Badlands Journal

The real derivative in play this week is the financial contribution to members of Congress in return for future favors. While there is no official, if unregulated, market in hedges against congressional revolts against finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) speculation in the free market of members of Congress, the New York Stock Exchange’s gyrations are obviously tending in that direction at the moment. FIRE has been buying congresspersons for several decades. Not so many years ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was preaching to America about the wisdom of Samuelson’s 101 Economics text, the intellectual equivalent of pre-DNA biology. It is a long, degrading story. The main target was American unions and the main tactic was “globalization,” i.e. the off-shoring of millions of American jobs. Meanwhile, Wall Street was peddling the illusion of universal home ownership, “the ownership society” promoted by our president, the neo-crusader.

John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1954 reflections in The Great Crash 1929 are instructive:

Dear Congressman Sarbanes,

We are writing from Merced, CA, one of three top foreclosure-rate counties in the nation. Our congressman, Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer, now resides in the 3rd Congressional District of Maryland, which you represent. Therefore, since you represent our congressman, we are petitioning you to help with our foreclosure-rate problem. The Ol' Shrimp Slayer does not seem up to the task, although he boasts to us of being a very Important Man in Washington, on the Rules Committee and chair of a subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee dealing with fruits and nuts.

The Shrimp Slayer is a shy man, so shy he moved to Maryland to avoid seeing his constituents at the local grocery store, so he probably will be unable to bring himself to write you on our behalf.

The articles below from the Merced Sun-Star tell a story about felony indictments brought against five people associated with Firm Build, a program started in 1998 to train "troubled teens" in construction trades. Merced County Planning Commissioner Rudy Buendia was or is still executive director of Firm Build, which went bankrupt months ago.

Buendia, charged originally with 15 felonies (later 17), according to the newspaper fled arrest and was a "fugitive" for two days before turning himself in with Kirk McAllister, Modesto criminal defense attorney, at his side.

Two of the five charged were arrested. It is unclear from reports if two others were arrested or turned themselves in. Two have posted bail and been released.

Buendia, the only reported fugitive, was released without paying bail on September 18 by Superior Court Judge McCabe. The judge's reasons included Buendia's clean record and that he personally knew seven of the 20 prominent people who wrote letters on Buendia's behalf. The board of supervisors is reported to have no plans of removing either Planning Commissioner Buendia or Patrick Bowman, on the board of the "troubled" Merced County Housing Authority and an official of the Merced County Office of Education, from the positions the board appointed them to.

Check it out! - editors
 

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT


The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

The Sarah Palin Trip

The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin, R-AK, to be the vice-presidential running make of Sen. John McCain, R-AR, on the Republican Party ticket boggled the minds of some of the most worldly, cynical liberals we know, people who stake their claim to brilliance on their ability to anticipate and mock rightwing perfidity wherever it arises. In the history of the dark arts of campaign politics, it must rank as one of the funniest, most diabolical sapooms one party has ever delivered to another for a 13-point bump in the polls to draw even. It was a stunning selection. The TV cameras caress the contours of her face like the eyes of a love-starved prospector fresh from the gold fields in a frontier saloon. Eyes sparkling, she is just the perkiest little thing ever seen on the campaign trail. And she's just bursting with confidence the likes of which no ordinary American pilgrim could understand.

Recently someone was asking why you don't get any perspective from the news these days, in the midst of these disastrous times.

But, will Morse and Lunney get out the orchard ladders and pick the whole tree?

 
Throwing in the towel: In this graphic of the Sacramento Delta region, light blue indicates low-lying land masses--mostly farmland--that research suggests should be surrendered to the sea the next time the levees protecting them break. Yellow indicates borderline cases.
Credit: Jay Lund  -- Technology Review (MIT), Sept. 11, 2008

The map above is the essence of a recent article by the MIT's Technology Review:

Technology Review (MIT)
A Strategy for Coping with Climate Change
Amid rising seas, a California modeling effort recommends abandoning land tracts in the Sacramento Delta...David Talbot...9-11-08
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21363/page1/

The study to which the MIT journal refers is the Public Policy Institute of California's already infamous "Comparing Futures for the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta," http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_708EHR.pdf, which provides the University of California's technological justification for a peripheral canal.

One comment on the MIT article, unusually literate and sensible for a technological journal, struck our eye, in part because it was written by a frequent contributor to Badlands Journal, Dan Essman:

We wonder what the implications of this story are for the various plans for highway improvements, expressways, the UC Merced CampusParkway, bypasses and interchanges in Merced County.

CNN Money

The attempted change should be seen for what it is: a final Bush administration gift to those who benefit when environmental laws are weakened.-– Concord Monitor

Below, we've included the Associated Press story by Dina Cappiello on Aug. 22 about more than 100 conservation groups throughout the nation (including three from Merced) that opposed the Bush administration's latest attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act. Three groups came from the Merced: San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, San Joaquin Valley Conservancy and San Joaquin Et Al. The story was widely distributed throughout the nation and even in the UK -- a partial list is also included. Finally, there is some information about a number of local business and political leaders, large Republican fundraisers, who stand to benefit from this last-minute attempt by the Bush administration to reward its contributors.

Badlands Journal editorial board

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Associated Press
Groups: Bush rushing to rewrite species rules...(AP) DINA CAPPIELLO...8-22-08
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hkF1lWZoKQaqIgrv4XHs4RAorcQgD92NHQMG6
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration is providing insufficient time for public comment as it seeks to loosen rules protecting endangered species, representatives of more than 100 conservation groups charged Friday.

8-31-08
UK Independent
For the first time in human history, the North Pole can be circumnavigated
Melting ice opens up North-west and North-east passages simultaneously. Scientists warn Arctic icecap is entering a 'death spiral'...Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor...8-31-08
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/for-the-first-time-in-human-history-the-north-pole-can-be-circumnavigated-913924.html

Open water now stretches all the way round the Arctic, making it possible for the first time in human history to circumnavigate the North Pole, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. New satellite images, taken only two days ago, show that melting ice last week opened up both the fabled North-west and North-east passages, in the most important geographical landmark to date to signal the unexpectedly rapid progress of global warming.

Last night Professor Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the official US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), hailed the publication of the images – on an obscure website by scientists at the University of Bremen, Germany – as "a historic event", and said that it provided further evidence that the Arctic icecap may now have entered a "death spiral". Some scientists predict that it could vanish altogether in summer within five years, a process that would, in itself, greatly accelerate.

When the mayor of New Orleans (referring to the approaching Hurricane Gustav) described the Doppler radar image as the “mother of all storms” and decreed a mandatory evacuation of the city, I packed my bags in a hurry.  The fear factor was escalated when reporter Geraldo Rivera followed with a description of the storm as “an awesome killing machine.”  Despite my experience that the media hyperbole does not always match the facts in these atmospheric predictions, I obeyed marching orders.