From the wonderful world of global warming "science":
"Crime, weather, and climate change" - A study by Matthew Ranson published in the
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
"This paper estimates the impact of climate change on the prevalence of criminal activity in the United States. The analysis is based on a 30-year panel of monthly crime and weather data for 2997 US counties. I identify the effect of weather on monthly crime by using a semi-parametric bin estimator and controlling for state-by-month and county-by-year fixed effects. The results show that temperature has a strong positive effect on criminal behavior, with little evidence of lagged impacts. Between 2010 and 2099, climate change will cause an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny, and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft in the United States."
Monday, 17 March 2014
Putin's friend threatens the US: "Russia is the only country realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash"
The fact that Russian television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov is very close to dictator Vladimir Putin is scaring:
Reuters is reporting that a Kremlin-backed journalist has issued a stark warning to the United States about Moscow's nuclear capabilities as the White House threatened sanctions over Crimea's referendum on union with Russia.
"Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said on his weekly current affairs show.
Behind him was a backdrop of a mushroom cloud following a nuclear blast.
Kiselyov was named by President Vladimir Putin in December as the head of a new state news agency whose task will be to portray Russia in the best possible light.
Source
Reuters is reporting that a Kremlin-backed journalist has issued a stark warning to the United States about Moscow's nuclear capabilities as the White House threatened sanctions over Crimea's referendum on union with Russia.
"Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash," television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said on his weekly current affairs show.
Behind him was a backdrop of a mushroom cloud following a nuclear blast.
Kiselyov was named by President Vladimir Putin in December as the head of a new state news agency whose task will be to portray Russia in the best possible light.
Source
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Is Putin planning a grand celebration of the return of the Crimea?: The Red Army Choir is on full alert
Vladimir Putin apparently planning a Sochi style huge celebration of the return of the Crimea to his empire. I would not be surprised if Valery Gergiev is already rehearsing with the Red Army Choir, ballet and orchestra:
Russian Defence Ministry has cancelled a planned tour of Finland by the Red Army Choir, ballet and orchestra. The St Petersburg troupe, including more than 100 members, was to have performed in Helsinki, Tampere, Imatra, Pori and Rauma in the coming weeks.
Tiina Kudjoi, a concert organiser from the west-coast city of Pori, says that the reason given for the cancellation is that members of the Russian military have been forbidden to leave the country due to the Ukraine crisis.
Source
Saturday, 15 March 2014
On how to stop Putin
The Obama administration could - and should - do a lot more to stop Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer offers some excellent advice:
First, Crimean secession under Russian occupation must lead to Russia’s immediate expulsion from the G-8. To assuage the tremulous Angela Merkel, we could do it by subtraction: All seven democracies withdraw from the G-8, then instantly reconstitute as the original G-7.
As for economic sanctions, they are currently puny. We haven’t done a thing. We haven’t even named names. We’ve just authorized the penalizing of individuals.
Name the names, freeze their accounts. But any real effect will require broader sanctions and for that we need European cooperation. The ultimate sanction is to cut off Russian oligarchs, companies and banks from the Western financial system. That’s the economic “nuclear option” that brought Iran to its knees and to the negotiating table. It would have a devastating effect on Putin’s economy.
As of now, the Germans, French and British have balked. They have too much economic interest in the Moscow connection.
Which means we can do nothing decisive in the short or even medium term. But we can severely squeeze Russia in the long term.
How? For serious sanctions to become possible, Europe must first be weaned off Russian gas. Obama should order the Energy Department to expedite authorization for roughly 25 liquified natural gas export facilities. Demand all decisions within six weeks. And express major U.S. support for a southern-route pipeline to export Caspian Sea gas to Europe without traversing Russia or Ukraine.
Second, call for urgent bipartisan consultation with congressional leaders for an emergency increase in defense spending, restoring at least $100 billion annually to the defense budget to keep U.S. armed forces at current strength or greater. Obama won’t do it, but he should. Nothing demonstrates American global retreat more than a budget that reduces the U.S. Army to 1940 levels.
Obama is not the first president to conduct a weak foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was similarly inclined — until Russia invaded Afghanistan, at which point the scales fell from Carter’s eyes. He responded boldly: imposing the grain embargo on the Soviets, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, increasing defense spending and ostentatiously sending a machine-gun-toting Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass, symbolizing the massive military aid we began sending the mujahideen, whose insurgency so bled the Russians over the next decade that they not only lost Afghanistan but were fatally weakened as a global imperial power.
Invasion woke Carter from his illusions. Will it wake Obama?
First, Crimean secession under Russian occupation must lead to Russia’s immediate expulsion from the G-8. To assuage the tremulous Angela Merkel, we could do it by subtraction: All seven democracies withdraw from the G-8, then instantly reconstitute as the original G-7.
As for economic sanctions, they are currently puny. We haven’t done a thing. We haven’t even named names. We’ve just authorized the penalizing of individuals.
Name the names, freeze their accounts. But any real effect will require broader sanctions and for that we need European cooperation. The ultimate sanction is to cut off Russian oligarchs, companies and banks from the Western financial system. That’s the economic “nuclear option” that brought Iran to its knees and to the negotiating table. It would have a devastating effect on Putin’s economy.
As of now, the Germans, French and British have balked. They have too much economic interest in the Moscow connection.
Which means we can do nothing decisive in the short or even medium term. But we can severely squeeze Russia in the long term.
How? For serious sanctions to become possible, Europe must first be weaned off Russian gas. Obama should order the Energy Department to expedite authorization for roughly 25 liquified natural gas export facilities. Demand all decisions within six weeks. And express major U.S. support for a southern-route pipeline to export Caspian Sea gas to Europe without traversing Russia or Ukraine.
Second, call for urgent bipartisan consultation with congressional leaders for an emergency increase in defense spending, restoring at least $100 billion annually to the defense budget to keep U.S. armed forces at current strength or greater. Obama won’t do it, but he should. Nothing demonstrates American global retreat more than a budget that reduces the U.S. Army to 1940 levels.
Obama is not the first president to conduct a weak foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was similarly inclined — until Russia invaded Afghanistan, at which point the scales fell from Carter’s eyes. He responded boldly: imposing the grain embargo on the Soviets, boycotting the Moscow Olympics, increasing defense spending and ostentatiously sending a machine-gun-toting Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass, symbolizing the massive military aid we began sending the mujahideen, whose insurgency so bled the Russians over the next decade that they not only lost Afghanistan but were fatally weakened as a global imperial power.
Invasion woke Carter from his illusions. Will it wake Obama?
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
The New York Times: It is time for Europe to join the US in threatining costly sanctions against Putin
The New York Times editorial is spot on, particularly with regard to Europe:
It is important at this stage of the confrontation in Ukraine to clarify that the issue is not simply “who owns Crimea.” There is a difficult question there, and as secession-minded people in Quebec, Scotland or Catalonia have shown, there are legitimate ways to raise it.
The real issue is the way President Vladimir Putin of Russia has thrown down the gauntlet: sending Russian forces to seize control of Crimea; concocting nonexistent “fascist” threats to the Russian population; refusing to recognize the interim government in Kiev; calling for a phony referendum in Crimea on Sunday and a vote in Russia on March 21 whose outcomes are foreordained.
Whether Mr. Putin ends up actually annexing Crimea to Russia or creating some other form of dependency is moot; his transparently phony preparations are based on presumptions of special Russian privileges in its former empire. The occupation of Crimea is illegal under international law, and it is time for Europe to join the United States in threatening the sort of costly sanctions that will leave Mr. Putin no doubt that they will not tolerate violations of Ukrainian territorial integrity.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill: Apathy towards climate change "renews my faith in humankind"
Spiked editor Brendan O'Neill says it all:
Environmentalism is, by its own admission, a campaign against the public and our historic desire for more things and freedom. George Monbiot has stated this baldly. Environmentalism is "a campaign not for abundance but for austerity", he says. "It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less… it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves." And that is precisely how most people experience environmentalism – as an extraordinarily elitist drive to reprimand and possibly even punish the people for daring to want more; as a top-down, hectoring effort to make us acclimatise to austerity and give up on that age-old dream of a "great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume" (Sylvia Pankhurst). If environmentalism is a "campaign against people", then it makes perfect sense that the people bristle at it, even hate it and deny its "truths".
People want wealth and comfort, not only for themselves but for others, too. They are unmoved by the campaign against climate change not because of its "weirdo words" or complicated ideas, but because it is at root an elitist mission to convince us that our material desires are destroying the planet. Far from being irrational, the mass public apathy towards climate change that so freaks out eco-experts is entirely sensible and logical; in fact, it renews my faith in humankind.
Read the entire Telegraph article here
Environmentalism is, by its own admission, a campaign against the public and our historic desire for more things and freedom. George Monbiot has stated this baldly. Environmentalism is "a campaign not for abundance but for austerity", he says. "It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less… it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves." And that is precisely how most people experience environmentalism – as an extraordinarily elitist drive to reprimand and possibly even punish the people for daring to want more; as a top-down, hectoring effort to make us acclimatise to austerity and give up on that age-old dream of a "great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume" (Sylvia Pankhurst). If environmentalism is a "campaign against people", then it makes perfect sense that the people bristle at it, even hate it and deny its "truths".
People want wealth and comfort, not only for themselves but for others, too. They are unmoved by the campaign against climate change not because of its "weirdo words" or complicated ideas, but because it is at root an elitist mission to convince us that our material desires are destroying the planet. Far from being irrational, the mass public apathy towards climate change that so freaks out eco-experts is entirely sensible and logical; in fact, it renews my faith in humankind.
Read the entire Telegraph article here
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Lady Vivienne Westwood has gone bald in order to save the world from global warming
Now it is official. Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood has gone bald in order to save the world from human induced global warming:
Now a representative for the 72 year old explains she decided to ditch her long hair in support of climate change and to show she is proud of her age.
The spokesperson says, "Vivienne cut her hair as we must all wake up to climate change. And secondly she wanted to cut the red out for a while and have it white - to show she's proud of her age."
Westwood is a longtime environmentalist campaigner and has taken part in protests against fracking and oil drilling in the Arctic.
I guess Lady Vivienne's "campaign" is OK, as long as she abstains from expanding it to include exposing other anatomical details ...
Now a representative for the 72 year old explains she decided to ditch her long hair in support of climate change and to show she is proud of her age.
The spokesperson says, "Vivienne cut her hair as we must all wake up to climate change. And secondly she wanted to cut the red out for a while and have it white - to show she's proud of her age."
Westwood is a longtime environmentalist campaigner and has taken part in protests against fracking and oil drilling in the Arctic.
I guess Lady Vivienne's "campaign" is OK, as long as she abstains from expanding it to include exposing other anatomical details ...
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