Blackwater banned from operating in Iraq -- by Iraqi government

Well... this is surely news.

The question of the hour is whether or not they will comply:

Iraq has cancelled the licence of the private security firm, Blackwater USA, after it was involved in a gunfight in which at least eight civilians died.

The Iraqi interior ministry said the contractor, based in North Carolina, was now banned from operating in Iraq.

The Blackwater workers, who were contracted by the US state department, apparently opened fire after coming under attack in Baghdad on Sunday.

Thousands of private security guards are employed in lawless Iraq.

They are often heavily armed, but critics say some are not properly trained and are not accountable except to their employers.

The interior ministry's director of operations, Maj Gen Abdul Karim Khalaf, said authorities would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force.

"We have opened a criminal investigation against the group who committed the crime," he told the AFP news agency.

All Blackwater personnel have been told to leave Iraq immediately, with the exception of the men involved in the incident on Sunday.

They will have to remain in the country and stand trial, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the US response? If ever there was a telling 'official' response, it might be this:

A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Baghdad later confirmed there had been an incident in which state department security personnel reacted to a car bomb "in the proximity", and that they had been shot at.

"We are taking it very seriously indeed," she told the BBC, adding that discussions were still taking place about Blackwater's status now that they had been ordered to leave.

When asked if Blackwater was complying with the order, the spokeswoman said she could not comment because the investigation into the incident was still in progress.

A spokesman for the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said she wanted to ensure that everything was being done to avoid the loss of innocent life and to make sure this kind of incident never happened again.

She is also expected to telephone Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to reassure him that the US had launched its own investigation.

Yes, I'm sure we have 'launched an investigation.' And of course, that investigation is classified.

We do a lot of investigating. No actual results; but we investigate better than just about any other country in the world. You see we are a democracy. And that means investigations.

Of course the results are always 'classified,' and we never see any... well any actual results... but we are assured (as are officials in Iraq) that investigations are taking place.

By someone. Oh, absolutely.

(Condi to Nouri: "Blackwater will leave Iraq when we say Blackwater leaves Iraq. You forget yourself sir.")

Jon Stewart: is this thing on?

There is something vaguely familiar about that Petraeus report... ah, I get it. It's word for word identical to the 'Bush Talking Points.'

Gosh... isn't that amazing?

Feingold questions Petraeus

Can we clone Senator Feingold - please?

Indiana will take two. Thank you.



UPDATE: I just found out that two of the seven soldiers who authored this New York Times op-ed "The War as We Saw It" died yesterday in a vehicle accident in Iraq. One of them, Sgt. Mora, was due to return home in November.

Several Senators, including Senator Chuck Hagel, spoke highly of the op-ed and the soldiers who wrote it during the hearings - asking who the Senate should be expected to believe, the soldiers who fought in Iraq, or Petraeus?

Meanwhile, Petraeus never mentioned that two of them had just died, the previous day.

He obviously knew about the accident... he mentions it at the end of this YouTube video.

Did he know that two of the op-ed writers died in that accident? Their obituaries had already run in their hometown newspapers (Staff Sergeant Yance Gray, Sergeant Omar Mora) by the time of the hearings. Their names were out - to the general public. How could Petraeus not know?

And imagine the embarrassment had this come out in the hearings...

The Pentagon doesn't have a very good track record of letting on that they know information that will be damaging to their case (Tillman, Lynch.) And because of this past behavior, I no longer give them the benefit of the doubt.

Petraeus will most likely have known their names IF their names were on that op-ed writers' list, because someone from below would have freaked and sent the news up through the ranks. The Pentagon PR people were undoubtedly going crazy.

Or... perhaps not. Perhaps Petraeus 'wouldn't recall' their names anyway. Perhaps such a high ranking general wouldn't care about individual names. Which is worse - that he knew and didn't say, or that he didn't know because nobody cared?

I just hope he was squirming like hell when the Senators were talking about these guys. If two out of seven guys who write an op-ed can't even get home alive... yeah, surge is going just great. Hopefully the rest will make it out of, as Senator Hagel puts it, that 'meat-grinder.'

In memory

In memory of those who lost their lives and family members on this day.

In memory of the America that used to be; and in the hope that one day our government will stop exploiting this day for the gain of a few, and the suffering of the many.

In memory of innocence lost... and Constitution betrayed.

The cost

Nobody is ever 'home by Christmas.'

Hagel to retire

The word on the street is that Senator Hagel plans to retire, and does not intend to run for President.

Hagel is a statesman, and along with Lugar and Biden, went to the White House and demanded that Congress be kept in the loop about the Iraq invasion:

In an interview in GQ Magazine, Hagel reveals that the Bush administration tried to get Congress to approve military action anywhere in the Middle East — not just in Iraq — in the fall of 2002. At the time, Hagel says, the Bush administration presented Congress with a resolution that would have authorized the use of force anywhere in the region:

HAGEL: [F]inally, begrudgingly, [the White House] sent over a resolution for Congress to approve. Well, it was astounding. It said they could go anywhere in the region.

GQ: It wasn’t specific to Iraq?

HAGEL: Oh no. It said the whole region! They could go into Greece or anywhere. Is central Asia in the region? I suppose! Sure as hell it was clear they meant the whole Middle East. It was anything. It was literally anything. No boundaries. No restrictions.

GQ: They expected Congress to let them start a war anywhere in the Middle East?

HAGEL: Yes. Yes. Wide open. We had to rewrite it. Joe Biden, Dick Lugar, and I stripped the language that the White House had set up and put our language in it.

That he is retiring - along with Warner - makes me wonder if Lugar will stay, or if they have all had enough of this train wreck.

It also makes me wonder if they already know its not going to end.

This guy was on our side. Maybe he just got tired of fighting literally everyone. God knows we never gave him any support, and the Republicans crucified him.



He has also spoken out against the Patriot Act, against Bush, was the first guy to mention impeachment (of either party.)

"When government continues to erode individual rights, that's the most dangerous, dangerous threat to freedom there is," he said, calling it "far more dangerous than terrorism." His reaction was similarly sharp when he first heard of the report in this newspaper that the president had claimed authority to order domestic wiretapping without court approval. "If, in fact, this is true," he said, "then it needs to stop." When the White House acknowledged it was true, Hagel pressed for Congressional hearings and a national debate. "I think Congress has failed the country in many ways," he said at a forum in California last month. One way was to allow the administration "to completely overpower the debate based on, 'I'm the commander in chief, and I know what's best.' "

Well, whoever replaces him has some big shoes to fill. For example... the ability to tell the truth. And some idea of what it means to serve as a Senator in a 'representative government.' One that doesn't just represent corporations.

Department of 'Justice' is against Internet freedom

(AP) The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic.

The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.

I'm shocked - SHOCKED - to see that the DoJ is against free speech. Who'd have thunk it? The really odd thing about this is that Net Neutrality has nothing whatsoever to do with the DoJ. They are totally out of line for even expressing an opinion.

No wait... I get it. They are repaying the big telecoms for their capitulation in domestic spying.

Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others.

Where have we seen these names before?

And the partisan, corporate racket goes on. I'll just keep typing until Big Brother pulls the plug.

I can promise you one thing -- and I hope most Americans concur. If they pull Net Neutrality, I will be off the Internet for good. And if we all leave... think of all that lost advertising... all of those books that won't be sold, all of that junk we won't be buying.

Sorry. Can't have it both ways. I'm not for sale.

I'm starting to see the bricks

The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.

- Frank Zappa

When did our government decide that we citizens are the 'enemy?' Or has it always been this way? Appears Zappa was right after all. I'm beginning to see the bricks.

During the Clinton administration, I had this weird idea that we Americans were one nation. Oh, and that 'liberty and justice for all' bit still held true; or so it appeared. Perhaps we were all still asleep. These days, Clinton is golfing with Bush Sr. Makes you wonder.

Police break up anti-war meeting in Washington

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Mounted police charged in to break up an outdoor press conference and demonstration against the Iraq war in Washington on Thursday, arresting three people, organizers and an AFP reporter said.

"The police suppressed the press conference. In the middle of the speeches, they grabbed the podium" erected in a park in front of the White House for the small gathering, Brian Becker, national organizer of the ANSWER anti-war coalition, told AFP.

"Then, mounted police charged the media present to disperse them," Becker said.

The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Lafayette Square said. No one appeared to have been hurt.

Three people -- Tina Richards, the mother of a marine who did two tours of duty in Iraq; Adam Kokesh, a leader of the Iraq Veterans Against the War group; and lawyer Ian Thompson, who is an organizer for ANSWER in Los Angeles -- were arrested, Becker said.

I'm reading 'Presidential Courage' by Michael Beschloss. Fascinating book.

One of the things that has really stood out in the initial chapters (about George Washington and John Adams) is how... wonderfully unruly and free these early Americans were, to speak their minds and to get involved in their government. As I read, I see what real freedom looks like. And boy - we have lost it. I fear any semblance of free speech is hanging by a thread.

Perhaps that is why I test it so often out here on this blog. This is my wind sock.

These early patriots were in the streets demonstrating all the time; and their voices were heard. We really were a 'government by the people.'

This of course was before the banks and the corporations took over. The difference is painfully obvious - and I stress 'painfully,' because I am realizing more every day how much we have become like the old Soviet Bloc... how much we have lost of our wonderfully unruly democracy.

The frog in the pot is boiling now. Bush just tosses aside the laws he doesn't like and makes new ones to suit his and his corporate cronies' interests. The Constitution... to him, is just a 'damned piece of paper.'

We are definitely not the country we were. Lincoln used to welcome the widows and mothers of soldiers into his home; he didn't have them arrested.

But then... surely Bush is no Lincoln.

Olbermann lays waste to Bush and Iraq policy

One bomb away... or five

How do you 'mistakenly' fly 5 nuclear warheads across the United States? Who is running this mad house anyway?

Oh... that's right... never mind.

I'm sure nobody 'could recall' that the nuclear warheads were still attached...

To dust we shall return

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana

Our current and very severe drought in Southern Indiana has for some reason made me think about the Dust Bowl days. The dust storms of the 30s began with intense heat... and drought. And the heat and the drought grew worse and worse, until the soil blew away.

Perhaps it is the sight of the huge, jagged cracks I see opening in my front yard... under the dry moss, beneath the yellowing trees. This is supposed to be a humid, damp area; we usually have big 'elephant ear' plants growing all across the forest floor at this time of the year, not dry crackling leaves and brown, dying plants.

And the dirt... is turning to dust.

As I walk across the increasingly common dry patches in the yard, little plumes of dust rise where my feet have tread... and I think of the dust storms that swept through Oklahoma, and swept away everything in their path: an entire way of life.



Our Local Drought

Perhaps my unease began when I saw large, jagged cracks opening in our front yard... under the now dry, brown moss, beneath the strangely yellowing trees. This is supposed to be a humid, damp area; we usually have big 'elephant ear' plants growing all across the forest floor at this time of the year, not dry crackling leaves and brown, dying plants.

And the dirt... is turning to dust.

Our region is extremely dependent on adequate rainfall; the survival of the wide variety of deciduous trees for which this area is famous (especially in Autumn,) depends on the rain from winter storms and summer thundershowers. Usually the forest floor is very lush and green at this time of the year.

But now the forest is dry and parched; the forest floor brown and dead. Leaves are turning prematurely yellow, the days are searingly hot without a cloud, anywhere in the sky, across the entire state. There seldom any rain in the forecast these days, and when storms do come into the area, they mysteriously slide to the north.

We have already lost some rather large saplings on our property; beautiful trees that towered over my head, but simply couldn't compete for groundwater with the larger trees beside them. Older trees seem to be withstanding the drought pretty well, but even medium-sized trees are now showing signs of stress; their leaves prematurely yellow. Some trees are also starting to show signs of disease and frequent attacks by insect pests. And when I drive into town, dead trees and plants now line the roadside.

We are having the worst drought in decades, after having the wettest winter in, well, decades. It is hotter than Hades most days, with strange dips in temperature at night (sometimes into the 40s.)

Add these to the increasingly long list of unusual weather occurrences in the past 12 months. We lost our fruit crop to a late, long freeze this spring (which wiped out the blossoms, and our winter wheat along with them.) The winter was so warm and wet that we saw swarms of mosquitoes on New Year's Day.

To experience all of these weather oddities within the same calendar year is unnerving. Record rainfall... followed immediately by drought? Climate change isn't a theory here; we can see it happening all around us, every day, as we scan the sky for any sign of rain.

From the Bloomington Herald Times:

About 40 percent of the state is in a “D2” stage of severe drought, National Weather Service meteorologist Logan Johnson said. That determination is made by the weather service along with other agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and fire and weather agencies, he said. They’re looking at things such as the amount of rain, the status of deep groundwater wells and soil moisture for the weekly rating.

Why isn’t it raining? Persistent upper level high pressure systems are keeping away the cold fronts that are necessary for rain. That makes precipitation spotty, Johnson said. For example, they’ve had reports of rain in the northern half of a county but none in the southern.

“The ridge is just so strong it keeps that weather pattern,” he said. “And Indiana drought years typically come with this same weather pattern.”

'Wacky weather,' flooding and large areas of drought now affect much of the country, from California and Arizona through the Midwest and South. While some portions of the country are receiving so much rain that they have experienced record flooding, other areas are parched with ever-worsening drought.

And sometimes the difference between the two extremes is a single county.

Map from the US Drought Monitor

Odd Weather Patterns in the Central Midwest

To give you an idea of how crazy the weather has been across the Midwest this summer, here is some recent data from NOAA.

The current drought report from southern Ohio, from NOAA:

HYDROLOGIC OUTLOOK NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILMINGTON OH
605 PM EDT THU AUG 30 2007

...EXTREME DROUGHT CONDITIONS NOW EXPANDING INTO KENTUCKY AND SOUTHERN OHIO...WITH SEVERE DROUGHT CONDITIONS OVER SOUTHEAST INDIANA...

...VERY LITTLE CHANCE OF RAIN IN THE FORECAST...

ESPECIALLY IN AREAS NEAR THE OHIO RIVER...AUGUST HAS BEEN A RECORD SETTING MONTH FOR TEMPERATURE. THE CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY AIRPORT HAS SET A NEW RECORD FOR MOST DAYS IN A MONTH AT OR ABOVE 90 DEGREES. THERE HAVE BEEN 25 DAYS OF 90 DEGREE OR WARMER HIGH TEMPERATURES AT CINCINNATI...INCLUDING 5 DAYS WHICH HAVE REACHED AT LEAST 100 DEGREES. THIS HAS BEEN COMBINED WITH ONLY 0.53 INCHES OF RAIN FOR AUGUST...WHICH IS 3.03 INCHES BELOW NORMAL.

SUCH EXTREME CONDITIONS HAVE RESULTED IN AN INTRODUCTION OF D3...OR EXTREME DROUGHT...INTO FAR SOUTHERN OHIO AND NORTHERN KENTUCKY. WITH LITTLE TO NO RAIN IN THE FORECAST OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS...THE D3 CATEGORY WILL LIKELY EXPAND FURTHER WEST INTO INDIANA NEXT WEEK.

WHILE NORTHERN OHIO AND INDIANA EXPERIENCED RECORD FLOODING OVER THE PAST TWO WEEKS...MANY AREAS SOUTH OF DAYTON AND COLUMBUS RECEIVED LITTLE TO NO RAINFALL.

OHIO CORN CROPS ARE EXPECTED TO YIELD ABOUT 20 TO 30 PERCENT LESS THAN NORMAL...ACCORDING TO THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION OFFICE. MUCH OF THESE DECLINES ARE DUE TO DROUGHT IN SOUTHERN OHIO... THOUGH SOME WILL BE A RESULT OF THE RECENT FLOODING IN NORTHERN OHIO. GENERALLY FROM 20 TO 25 PERCENT OF OHIO`S SOYBEAN AND CORN CROPS ARE RATED POOR TO VERY POOR CONDITION. ACROSS KENTUCKY...25 PERCENT OF CORN AND NEARLY 40 PERCENT OF SOYBEAN CROPS WERE REPORTED IN POOR TO VERY POOR CONDITION.

RAINFALL DEFICITS IN THE EXTREME DROUGHT AREA IS AS MUCH AS 12 TO 16 INCHES BELOW NORMAL FOR THE YEAR...WITH MOST LOCATIONS GENERALLY 8 TO 12 INCHES BELOW NORMAL FOR THE YEAR. EVEN WITH NORMAL RAINFALL THROUGH THE END OF 2007...THE CINCINNATI AREA WILL LIKELY FINISH WITHIN THE TOP TEN DRIEST YEARS ON RECORD.

STATISTICS FOR THE 3 MAJOR REPORTING STATIONS ARE LISTED BELOW:

THERE ARE THREE MAJOR CLIMATE STATIONS IN THE REGION: PORT COLUMBUS AIRPORT...DAYTON INTERNATIONAL...AND CINCINNATI/NORTHERN KENTUCKY. BELOW ARE THE OBSERVED RAINFALL VALUES AND THE DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL SINCE MAY 1...WHEN THE RAINFALL DEFICIT LARGELY BEGAN.

FOR CINCINNATI...DAYTON AND COLUMBUS...THE RAINFALL IS AS FOLLOWS:

STATION         SINCE MAY 1        INCHES BELOW NORMAL
CINCINNATI          5.12                 11.32
DAYTON             10.33                  5.19
COLUMBUS           11.93                  4.26

Meanwhile, Kentucky is experiencing record heat:

From NOAA:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LOUISVILLE KY
945 AM EDT SAT SEP 1 2007


...LOUISVILLE KENTUCKY BREAKS SEVERAL MORE RECORDS IN AUGUST 2007...

THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 85.0 DEGREES SET FOR AUGUST 2007 AT THE LOUISVILLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT SHATTERS THE OLD RECORD OF 83.0 PREVIOUSLY SET IN 1936.

THE 85.0 DEGREES ALSO MAKES IT THE HOTTEST MONTH EVER IN LOUISVILLE HISTORY...TOPPING THE PREVIOUS HIGH OF 84.2 DEGREES SET FOR JULY 1901.

And of course, Indiana:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES THESE HYDROLOGIC OUTLOOK STATEMENTS ANY TIME A PORTION OF THE AREA IS CATEGORIZED AS SEVERE DROUGHT CONDITIONS...WHICH IS QUANTIFIED AS CATEGORY D2 ON THE DROUGHT MONITOR MAP. LOCALLY...THERE HAS BEEN WORSENING SINCE LATE MAY OVER THE REGION...WITH THE MOST EXTREME PRECIPITATION DEFICITS OVER SOUTHERN OHIO...NORTHERN KENTUCKY AND SOUTHEAST INDIANA.

LOOKING AT OTHER INDICATORS...MUCH OF THE UNREGULATED STREAMFLOW ACROSS SOUTHEAST INDIANA...NORTHERN KENTUCKY AND SOUTHERN AND WESTERN OHIO ARE RUNNING IN THE 10TH TO 24TH PERCENTILE. THIS DATA IS REPORTED BY THE US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.

MOST AREA WATER SUPPLY RESERVOIRS AND WELL LEVELS WERE RUNNING TYPICALLY ABOUT ONE FOOT BELOW NORMAL...BUT HARSHA LAKE ON THE EAST FORK OF THE LITTLE MIAMI WAS RUNNING 5 FEET BELOW THE NORMAL SUMMER POOL LEVEL.

FOR THE NEXT WEEK OVER THE IMPACTED AREA...LITTLE TO NO RAINFALL IS FORECAST. ONLY A SLIGHT POSSIBILITY OF RAIN IN THE FORM OF ISOLATED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS IS EXPECTED DURING THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK. WHILE A SLIGHTLY BETTER CHANCE FOR RAIN IS EXPECTED IN THE 8 TO 14 DAY PERIOD...THIS TOO WILL LIKELY BE IN THE FORM OF SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS.

And while the southern counties of Indiana are parched, and our trees are dying, the northern part of Indiana was flooding only a week ago:

RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTHERN INDIANA
0830 AM EDT SAT SEP 1 2007

...RECORD MONTHLY RAINFALL SET AT SOUTH BEND...

8.88 INCHES OF RAINFALL WAS RECORDED AT SOUTH BEND FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 8.30 INCHES SET IN 1979.

FOR SOUTH BEND THIS RANKS AS THE 7TH WETTEST MONTH ON RECORD AND BRINGS THE SUMMER TOTALS TO THE 4TH WETTEST EVER ON RECORD.

TEMPERATURE WISE THIS RANKED AS THE 13TH WARMEST AUGUST ON RECORD.

...MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS FOR FORT WAYNE...

9.69 INCHES OF RAINFALL WAS RECORDED AT FORT WAYNE FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST. THIS RANKS AS THE SECOND WETTEST AUGUST ON RECORD AND WAS THE 5TH WETTEST MONTH EVER ON RECORD.

So no... we don't believe in climate change here in the Midwest, can't imagine why we would. We're much more likely to believe ExxonMobile and Bush.

All sarcasm aside, one has to wonder. Are we headed back in time? If these crazy weather patterns continue (and they show no signs of ever returning to normal,) can we even survive here? Can we grow food? Will we have enough drinking water?

Can it happen again?

So what caused the Dust Bowl in the 1930s? NASA scientists think they may now know the answer to that question... but we won't like it. Turns out only a slight change in sea temperature can cause a shift in the jet stream, which affects whether we get normal rainfall, droughts or flooding. And we already have both higher ocean temperatures and a shift in jet stream.

Scientists recently discovered that the ocean temperatures in the 1930's were unstable, which affected the jet stream and the normal flow of precipitation across the United States:

Ocean Temperatures in the 1930's Were Unstable

Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center recently used a computer model and satellite data to examine climate over the past century. In the study, cooler than normal tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures and warmer than normal tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures created ideal drought conditions due to the unstable sea surface temperatures. The result was dry air and high temperatures in the Midwest from about 1931 to 1939.

The Normal Supply of Moist Air From the Gulf of Mexico Was Reduced.

Changes in sea surface temperatures create shifts in weather patterns. One way is by changing the patterns in the jet stream. In the 1930's, the jet stream was weakened causing the normally moisture rich air from the Gulf of Mexico to become drier. Low level winds further reduced the normal supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and reduced rainfall throughout the US Midwest.

The Jet Stream Changed Course.

The jet stream normally flows west over the Gulf of Mexico and turns northward pulling up moisture and dumping rain onto the Great Plains. As the jet stream weakened and changed course, it traveled farther south than normal starving the Midwest of precious rain.

BioEd Online goes into even more detail:

Megadroughts

The Great Plains get most of their rain in spring and summer. The westerly 'trade' winds that flow around the equator normally carry moisture westwards from the Gulf of Mexico over the United States, keeping the Plains well watered.

But a warmer Atlantic heats the air just above the sea surface, making it less dense and allowing it to rise, explains Bamber. This opens the door for cooler, high-pressure air to sweep eastwards off continental America. So the wet air over the Gulf flows eastwards instead.

The same trade winds usually sweep westwards over the continent and the Pacific, picking up moisture from that ocean as they go, before doubling back and carrying their watery cargo back towards the United States in the upper atmosphere. A cooler Pacific disrupts this cycle, so that the air returning to the United States is dryer, flows at a lower altitude, and is less likely to bring rain to the Plains.

Schubert believes his team's computer model should work just as well for the Sahel region, on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, where changes in Atlantic and Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures are creating droughts.

At the moment, the model can give about six months to a year advance warning of a drought. Including deep-ocean temperature measurements in the calculations could improve its predictive power, says Schubert.

Modern farming practices, such as improved irrigation, would moderate the effects of any future droughts. "But the basic weather that caused the Dust Bowl will almost certainly happen again," Schubert says. "Over the last 500 years, we've had these kinds of megadroughts about once or twice every century. Historically, these events are very likely."

Megadroughts are a normal, natural weather cycle. If we can expect to get one or two every century, then we are probably due. The big question of course is how drastic these megadroughts will be when we throw climate change into the mix. Hurricanes also go through natural cycles, but we have seen an increase in the number of category 5 hurricanes due to the warming of the oceans. Are we in danger of experiencing an epic national drought, made worse by the unpredictable effects of climate change?

Current (2007)



Dust Bowl (1934)



History has a strange way of repeating itself.

If we attack Iran, we face a possibility of another World War. The stock market is edging closer and closer to disaster, and possibly a crash. And meanwhile, floods and droughts have brought us face to face with shades of danger to come: the epic disaster faced by our grandparents' generation.

If we continue to spew greenhouse gases into the air and refuse to address our current changing weather, there is no telling what will happen; we are literally playing with fire, flood, monster hurricanes, megadroughts and global devastation.


The one thing we seem to be missing... an FDR waiting in the wings to rescue us.

Al Gore has the qualifications and the vision to fill that role. He could pull us all together and move us in a positive direction, and he would definitely surround himself with the best and the brightest (as well as people who understand compassion.)

But Gore has 'fallen out of love with politics.'

I guess that leaves us at the mercy of those who haven't lost their love for government corruption, corporate kowtowing and pork. I frankly don't know how we will get through all of this without a brilliant statesman at the helm: a real leader.

We can maybe still pull out of our collision course with Iran, and somehow pull out of our Wall Street crisis. Although unlikely under our current administration, it is still possible to avoid these calamities. But in the end, Mother Nature will etch the final wording on our collective epitaph.

We have done our great damage here; and given a choice of changing our destructive behavior or continuing down this same, reckless road... we chose short term greed over long-term survival. Now nature - with all of her normal weather patterns juiced up on the steroids of climate change - will decide if our species will survive... or perish.



For more information about regional drought, see the following resources:

Climate Prediction Center - U.S. Drought Assessment
The NOAA Drought Drought Information Center
The U.S. Drought Monitor

Will it ever rain?

The trees all around us look so dry. The grass is brown. Leaves are starting to fall, its hot and there isn't a cloud - anywhere - in the state.

The trees are suffering. I'm starting to worry. When you live in the woods with dry, suffering trees all around you... you worry. Not just about tree survival. You worry about fire.

We're having the worst drought in decades after having the wettest winter in, well, decades. It's hotter than Hades most days, and we lost our fruit crop to a late, long freeze. Our winter wheat as well.

It hasn't been a good year for weather here in Indiana, especially the southern half of the state.

From the Bloomington Herald Times:

About 40 percent of the state is in a “D2” stage of severe drought, National Weather Service meteorologist Logan Johnson said. That determination is made by the weather service along with other agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and fire and weather agencies, he said. They’re looking at things such as the amount of rain, the status of deep groundwater wells and soil moisture for the weekly rating.

Why isn’t it raining? Persistent upper level high pressure systems are keeping away the cold fronts that are necessary for rain. That makes precipitation spotty, Johnson said. For example, they’ve had reports of rain in the northern half of a county but none in the southern.

“The ridge is just so strong it keeps that weather pattern,” he said. “And Indiana drought years typically come with this same weather pattern.”

Time to do the rain dance again. In earnest.

Tancredo to New Orleans: you aren't worth the money

GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) said Friday it is “time the taxpayer gravy train left the New Orleans station” and urged an end to the federal aid to the region that was devastated by Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

“The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called ‘recovery’ efforts has been mind-boggling,” said Tancredo, who is running a long-shot presidential campaign. “Enough is enough.”

Citing administration figures, the lawmaker said that $114 billion has been spent on the effort to rebuild a large stretch of the Gulf Coast after the storm hit New Orleans in August 2005 and claimed more than 1,600 lives.

“At some point, state and local officials and individuals have got to step up to the plate and take some initiative,” said Tancredo. “The mentality that people can wait around indefinitely for the federal taxpayer to solve all their worldly problems has got to come to an end.”

The lawmaker criticized in particular the amount that has been wasted through fraud and abuse, estimated at $1 billion.

“This whole fiasco has been a perfect storm of corruption and incompetence at all levels,” he added.

Gee Mr. Tancredo. How very neighborly of you. How very Christian.

You are of course referring to that tiny bit of Federal aid that was actually allotted to New Orleans; and of course, almost none of it has reached the city or the people. And this of course because it has been plundered by your people - your GOP robber barons.

And of course you're just fine with the BILLIONS being wasted by contractors in Iraq; money that comes out of our taxes, and against our will. You see, we'd actually prefer it go to New Orleans.

It's just fine and ducky to you that contractors are leaving trucks by the side of the road abandoned, if they get a flat tire, because they know the United States of Corruption will by them a new truck.

Abandon the American city and continue plundering Iraq and the American treasury. Great campaign platform. Terrific party philosophy. We're supposed to vote for this? No wonder you're trying to fix the election process. Of course we won't vote for this, and you people know it.

So I guess the GOP has already made their financial killing in New Orleans and is ready to move on -- right Mr. Tancredo? NOLA gravy train is over, now the insurance companies are getting nervous that someone might actually expect them to pay...

From Mother Jones:

In those first emotional days after Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast, widespread predictions of a political sea change arrived from liberal and even some conservative commentators. "Americans are ready to fix their restless gaze on enduring problems of poverty, race, and class that have escaped their attention," Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wrote in a September 2005 cover story. Some went so far as to forecast the dawn of a new America, one stunned out of both complacency and conservatism by the images of suffering on the Gulf Coast. Katrina, one commentator suggested, would permanently "redefine the political landscape."

But within just a few weeks of the hurricane, something had changed in the press coverage and the public response: As the floodwaters receded, so, too, did the powerful images—the portraits of racially segregated suffering, of death by poverty. America's—even liberal America's—focus appeared to be moving away from the experiences of Katrina victims and the deep, systemic problems they revealed. In the end, the leap from pathos to policy was never made. Instead, a narrower lens was focused on the foibles of the Bush administration—for instance, its hiring of a political crony, Michael Brown, to head FEMA (and, later, Brown's infamous emails about wardrobe choices and dinner plans as New Orleans residents were literally drowning in their homes). Democrats were quick to attack President Bush, but when it came to advancing meaningful policy changes, they came up short on momentum.

It quickly became clear that the public "meaning" of Katrina, which had initially seemed so obvious to so many, was actually up for grabs—and so, too, was its impact on U.S. politics.

In the coming weeks and months, conservatives hit their stride. The Bush administration, with the help of its friends in the Washington establishment and elsewhere, turned the disaster in New Orleans from a crisis into an opportunity—a chance to extend, rather than repeal, the conservative revolution that had begun 25 years earlier. The campaign to accomplish this apparent political paradox would operate on many levels and with astonishing success. While the country was absorbed by watching the president try to stuff an uncooperative political rabbit back into his hat, the real tricks were taking place offstage.

• The PR campaign. This began with a carefully constructed plan—engineered, to no one's surprise, by Karl Rove—to shift blame away from the White House, accompanied by promises of "investigations," and followed by a highly stage-managed expression of conservative compassion by Bush.
• The advancement of conservative social policies, including an overhaul of the federal budget. Despite some haggling among conservatives, Bush's pledge to help the victims from Katrina would be used to justify a series of cuts that had always been favored by the right—robbing the poor to give (for a little while) to the poor.
• The remaking of New Orleans. A variety of carefully planned "rebuilding" strategies, along with a selective apportionment of resources, would effectively clear out many of the city's poor African Americans to make way for a richer, whiter simulacrum of the Big Easy.
• A free-for-all for corporate contractors. There were billions of dollars to be made on the reconstruction of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, a good share of it awarded to companies with political connections, and a fair portion of that lost to greed, waste, incompetence, and fraud.

Mission Accomplished.

Hurricane recovery becomes 'class war'

Ah the things you don't hear in the corporate media these days:

We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes.

But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your home and we’ll arrest you.”

These aren’t just any homes. They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others.

But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.

Raised up on high ground, with floors and walls of concrete, they were some of the only houses left salvageable after the Katrina flood.

Amazing Katrina video from storm chasers

My neighbor, John

Tonight I sat down with great expectations to watch my neighbor John Mellencamp on Real time with Bill Maher. Mellencamp is very quiet about his political leanings here in Indiana; but his music is the voice of the quiet, tolerant Midwestern liberal living in a 'red state;' trying always to cut through the propaganda that seems to hold our neighbors in a trance. When I heard him describing the 'Great Swindle,' I wanted to leap off the couch and cheer.

I was listening to him just now explain, at Bill's request, about 'what is going on in the middle part of America.'

Bill commented on John's patriotism (without judging it, but...) and John commented that people in this part of the country are very patriotic. Yes, that is true. And as he also pointed out... the ones that do vote for a 'Fred Thompson in his red pickup truck' are naive.

As John put it, they tell the truth; so why should they doubt someone else's word? And what's wrong with being naive?

(Haven't found a video from tonight's show yet; watching for one.)



This royally pissed off Maher, but I see John's point. Because I see this all around me too. That Hoosiers tend to expect that people will naturally do what they say they will do - the 'right thing' - and to be honest in their dealings isn't the problem. The problem is the way in which they have been betrayed... and the way that their faith in decency and governmental authority - and especially their patriotism - has been used against them.

JM: I see it. I see it all the time, and I can't understand. My wife and I would drive through small communities in Indiana and go 'We don't understand these Bush/Cheney signs in front of these peoples' houses.' But they were... swindled.

BM: Isn't there something to telling the people to be more cynical, to quote one of my old lines?

JM: But I don't know if I want to go through my life being cynical.

BM: It's better than going through life being swindled.

JM: But I don't like either one!

And there is the great Hoosier dilemma.

I keep insisting that Hoosiers are good, 'salt of the earth' people. Most would give you the shirt off their backs. I moved back here because I missed that; the friendliness, and the offhand generosity.

People know their neighbors here. If there is a storm, people check on each other. When there is an ice storm out here, we all pitch in to clear the road. People share tomato crops, stop and talk over the back fence, and still take walks in the evening. People talk to 'total strangers' in the grocery checkout line.

I never really fit in anywhere else I lived, because I was raised in this environment. There is an openness, a trustfulness that I was raised with here in Indiana, that I have never found anywhere else. I grew up barefoot in the summers, and we never locked our doors at night.

Yes - I talk to people in grocery checkout lines. I've been embarrassing my husband for years. Now he finally gets it. In New York City, people were horrified and immediately looked away. In Chicago, they gave me odd looks, but being the Midwest, they were amusedly tolerant. In Arizona, people looked away in discomfort, as if I had invaded their space by talking to them.

Now that I am home, we're all back to chatting as we stand in line... and it feels good.

I guess I don't like living among cynical people.

And before people jump on me (fellow Hoosiers) about the mean people among us; the haters, remember that there are mean people everywhere (here they wear sheets.) But my own experiences have been that there are many more decent, good people in my area than bad apples. Actually, other than tailgaters, I can't remember the last time I encountered a nasty, mean person around here.

But we're all very careful to avoid talking politics these days. Because we really do prefer getting along. One of the more painful developments under Bush rule, is the way the media has fanned divisions between those of differing ideologies; fostering a hateful 'us verses them' divide between liberal and conservative. Those of us who are liberal tend not to understand where this is coming from because we don't listen to daytime radio or O'Reilly. But at times we see the results of their work.

What a terrific - and well orchestrated - way to divide and conquer us.

Erosion of trust is so apparent in a friendly place like Indiana, where liberals and conservatives have mostly lived side by side as neighbors, farmed and rubbed shoulders in our famous (if dangerous) outdoor farmer's markets, and participated together in our local communities.

Why on earth would we be enemies? As John pointed out - and what I keep struggling to express to my own conservative neighbors - we have a mutual enemy trying to enslave us all. Shouldn't we be pulling together against these wealthy elitists that are sending our jobs overseas, feeding us tainted food, ruining our schools and allowing our infrastructure to decay all around us, withholding desperately needed health care, looting our national treasury and sending our kids off to die for their oil profits?

I mean -- isn't this a mutual problem?

This song really says it all.




Yes, many people here are conservative, patriotic and religious. But until the neocons started poisoning their minds, most of them were patriotic in a good way; people in this state send their kids to Iraq because they believe in duty to country. Only now are they realizing, belatedly, that they have been betrayed.

People here are religious (for the most part) in a good way as well. But there is something there... indoctrination in these conservative churches that teaches them to respect and never question authority.

I used to hear them preaching this blind obedience on the radio every Sunday (it was impossible to get anything else on the Sunday airwaves when I was a kid. We also still can't buy alcohol on a Sunday; including wine, which I often thought was quite ironic, having been raised a Catholic. Can't buy it, but you can have a sip at church.)

This indoctrination has I believe led to an unwillingness or inability to question authority; and that has made these people easy victims, as John put it, for the 'Great Swindle.'

Because they were raised to believe that people are basically honest, upstanding and honorable... they were caught totally off guard by the neocons. I have to keep reminding people; not all Republicans are neocons and many Republican citizens consider themselves 'Republican' based on an illusionary brand that turned into a snare: a trap that was baited with their ideal of honor and good citizenship.

Beware their wrath as they learn the truth.

Do they get it yet? I think they are starting to, in greater and greater numbers, in spite of the media propaganda. The scandals, the lies, the greed... this isn't how we do things here.

Nasty, bad, naughty boy

Who knew Craig was such an expert on, um, 'nasty, bad, naughty boys?'



Hmmm.