Insurance triage

Heres the scenario: its 2060 and there are very powerful interest groups petitioning congress to erect levees and raise the grade around the coast of The USA by at least six feet. Category one hurricanes are swamping Miami, a lot of Houston and the other usual disaster prone cities. The powerful southern bloc rages in the house to start immediately on these massive projects that dwarf the pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China times ten. It's too damn late.

Now is the time to draw the borders around the areas we will expend the resources to save from the coming multi meter rise in sea levels. The major cities are all up for the short list. Boston, New York, Baltimore, some of Houston, LA, Portland, some of San Francisco,  and Seattle will make the cut for sure. NYNY will be really expensive, but is indispensable to the economy. Most of Florida's cities will have to go. Alas, long suffering and cultural jewel New Orleans won't make it. It's already below sea level and another two to ten meters of seawater will just be overwhelming. Nobody wants to lose all those coastal towns and un protectable rural areas, but we will never have sufficient resources to build sea walls tall enough or long enough to save everything, and we will need for the private developers to know what will be safe to invest in. If we do this triage now, we may be able to enlist the economically powerful who own all that expensive, if soon to be inundated, real estate near the oceans and gulf. If you think the deficit is bad now, just,wait until millionaires are clamoring  for federal dykes to protect their estates in the Hamptons or other upscale , but low level, ocean facing communities. Every year it becomes more obvious that the science of global warming, and subsequent rise in sea level will never be able to overcome the Koch brothers' and coal / oil / gas  noise machine. We have to get out ahead of this thing before it consumes us all. We probably only have thirty years before things become acute, and politically frozen. This scenario is the result of the war on the scientific method and the indifference of the citizenry to reality and preference for magical thinking.

There is the strong possibility that an extended solar minimum that we are starting may save our bacon, but at best it's a four to one against. I'm going to be long dead by the time this all comes to a head, and my kids will be pretty damn old.

War

Should we allow our country to be dragged into a war by one of our allies, who only feels threatened, but has not really been attacked? This is a question we may well have to answer after the first of the year. The right wing, and proudly racist, government of Israel is chomping at the proverbial bit to have a go at Iran, but can't do it without our "help" (read carry 90% of the load). I only think we should consider intervention if the citizens of Israel are about to be driven into the Med and only we can save them. After decades of cruel ethnic cleansing in the West Bank Israel has gutted any sympathy I ever felt for that nation.

Yikes!

I'm going to try this again. Since I "upgraded" to the new blogspot format I haven't been able to post. I'm trying again.

My War Policy

If Obama calls me to be an advisor I would suggest that he thinks long and hard about the native cuisine of the country we invade. The Texas Revolution and the Mexican wars reinforced our cravings for tortilla, bean and chili pepper based dishes. The Civil war spread fried chicken from sea to shining sea. World War I brought an appreciation for French wines and Belgian fried potatoes to our shores, WWII netted us a lust for pasta and red sauce with a further desire for cheeses outside the cheddar variations. Don't get me going on espresso and its variations. Japanese dishes found a firm root with our occupying troops and Korea gave us a taste for kim-chee. While we were and still are occupying Northern Europe boiled potato and cabbage based dishes don't have a joint on every corner flogging perogies. Southeast Asia, mmmmm, gave us noodles of the gods, spicy dishes that take no back seat to any chili pepper. Seafood turns to gold when touched by a Thai chef or his mama. Give me Pho and Spring rolls or give me death

I honestly haven't seen anything coming out of Iraq and especially Afghanistan that I would order off a menu. These are ancient cultures. What gives? It's not like you had no time to make a nice sauce to go with the flat bread. You've got Turkey right next door with all that weapons grade kebob technology and India on the other end making me a follower of Vishnu with all the curries and chutney. Hey Egypt! I'm looking at you. You developed beer three thousand years ago and then forgot about it. What a waste.

May I suggest targets for future wars? Argentina, with mountains of free range beef and European bread making. Forget Africa. After okra, bananas and coffee we've pretty much picked the place clean. How about Spain? They should be easy to beat and all those tasty Mediterranean goodies beckon. I mentioned Turkey, but there are a lot of side dished to be found there. China may be a tougher nut, so we might just have to declare war and immediately surrender. Never have there been a people who can do so much with so little. Canada? Meh. Forget England unless you are a big fan of beans on toast. Ireland. Stew and beer we've got. Greece will probably be at the door this next year begging to be invaded, but I don't think we can afford the upkeep. Besides retsina is wretched. Lamb gyros can be good though.

This foreign policy offers the advantage of good food and low casualty counts. If we are going to war, we may as well get something out of the deal. Certainly we could replace all those half billion dollar F22 Raptors with some really nice cutlery and napkins. How much soy and plum sauce could we get for the price of one Abrams Tank? Everyone knows we all are fatter and fatter every year but now it would be patriotic.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Here's a couple of artists / illustrators I enjoy I know it's not anything political or personal but sometimes we get enough of that stuff.

First there's Zina Saunders, an illustrator who I have followed since before I started this blog. Love her politics and eye for the little stuff that makes up the background of our lives.

Next is surrealist illustrator Tara Tucker. Her wildly imaginary animals make me think if there was a great designer he was somewhat dim witted. Also, I'm crazy for kiwis. It's a damn shame it's impossible to keep them as pets.

Their websites are http://www.zinasaunders.com/ and http://taratucker.blogspot.com/

Villain Versus Hero

Today all the news is about the timely death of Kim Jung Il and the murky mechanics of succession in the Hermit Kingdom. Somehow the death of a genuine hero goes little noted. Vaclav Havel, playwright, dissident, liberal lion, President of the Czech Republic and all around good guy left us on the same day that the corrupt tin horn dictator Kim drew his last unearned breath of the Earth's sweet air. Havel faced down the Soviet monster when it counted and went to prison for his efforts. His writing was banned and he was threatened with exile. Back then I was a member of Amnesty International thousands of members regularly wrote letters to the Czechoslovakian government pleading for the satellite police state to release Vaclav. They did release him for a while, re-arrested him and released him again. Totalitarian Marxist states were funny that way. They could be shamed into begrudgingly bowing to public pressure. Fascist police states just double down to prove how tough they are. Vaclav Havel actually has a good claim to the title of "the man who freed Eastern Europe". As author of the Velvet Revolution he recognized the desire of Soviet Premier Gorbachev's desire to reform Russia and end the Cold War. Poland was overthrowing their own Warsaw Pact government at the same time. Poland's change was driven by catholic resentment and industrial nationalism. Czechoslovakia's revolution was driven by liberal intellectuals and college students. I have heard writers who should know all about such things that Havel was the most important European after the end of WWII. We need more like him.

The Hitch Is Dead. Long Live The Hitch

I am unapologetic apologist for Christopher Hitchens. Most folk don't understand his profound atheism and its effect on his political views. Hitchens saw the Arab world and its Salafic Islamic theocratic world view as the most intense threat to all things Hitch held dear. Even more of a menace than the Church of Rome, communist totalitarianism or American fundamentalism. The West has had its religious wars over and over again to the point where few are willing to revisit that historical nightmare. Islam has yet to have its hundreds year war, English Civil War, Reformation Wars or inquisition. We have had our wars of imperialism and ideology and learned from our mistakes. An accident of geology parked a large part of the essential and easy to extract resource, petroleum, under their sands. Hitchens bought the Bush idea that a free and democratic Iraq would spread like wildfire through Islam and tame the beast. Apparently we did it wrong. Perhaps we did it right in Libya, but the votes haven't been counted yet.

The part of the Christopher Hitchens story I regret is his fight with another essayist who I respect almost as much, Alexander Cockburn. Cockburn is a bit too understanding of proletarian totalitarianism for my tastes. Even though he misread history or culture led him to support a war that cost a lot of lives and about a trillion dollars I still love Hitchins because he gave us atheists an articulate, take no prisoners voice.