February 28, 2009

Whose Home Is It?

Wild horses couldn't drag me away...

Yet there are many who would eliminate the wild horses. Read this fascinating article in National Geographic:

So the argument about wild horses and the resources they use comes down to this question: Do we have the landscape—physical and emotional—for them? While horse advocates and stockmen often argue the relative merits and demerits of the mustang on more emotional grounds, scientists are arguing on the basis of a fundamental fact: If the horses can be classified as native to North America, they have a right to the use of the land. If they're not native, they don't.

"Free-roaming horses are a feral, exotic species," said Joel Berger, a wildlife biologist based in Teton Valley, Idaho. "They're in direct competition for habitat with native wildlife." Berger suggested that the BLM's budget for wild horses might be better spent on the study and protection of native species. But Kirkpatrick and his sometime collaborator Patricia Fazio, an environmental writer, have long asserted that the wild horse is a native species and should be regarded as such by state and federal agencies. "Modern horses evolved on this continent 1.6 million years ago, only to later disappear," Kirkpatrick told me. "The two key elements for classifying an animal as a native species are where it originated and whether it coevolved with its habitat. The horse can lay claim to doing both in North America."

There is one species in North America that can not lay claim to either element:
nonsequitor20090208.gif
Thinning by war doesn't seem to have been very effective over the past few thousand years and more direct thinning processes would probably not gain consensus.

It is time, then, for real change. Change that will end the practices and policies that focus on multiplying humans, on paving or shaving habitable land, policies that facilitate the vast income disparities that so many progressives decry.

Too bad that real change is not underway.

Posted by Steve on February 28, 2009

February 27, 2009

Friday Ark #232

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 27, 2009 | Comments (3)

February 22, 2009

The Modern Web

WTF (2.0)

Posted by Steve on February 22, 2009 | Comments (2)

February 20, 2009

Friday Ark #231

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Dogs

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 20, 2009 | Comments (4)

February 19, 2009

Connect to Nature...

...at I and the Bird #94 hosted by The Birder's Report.

Fly in and share some worms and seeds.

Posted by Steve on February 19, 2009

February 18, 2009

Funny...

...you don't sMeLL like...

Posted by Steve on February 18, 2009

February 14, 2009

Quote of the Day #8

Fiddler Jones commenting at Empire Burlesque:

Obama has been in office less then a month and he already makes many of us yearn for the mediocrity of the 70s, which,difficult though they were, featured a much more combative citizenry and a far less culty stupor-structure.

Posted by Steve on February 14, 2009

Droppings To Increase

The Twitter folks have found someone to drop $35 million on them.

Apparently someone, somewhere tweeted a way to monetize the business. Oh, that's right, it is no longer a requirement to earn money to stay in business. You can get venture capital, a bailout or become a government project to insure that no one is under served.

Posted by Steve on February 14, 2009 | Comments (1)

February 13, 2009

Friday Ark #230

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

February 11, 2009

Already Stimulating?

With all the talk of a desperately needed stimulus from the federal government one would think that the feds aren't spending enough money, that perhaps the budget is balanced.

Alas, that is not the case. Looking back over the past 4 months, all bush legacy, it is clear that the federal government is spending at a rate dramatically higher than what they are taking in. From WSJ.com:

The Senate passed its $838 billion stimulus legislation today, setting the stage for negotiation with the House to draw up a final package. While they debate, the government appears to be losing a couple billion dollars a day in tax revenue.

With a deep economic contraction underway, federal tax revenue declined by about $88 billion — roughly 10% — in the first four months of the fiscal year (which started Oct. 1) compared to the year-earlier period, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. Almost half the decline — $43 billion — came from a 43% drop in corporate profit taxes. Tax withholding from paychecks declined $19 billion due to lost jobs, while estimated tax payments declined by $12 billion.

In all, the CBO estimates the Treasury Department will report a deficit of $563 billion over the four-month period, or $474 billion higher than the four-month deficit through January 2008. Even remove the $284 billion in outlays for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and that’s $190 billion in higher spending or lower taxes so far this fiscal year.

At the rate of the past 4 months the deficit will be $1.68 trillion over the next 12 months.

Just why do we need the paltry additional $838 billion of deficit spending?

Posted by Steve on February 11, 2009

February 10, 2009

Thumbs in the Dike

David Brooks replays geithner:

But the big uncertainty is not inside the banks; it’s in the broader economic climate.

“People are enormously uncertain about the depth of the recession,” Geithner says. “They’re enormously uncertain” about how their assets will perform in this environment. But this is not like the savings-and-loan crisis of the ’80s and ’90s, or like Sweden, where banks themselves were dead, he said, adding that we’re trying to repair “a system that is largely alive and will largely survive but is still burdened by systemic market failure, systemic uncertainty.”

What neither Brooks nor geithner acknowledge is that this failed market is not the free market of myth. Rather, it is a market built by government and poorly repaired many times over by government.

Continuing to mess with what they do not understand will continue to have consequences that are not pretty.

Posted by Steve on February 10, 2009

February 9, 2009

The Shorter Sopranos

I thought about titling this post The Essential Sopranos but that would not really capture the show. So, for your enjoyment here is the NWS shorter Sopranos:


the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.
I suspect the shorter running Deadwood would top this in length.

Via Daring Fireball.

Posted by Steve on February 9, 2009

TSA Follies...

...go on and on...

Posted by Steve on February 9, 2009

February 8, 2009

Screw The Apology

What Phelps should have said!

Posted by Steve on February 8, 2009

Keynes Is Still Right

Paul Krugman quotes a clearly correct statement from Keynes:

“The resources of nature and men’s devices,” Keynes wrote, “are just as fertile and productive as they were. The rate of our progress towards solving the material problems of life is not less rapid. We are as capable as before of affording for everyone a high standard of life. ... But today we have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.”
It is still ...a delicate machine, the workings of which we do not understand and the obama administration is no more clueful than the previous occupants.

Local and world economies would work much better, perhaps as well as ant colonies, if giants did not continually step in them. Alas, governments have been stepping on the operation of economies for 100s of years and we still have not learned the lesson that we must keep them out; restrain them to their possibly appropriate role of fighting fraud and the use of force.

All the bail out and stimulus schemes already hatched and yet to be born are no better than throwing mud on the wall to see what sticks.

It will be painful to disengage the government gangs but, really, if you want any chance at all of these cycles not continually repeating on ever larger scales we must do so.

Posted by Steve on February 8, 2009

February 7, 2009

Ignorance or Intentional Lying?

When I'm out in the car on a Saturday afternoon I usually check into the discussion on Ring of Fire for a while. Kennedy and Papantonio often have interesting interviews although Papantonio reminds me of a lefty Hannity.

I tuned in this afternoon and landed in the midst of the two hosts touting the supremacy of the European economic models over the failed soviet model and, I paraphrase closely, the just collapsed/failed American laissez-faire capitalism model.

Kennedy repeats the mantra, failed laissez-faire captalism many times, apparently wanting his listenners to pick this up as a phrase to be repeated.

Unfortunately, the laissez-faire thing did not collapse, did not fail; has not existed in years, if ever. The thing that has recently failed, that is causing so much havoc around the world, is yet another iteration of state capitalism.

I do not believe Kennedy is so ignorant as to not know the differences. Therefore I can only conclude that he is simply lying.

Otherwise, he would be reporting that both the republicans and the democrats do little other than continue to support variations on the plans and programs that brought us both the first great depression, the current mess and most, if not all, the failures that so-called progressives love to rant about.

An honest speaker would tell us that there may be some programs, some stimulus, some spending, that might reduce some of the symptoms for a while but that until the entire system is unraveled and rebuilt we will not cure the disease.

Until that happens we will continue to get change that is more of the same.

Posted by Steve on February 7, 2009

February 6, 2009

Friday Ark #229

We'll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and....?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on February 6, 2009 | Comments (5)

February 5, 2009

You Are Compelled...

...to fly over to I and the Bird #93 hosted by Vickie Henderson who shares with you The Compelling Nature of Birds.

Birders and non-birders alike will enjoy Find Your Inner Birder With Jonathan Rosen which aired on KUOW this morning.

Posted by Steve on February 5, 2009

Duh....

Cisco's John Chambers finally gets it:

"It is now clear that we are in a global economic slowdown," Chief Executive John Chambers said Wednesday in a call with analysts. He said ...
I wonder where he has been for the past 2 years.

That quote is taken from a Wall Street Journal article only partially available to non-subscribers. There is a longer story available at the New York Times but it does not have the above quote in it.

Posted by Steve on February 5, 2009

February 4, 2009

Benefits of the Financial System

The Economist summarizes the opening of Martin Wolf's, Fixing Global Finance, as follows:

Finance allows the creation of vast enterprises out of the combined capital, supplied at modest cost, of millions of people. It permits upstarts to launch companies, challenging the power of incumbents. It allows people to smooth their spending over a lifetime. It facilitates risk sharing and insurance. Empirical studies confirm that these advantages are real.
I take it those empirical studies did not take into account the current economic crisis wherein we are all benefiting from the facilitated risk sharing.

Yes, those vast enterprises, governments and large businesses, have done wonders: count the wars, count the environmental destruction, count the devastated indigenous peoples, notice the vast income and wealth discrepancies.

We do need a financial system but perhaps one that does not facilitate disasters.

Posted by Steve on February 4, 2009

February 3, 2009

Does DQ Still Have an Appointment?

Who is DQ?, you ask.

All I know is that DQ works (ed) for the UK Department for Work and Pensions which posted an appointment advertisement in the January 17 edition of The Economist.

I suspect DQ is responsible for website and advertising layout.

At the bottom of the ad is some text asking DQ a question:

[DQ - will the website say "Apllicants for GES posts must be UK Nationals, Commonwealth citizens or European Economic Area nationals with an unrestricted right to reside in the UK"?]
DQ's answer was apparently "no" as no such language is to be found on the website.

I don't think the questioner expected that the question would be left embedded in the print add either: two stikes for DQ.

For the curious: a reduced form of the original print add is below the fold. The extra language is toward the bottom of the "Assistant Economists" add on the right side of the page. Click on it for a full size version.

Wondering why this post exists: I found it amusing...:)




Posted by Steve on February 3, 2009

February 1, 2009

Need Proof of Insurance For That Cop That Just Pulled You Over?

Use your iPhone.

Posted by Steve on February 1, 2009