Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 23:32 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Clinton, Obama;
TPM is reporting the delegate counts appear to be split even while Andrew Sullivan just blogged Obama might be ahead.
It’s the delegate counts, not the votes, that really matter.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 23:09 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Huckabee, McCain;
Most the states McCain has been winning are states that go Democratic in the general election. So, McCain is actually even weaker than his anemic numbers show. Couple that with Huckabee’s unexpected strength and the Republican race seems to be still in flux.
Could someone explain why the hard right and libertarians loathe McCain? I genuinely don’t understand this.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 22:53 - Category: Unfiled ;
With four underseas cables in the Middle East having been severed.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 20:58 - Category: Credit crisis Tags: stock market;
The ISM number was the reason. It measures the service sector. Anything less than 50 signals contraction. Last month was it was 54.4. The expected number was 53.
Instead, it was a devastating 44.6. The service sector contracted sharply and unexpectedly in just one month.
This probably signals capitulation for stock market bulls who were arguing we weren’t going into recession. That argument is now over.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 17:12 - Category: Election 2008 ;
A useful guide to presidential candidate platforms on global warming, renewables, nuclear, clean coal, cap-and-trade, etc.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 14:20 - Category: Climate change ;
Scientists have identified nine “tipping points” of irreversible climate change ranging from disappearing ice sheets to the Sahara and Indian monsoons becoming erratic and northern forests dying.
Cheerful stuff, huh? But don’t despair: the researchers suggest — perhaps a little glibly, but with welcome optimism — that similar tipping points exist in humanity’s transition to a low-carbon, climate-ready society.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 11:20 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Clinton, Obama;
Zogby has Obama by 13% in California, while SurveyUSA has Clinton by 10%. TPM opines that the Zogby poll appears more in line with other polls than does SurveyUSA.
Yesterday here in CT, Obama filled XL Center in Hartford to capacity, speaking to 17,000 people. (The fire marshals turned more people away.)
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 07:23 - Category: Credit crisis ;
Investment banks fund leveraged buyouts with short-term ‘bridge loans’ to make the deal happen. They then sell those loans to investors, getting them off their books at a profit, then presumably reinvesting the money in another LBO and bridge loan.
Well, that was the theory. When credit markets freeze up like they’re doing now, the banks can’t sell their bridge loans and thus get stuck with them mucking up their books. The bridge loan turns into a pier loan, a pier that goes nowhere, especially when they’re trading at 90 cents on the dollar.
A $14bn attempted sale of debt by banks from the Harrah’s LBO just collapsed. This is causing much gnashing of teeth and has the leveraged loan markets in “disarray.” More pain is certain to come.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 03:06 - Category: Renewable energy, Solar power ;
These next-gen solar panels can absorb infrared energy as well as solar, and thus can work into the early evening hours too, boosting efficiency.
Bob Morris @ Feb 5th 2008 00:14 - Category: Climate change, Renewable energy Tags: Tata Nano;
That would be the Tata Nano, just introduced in India for the ultra low price of just $2500. Environmentalists are shrieking about how horrible it that affordable cars have come to the Third World because, gasp, then people will be driving them.
The environmentalists’ hypocrisy is breathtaking. How can anything be criticized simply for being affordable? Tomorrow, if college education is made more accessible and affordable in India, will the New York Times denounce it on the grounds that college graduates tend to earn more and buy more consumer goods and hence enlarge their environmental “footprint”? The attitude of many environmentalists today is not unlike that of the Duke of Wellington at the dawn of the railroad era, who criticized the railways on the grounds that they would “only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.”
Goodness, we can’t have all those tacky Third World people enjoying the luxuries that we in industrialized countries have had for generations, now can we? Besides, they’ll be much happier long-term if they remain as peasants and abstain from materialism. As for solving global warming, well, we all need repent for our profligate ways and live in yurts, burning wood for heat and not use motorized transportation. That should solve things.
Oh wait, maybe there’s a better way. Massive research and development in renewable energy and clean transportation could create new industries and economies thus raising the living standard for all. Several billion people in China and India are currently raising their standard of living. They want electricity, cars, appliances, and the Internet. They will either power their new lifestyles with coal and the internal combustion engine or with clean energy and transportation.
What many environmentalists do not seem to understand is that if global warming is ever to be solved, it will be solved by human ingenuity, by technological innovation, by further human progress. The idea that the environment should be saved by severely curbing human ingenuity and human initiative is fundamentally flawed. While we should certainly seek to mitigate the negative side-effects of development, the emphasis must be on moving forward, on further human progress. Human civilization and development have been wonderful. People today live longer, fuller, lives, with more prosperity, freedom, opportunity, and choice, than ever before. How can this be a bad thing? The world needs more progress and development, not less.
Precisely. And here’s an example of how people are working towards solutions. The Systems, Cities & Sustainable Mobility conference starts tomorrow in Pasadena, CA.
Sustainability: Designing for the masses
Within the next 20 years, five billion people—representing 60 percent of the world’s population—will reside in cities. To meet the needs and aspirations of an increasingly urban society, design will play a crucial role in helping to anticipate and create the solutions which will enable these complex systems to function sustainably.
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