see it all the time, I'll point out some common ones from my point of view, "why don't you all ride mass transit!" or "We support all those hicksville areas, you are lucky we fund you!" "barbed wire around your place, you must be one of them fundy tea bagger terrorist redzone losers who aren't modern hip and with it!" "guns are only for criminals, you don't need them"!..and so on.

Believe me, it is getting really weird out there with this stuff, downright scary really, *especially* when I am seeing this sentiment and mindset being promulgated by official governmental/powerful figures, which I have.

Ya, a minor picky not worth a thing point, but just shows (to me, just an opinion of course), that this really strange/odd disconnect, leading to some potentially quite harmful "beliefs", is getting worse, not better.

Haiti

Space station "waste liquids" recycling gear getting plugged up from too much calcium in urine

Goofy, but space faring long range idea & thought. Maybe they should look to recycling the reclaimed calcium, and make supplement tablets for the astronauts from it.