A Modest Proposal

By Michael Moynihan.

As the U.S. auto companies frantically search for ways to stave off bankruptcy, an interesting bit of news surfaced yesterday: Exxon Mobil's profit in the last quarter was the highest of any company ever in history, $14.83 billion. The company is on track to make $50 billion or so this year.

To put this in perspective, GM is currently seeking about $10 billion from the government to enable it to merge with Chrysler, which GM says is vital to its survival. What used to be the world's largest automaker is selling almost one million fewer cars than several years ago. GM is also seeking to draw down a $25 billion loan from the government designed to let it retool for more fuel efficient cars to help it weather the crisis.

Read it all. I like the idea. it is not going to happen but I like it none the less.

Happy Halloween!

Burning Jack-O-Lantern, originally uploaded by Bryan Mitchell Photography.

Boo!

Methane On The Rise

Do not worry it breaks down in a year or so. It turns into CO2.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Levels of climate-warming methane -- a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide -- rose abruptly in Earth's atmosphere last year, and scientists who reported the change don't know why it occurred.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, has more than doubled in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times, but stayed largely stable over the last decade or so before rising in 2007, researchers said on Wednesday.

This stability led scientists to believe that the emissions of methane, from natural sources like cows, sheep and wetlands, as well as from human activities like coal and gas production, were balanced by the destruction of methane in the atmosphere.

But that balance was upset starting early last year, releasing millions of metric tonnes more methane into the air, the scientists wrote in the Geophysical Research Letters.

The permafrost is melting. It has more methane than previously thought.

Bacon Salt! Who Knew?

Bacon vs. Mayo pre-fight smack talk video.10-28-08 011, originally uploaded by baconsalt4you.

In addition to Bacon Salt, there is now Baconnaise! Man, I have got to get me some!

Via Slashfood.

Kintla Lake, Glacier National Park

upper kintla lake, originally uploaded by jaygronemyer.

The body of a overdue hiker was found near Kintla Lake in Glacier National Park.

WEST GLACIER - Searchers in Glacier National Park found the body of an adult male along Kintla Lake in the park’s remote North Fork area late Wednesday afternoon while looking for an overdue hiker. The man’s cause of death was not known.

Park officials were poised to ask the public for help when the man’s body was found on a slope above the trail near the head of Kintla Lake at about 5 p.m.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Update: The hiker has been identified as a Pennsylvania man.

Authorities say that a Pennsylvania man whose body turned up in Glacier National Park died from suicide.

The Flathead County Deputy Coroner said the man died from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the chest.

Searchers found the body of Bruce Colburn, 53, Wednesday night near the head of Kintla Lake in Glacier National Park.

Faster and Faster

Global warming seems to be moving right along.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rising sea levels as a result of climate change will erode Sydney's iconic beaches by 2050, with some at risk of disappearing, and threaten beachfront homes and commercial properties, a new climate change study said.

Sea levels along Sydney's coast are expected to rise by up to 40 cm above 1990 levels by 2050 and by 90 cm by 2100, with each one centimeter of rise resulting in one meter of erosion on low-lying beaches, said the Sydney climate change impact report.

It is going to be an interesting couple of decades.

Being a coastal city, some of Sydney's most important infrastructure is built on its foreshore, and may be affected by rising sea levels. Sydney international airport is built on the edge of Botany Bay, with a runway jutting out into the bay.

"Most of the state's infrastructure was built with a provision for half a meter of sea level rise, but the individual asset owners are already looking to see if they need to make a change in their asset to prepare for the future," said Smith.

No body in this country is talking about protecting their assets. Although plenty are talking out of their ass, when it comes to global warming.

Stupid

Letting an 8 year old shoot an Uzi is stupid. The child lost control of the fully automatic weapon and shot himself in the head. He was under supervision of his father and a certified instructor. I have no doubt that the father was a republican, as he can not take responsibility for letting his son use an automatic weapon.

"This accident was truly a mystery to me," said Bizilj, director of emergency medicine at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford, Conn. "This is a horrible event, a horrible travesty, and I really don't know why it happened."

It happened because he gave a child too small to control an Uzi, an Uzi and let him shoot it. Fucking Moron!

Little Rock Creek, Bitter Root Mountains

Little Rock Creek, Bitterroot Mountains, originally uploaded by mtsurveyor.

A hiker found the body of a hiker missing since 2006, near Little Rock Creek in the Bitter Root Mountains.

HAMILTON - Human remains discovered in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness two weeks ago are those of a Post Falls, Idaho, man who disappeared in 2006, said Ravalli County Sheriff Chris Hoffman.

Robert L. Noble, 41, was reported missing on July 24, 2006 by his family after he failed to return from a hiking trip in the Little Rock Creek drainage five miles west of Lake Como. Skeletal remains, camping and camera gear were discovered a little over a week ago about three-quarters of a mile west of Little Rock Creek Lake on a steep, rocky slope.

Cause of death is expected to be a fall. My condolences to his friends and family.

Chrysler

I have always liked them. I owned a van, mini van, and a pickup. It looks like they are going to be eaten by GM. Dailmer owns 19.9% of Chrysler and they have it valued as $0.00 on their books.

Temple Of Bottles

Temple of bottles, originally uploaded by cschildt.

Buddhist monks in Thailand built a temple out of beer bottles.

Buddhist monks from Thailand's Sisaket province took matters into their own hands and collected a million bottles to build the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple. It puts every other bottle building we have shown to shame.

Even the washrooms and the crematorium are built of bottles, a mix of green Heineken and brown local Chang beer.

Amazing more pictures at the link and below. Also, Heineken at one point made beer bottles to be used as building blocks. That is pretty cool. I bet if one of the west coast micro breweries were to do that it would take off in the progressive slash hippie community.

Bottle Temple

Bottle Temple, originally uploaded by devakki3.

Bottle Temple

Bottle Temple, originally uploaded by devakki3.

Mountain Lion Killed

In Arizona.

Game officers found and killed a mountain lion Sunday afternoon that stalked a hiker and his dog in a popular recreation area in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson.

The hiker was walking with his dog on a trail Saturday near Madera Canyon when he saw that he was being followed by a mountain lion, said Heidi Schewel, a spokeswoman for Coronado National Forest.

It's possible that the lion saw the dog as prey, she said.

As the mountain lion got closer, the hiker "did everything that he was supposed to do" — shouting and making himself look bigger by waving his arms, Schewel said.

When the lion didn't stop, the hiker fired two warning shots into the air with his gun. When the lion kept coming, he shot at it, and this time it ran away.

The hiker didn't know if he hit the lion or not, Schewel said.

The incident was troubling to Forest Service officials because the lion showed no fear of humans. "It was not acting in a way that normal mountain lions act," Schewel said.

The Future Of Green

From AFP.

PARIS (AFP) – The deepening economic crisis may appear to be the perfect storm for environmentalism, but many in and around the green movement contend the opposite, seeing in it a time of opportunity.

The conventional view is this: willingness to protect the environment is wedded to prosperity.

Ah conventional wisdom, you will notice is the same as republican talking points. With proper leadership to entice industry in the right direction, we can heal the environment and fix the economy at the same time.

The frenzied worship of the lightly-regulated market place could be replaced by a humbler, wiser approach, of linking economic growth to natural resources, social needs and smarter technology, they hope.

Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at Britain's University of Surrey, said the obsession with short-term profits and consumer-driven growth was now proven to be unstable as well as environmentally destructive.

"The old way of thinking about economy is up for negotiation, and the opportunities to build economies that incorporate both financial and environmental prudence are there to be taken," he said.

"What's needed is political leadership that understands this link and is prepared to act on it."

The YouTube Election

This is the first presidential election with YouTube. It allows anyone with computer access to see and hear the candidates at an unprecedented level. If you missed something you can just go Google it. It is much harder for republicans to hide behind the media's filter. You can go and see the actual quotes in their context. But I digress.

Teressa at Making Light said "Elections were so much less fun before YouTube." in reference to Vlad and his friend Boris present Song for Sarah. A funny video. But there are many more videos out there for Sarah Palin.

The Ballad Of Sarah Palin

Rocky Mountain High

Lion King Is excited to get into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

Priorities

The McCain campaign has decided to put their money in make-up artists. They can not win on the issues. Perhaps they should hire David Copperfield. Some smoke and mirrors might help.

The New York Times reports that Amy Strozzi, the traveling makeup artist for Sarah Palin, is in fact the top-paid staffer on the campaign. Strozzi was paid $22,800 during just the first two weeks of October, compared to only $12,500 for top foreign-policy adviser Randy Scheunemann.

Green House Gas

A new study finds a green house gas four times higher than expected.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Levels of a powerful greenhouse gas are four times as high as previously thought, according to new measurements released on Thursday.

New analytical techniques show that about 5,400 metric tons of nitrogen trifluoride are in the atmosphere, with amounts increasing by about 11 percent per year.

Ray Weiss of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and colleagues said it had not been possible to accurately measure this gas before.

They said nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than an equal mass of carbon dioxide, although it does not yet contribute much to global warming.

Let Them Eat Sh*t!

wastewater, originally uploaded by matthewnstoller.

Oregon's Senator Gordon Smith says let them eat sh*t! If you do not know Mr Smith owns a large food processing company, Smith Frozen Foods. It has hired illegal aliens over the years too! But according to the Sierra Club his waste water pond collects municipal(human feces) waste from the nearby town of Weston. He then will use the water on his fields. How often I do not know. Matt Stoller has a great paragraph that sums up the whole conservative movement.

That is completely gross, but totally in character for Republicans. Rick Perlstein has documented what he calls 'e coli conservative' policies has led to contamination of, among other foods, spinach, peanut butter, tomatoes, Taco Bell lettuce, mushrooms, pet food, and more. You just don't expect a Republican Senator to actually grow and sell these contaminants for millions of dollars (which he then used to stay in office). Usually, it's a little less direct than that, large agribusiness bribes the Republicans to do their bidding, and then these companies drop sewage into our food supplies. I guess in these hard times, Gordon Smith has decided to cut out the middleman.

Boycott Smith Frozen Foods!

The Homeplace

The Homeplace is an AYCE (All You Can Eat) restaurant on the Appalachian Trail.

The menu is minimal but effective. For $13, you get your choice of two meats (among fried chicken, roast beef, country ham) or you can get all three for a dollar extra -- they also serve pork BBQ on Thursdays.

Then you get unlimited sides of mashed potatoes, pinto beans, green beans, cole slaw, corn, baked apples and warm homemade biscuits. Oh, don't forget the apple butter (on sale in the waiting lobby) -- to die for.

If that isn't enough to fill you up, dessert is vanilla ice cream with cobbler, depending on what fruit is in season.

I recommend the peach to top it all off.

In 1998, I ate 20 pieces of chicken. In 2001, I only ate 12 but in all fairness it was BBQ night and I had to eat some of that too.