Links and comments

Still busy, after all, it's summer.

Wonderful week with family, catching up on other responsibilities, errands etc.

Managing to follow the markets a bit, Bear Stearns imploding hedge funds, linked to sub-prime mortgages. Well, it was an accident waiting to happen.

Bear's Stock Is Acting Like Its Name - WSJ.com:

"The current concerns accelerated Friday, when Bear announced plans to bail out an internal fund known as High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund with a loan of up to $3.2 billion."

This may dampen equities for a period of weeks, maybe months, as exposed players have to liquidate (sell) ... more liquid positions (big stocks).

Not like this hasn't happened before ... Long Term Capital and the Russian default being just one of the most recent.
Hubris comes home to roost.

On Intelligent Design ... maybe it's easier than previously thought:
Evo-Devo - Evolutionary Science - From a Few Genes, Life’s Myriad Shapes - New York Times:

And evolution continues on humans :
Humans Have Spread Globally, and Evolved Locally - New York Times

Maybe we are not all "created" equal?

Solstice

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Summer Begins … Now

By MARIA NEWMAN 2:06 PM ET

Today is the day. Summer solstice. The longest day of the year. First day of summer.

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And this old curmodgen has another birthday

60 down, 60 (or more?) to go

Good to have family here, making it multi-generational birthday party, daughters and grandson all have or have had birthdays around now, as well as others we know.

Downside is that with all the family here, for just a few more days, it will seem as if summer ends just as it's beginning.

Time to pack a lot of joy into a few hours.

Almost Summer

Too busy to blog, but wanted to post a photo.
Not quite glassy calm, but close.
High system has been parked overhead for a few days.

Shot a little before 10AM

Yup, new lift for "Chip's Ahoy"
Better scale, rugged (white oak) and heavy!
Skirt / Gable fro more protection from mid-day sun

Coloring my thinking

MIT piece on Stewart Brand addressing : population growth (peaking), urbanization (good for people - civilizing influence), genetically engineered organisms (improve crops to use less land) and nuclear energy (green).

Technology Review: Environmental Heresies

Long Term Climate perspective

Doc takes a break from his usual hectic (and good) coverage of VRM, Open Source and general things digital to comment on climate with

Global rewarming

Which triggered thoughts of a couple of entries on

Noah's Flood

Proof

For all our friends downstate ...
I always thought NW Mich was more important than declining downstate
Now there's proof (VBG)



shot "borrowed" from Keith's site: Modeshift

Vision

From a brief talk Helen Milliken gave the other night, a great quote

"The eye is blind to what the Mind cannot see"

Online conversation

An online "conversation" with Keith Schneider, founder of the Michigan Land Use Institute (which I'm a supporter of ) on the effects of gas prices.

At $5 A Gallon, Gas Prices Will Be The Issue In 2008 Campaign

The Same-O Same-O

Posted in full as there is no permalink

I guess politicians are just ... politicians, doesn't matter what party

Note that I'm a devout and practicing non-partisan

Democrats Hide Pet Projects From Voters

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 3, 2007

Filed at 7:20 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify ''earmarks'' -- lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills.

Such requests total billions of dollars.

As a result, most lawmakers will not get a chance to oppose specific projects as wasteful or questionable when the spending bills for various agencies get their first votes in the full House in June.

The House-Senate compromise bills due for final action in September cannot be amended and are subject to only one hour of debate, precluding challenges to individual projects.

Obey insists he is reluctantly taking the step because Appropriations Committee members and staff have not had enough time to fully review the 36,000 earmark requests that have flooded the committee.

What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open.