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THE JOY OF PUBLICATION II I said it before; I'll say it again. There is something special about seeing one's letter in a paper. This one is in the April 21, 2010 The Independent one of our East Mountain weeklies. The publisher Wally Gordon interviewed three of the local "Tea Party" organizers after a small rally. He used "Passion" in his headline. It was a good piece, quite fair, and used many quotes from the three ladies. One of them, a Mrs. Cooper, said she "didn't believe in health insurance, didn't have it and wouldn't use it if she did." She also said "death panels" were in the health care reform law. I was moved to write a letter. (You probably have to click it to read it.) I even got a "fan" call from a guy happy to see another liberal in the East Mountains.

Singapore Moving to Dominate the Water Biz There's wind power (China & Germany in the lead), geothermal (Iceland in the lead), Ocean wave power (Britain, Australia & Scotland in the lead), solar power (China & Germany leading) ... WAIT! Where's the U.S.A. in this renewable energy list? In what is clearly a big part of the future of the world energy budget, we are slow getting off the starting line. We invent and innovate and engineer really well, but when it comes to actually manufacturing in this field, we simply are not living up to our own (and the world's) expectations. Then there's WATER. Some say it will soon be more valuable than oil. Potable water is already one of the great shortages in the world. Even in rich America, fresh water is in precipitous decline. So another big part of the future is processing water. "Treating" water: Cleaning it up, desalinizing it, recycling it . Again, the leading countries in this vital field ...

I Admit It… I’VE TRADED OPTIONS Therefore I’m the worst kind of gambler . Now, before I get into excessive breast beating and teeth gnashing, let’s face it, EVERYONE WHO “INVESTS” IN STOCKS is gambling. That money you put in General Electric or General Motors or General Mills, etc. does NOT go to those companies. It goes to whoever sold that stock, plus a slice of it goes to the brokerages involved. Typically, not a penny goes to the company on the stock certificate. The companies don’t do more R&D, buy more equipment or hire more people because you “invested” in them. So you are not investing in American industry, you are just gambling that some other sucker will pay you more for your stock than you paid. Or – more rarely – that the company represented by the stock will dole out some of its profits as dividends to you as a stockholder. We all believe that buying stock is better than playing roulette because we make more i...

Wrongo, Coast Guard See below, "Some Good News" where I blithely accepted a Friday Coast Guard evaluation that there was no more leakage from the big BP rig that blew up, burned an sank in The Gulf. That's what I get for being such an optimist. Here's the current state of things from the A.P. By CAIN BURDEAU The Associated Press Sunday, April 25, 2010; 9:43 PM NEW ORLEANS -- It could take hours or it could take months to stop a 42,000-gallon-a-day oil leak polluting the Gulf of Mexico at the site of a wrecked drilling platform. Whether the environmental threat grows many times bigger depends on whether the oil company can turn the well completely off. Crews are using robot submarines to activate valves at the well head in hopes of cutting off the leak, which threatens the Gulf Coast's fragile ecosystem of shrimp, fish, birds and coral. If the effort fails, they'll have to start drilling again. Dang.

State Decision Blocks Drilling for Gas in Catskills The danger to the NYC water supply from " fracking " is greatly reduced. Common sense wins! Story in the NYTimes. "No Crude" Leaking from Sunken Oil Rig Coast Guard Commander Tells CBS No Signs of New Leakage Oh, that could have been the most terrifying and destructive spill yet. (And, hey, maybe it will raise the alarm level for all offshore drill-baby-drilling. Maybe.)

Heard About Nick Clegg? In a surprise bigger that Obama winning Iowa in the Democratic primary, this guy Clegg has shot onto the scene in Great Britain, suddenly taking his Liberal Democratic party from 16% to 34% in a week. Talk about a successful appearance on a debate! By the way, it was the first televised PM debate in British history. So I checked out some of his speeches on YouTube. Here's one that I find astonishingly appropriate to United States politics. It's about reforming the financial system. He is as on-the-money as I can imagine. See if you agree and at the same time, take a look at the "British Obama." Picture Credit

Fox News Made Me Think It People who are "madder'n hell" over the health reform law are quick and copious with their inaccuracies. When honest Tea Partiers state an inaccuracy, you can bet they picked it up from a LIE. For instance, "Refuse the insurance mandate and GO TO JAIL." No surprise, perhaps, that the main perpetrator of health reform lies is Fox News. (And right wing magazines like The Freeman .) It gets really slimey when Fox News lies about lying. Bill O'Reilly did it a few nights ago, denying that F ox News ever said anything about going to jail for bucking the mandate - or even for not paying the fine. ( The reform law expressly prohibits the government from jailing anyone who fails to either obtain health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Check it out .) But Bill said: “We researched on Fox News if anybody had ever said you're going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody's ever said it.” He researched it! If you...

The mind's eye runs rampant (again). Three -Eyed Giant Blue Insectile Found this beastie in a piece of broken PVC, stained by the glue and cleaner. Looks like an alien bug to me. Hey. See " Faces in the Rocks "

The Guardian Gives Good Graphics "CA" is China; "JA" Japan, etc. I was palavering with a pal on the huge U.S. Defense budget recently and came up with a pie chart. This is better. If we just took the red part, not covered by other nations' expenditures, and spent it on, say, education, we'd be the best educated country in the world (again). Graphic 1 credit

He Who Screams Loudest A competitor walks into your store and pees on the floor. Then he immediately screams, "There's pee on your floor! You people are filthy! This store is a scumbag place! I'm calling the Board of Health!" That is precisely the tactic being used by Republicans like Eric Cantor who are trying to blame the crazed verbal and physical violence from right wingnuts on the Democrats. Or the national debt on everyone but George W. Fee Fi Fo Fum; I smell the stink of hypocrisy-dumb. Or is that a wafting draft of Big Lie propaganda technique? pix credit

... And Who's Paying for It Koch Industries , that's who. Guess who blew the whistle? Good old Greenpeace! Whatever you think of their war on whalers (I love it), you've got to admire their courage. Greenpeace's latest attack is on one of the most powerful, secretive, and rich companies in the world. In an admirable piece of investigative work , they have documented who pays the (huge) tab on denying climate change. And guess what, they are oil men! Surprise! Here are the boys running Koch Industries: Koch is a huge, privately-owned company that has nearly a hundred billion a year in revenue. Since it's a private company, they can keep a very low profile. And under that low profile, they outspend Exxon Mobile by three-to-one trying to debunk the truth of climate change. (And you thought Exxon was the bad guy.) So if you ever wonder how such loony-tunes stuff keeps popping up from climate change denialists , it's because these guys are pump...

THE SECOND SCARIEST STUFF ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE The FIRST scariest is the incessant bleating of the "deniers," egged on by the hydrocarbon industry. I read in the Washington Post a Heritage Foundation denialist called climate change "the greatest non-crisis facing mankind." That's high level denying. That's scary . That SECOND scariest part is the truth itself. Here's an excerpt from a report in Science Daily: "A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Wyoming predicts that by the year 2100, many of today's familiar climates will be replaced by climates unknown in today's world, if current rates of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gas emissions continue. The new global climate models for the next century forecast the complete disappearance of several existing climates currently found in tropical highlands and regions near the poles, while large swaths of the tropics and sub...