Get Out Of Town… Or, At Least Iraq

President Obama announced today that the USA would pull its military troops out of Iraq over the next 18 months.

The announcement comes one day after the Secretary of Defense announced a change to the Photographing of Caskets of Fallen Troops policy.

Fallen Soldiers Return From Iraq

SEC. GATES: I’d like to address two subjects today.

First, I would like to make an announcement regarding the department’s policy toward media coverage of the return of our fallen heroes at Dover Air Force Base. As you know, the president asked me to review this policy. After receiving input from a number of sources, including all of the military services and organizations representing military families, I have decided that the decision regarding media coverage of the dignified transfer process at Dover should be made by those most directly affected: on an individual basis by the families of the fallen. We ought not presume to make that decision in their place.

It’s getting closer. Faster. Sea level rise, globally averaged over the last 15 years is twice that averaged over the last 50.

1.6-1.8 mm/yr over the last 50 yr., to 3.5 mm/yr. over the last fifteen, as much as 1cm(10mm, 0.4 inch)/yr in parts of the western Pacific. Not much, one would think. Consider now, the average beach gradient is about 1in a 100. So 1cm/yr is 1 meter/yr (3 ft/yr) of shoreline intrusion.

This is just the beginning.

Other bits about accelerating carbon loading
of the atmosphere as well.

Read the whole thing at:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4305474.html

* The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness
By Laura Sayre
Mother Earth News, February/March 2009
Straight to the Source

You may be familiar with many of the problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These “factory farm” operations are often criticized for the smell and water pollution caused by all that concentrated manure; the unnatural, grain-heavy diets the animals consume; and the stressful, unhealthy conditions in which the animals live. You may not be aware, however, of the threat such facilities hold for you and your family’s health – even if you never buy any of the meat produced in this manner.

Factory farms are breeding grounds for virulent disease, which can then spread to the wider community via many routes – not just in food, but also in water, the air, and the bodies of farmers, farm workers and their families. Once those microbes become widespread in the environment, it’s very difficult to get rid of them.

A 2008 report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, a joint project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, underscores those risks. The 111-page report, two years in the making, outlines the public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural livelihood consequences of what they call “industrial farm animal production.” Its conclusions couldn’t be clearer. Factory farm production is intensifying worldwide, and rates of new infectious diseases are rising. Of particular concern is the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant microbes, an inevitable consequence of the widespread use of antibiotics as feed additives in industrial livestock operations.

Scientists, medical personnel and public health officials have been sounding the alarm on these issues for some time. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have recommended restrictions on agricultural uses of antibiotics; the American Public Health Association (APHA) proposed a moratorium on CAFOs back in 2003. All told, more than 350 professional organizations – including the APHA, American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics – have called for greater regulation of antibiotic use in livestock. The Infectious Diseases Society of America has declared antibiotic-resistant infections an epidemic in the United States. The FAO recently warned that global industrial meat production poses a serious threat to human health.

The situation is akin to that surrounding global climate change four or five years ago: near-universal scientific consensus matched by government inaction and media inattention. Although the specter of pandemic flu – in which a virulent strain of the influenza virus recombines with a highly contagious strain to create a bug rivaling that responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, thought to have killed as many as 50 million people – is the most dire scenario, antibiotic resistance is a clear and present danger, already killing thousands of people in the United States each year.

People, Animals and Microbes

From one perspective, picking up bugs from our domesticated animals is nothing new. Approximately two-thirds of the 1,400 known human pathogens are thought to have originated in animals: Scientists think tuberculosis and the common cold probably came to us from cattle; pertussis from pigs or sheep; leprosy from water buffalo; influenza from ducks.

Most of these ailments probably appeared relatively early in the 10,000-year-old history of animal domestication. Over time, some human populations developed immunity to these diseases; others were eventually controlled with vaccines.

Some continued to kill humans until the mid-20th century discovery of penicillin, a miracle drug that rendered formerly life-threatening infections relatively harmless. Other antibiotics followed, until by the 1960s leading researchers and public health officials were declaring that the war on infectious diseases had been won.

Beginning in the mid 1970s, however, the numbers of deaths from infectious diseases in the United States started to go back up. Some were from old nemeses, such as tuberculosis, newly resistant to standard antibiotic treatments; others were wholly novel.

“In recent decades,” writes Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for the Humane Society of the United States and author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, “previously unknown diseases have surfaced at a pace unheard of in the recorded annals of medicine: more than 30 newly identified human pathogens in 30 years, most of them newly discovered zoonotic viruses.” (Zoonotic viruses are those that can be passed from animals to humans.)

Why is this happening? There are many reasons, including the increased pace of international travel and human incursions into wild animals’ habitats. But one factor stands out: the rise of industrial farm animal production. “Factory farms represent the most significant change in the lives of animals in 10,000 years,” Greger writes. “This is not how animals were supposed to live.”

Chicken and pig production are particularly bad. In 1965, the total U.S. hog population numbered 53 million, spread over more than 1 million pig farms in the United States – most of them small family operations. Today, we have 65 million hogs on just 65,640 farms nationwide. Many of these “farms” – 2,538, to be exact – have upwards of 5,000 hogs on the premises at any given time. Broiler chicken production rose from 366 million in 1945 to 8,400 million in 2001, most of them in facilities housing tens of thousands of birds.

On a global scale, the situation is even worse. Fifty-five billion chickens are now reared each year worldwide. The global pig inventory is approaching 1 billion, an estimated half of which are raised in confinement. In China and Malaysia, it’s not unheard of for hog facilities to house 20,000 or even 50,000 animals.

Full story: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/Meat-Poultry-Health-Risk.aspx

Fannie Mae reports US$25 billion loss for 4Q2008. Wants another 15 billion. Cash flow statements are rather revealing of the political mandate of large puchases of MBS last year. Wonder how much cash brother Freddie blew ? Not to speak of cousin Ginnie, whose paper is explicitly guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America…
From Fannie:

http://www.fanniemae.com/media/pdf/newsreleases/form10k_newsrelease_022609.pdf

Excellent message. Peter is 1000% correct that Obama’s speech reveals a total lack of understanding of basic economics:

Watch the Video:
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/84120

This reminded me of the book, ‘Dead Souls’ by Nikolai Gogol.

Companies are taking out insurance policies on dying employees, writing off “the premiums and the interest on the loans to buy the policies as a business expense.”

But wait, there’s more:

“In addition, the investment returns and death benefits aren’t subject to federal income tax”

Do you know what your boss is insuring ?

I shudder to think of the next great financial bubble.

From:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6277546.html

Made too many bad loans? Make bigger, badder, loans.

“loan limits will return to their late-2008 levels, which were up to $729,750 for one-unit properties”

From:

http://www.housingwire.com/2009/02/23/2009-conforming-loan-limit-jumps/

“Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good. When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move” — Led Zep

We learn today that “The 114 levees received unacceptable maintenance ratings in corps inspections, meaning their deficiencies are so severe that it can be “reasonably foreseen” that they will not perform properly in a major flood”
Now, the addition of 114 levees to that list leaves a total of 177 nationwide that are so poorly maintained that they don’t qualify for federal rehabilitation.”

From:

PHILADELPHIA (Feb. 23, 2009) – - Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presented a $2 million grant to Philadelphia to help the City address the risk of intentional contamination of its drinking water. The total funding available to the City for this project could be as high as $9.5 million, contingent upon EPA’s budget over the next three years.

The grant will fund the Philadelphia Water Department to pilot monitoring and surveillance components of an early warning system.

“Philadelphia was selected for this pilot because of its existing water quality protection programs and its commitment to put in place the complex systems needed to increase water security,” said William T. Wisniewski, the U.S. EPA’s acting administrator for the mid-Atlantic region.

The project, called the Water Security Initiative, is expected to serve as a model for the nation’s drinking water utilities. Similar water security pilot grants were awarded by EPA to New York City, San Francisco, and Dallas.

The contamination warning system to be developed and evaluated by Philadelphia involves online real-time drinking water monitoring, public health surveillance, laboratory analysis capabilities, enhanced security monitoring and consumer complaint surveillance. The warning system will be designed for long-term operation.

Coordination is critical to effectively detect or respond to contamination incidents. To ensure effective communication and response, Philadelphia’s Water Department will collaborate with many city and governmental agencies in this pilot including the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the Office of Emergency Management and Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection.

The 2,000 men and women who work for the Philadelphia Water Department deliver reliable, high-quality drinking water to more than 1.6 million consumers who live or work in the City of Philadelphia.

For more information about the EPA’s Water Security Initiative, visit: http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/index.cfm.

from NASA

Lift Off

Several minutes into the flight of the Taurus rocket carrying NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory spacecraft, launch managers declared a contingency after the payload fairing failed to separate.