Bellingham Politics and Economics

Quotes of the Week

2012-01-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

[From The Pirate Bay on SOPA]:
"To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat."

[From Julian Assange in The Rolling Stone interview]
"Leave your mobile phones behind. Don't turn them off, but tell your source to leave electronic devices in their offices. We are now in a situation where countries are recording billions of hours of conversations, and proudly proclaiming that you don't have to select which telephone call you're intercepting, because you intercept every telephone call."

Blog paused...

2011-12-07T15:12:00.001-08:00

This blog is on pause until the New Year...Sorry...other responsibilities call. THX -RMF

2011 Whatcom County General Election Charts

2011-11-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

Do you believe in what you see?...Wastin my timein the waitin lineDo you believe in what you see?
(from "Do You Believe" by Zero7)

Preliminary Election Charts.Standard disclaimer applies: Accuracy of this data and these charts cannot be guaranteed. You should crunch your own numbers and not present my work as your own. Send me any corrections or comments you may have. Data is here. I am missing 11/10 count such that 11/10 and 11/12 roll up into one large sample. I have not bothered with the last counts of a few hundred voters. Clicking on my screenshot open office charts enlarges them in blogger.

Some concepts appropriate for the 'science' for "[registered] voter participation": "Fall off" describes the decreasing voter participation rate. The theory, as statistically demonstrated below, is that early voters complete greater percentages of their ballot than later voters. "Ballot fatigue" describes the tendency of voters to complete less and less of their individual ballot. "Ballot fatigue" is such an important issue that states, like WA, mandate the ballot order in such a fashion so that state based initiatives and offices receive 'priority' or an earlier position on the ballot. Both phenomena also help us here in this election to [possibly] infer that the ballots received and counted later were actually mailed or 'drop boxed' later.

Participation Rates: Left hand are cumulative. Right side are per count.

Below we see that voter participation (per count) for Larson/Kremen was statistically similar for Ericksen/Louws. Despite the fact that Crawford/Maginnis was arguably Whatcom County's the most defined left/right county race (HE a land use consultant for developers/SHE a regulatory scientist with ECY), the race suffered a collapse in voter participation rate. It is true that port commissioner, auditor, and Brenner vs. Black races had lower participation rates. But these races started out at lower participation rates as well.

Vote counts come in different sized samples in a 'Vote By Mail' election. After the sample that counted 57,044 (11/12) ballots, the vote swung decidedly against the Democratic backed candidates. Maginnis lost her race on the 11/14 count. She went in up 601 and came out down 623. A 1222 vote swing in a count of less than 5396 votes for that race! She never recovered. As I see it, Crawford increased his percentage of the vote in over 100 of 120 precincts in that count. And yet, the participation rate in the vote steadily declined with every count, suggesting that these were truly 'late, conservative' voters.

This is the existing precinct vote totals for '(Crawford -Maginnis on 11/12)/(Crawford-Maginnis on 11/12)' . (e.g. a ratio of increase/decrease per precinct). For the 11/14 count (5396 total votes for the Maginnis/Crawford race), Crawford appears to have increased his percentage of the vote in 100 out of 120 precincts for that vote count. This statistic is fairly contrived.

Participation Rates...

2011-11-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

This chart is updated after yesterday's misleading post. I had totaled the County Executive votes incorrectly.

$322K raised for the top two races ...and counting....

2011-11-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

These are the funding stats for the Mayor's Race and County Executive Race as of tonight (11/06/2011). Last minute spending yet to come? Looks like Dan Pike is pulling away in money raised and spent. Debt as well....

As of yesterday at 11:30 AM, 34,122 ballots have been returned. Remember to Vote.

The Barbara Brenner Interview

2011-11-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

The amount of money raised for local elections in Bellingham and Whatcom County (pop ~200,00) as of November 3, 2011 looks like this:

	Contributions	Expenditures	Debt	Ind Sup	Ind Opp
Whatcom	$452,569.07	$381,527.07	$42,351.11	$22,721.31	$16,328.23
Bellingham	$214,980.95	$198,116.36	$21,445.44	$5,815.76	$0.00
Totals	$667,550.02	$579,643.43	$63,796.55	$28,537.07	$16,328.23

All told, well over three quarters of a million dollars will probably be spent before next Tuesday (from contributions,debt,indedependent support and oppostion) in some of the most dramatic, well-debated, well-funded and (clearly) well-advised local races seen here in some time. Clearly the consequences of such levels of spending will not be trivial for the politics of Bellingham and Whatcom County. Not now, nor in the future.

Although I will not recommend any candidates for this election, I decided to interview Barbara Brenner after listening to a number of the debates. I was fascinated with a number of facets of Barbara Brenner: her self-imposed financial restrictions, her enthusiasm, her call to personal responsibility, and her apparent intelligence and charisma. After emailing her a request for an interview, she called me immediately and left a number. I found Ms. Brenner exceptionally approachable in our phone conversation. I was very interested in talking with her because among all this year's local candidates, Barbara Brenner stands out for her dogged refusal to accept political donations of any type. "I just sent a $50 and a $250 donation back last week. I told them I couldn't accept it."

Renowned for her ability to represent the community, she likes to stay focused on digging through the details of most legislation and proposals for their impact on the community. "Part of the reason I run as an independent is centered around my belief that if we lose the local level to big money, we've lost local politics." The candidate to date has spent less than $4000 of her money on her campaign despite receiving only a $20,000 salary as a council member. "Donations", Ms. Brenner believes, "make it a lot harder to remain independent as a local resource." "It is really important to me that I don't get labeled as beholden to anyone." Recently, Ms. Brenner designed her own campaign flyers and had them printed at a local business. Her husband built her website which they rent for $15/month.

Such fiscal conservatism is part of the Brenner campaign rhetoric with regards to perks, salaries and administrative expenditures in the County Council budget. However, she believes

strongly in supporting social services like the Food Bank and WIC. "Not only have I always supported the Food Bank, I have always pushed for more dollars for them... I did not accept any donations to my campaign and told people to please send that money to the food bank." Ms. Brenner makes the point that "she understands how hard it can be for most citizens in need to access government and get services: "It's about the local level. Who can those in need in Whatcom County depend upon if it is not politicians at the local level? That's who we should be here for."

Since the state and local budgetary cutbacks, Council member Brenner has been somewhat disappointed by a lack of cooperation at the state and federal level. This she attributes to declining budgets: "When the economy was stronger, we saw a greater flow of income from the state. It's easier for state and local officials to work together when there is more funding for local services." Ms. Brenner intuits that her reputation as an independent may have lost her some support from the Democratic party. "I like all the local officials, but sometimes because of my frankness I am not sure they are able to appreciate me." She rejects as hypocritical some of the personal attacks against her person in the recent election:

"I'm a person who cares and I won't turn on anyone. People have to be able to trust politicians at the local level. Trust is really important...Whether I am re-elected or not, all you have to do is ask because I don't ever turn my back on those about whom I care about. I don't even turn my back on those I don't."

As a personal note, Councilmember Brenner has been accused of having 'outbursts'. To vet such accusations, I watched a small number of hours (2 sessions) of County Council on DVD from the Bellingham Public Library which you can do by loading a media viewer like VLC Media player on your PC. I didn't see anything that looked like 'outbursts' in the August and September 2011 meetings. What I saw instead was an extraordinarily intelligent council person attempting to get public officials to answer important questions. I thought Ms. Brenner looked like the brightest tool in the shed in these meetings. Her ability to dig through documentation and create meaningful comment about the issues was impressive. So was her patient but persistent method in querying public officials.

This election may see Bellingham and Whatcom County candidates spending over $750,000 in campaign expenditures. Has politics in Whatcom County really become so well-monied that we can no longer appreciate the honesty, gifts, and integrity of a long term community stalwart like Barbara Brenner?

Expenditures and Contributions

2011-11-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Pulled down and summed up from the PDC tonight:

	Contributions	Expenditures	Debt	Ind Sup	Ind Opp
Whatcom	$451,128.28	$362,891.36	$42,351.11	$22,521.31	$16,328.23
Bellingham	$213,822.90	$168,459.80	$9,087.44	$4,221.58	$0.00
Totals	$664,951.18	$531,351.16	$51,438.55	$26,742.89	$16,328.23

The Whatcom County "Turn Out" 2005 - 2010 Part I

2011-10-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

This post is probably designed for serious politicos...The rest of you may want to spare yourself the brain drain of my numbers and less than snazy Open Office charts. -RMF

[Note: The data and graphs below are the work of one [unpaid] blogger with the help of SQL Server Express, SQL Management Studio, Open Office, and Powershell. My work comes with no promises or guarantees. Please verify the data for your purposes. For my purposes, "registered voters" includes only those voters whose ballot had a disposition of some type (e.g. not a blank 'VotingMethodDesc' field) and "turn out" is defined only by a successful disposition (e.g. 'Provisional voter' or 'Voted By Mail Ballot'). See the Methodology worksheet of my data for more information. ]

"Registered Voters" and election "Turn Out" numbers in Whatcom County appear to have averaged growth more than twice as fast per year from 2005 - 2010 as the population increase (20.6%) for the last decade (2000 - 2010). Some precincts have seen over 500 new registered voters since the 2005 General Election. Whether this is more attributable to

(A)"Vote By Mail" efficiencies or
(B) the hyper-charged political climate of Bellingham and Whatcom County or
(C) urban and rural growth and annexations or
(D) all of the above,

I do not know. However, a few hours spent in SQL Server Management Studio [see spreadsheet here] demonstrates the current impressive responsiveness of the Whatcom County electorate to their civic obligation to vote:

Many precints in Whatcom County "turned out" over 70% in the 2010 General Election.

These are the valid registration numbers that I came up with at the point of each General Election from 2005 - 2010. There are now reputedly 117,000 registrants for the upcoming 2011 election. (The auditor's office may have recently pruned this from over 118,000...) Below, note the turnout spike from the 2008 General Election (of Barack Obama):

Where have all the new registrants come from and are they voting? Yes, many of them are voting and the increases in registrants appear to be county wide. Some precincts have seen increases of 500 of more registered voters from 2005 - 2010. Many of these precincts are recent urban annexations or rural county areas. (See 1,2,3)

Looking below at the "Top 20 Precincts Increase in Turnout between 2005 - 2010" we see:

Precincts from Whatcom County: 109,102,149,128,103,141,130,150
Precincts from Bellingham: 209,201,208,204
Precncts from Ferndale: 604,602,605,501,504,502

Venturing into even more granular analysis of voting trends, if we compare five year increases in registration and turnout of the 48 Bellingham Precincts with the 73 ROC ("Rest of County") precincts, we see strong registration and turn out increases in Bellingham and "ROC", with exceptionally strong increases in "turn out" in "ROC" precincts:

[Registration Increases for 2005-2010 (REGINC5Y) and Turnout increases for 2005-2010 (TOINC5Y)]

Bellingham	REGINC5Y	TOINC5Y
totals	12,556	11,290
per prec ave	261.58	235.2

“ROC”	REGINC5Y	TOINC5Y
totals	16,788	18,564
per prec ave	229.97	254.3

There are now reputedly 117,000 registrants for the upcoming 2011 election next November 8th. The local election includes a tight mayor's race, a 'conservatives only' County Executive race, a Sheriff's race, county and city council races, an initiative to stop Red Light Cameras, and lots of discussion about Gateway Pacific Terminal. Be interesting to see what the turnout numbers will be!

The Way Forward....

2011-10-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

Daniel Alpert, Robert Hackett, Noriel Roubini : "The Way Forward Moving From the Post-Bubble, Post-Bust Economy to Renewed Growth and Competitiveness":

Reuters video here:

"We use infrastructure as convenient way to create demand...The only was to create demand in a capitalistic society is to create employment...Our monetary policy has not successful because excess supply is so plentiful...What it does it relies on is the government as the employer of last resort. ...We are effectively at that point."

Bright shiny graphs...

2011-10-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

And you were wondering why they are going to camp out in your city parks?

Snapshots from dynamic charting of unemployment rates (U-3!) of Washington Counties from Google public data - October 2006 vs. August 2011:

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Total All Employees, All Occupations for Whatcom County:

The Candidate Forums...

2011-10-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

I've now attended three forums, but before I discuss them and some conclusions, here are links to interviews with the candidates and local forum video from BTV10:
Print:

Media:

The Human Services, Transition Whatcom, and Whatcom Progressive Solidarity Forums were vastly different structured forums: different formats, time limits, content. But all three offered excellent information on the issues and the candidates. With the exception of the Human Services forum, these debates were not well attended. And that is the single biggest observation I have taken from my participation. There will some number of forums yet to come, with the WWU forum and another League of Women Voters forum happening this Thursday evening, October 2oth.

I won't make any comments on the forum material or the candidates at this point, only to say that the print and especially media above is well worth watching. Seeing the candidates answer questions in person is really, really important. It gives the viewer not only a feel for the candidates but a feel for the issues and problems of local government. Important facts are disbursed that are not easily available elsewhere. It bothers me that local government is not given more attention by many of the professionals, students, and activists that inhabit this county and city. I know it is hard to make the debates. We all have families and jobs. But you are missing out if you do not make a point to go. We will not make any changes in our country, local or otherwise, if we don't start occupying our government. Now is a really good chance to hear the uncensored grist of those who work for you at a local level.

Bank Transfer Day

2011-10-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the fifth of November, a woman named Kristen Christian has organized a facebook page called "Bank Transfer Day":

"Together we can ensure that these banking institutions will ALWAYS remember the 5th of November!! If the 99% removes our funds from the major banking institutions to non-profit credit unions on or by this date, we will send a clear message to the 1% that conscious consumers won't support companies with unethical business practices.

• Research your local credit union options

• Open an account with the one that best suits your needs
• Cancel all automatic withdrawals & deposits
• Transfer your funds to the new account
• Follow your bank's procedures to close your account on or before 11/05"

It is an engaging idea at first glance: pump money into your local credit union and away from multi-national banks. After all, who wouldn't consider doing this after reading the information that resulted from Bloomberg's long sought FOIA on the activities of the Federal Reserve's discount window during 2008 and 2009:

Or perhaps you are just really pissed because your a small business person and can not get a loan? And then you read in the Wall Street Journal that "More than half of $4 billion in federal funds disbursed this year to spur small-business lending by community banks was used to repay bailout funds that the banks received under the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program."

Or maybe you are just tired of getting stuck with debit card fees and high overdrawn fees? Or maybe you just finished Phil Angelides and crew excellent report on The Financial Crisis: Inquiry Report and haven't been able to stop vomiting? Or maybe you are just really upset that high rolling corporate men like the Koch brothers can "flout the law" and unduly influence grass roots political movements?

Or maybe you are one of tens of millions in the ranks of the permanently unemployed, your family has been through bankruptcy and you have lost your home due to foreclosure. Oh yeah brothers and sisters, you just might be one of those...In any event, "Bank Transfer Day" might be for you.

Robert Reich and Paul Krugman

2011-10-12T23:30:00.000-07:00

Robert Reich destroys the fallacious economic arguments of the right wing in less than three minutes:

Paul Krugman outlines the "Panic of the Plutocrats"

"And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park."

Upcoming political forums!!

2011-10-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

Bellingham Herald reporter Jared Paben has posted at length on upcoming political forums in the Whatcom County. I've pulled off four and attached links. These four are:

Bellingham located
Evening Time slots
Hosted by local political organizations and (wait for it...)
Free to the general public!

Host	Location	Date/Time	Who
Opportunity Council and others	Bellingham Muni Court 2014 C ST.	10/12 5:30 – 8:30 PM	All candidates invited...
Transition Whatcom	Whatcom County Court House 311 Grand Ave.	10/14 7:30 – 9:30 PM	County Exec and Bellingham Mayor
League of Women Voters	Bellingham Muni Court 2014 C ST.	10/20 6 – 8 PM	County Exec and Council
WWU Student Government	WWU Performing Arts Center	10/20 5-7 PM	Bellingham Mayoral

Obviously, you will have choose between the last two as they are in similar time slots, although a pair of strong legs could help you get between the the first half of one and second half of the other! I strongly recommend "The Candidate Forum on Human Services" on October 12th which is being broadcast live on BTV10. I have attended and blogged about this forum for each of the last two years (2009, 2010) and I find the content and presentation revealing. "The Candidate Forum on Human Services" asks questions of the candidates about poverty, hunger, and homelessness which are very serious problems in Whatcom County. I find candidate responses to these questions reveal much about the candidates as people and administrators. I'm going to try to cover all these events. I hope you make it there as well. Come early to get a seat!

The protests spread across the country and the world this weekend...

2011-10-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

There are now meetups and or occupiers in Friday Harbor, Anacortes, Mt. Vernon, Bellingham, Victoria, Vancouver among the 1297 occupy together communities as of 10/09/2011 9:00 PM PST.

Watch this video through to the end until an elderly women says, "I am so proud of Houston. We are no longer dormant." When Houston goes revolutionary, not too many cities can be far behind.

A peaceful and productive first rally...

2011-10-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

Several hundred (or more) protesters ("the 99%") marched peacefully through the streets of downtown Bellingham tonight to protest the inequality of wealth in our country. These protests are taking place literally in hundreds of cities across the United States and tonight's march in Bellingham showed just how deep the understanding and intuition of the malfeasance that corporate capitalism has foisted upon our country's socio-economic fabric. Unlike the "Tea Party", there is no apparent big money behind these "occupations" or "rallies". People across the nation seem to understand almost as one body that corporate capitalism and greed has sucked the wealth and prosperity out of our schools, governments, and families. The long standing imperialist wars our country has fought overseas, the lack of appropriate taxation of the wealthy, and the unregulated, undisciplined excess of the leaders of our financialized economy has created grass roots discontent across a wide fabric. These were hardly just the young or students in this rally. These protests will not stop or fade as long as joblessness, poverty, and inequality of wealth continue to maintain prominent profiles across small town America.

Here in Bellingham tonight there was no use of 'kettling', 'pepper spray', or any other evidence of 'police brutality'. Our police department appeared to concentrate on creating a safe space for the protesters downtown to march despite the interruption of traffic. Other municipalities could use some notes from the BPD on how to protect a democratic populace and allow for freedom of assembly simultaneously. These protesters are going to come back every Friday. I suggest we all join them. Too much financial collapse has gone on for too long, too many have lost their jobs, too many have lost their homes. At some point, if we wish our country to survive, we will have to work together to build an economic system not based upon "market forces" but upon deep and well-regarded principles of humanitarianism.

Occupy Bellingham is here!

2011-10-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Occupy Bellingham is here! and in 500 other cities including Washington D.C. and Wall Street. Occupy Bellingham is having a solidarity march Friday at the Federal Courthouse downtown from 4 - 7 PM:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Bellingham/129622153804379
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=258059057563507

The struggle in New York continues. The teamsters joined the march yesterday with other unions. True to history, the Guardian is covering the event as thoroughly as any other American paper:

Why the next five days are a critical part of the election period...

2011-10-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

The next five days are a critical part of the election period. Until October 10, you can register online and submit a change of address form in Washington State. After that you can walk into the Whatcom County Courthouse and do so in person until October 31st. You must submit a change of address if you expect to receive by mail your printed ballot materials in a timely manner. I recommend that everyone check to make sure their registration is up to date, especially so if you are a returning student (with a new address). My site RMFMedia will be doing its best to help!! Please register to vote!!

The Mayoral and County Executive Funding Races Through 09.30. 2011 : Part I

2011-10-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I downloaded the Bellingham Mayoral and Whatcom County Executive funding data from the PDC (through September 30,2011?). I sorted the "cash contributions" of funding of each candidate by amount, count, and "populist ratio" (a synthetic statistic). You will have to click on the image below to enlarge. The spreadsheet data for this blog post can be found here.

The clear winner in the 'funding race' at this point is Kelli Linville. Although Dan Pike closely trails her in "raised funds", Linville's "cash contributions" total and total count of "cash contributions" exceed Pike's substantially. I counted donations of $500 or more and $100 or less for all candidates. I then created a "synthetic ratio" by subtracting from the count of all donations under $100 or less, the count of all donations $500 or more. (Here I assume that the count of donations $100 or less indicates "a populist draw" and that the count of all donations $500 or more indicates something less than that.) I divided that result by the average donation per candidate to create a "populist" ratio as shown in the far right graphic above. Under this criteria, Linville just flattens that rest of the field as the total count of her "cash contributions" is 516 to Pike's 284. Her contributions of $100 or less lead Pike 417 to 193, probably indicating widespread support. You can also look at the strength and width of her donor base by viewing points of individual donations over time in the graphic below. Pike's early lead in funding just dries up once the Linville 'machine' catches stride:

Through end of September; Donations over Time

The county executive funding race trails the mayoral funding race with the exception of Jack Louws amazing ability to draw donations over $500 dollars. 41 (26%) of Mr. Louws 156 donations are over $500. No one else comes close to this percentage. I suspect that Doug Ericksen's campaign is in trouble. His "cash contributions" are exceptionally low when compared with the other candidates and I cannot make his numbers for "all sources" total correctly. Unless he receives substantial funding in October he will probably fall far short of Mr. Louws' total of "raised funds".

It is a divided "funding race". The two Democrats running for Bellingham mayoral have 800 separate "cash contributions" between them. The two Republicans running for Whatcom county executive have 31% of that total or 251 separate "cash contributions". A total of $185,014.13 has apparently been raised by the four candidates to date, $155,032.44 of which consists of cash contributions from 1,051 donors; many of whom hail from Whatcom County and some of whom do not. (And that, dear reader, will be the subject of my next post.) Send me any thoughts and corrections you may have. I did my best to check these numbers carefully.

The revolution will be multicast....

2011-09-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

The live feed for New York "Occupy Wall Street" :

The live feed for Los Angeles "Occupy Wall Street" :

More coverage at HuffPost. Watch the NYPD mace these protestors:

Downloadable Posters can be found at www.occupytogether.org

Register to Vote for the 2011 General Election!!!

2011-09-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

"OMG!! Did I remember to register to vote?!"

MAKE SURE TO REGISTER TO VOTE!!!
October 10th is the standard deadline for voter registration for the 2011 final election in the state of Washington.

Here are some important links:

If you have moved, you must update your voter registration address now . If you need to change your address, check your voting record, or print out voter pamphlet information, you can do that here:
http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/OSOS/VoterVault/Pages/MyVote.aspx

If you need to register to vote in the state of Washington, AND if you have a WA state drivers license or a WA state ID Card , you can register on-line here:
https://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/secure/pages/Onlinevoterregistration.aspx

If not, you can print out a paper voter registration form here:
http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/voterinformation/Pages/RegistertoVote.aspx

You can do walk-in or "in-person" registration at the Auditor's desk at the Whatcom County Courthouse until October 31. If you need more information from the Whatcom County Auditor's election page, you can find the Voter's Guide here:
http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/whatcom/CurrentElection/Pages/OnlineVotersGuide.aspx

Visualizing Cherry Point...

2011-09-20T21:54:00.000-07:00

The first few cars of a coal train make their way through Boulevard Park in Bellingham, WA.

Imagine the sheer audacity and arrogance of a capitalist society from the perspective of the local level. For at least the last ten years, the residents of the city of Bellingham have been recovering from its industrial past, removing industrial plants from its waterfront, pursuing redevelopment plans, strengthening its downtown core, and developing a first rate economy based on education, health, and a progressive government. While doing so, this city has attracted numerous ex-urbans, retirees, and wealthy immigrants, all who want to share in the growth of this small city with such mesmerizing beauty. Hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars have flooded into Whatcom County banking system on the basis of development and speculation. Now, on the near whim of a broken and bankrupt carbon-based national economy, a few wealthy corporations (with the backing of local, state, federal leaders) think it is a good idea to run 48 million metric tons of coal through our recently revitalized downtown and merchant districts. And there really doesn't appear any good way to stop them.

Why should any individual or family put down plans to invest their time and energy in any city, county, or region if the monied elite of society (in this case Goldman Sachs(SSA Marine), Warren Buffett (BNSF), and Peabody Coal) can simply 'decide' they are going to revert our city core back into an industrial wasteland? What real good has corporate capitalism done anyone but fill the pockets of the rich and the speculators? There should be drafted a kind of "community bill of rights" that allows the members of the local community who live actually live in those communities to decide:

what types of industry they want
how that industry should be deployed

Can you imagine what the economy of downtown Bellingham will look like in just two years if 18 - 20 monster coal trains pictured above stream through our downtown everyday? Will customers still bother to book reservations at the Chrysalis Inn? Will those from out of town still consider buying waterfront condos? Will any developers even think about putting up 'luxury condos' on the new waterfront? The train caught on video above was chugging slowly through town this morning. There were so many cars attached, that by the time I had finished filming the first 20 or 30 cars on the Harris Street pier, I was able to walk back to my car at the north end of Boulevard Park lot. By the way, there is no 'caboose' on trains like this, just two engines on the front and two (in reverse) on the back side.

Of course, a new Gateway Pacific Terminal will undoubtly stuff millions of dollars in the hands of the few. What good will shoveling coal to China do for the rest of us?

Urban Farming and Democracy: Part III

2011-09-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

The promise of the backyard

The New York Times has an excellent article on rural vegetable gardening for sustenance in West Virginia. It represents national coverage for an important phenomena : the nation's families are worried about feeding themselves. Urban gardening contains rich possibilities for local policy and subsidization. Why finance road building when you could be paying people for feeding themselves and their communities? At the very least, cities and counties could team up with university agricultural extensions to offer advice, subsidized equipment rentals, informal neighborhood markets, etc. There is a good chance this will happen on it's own without help. But subsidizing and encouraging urban farming might just be a worthwhile public mission in times of economic contraction and increasing food prices.

Urban farming is different than commercial farming. It involves making a wide variety of vegetables grow in small spaces. Often produce looks a little different than what you buy in the store, but tastes much better. Cooking, canning and preserving are part of this process. Every city in the nation should help subsidize and encourage this process in the current "unemployment economy". It gives the urban farmer a sense of worth, helps reduce now outrageous produce and food expenses, and will give the vast army of unemployed meaningful and local work. Why spend money building roads for subdivisions that will never be occupied amidst interminable foreclosures? Here are more ideas for a set of "urban farming" municipal policies:

(1) Use municipal information architecture to encourage urban gardening. Create municipally sponsored web-based chat rooms and government channel television documentaries on local urban farmers. Interview urban farmers. Talk about building greenhouses, working with fertilizer, climate issues, etc.
(2) Create government employment surrounding "urban gardening". Create "urban farming" missions where city or county representatives come out to discuss how to create bountiful vegetable gardens, canning fruit, preparing meals, planning for the nutritional needs of your family by planting appropriate crops.
(3) Subsidize 'victory garden' plots in every community. Fence them in, provide for them, and staff them with city hirees or 'paid' volunteers. Encourage informal exchanges between neighboorhoods. Create local neighborhood group structure that help feed the needy in their neighborhoods with community grown food.
(4) Ally with Agricultural Co-operatives, Universities, State and other local resources to encourage and subsidize "urban farming", composting,seed distribution, seed saving, food production.

Whatcom County has a number of food banks and considerable unemployment and poverty. A decentralized municipal policy that encourages urban farming won't solve those problems, but could be part of a larger package that dedicates tax dollars that are distributed directly to neighborhoods to increase the health of the larger community.

Katia as it wanders by NYC...

2011-09-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

Katia as it wandered by NYC this Friday...

Let's hope their right...

2011-09-07T05:17:00.000-07:00

Let's hope NOAA is right!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT2+shtml/070849.shtml?:
....

"000
WTNT42 KNHC 070849
TCDAT2

HURRICANE KATIA DISCUSSION NUMBER  37
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL122011
500 AM AST WED SEP 07 2011

...

THE INITIAL MOTION IS A FAIRLY SLOW 315/08. GLOBAL MODELS SHOW KATIA

GRADUALLY TURNING FROM NORTHWESTWARD TO NORTHWARD INTO A WEAKNESS
IN THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE OVER THE WESTERN ATLANTIC DURING THE NEXT
24-36 HOURS. AFTER THAT...THE HURRICANE IS EXPECTED TO GRADUALLY
RECURVE INTO THE WESTERLIES AND ACCELERATE NORTHEASTWARD ON THE
SOUTH SIDE OF A BROAD TROUGH COVERING THE FAR NORTH ATLANTIC. THE
TRACK GUIDANCE HAS CONSISTENTLY BEEN HANDLING THE STEERING FLOW
AROUND THE STORM WELL FOR SEVERAL FORECAST CYCLES AND IS TIGHTLY
CLUSTERED...GIVING HIGH CONFIDENCE TO THE FORECAST."

Hurricane Katia,circled in black to the left. Graphics taken from from NOAA and Naval Weather Monterey 09/07/2011.

From Naval Weather Monterey

Five Day Forecasts for TS Lee and TS Katia and the Jet Stream

2011-09-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

These are the five day forecasts for TS Lee and TS Katia with the matching five day forecast for the jet stream:

We are Legion...

2011-09-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

You have to admit, it is one eye-catching poster:

Irene

2011-08-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

Irene from the latest Naval Monterey update:

Why Economic Planning and Economic Growth Matters

2011-08-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Crime Statistics for a small part of Oakland Ca (centered from our previous home) for the last month (July 22nd - August 22nd) from Oakland Crime Spotting:

There is a dangerous statistical analysis being propagated around the press based on some ~~obviously fallacious~~ presumptuous numbers which claims to show that crime rates (violent or otherwise) are headed down across the country for some number of years in spite of an unrelenting economic downturn. Nominally, it could be the case that crime statistics can be shown to be falling. But no matter what those numbers say, the hard truth is they may not be very useful to understand our county or our country's economic future. I will explain.

Oakland, Ca is a city with a history that is really not that much different than Bellingham, WA. Both are "Bay cities" on the interior or 'hinterland' side of their bay. Both were boom towns at a certain time that prospered by shipping natural resources (redwood and cedar respectively) to San Francisco and other destinations during their early years of development. Both still maintain very high volume dollar shipping facilities that create a large portion of their counties respective GDP. Oakland has one of the largest containerized ports in world. Its rail connections ship east Asian goods across the country. Bellingham has two very significant refineries and an Aluminum plant. It may well soon have a very significant coal terminal. Both cities depend upon public spending (Health, Education, Government) for creating opportunities for middle class families and employment. In reality, both host counties (Alameda and Whatcom) have significant minority populations. (Although we hardly notice our Hispanic and Native American populations here in Bellingham.) Both cities have an industrial history of a tough, gritty, abandoned downtown at some time in their past. Why then is it so much easier to raise your children today in Bellingham, WA? Why would families choose to move here?

The answer is obvious to those of us who live here now. I can walk downtown through a still prosperous set of merchants, through a delightfully cute set of homes in the Cornwall, Columbia, Lettered Streets, CDB neighborhoods with so little fear of being mugged that it has taken me almost ten years of living here to adjust to living without paranoia and fear that became second nature for me growing up in east Oakland. What went wrong in Oakland? What did Bellingham do right?

That crime is primarily driven by lack of economic opportunity and poverty was driven home to me time and time again as a youth growing up in east Oakland. The more depressed the economy, the less employment opportunities, the higher the murder rate. The "institutionalization of narcotics trafficking" is the interface the funnels the destructive energy of unemployment, poverty, family disintegration, poor educational facilities in tough cities like Oakland, CA. But it is not lack of wealth that drives crime.The Port of Oakland is a multi-billion dollar facility. It is a wealth transfer and wealth creation machine that ships the commerce of the world to the Western United States and beyond. Major banks and corporations have been and are still located in Oakland, Ca (American President Lines, Clorox, Kaiser Permanente are some notable historical examples.) Like Bellingham, Oakland is and has been a major terminus for BNSF and other rail lines.

Why do so many residents of Oakland live in poverty amidst such wealth driving infrastructure? Why is Oakland's downtown still a (euphemistic) problematic stroll after dark and Bellingham's downtown an up and coming vibrant place to be? The reason for this is simple. During the last ten years, Whatcom County has managed to spread wealth to it middle classes, largely by importing income from (ex-urban,retiree and otherwise) immigrants, a growing (publicly subsidized) health and education sector and an (environmentally) activist population attentive to the needs of quality of life over excess development. The answer for our prosperity and success here is not that we have spent per person more money suppressing crime than Oakland. We have paltry law enforcement budgets by comparison. We have a continually over-populated jail and yet we have little gang based activity by comparison. (Although, our SIU at BPD may tell you that there is actually more gang based activity that what appears on the surface...)

I once heard a Police Chief in Oakland deliver a speech to a local Chamber of Commerce. The speech was forthright. He admitted that no matter how many officers he put on the streets, he could never lower the crime rate in Oakland's downtown as effectively as could economic growth and prosperity. His message was clear: The value of an economic policy that put many people walking and living downtown in clean, well light areas would always trump another few hundred officers on the street. Thus, Oakland rebuilt it's city center, stuffed innovative housing downtown, elected a very talented mayor (Jerry Brown, now the governor of California - again!) whose strategic economic policy was simple - "I want 10,000 people living and working downtown", Jerry told us. And he proceeded to do his best to achieve that. Unfortunately, Oakland is a very large city and the problem of the "institutionalization of the narcotics trade" resembles that of malignant cancer. Once embedded, it is very, very hard to put into remission. In some ways, Governor Brown may end up recalling his terms at governor as more successful than his terms at mayor. But as I have said, it is a tough city Oakland. Maybe even too tough for a San Franciscan like Governor Brown too fix. But thanks for helping, governor Brown. Really. We appreciate any one in Oakland who tries hard at urban renewal and job creation. Any success in those areas in Oakland has always required super human efforts.

Why am I recounting these lessons to you Bellinghammers? Because we should think very carefully about our economic future for the next ten or twenty years. Your present daily life aside, we don't live in Brigadoon. The reality of recession, unemployment, poverty, crime, bankruptcy, and foreclosure is here with us now. It will get worse if we do not structure economic policies for employment and a vibrant downtown, despite whatever taxes and wealth 48 MMT of coal imports may funnel (or not) through and over the heads of most people in the county. At all costs, I would advise the citizens of Whatcom County to work hard to preserve the economic integrity of Bellingham's downtown. Crime and poverty once embedded in dense urban neighborhoods would spread like an affliction through the county. We do not have such crime now. It remains to be seen how running 25 miles of coal trains through our town each day would effect that calculus.

Whither the anti Coal Terminal voters?

2011-08-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

Most of the Whatcom County Executive votes are in. It appears Bellingham voters will have a choice only between two men who favor the development of the GPT Coal Port at Cherry Point. Just for kicks I analyzed how many precincts had votes whose sum total for David Stallheim plus Tom Anderson exceeded Doug Erickson's total. That number is 54 precincts. Here are the top ten precincts where the combined votes of Stallheim and Anderson exceeded Ericksen for each precinct:

Precinct	-(DE-(DS+TA))
207	-230
236	-229
206	-216
245	-209
241	-168
212	-166
213	-165
244	-159
242	-154
122	-143

A chart of such votes looks like this:

Interestingly enough, the total of all such votes (4130) is very nearly the lead Ericksen has over Stallheim. It is useless enough to generalize about a primary that only attracts 37% of all voters. Still students, environmentalists, doctors, and Bellingham business people will be deprived of a vote against the Coal Terminal in the final election bar the entrance of a write-in candidate. I propose someone against the coal terminal run as a write-in candidate (if that is possible). The student vote alone will probably add another 32K votes for such a candidate. For many of us, Louws vs. Ericksen isn't much of a choice.

On Tuesday, we vote...(Primary Election)

2011-08-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we vote. Here are some still valid links to Voter Registration information from last year's election. Here are the websites of the Bellingham Mayoral Candidates:

Here are the websites of the Whatcom County Executive candidates:

All I can say about this primary and the upcoming general election is that the "make or break" issue will obviously be whether or not we want up to 25 miles of coal trains running through our city and county for the rest of our lives. Strangely, almost no candidate features this issue on the front page of their websites. The second most important issue ought to be whether or not we want red light cameras strung up all over our town. Again, not well featured on any candidate website.

But the most important is issue is the impending takeover of Bellingham, Wa by Goldman Sachs, ATS, SSA Marine (Carrix), Peabody Coal, BNSF and Warren Buffet. No one seems to be talking about the fact that Goldman Sachs is a majority owner or a major investor in both SSA Marine (Carrix) and ATS. Or that Warren Buffet (financier/owner of BNSF) and Goldman Sachs (GS) have been financially in bed together for quite some time. So let's just cut the crap:

Powder River Basin Coal sells for about $13/ton. In China, spot price for coal has been over $130/ton at points this year. So: 48 MMT/year * ($130-$13) = $5,616,000,000/year ? Did I do that math correctly? Well, that's a pile cash that will fly over the heads of most residents of Whatcom County, the single most impoverished county touching Puget Sound. Let's see here: $5.6B/year * 4 year mayoral term = $22.4B/mayoral term...hmmm.). On top of this, GS has invested in the red-light camera company ATS (An initiative banning red light cameras will probably be on the November ballot despite the suit by ATS.) In reality, some share of every red light ticket will be directed to GS. Warren Buffet (BNSF and historic investor/owner of insurance companies through Berkshire Hathaway ) has heavily invested in Goldman Sachs. Like GS, BH may stand to benefit from increased insurance rates for which increased red light ticketing would probably provide. But it makes some sense strategically to put up high speed cameras in a politically volatile, activist, impoverished county. It would allow the forces that be to easily surveil coal train protesters and human rights activists should they have such a need to put us all in a really large sized jail! But don't look for your mayoral and county executive candidates to put all of that together for you citizen. We will be lucky if we can find even one candidate not firmly (if not clandestinely) placed in the pocket of the corporate capitalism takeover of Bellingham, WA.

Poverty Rates in Washington

Building Roads without Permits?

2011-08-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

This is the King 5 video (from Monday) on the controversy created by Carl Weimer's discovery of extensive road building efforts at the Gateway Pacific Terminal site by SSA Marine:

This issue is getting lots of local discussion (1,2,3,4,5,6). Is building roads without permits a classic expression of the lawlessness and arrogance of "The Carbon Club"? Something akin, perhaps, to shipping coal without covered train cars? Or maybe creating global climate change while simultaneously denying it? Or maybe funding reactionary political movements in the United States? Or lobbying for genocidal, imperialist wars in the Middle East? Tonight, I registered nocoaltrains.blogspot.com. More coming soon...

The Violent Manifesto of a 'Cultural Conservative'

2011-07-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

"Regardless of the above cultural Marxist propaganda; I will always know that I am perhaps
the biggest champion of cultural conservatism, Europe has ever witnessed since 1950. I am
one of many destroyers of cultural Marxism and as such; a hero of Europe, a savior of our
people and of European Christendom – by default. A perfect example which should be
copied, applauded and celebrated. The Perfect Knight I have always strived to be. A
Justiciar Knight is a destroyer of multiculturalism, and as such; a destroyer of evil and a
bringer of light. I will know that I did everything I could to stop and reverse the European
cultural and demographical genocide and end and reverse the Islamisation of Europe."

"From 2083: A European Declaration of Independence"

The diary and Manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik is an extraordinary pathological, chilling and disturbed 1500 plus pages. Largely the product of the absorption of reactionary and white supremacist dogma, Mr. Breivik hopes to become a martyr to his Anti-Jihad cause. His manifesto is an explicit attack on secular liberalism, Marxism, and universalist ideology of all types. It includes detailed instructions on bomb construction, arms purchase and training, and drug use for enhanced performance. I am surprised that (a) it has been published by the Washington Post and that (b) Mr. Breivik is so lucid and detailed in his writing. The specificity of his content and the details of his (apparently solitary) preparation are shocking. Mr. Breivik's document is being compared to "The Unabomber Manifesto". However, given the white nationalist message of Mr. Breivik's document, a more relevant comparison might be "The Turner Diaries". Mr. Breivik appears to be a Scandinavian version of Robert Jay Matthews, a Washington state based white-nationalist who founded The Order. Unfortunately, we know quite a bit about the dangers of white nationalism in Whatcom County and Washington State. Perhaps, we should offer the Norwegians some help.

Urban Farming Part II

2011-07-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

From Our Garden....

So this is not a terrible lot of food, but every two or three days I pull about this much vegetable/fruit mass out of my small garden. The tomatoes are way behind this year, the carrots will need another 30 days to be useful, the onions probably needed more fertilizer and the squash (although) showing promise, is also late.
However:

the strawberries just keep producing and growing
the kale is unstoppable
the renegade spinach has gone to seed before I could eat it all
the bull beet tops are delicious
and it looks like I am going to have quite a crop of potatoes
parsley, rosemary and golden sage especially are doing well enough...

Did I mention the blooming bush peas? Boy are they sweet to eat. Raw. Right out of the pod!

Bush Peas

On the whole, I still have some mixed thoughts about turning my back yard into "the food machine". I think it will be some time and take some more care and thought before my skill level and planting create a serious return on my investment. And I worry that time spent in the garden is time I could spend teaching Isabel multiplication or writing more code. But still: I have fresh strawberries for my daughter and wife every morning, I've eaten my fill of raw spinach and kale (that's just got to be good for you), the baby carrots are great, fresh bush peas in a pod are delectable, and my six bare root fruit trees (cherry, apple, pear) have grown like weeds in less than three months. The apple even has 10 pieces of fruit! Isabel counted them for me! Almost makes the (3) five gallon buckets I dump on each tree every 2 - 3 days worth the exercise....

Bellingham Festival of Music: Free Performances and Master Classes

2011-07-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

Stefan Jackiw helps bring out the passion in a Bellingham Violinist as part of the free master classes offered at the Bellingham Festival of Music

07/10/2011 : As an update to this post, Isabel and I have made it to two exciting and well played free performances and one exceptionally brilliant master class with Stefan Jackiw. I am not sure what Mr. Jackiw thought of my fidgety daughter and my friend Jeff's snoring service dog, but we all thought he was brilliant. Seeing him work with the young musicians was revelatory. All of the musicians were technically competent, but Mr. Jackiw worked to bring the depth and meaning out of their music, also adding important (and interesting) historical comments about the inspiration for each piece. As a "Violin Dad", I was very impressed and I learned a considerable amount about the importance of playing the instrument with passion. What Stefan voiced was the implementation of what most of us feel when we hear a great performance, but for novice audience members like myself it was gratifying to receive some insight into how musicians convey the passion of such music to the audience. Thanks again, Stefan and the Bellingham Festival of Music!

The Bellingham Festival of Music will be offering free performances and master classes during The Bellingham Festival of Music which kicked off last night at the WWU Performing Arts Center. The rest of the schedule is impressive. As usual, fine art performances are now priced above working middle class family budgets. But so is everything else anyway. Someone should be seriously thanked for this effort to connect classical music to the wider community. So today, after you are done shopping at the Bellingham Farmer's Market (the best farmer's market on the West Coast according to Sunset Magazine), drop by Mallard's Ice Cream with your budding musical protege and enjoy the good life!

Free performances include:

July 2

3:30 PM

Mallard Ice Cream

1323 Railroad Ave

July 6

12:30 PM

Whatcom Museum, Lightcatcher Building

Sponsors: Daniel & Sharona Feller

July 7

9:45 AM

WWU Performing arts Center Concert Hall

This will be the first rehearsal for the July 9 performance.

July 13

2:00 PM

Whatcom Museum of History & Art, Rotunda Room

Sponsors: Daniel & Sharona Feller

Free master classes include:

Stefan Jackiw, Violin

July 8

10 AM till Noon

Christ the Servant Lutheran Church

2600 Lakeway Drive

Bellingham, WA

Jeremy Denk, Piano

July 12

10 AM till Noon

First Congregational Church

2401 Cornwall Ave.

Bellingham, WA

"Gasland"

2011-06-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Mike Markham lights his tap water on fire in "Gasland".

"Gasland", a movie by Josh Fox about "fracking" is now renting at Film is Truth in Bellingham, WA. This film is worth your time, especially if you are one of the American cities lined up to export coal across the world. "Gasland" has it all: disillusioned middle Americans sickened by living in a "fracked" landscape, water supplies than can be light on fire at the faucet, pristine creeks that bubble with "fracked gas". What a truly terrifying and toxic process "fracking" is. And yet these wells have spread by the thousands across America. Rent this film, and you will never trust the "carbon industry" again. The movie has moved many. Josh Fox is apparently working on a sequel. The bonus features on the DVD fill out the film significantly.

The "Left/Right Coalition" against the War in Afghanistan

2011-06-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is a long discussion between liberal Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern and conservative North Carolina representative Walter Jones. The two of them sponsored a bill that failed but showed strong bipartisan support. In this video, both congressman agree that the costs of war are impoverishing our economy and country. Congressman Jones has a district heavily populated by military bases and retired military. He visits frequently, as did former Congressman John Murtha, Walter Reed hospital. Their discussion is about 20 minutes and worth listening to:

Nationalization, Secession, and Revolt

2011-06-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate 2001 - 2011 from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics

There is now much talk about the impending "U.S. Crisis" : an endlessly sinking economy, high unemployment, collapsed housing economy, bloated national budget, disconcerted and disconnected populace; a populace that grows increasingly disillusioned (and angry) with almost every objective of the federal government and its empire. Yet, amidst this crisis, Rome fiddles with discussions of debt limits, health insurance, energy policy, 'terrorism', energy policy, and birth certificates. Everything is considered but the will of the people and the health of their communities. How much longer can such an alienated populace live in pain under a seemingly disconnected and uncaring authority?

Small businesses are being dragged through the bowels of bankruptcy at alarming rates. The trillions of federal support that encompass this "recovery" appear to have been mostly targeted to stabilizing our largest banking institutions and corporations at the expense of unions, small businesses, community banks, and families. These large institutions have not reciprocated with hiring, only downsizing. The feeling in small town America darkens. We appear to have spent the last ten years bankrupting our economy by fighting (and losing) wars most of us did not support, by loosing the reigns on a steroidally liquid economy whose end effect was the wholesale destruction of community and family. What do we owe Washington,D.C. and the national corporcracies supported by federal government after they have extracted from us so much - our sons and daughters traumatized by war, our communities traumatized by economic armaggedon, our belief in our country smashed by the largely unpunished fraud and greed of Wall Street? Why should we believe in anything now? To whose allegiance do we owe our "patriotism" now?

The argument is pervasive. In all corners, "middle Americans" are now in pain. While 'off-shored' corporate profits have skyrocketed, productivity at all time highs, the proud American worker has been relegated to the economic dustbin of history. The high unemployment is having deleterious effects on family, community, and local politics. The situation is analogous to early twentieth century America - a populace so divided and upset that here in Washington state that we gave "Progressive Party" candidate Theodore Roosevelt 35.2% of the vote AND Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debbs 12.4% of the Presidential vote! It seems certain now that we will not "recover" from shocks this deep. There is not enough "resilience" left inside of us to handle so much pain,loss, and volatility. Somehow, Wall Street, K Street, the Congress, the Whitehouse, and the "Fed" seemed to have lost sight that our communities, families, and workers become "broken beyond repair" at some point, unable to believe or 'recover'. And yet the "spectacle of government" parades on in Washington, D.C. Do its citizens bother to listen to it anymore? Do they care?

If not, those citizens may very soon start to consider their "options." And none of these "options" bode well for the health of the Republic, but let us examine what some of them might be. The first might be a generalized revolt. Perhaps not an organized revolt at first, but small pockets of armed resistance organizing "criminal" strikes against local businesses, national corporations, federal infrastructure, interstate banks. This would lead to chaos and a law enforcement response at first, but could escalate if economic payments (welfare, food stamps, general assistance) were stopped by 'debt limits', especially if accompanied by high energy prices. At some point, "the foreclosure crisis" could escalate to such an epidemic that state governors would have to step in (as they did in the depression), desperate to keep families and property taxpayers in their homes. This would break interstate banking and in turn possibly break the interstate economy as we now know it. In anticipation of these events, high level advocates of states rights are most probably right now contemplating a path to secession. The United States is geographically arranged such that economic relationships between the states could be formed independent of federal authority. The I-5 connected, Pacific coast facing, "Western Wall" of WA, OR, and CA could have strong motivations to link together in such a a crisis. These states have export based economies that could survive or even prosper as a single nation-state. If state based support were great enough for a "western secession", ultimately there would little the federal government could do against a unified effort here on the west coast or perhaps elsewhere.

Most probably, large corporations and interstate banks would be "nationalized" either by law or in practice during any secessionist attempts. New taxing authorities, trade relationship, access to capital, and international relationships would have to be created. But then again, we are good at such things on the "Left Coast". Too good and too far-sighted to let a corrupt and bankrupt Wall Street and Washinghton, D.C. drag us down into a unending recession forever. Believe me when I tell you, that if I can imagine such things, those much smarter and resourced than I are planning how it may play out now.

"May you live in interesting times", said the wise man. Indeed.

Coal Trains in Bellingham (and Coal Mines in the Comox Valley) Part IV

2011-05-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

Update to this post (05/31/2011): I saw Bill McKibben speak tonight on the Fairhaven Green. Very inspiring. There were about three or four hundred people I would imagine. Bill stressed how global warming effects the poor disproportionately. He wants the "carbon bomb" of the Powder River Basin left "in the ground."

Activist and author Bill McKibben speaks at the Fairhaven Green tomorrow in Bellingham, WA. The title of his speech is:"They Want to Build North America's Biggest Coal Terminal in Whatcom County? Really?". Here is Mr. McKibben speaking at Powershift 2011 on April 17 of this year:

The band starts at 5:00 PM. Bill will speak at 7:00 PM. I've blogged about Coal Trains in Whatcom County (1,2,3) and a number of groups have been fervently engaged in community and environmental organization(1,2). In researching this topic today, I have discovered that the beautiful 'Comox Valley' and Port Alberni is also going to be subject to the Coal Industry (1,2,3). So they are going to mine coal from Victoria Island, ship it out of Port Alberni to....Of course the demand in Asia is driving all of this. The economics of coal export are hard to beat for profit. Canadians are having meetings this week:

Monday May 30, 2011 - Florence Filberg Centre, Courtenay
Thursday June 2, 2011 - Port Alberni Athletic Hall, Port Alberni
Friday June 3, 2011 – Union Bay Community Club, Union Bay

The Sightline Daily has a series of excellent articles on "The Dirt on Coal" including an excellent April 28 article "What a Coal Export Terminal Looks Like" which comes replete with exellent photographs by Bellinghammer Paul K. Anderson. In honor of Mr. McKibben's visit, I am posting some archived material on Whatcom County coal mines I have accumulated from various sources. (More on this later...) I have to admit, I'm a little pissed off by this point. I moved to Bellingham to find a safe, clean, place to raise a family. My wife and I both really liked the Comox Valley when we have visited it. We thought it might be a good place to own a retirement/vacation home. Wow...

But as Craig Cole said at the recent Bellingham City Club at the Gateway Pacific Terminal meeting, "we are a debtor nation, we owe the Chinese $3 Trillion dollars...we just can't go on being a buyer of things." And we do need jobs and tax monies. So I guess we will live with dirt and grime (and toxicity?) of coal dust here in Whatcom County...

map from "Coal Fields of Western Whatcom County, Washington", Olaf P. Jenkins 1923

Waiting for the Revolution...

2011-05-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

Just some of the business space for rent, sale, or lease in and around downtown Bellingham.

"Though national economists have declared a technical end to the deep recession that has plagued our country since at least 2008, we would be hard-pressed to find many in the local economy who feel that is true, based on the continuing financial pressures in their lives and businesses. " Mayor Dan Pike from 2011 Budget Message

They say we have hit another "soft patch" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - too many disasters, too little GDP, too much unemployment and under-employment, abysmal housing stats. Productivity is up, Corporate profits, savings and earnings (in some cases) are sky high but...small businesses and families are collapsing in city after city across middle America. Residential construction activity levels are some slight level above rigor mortis.

It can't go on like this forever. At some point we will either have to:

acknowledge a permanent change in our socio-economic fabric
have a recovery
throw a Marxist revolution

I came across an OECD chart that sums up how the Western world got to this dark place. Unions may not always be the correct solution, but they made the small business economy work by driving wealth into the hands of consumers, who promptly recycled it into the main street economy. They are not doing that now.

"Trade union density(%) in OECD countries, 1960-2008"

The result is ever decreasing consumer expenditures and ever decreasing service sector performance and tax revenues. We can let a few of Bellingham Finance Director John Carter's slides make this clear for us:


"2010 Year End Presentation"

This is despite over $139 million in 262 separate recovery spending awards for Whatcom County alone to date. Our official Whatcom County employment rate is 10%. But this hides, as it does for the rest of the nation, a nearly calamitous fall in employment participation numbers.

Recovery.gov spending comparsions

Despite all this recovery spending and billions of dollars of 'quantitative easing' we still have high foreclosure rates and bankruptcy rates in Whatcom County. For the last 28 months we have averaged 68 bankruptcies per month. For April 2011, we hit 82:

It can't go on like this forever. Where do we go from here?

The 'value' of walking...

2011-05-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

The City of Bellingham Public Works department is requesting feedback on the Bellingham Pedestrian Master Plan. They have created a very comprehensive pedestrian survey. Kim Brown is the public point of contact. If you are a pedestrian, I urge you to think seriously about the value of pedestrian walkways and pedestrian safety in your neighborhood. Then submit your ideas and talk about the problem pedestrian areas in your neighborhood. To imagine the value of pedestrian access, imagine $8/gallon. Imagine a world where only the rich and high paid professionals drive. Or better yet, imagine $12/gallon in a world where the only downtown neighborhood residents are the rich or highly paid professionals and you (middle class family at that) are forced to bus to work and walk to shopping, school, entertainment. For some of you , that world is already here. Here are some of the comments I submitted:

"COB did very good work with 'Artist's Plaza' at the intersection of Holly, Rocket Donuts, Commercial, etc. The other improvements (light crosswalks, bulbed out corners, speed cushions, ALL the TRAFFIC CIRCLES (Yeah!)) have helped as well. I would like to see COB create requirements for new commercial parking lots that include pedestrian walkways. I would also like to see a separate "Walk your child to school/work day". I would like to see Tsunami Warning Signs and Evacuations routes and plans for Pedestrians. Safe routes to schools should continue to be high priority.

I would like a clear path and trail from Squalicum to Sunset Shopping Mall Area. I would like the new Squalicum Ballfields linked to Sunset Shopping District by Trail.
I would like Meridian Creek uncovered and respected. Create a real environment for that creek with a trail (with pedestrian buffers) that leads to the mall from Northwest and Meridian.
Waterfront - I would like the proposed archway built from the end of Broadway to the Waterfront (Bellweather)
Create property tax breaks for those who walk their children to school.

More trees, benches, lighting would be nice. However, I would like convenient non-traffic trails to the Bellis Fair Mall, Squalicum Ball Fields, Sunset Shopping Area, and Waterfront from my Cornwall Park neighborhood home. I realize the funds for that type of work are probably not easily found. However, imagine these improvements and their neighborhood value:

Imagine a Tsunami resistant bridge/archway that connects the end of Broadway to the Bellweather/Zuanich Park waterfront
A trail along a refurbished Meridian Creek (with access through the Country Club) that leads to the Bellis Fair Mall.
'Bay to Baker' trail concept restored/finished.

I think these 'connectors' will ultimately have nearly as much 'economic value' as the completion of the walkway from the northern end of Boulevard Park to the Cornwall Landfill. Peter (realtor in the Columbia neighborhood) once proposed the skyway from Broadway to Bellweather. John McGarrity was once an active supporter of the 'Bay to Baker' trail. I think it would be useful to create a study comparing the economic and neighborhood values of the these pedestrian extensions versus the extension of the Boulevard Park Pier. Columbia, Cornwall, Lettered Streets, Birchwood are very densely populated residential neighborhoods now, so 'connectors' to the downtown, the Meridian malls, the existing waterfront could have very high economic value to the city.

I would also like to see economic study of the 'value' of pedestrian access at multi-variate $$/per BOE. For example, at $200/boe, $300/boe, $400/boe? How many citizens would walk more? Last, I would like to see health study of potential decreases in heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc given projected increased in increased pedestrian miles walked, decreased commuter miles driven for our community. I would like to see a study of property tax breaks for those parents who consistently walk their children to school thus alleviating roadway use and increasing the value of school based neighborhoods."

An anomalous event?

2011-05-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Three fascinating studies measuring the diplacement of land and energy of the recent earthquake in Japan have been published by Science Magazine. The research suggests an earthquake unusual if not anomalous in intensity, energy, and displacement. Science Magazine is making the news and research coverage of the quake free for all visitors.

"With such a limited perspective on the past release and the current buildup of strain, a magnitude-9 quake caught researchers by surprise. Learning that most of the March megaquakes slip was concentrated on two segments makes scientists more worried about other faults around the Paciﬁc. If you can get a 9 that is this compact, Wald says, it increases the number of places you can [ﬁt in] a 9 where you may not have expected one." " from New Work Reinforces Megaquake’s Harsh Lessons in Geoscience

"That the 2011 event produced approximately 50 m of slip up-dip of the historical Miyagi M7+ events is roughly consistent with a 500 to 1,000 year potential slip accumulation period. However, there is no basis on which to assume that the aforementioned interval of 1,100 years is representative of the recurrence interval of great earthquakes in this segment—it could be shorter by a factor of two and still be consistent with the surface displacement budget and the peak slip inferred in this recent earthquake." from The 2011 Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake: Mosaicking the Megathrust from Seconds to Centuries

"We find a mainshock radiated energy ES = 9.1 × 10^18 J, averaged over all stations and all choices of eGf....Nevertheless, our estimate is about twice as large as the 5.1 × 10^17 J determined by the USGS." from "Shallow Dynamic Overshoot and Energetic Deep Rupture in the 2011 Mw 9.0 TohokuOki Earthquake"

"The focal region inferred from the distribution of aftershocks stretches about 500 km long and 200 km wide offshore (1)... In particular, at MYGI near the epicenter, we detected a huge co-seismic displacement of about 24 m toward ESE and about 3 m upward." from Displacement Above the Hypocenter of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake

Urban Farming and Democracy

2011-05-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

From Top Left: Kale, Spinach,Strawberries,Bush Peas

This is my third year at gardening in our backyard. What started out as an experiment to see how much food I could grow in a small urban space at minimum cost and effort has now grown to encompass a $450/year budget and lots of work and 'new' skillsets. The four 10' x 18' foot triangles have become quadrangles. The soil has has been thoroughly enriched and every year I find myself creating more elaborate "greenhouse like" structures to protect my new seedlings from wind, rain, squirrels, cats, and deer.

So is the experiment successful? Is it possible to save money on increasingly expensive food bills by engaging in urban gardening? It sure looked like it for the first two years. The year before last produced so many tomatoes from a dozen or so plants, we had them daily from June through November - this despite my really limited use of fertilizer. We live in the "Squalicum River Basin" so the soil is sandy and rocky but contains some loam. The second year, I used a little more fertilizer and quite a bit of peat. The results were just fine, although it was a "blight" year for tomatoes.

So this year, I really plowed in the manure and compost, added lime, some peat and worked my patches with the spade,hoe, and rake from February through March 15. Early results are somewhat promising, although this is a very wet spring! This year, we also added six 'bare root' fruit trees from the "Bellingham Country Store" on Meridian. I've learned quite a bit by gardening like this. Here are some of my conclusion:

Small lots can be planted densely if cared for with detail.
You can plant many different types of vegetables together.
They needed to be tended to daily, since animals, location, wind, and rain can be damaging.
Automated watering is best.
Some fertilizer is good. Too little or too much is not helpful.
Small mammals (squirrels and cats chiefly) can do a lot of damage to seed planted crops early on
You need to cook and use your vegetables to get a good return on investment.
The 49th parallel has a short and intense growing season. Lack of sun early on is an issue.
Fortunately, water is not so much a problem here as in drier climes.
There are "start-up" costs for large scale "urban farming" (e.g. tools, hoses, plastic, stakes, etc.). These costs need to be amortizes over time for urban gardening to have a competitive ROI.
Gardening success is an art, but it is also an art of developing workable systems and work habits. Without attention being paid to systems analysis, urban farming is probably just an enjoyable hobby.
The quality of fresh picked food that you integrate into your families diet has a strong spiritual and personal reward.
Nothing keeps you feeling fit like a day turning over soil with a pick and shovel.

I predict there will be a strong renaissance in urban farming and gardening. Quick Books has shown us that our grocery/restaurant bill is our highest 'non-revolving' expense now, which was a stunner. We have invested in energy saving vehicles, heat-pumps, and conservation architecture, otherwise our combined vehicle payments, gas, maintenance would be in first place. Or perhaps our "combined household energy bill" (Electricity, Petroleum, Natural Gas). I suspect that for many of you with homes and families, this "combined household energy bill" is your largest 'non-revolving' expense and especially with petroleum currently at $4/gallon in the States.(Yea, I know. Europeans are rolling their eyes right now as they read this...) But, in truth, most American families are being hit hard by high energy costs. We are used to very cheap energy. What most American families may not be thinking about is how much the increases in the price of diesel has increased our food bills in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that such a trend will regress in favor of the consumer.

What is more likely is that most families will become expert "urban farmers", probably forming informal collectives on their block, trading conserves, fruit, jam, jellies, produce, and local gardening equipment and information. There is nothing new about this. Most of our grandparents and great-grand parents survived the depression with such efforts. Urban farming could have quite a democratic effect. Nothing really brings people together like shared food. Except for maybe the experience of raising small children. And urban farming is a fantastic activity to get the family involved in.

The Coming Pacific Northwest Megaquake...

2011-05-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

When disasters (geo-political or otherwise) happen, people often say, "How could anyone have known?" It is the ultimate defense mechanism of the uninformed to believe their lives are governed by fates for which no one could prepare. Well, here is a news flash on the upcoming Cascadia MegaThrust Quake : The geologists in Oregon and Washington are telling you RIGHT NOW that we are in danger of tremendous death, damage, and upheaval in the Pacific Northwest and they have been telling us this for a number of years now.

There are no community meetings that discuss the effects a "Mega-quake" will have upon this community. There are no "Tsunami Warning" signs posted on our Waterfront areas. We are continuing to build and we are planning on greater development of our waterfront area (on previous landfill!), despite the fact that the predictions for the wave size to hit Bellingham keep getting larger and larger. There is scarce awareness of the destructiveness and chaos a 9M Cascadia Subduction Zone event will have despite the fact that Bellingham is most populous city in Washington expected to be at risk for a Cascadia Subduction Zone Tsunami!

I do not know what to do about this appalling lack of preparation. I have set my smart phone to alarm every time the West Coast and Alaska Warning Center sends me a message. Lately, I have been receiving a lot of Tsunami Information Statements from Alaska. This morning I received one from British Columbia. I think the debate is whether or not we are finished with the 8M or greater cluster (Sumatra, Chile, Sendai). If not, we are the part of the earth to shake next. Amazingly, Oregon geologists have rallied their communities and they are holding meetings. We are actually closer to the most dangerous part of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, but alas...no such meetings here in Whatcom County.

"Chris Goldfinger, an Oregon State University marine geology professor, happened to be in Japan on March 11 and experienced the magnitude-9 quake, which cut short an earthquake conference he was attending.
Goldfinger said a similar quake off Oregon would generate a tsunami 50 to 65 feet high, inundating coastal areas. Low-lying areas such as those around Tillamook Bay will drop 3 to 6 feet permanently, remaining underwater as areas did in Japan, he said. ...

When legislators call for action without appropriating money for preparation, "It's shameful," said Gonzalez, characterizing the statement as his personal opinion. "I do not believe that any one municipal entity, county or state, or even the federal government is in a position to address the damage this catastrophe will bring us," Gonzalez said. "I'm not trying to scare you. I do believe that we need to wake people up." "
from a May 12, 2011 article in The Oregonian

"YUMEI WANG: We know that this Cascadia earthquake is imminent, it's imminent in geologic time, so basically we're in a race against time and the more we can get done now the more lives we'll save.
DAVID YAMAGUCHI: If we have ten years, is that enough? Probably not. If we have fifty years? Maybe, you know. If we have a century? You know maybe we'll really be ready. But do we have a century? We don't know.
NARRATOR: The Indonesian earthquake has given the people of the Pacific Northwest a glimpse of what they will one day face. Now they must heed that warning. "

from the BBC presentation "The Next Megaquake"

Earthquakes for North America May 9 - May 16 2011

Recent Earthquake events generating a Tsunami Warning Message for the West Coast

The Meaning of War and Economic Collapse

2011-05-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

"The real war, of which this sudden outburst of death and destruction is only an incident, began long ago. It has been raging for tens of years, but its battles have been so little advertised that they have been hardly noted. It is a clash of traders." - John Reed, 1914 from "The Trader's War"

I've cross-posted several comments I made at the New York Times on recent articles. My comments essentially summarize my belief that the purpose and cause of the "War on Terror" has been to plunge the world into conflict to create a permanent state of war. This permanent state of war achieves important goals for select actors:

enriches important corporate actors in our economy
redistributes wealth to the rich
destroys and brainwashes the sons and daughters of the working class
condemns our society to a future of fossil fuels while diminishing R&D into sustainable energy
diminishes the power of the electorate to create economic justice

An excellent summary of the United States economy and imperialism can be read at "The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism in the United States". Corporate profits are now at record highs (1,2,3,4,5).

from David E. Sanger's article: "U.S. Raises Pressure on Pakistan in Raid's Wake"

my comment :

"The profits from war are caused only by the division between sets of true believers. According to his youngest widow, they lived in Abbottabad for the past five years, 800 yards from Pakistan's Military Academy. So we can rough out how this worked. The U.S. gives money and intelligence to Pakistan, who transfers that money to Bin Laden and the Taleban. Both sides create fervent support for war and jehad, so that the military-industrial complex who are selling them arms, contracts, oil can continue to make high profits forever. Meanwhile, all three countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, United States) continue to rot economically under the burdens of war and debt, impoverishing their local populations, while their rich and elite reap the profits of continual war for ten years! As a side-effect lot of young men die, lots of young men suffer grievous injuries, and lots of families are physically and psychologically destroyed. However companies that make advanced defense systems, missile, telecommunications, etc. continue to reap huge government profits from ever increasing expenditures on defense."

from Paul Krugman's Column : Fear and Failure
my comment:
"Mr. Krugman:
Great Commentary as always. But let's be frank: It is not possible anymore to use a corrupt system's logic to save a corrupt system. The Republicans and the Democrats engage in class warfare designed to destroy the working and middle classes. It's that simple. They pump billions into government contractors to fight wars overseas we can't win. Or worse they send money and intelligence to corrupt foreign governments who funnel that money to terrorists, thus ensuring that we can keep sending young men to their deaths overseas forever. Instead of simply nationalizing oil, health, finance, transportation, big pharma, etc., they bail out, subsidize, and re-float these industries who continue the same wasteful production methods that leave us bereft of guaranteed health, local energy production, centralized high speed rail, needed tax monies, and safe and clean environments to raise our families. Let's face it, our entire government is designed to bloat the rich to even greater heights of wealth at the expense of the rest of us. That's all our democracy has become. Capitalism has sucked the life out of it."

What they ask us to believe...

2011-05-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

The leaders of the United States Military-Industrial Complex watch Usama Bin Laden's assassination from a remote camera attached to the helmet of a special forces soldier.

"Then there are intelligence agencies in the U.S., which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This [funding issue] was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usama and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush Administration approved a budget of 40 billion dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance. Now they will spend the money for their expansion and for increasing their importance." attributed to Usama Bin Laden on October 16, 2001

On May 1st ("International Worker's Day" or May Day) on 5/01/11, nearly 116 months to the day after 9/11/01, the greatest straw man in the history of the world was found living in a palatial estate 800 yards from Pakistan's Military Academy. (Pakistan is a military junta with nuclear weapons to whom the United States has poured billions of dollars into since the start of the war on terror.) No picture was shown of his face or body which was allegedly dumped into the North Arabian Sea.

He was allegedly thinly defended, yet he was not taken alive. If he would have been, there would have been no fair trial, just a military tribunal after months of torture. And they tell us the world we live in will now be a safer place. For me, this story is just as unbelievable as the story they told us 116 months ago: That 19 impoverished, mid-eastern terrorists destroyed the twin towers with hijacked commercial airplanes. Kamikazes in 1944 I can believe. 56 years later, I never bought the story they fed us on 9/11/01.

But I believe what I can see around me. That the United States is a poorer and more disliked country since the start of the war on terrorism. We have created a fascist set of laws and a surveillance capacity unrivaled in modern times, yet we can not feed, house, or employ many of our citizens. And the rich continue to immobilize most of the nation's wealth. And if you had to create a pretext to develop a military, surveillance state capable of suppressing citizen dissent, capable of spying on all Americans, capable of silently dumping the working and middle classes into poverty while removing all possible avenues of a revolution against the monied elite who have sucked the wealth out of this country.... How would you do it? What lies would you feed the people?

Celebrating May Day...

2011-05-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate International Worker's Day or May Day. Protest and celebratory marches took place in India, Germany, Indonesia, Taiwan, Zimbabwe, Demark, Russia, Dubai, China, Cuba, Australia, Columbia, Venezuela, Utah, California, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Maine. Amidst inane amounts of media coverage of the assasination of Osama Bin Laden, the media has missed what should be the most important story of this May Day: the vapid expropriation of the surplus value of working classes : the theft capitalists grotesquely mislabel as 'profit'. Reactionary idealogues are full of propaganda these days condeming 'government' or calling for 'free markets' or worrying about 'consumers'.

The problem of the world economy has little to do with 'governments' or the 'markets' or 'consumers', per se. The problem is that capitalism is a deeply flawed ideology. Unlike Democracy, capitalism allows for the accumulation of power in select groups and individuals, thus corrupting economic, legal and governmental systems. The answer to this imbalance is the nationalization of all significant industries that accumulate excess capital (finance, oil, energy,health, insurance, telecom, pharma, etc.). Most of these industries are 'monopoloid' in practice in any event and have little to do with capitalism or individual liberty. Once control over these industries is returned to the people as nationalized ownership of those companies, that wealth and those assets can be controlled and returned to our country. This benefit would allow us to control out-sourcing of jobs, pass protective legislation for workers and families, funnel our energy profits into cleaner more local sources of energy, and return economic control to local communities and the people. It is excellent to see our President finally starting to do what he should have done at the start:

(1) Support taxing the rich and start redistributing their wealth to the middle classes
(2) Support labor unions by any means necessary
(3) Belittle useless capitalist idiots like Donald Trump

This is a good start! Nationalizing finance,energy, banking, insurance, health, pharmaceuticals can come next, but it needs to be done with a strong layer of centralized economic planning designed to restore capital uselessly pumped in hedge funds and the stock market into high wage jobs for every American. I am a firm believer that we can still save this country from a bloody revolution if we institute a stronger regime of supporting labor, taxing the assets and income of the wealthy and developing centralized economic planning and control for every community. There are many people in middle America destitute and broke now. They are so sick of the obstructionists and leeches who are bleeding America dry that they would support much greater emergency economic powers for this President in his second term. Capitalism as it constructed in the United States is deeply flawed. It has reduced itself to securing profit through military might, induced poverty, grotesque financial manipulation, etc. So of course, our economy is now unstable and volatile. And wasteful. And inefficient. And failing families. And failing communities. We need to start a new and strong Marxist party here in the United States. We need to admit that economies and companies we have created with our uncontrolled aspirations of wealth have now caused the world more harm than good.

Now if we can just get President Obama to stop engaging in imperialist wars like Afghanistan and Libya, he might fully have the support of all the working class and their families.

Letter to ECY on Whatcom Waterway Cleanup...

2011-04-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

04.28.2011: As an update to this post, here is the location of the official evacuation procedure for Bellingham in the event of a tsunami.

Far below is the e-mail I sent to Lucille T. McInerney of WA State's Department of Ecology on the Whatcom Waterway Cleanup. We have until April 27 (tomorrow) to submit comment on Whatcom Waterfront environmental remediation. Although ECY probably can't be said to be directly responsible for Earthquake/Tsunami protection, any work they do will probably be for naught should the predicted 9.0Mw Cascadia Subduction Zone event happen in our lifetimes. What I think most people do not realize is that the logarithmic Richter scale for Earthquakes makes a 9.0M about 100 times stronger than a 7.0M. But that really doesn't speak to the difference in energy between two such events. Here's how the current Wikipedia article looks at this issue as they convert some historical known earthquakes into equivalent tons of TNT:

476 kilotons Haiti Earthquake 7.0Mw
476 megatons Sendai Earthquake 9.0Mw
or 476,000 tons of TNT vs 476,000,000 tons TNT

I lived through the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (6.9Mw). I really don't want to experience the aftermath of a Sendai Quake (9.0Mw) quake. What was interesting about the Loma Prieta quake is that we experienced the damage in Oakland and San Francisco, despite the fact that the quake was located 50 plus miles to the south in the hills of Santa Cruz. After seeing this absolutely frightening video from the recent Japanese Tsunami and reading a number of reports, I was moved to send the letter below. In many ways the now predicted possibility of a 9.0Mw quake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone makes circumspect any development on our waterfront or Bay. This is an issue currently unexplored by the community of Bellingham. BTW, Here is your official Whatcom County Tsunami Preparedness Flyer! - about the only serious local Tsunami/Earthquake planning document I could find!

Ms. McInerney:

Congratulations on completing a plan to clean up the Whatcom Waterway!

I would like particular attention in the environmental remediation paid to the potential of a 9.0M Earthquake and Tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone. An (2004) analysis of the effect of a Tsunami on Bellingham Bay is available online. However, since the recent Sumatran, Japanese, and Chilean Tsunami/Earthquakes (8.9M,9.1M,8.8M respectively), additional data has been collected that suggests a potentially much more destructive outcome for Bellingham Bay. Some corresponding information can be found at the references below. The current literature and research suggests that a 9.0M on the Cascadia Subduction Zone is now imminent. Seismic scholars like Chris Goldfinger of OSU suggest that such a calamity has high probability of happening within our lifetime. Indeed the Oregon Department of Geology has stated:

19-20 giant (Mw 9+) earthquakes struck the whole Cascadia margin in the past
10,000 years. USGS estimates a ~10 to 14% chance in the next 50 years for these
earthquakes (Peterson et al., 2002, Pure and Applied Geophysics, v. 159, p. 2147-2178).
 Smaller (~Mw 7.6 to 8.5) Cascadia earthquakes occur between the Mw 9+
earthquakes in southernmost part of the subduction zone. These events will
probably be felt throughout the Oregon coast.
 Counting both the smaller and giant Cascadia earthquakes, 40-42 struck in
southernmost Oregon (south of Bandon) in the last 10,000 years.
 There is a strong possibility that the next Cascadia earthquake will happen during
your or your children’s lifetime. [emphasis added -RMF]

In no case, does Whatcom County or Bellingham appear to be a "Tsunami Ready Community". It seems clear to me that the greatest threat to life posed by the Whatcom Waterway will not be mercury, dioxin, or other toxics. It will be the effect of a Tsunami on this sea level property. In his March 16th, 2011 letter to the NTHMP, President Barack Obama has commented:

"As we offer our assistance to those impacted by this tragedy, we also renew our committment to ensuring preparedness along our shores. Efficient warning systems and awareness in coastal communities are vital to protecting Americans in at-risk areas of the country. To meet these needs, the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), a partnership of State and local governments and Federal agencies, is working to reduce the impact of tsunamis through the hazard assessment, evacuation planning, and education outreach. While the danger posed by tsunamis cannot be eliminated, these efforts can help save lives by equipping citizens to effectively respond to emergency situations."

Although, ECY does not have any direct responsibility for emergency planning, years of cleanup, mitigation, and public tax monies will be thrown away by the destructive effective of just one large tsunami on Whatcom Waterfront. Recently, ECY's director has said:

"As individuals and as a society, I believe one of our most basic responsibilities is to pass on to those that come after us a world that is as good as, or better than, the one given to us. Decency requires that we be concerned not just for our own quality of life, but for the quality of life of those who will follow us."

There may be no Whatcom Waterfront to pass on to our children at all if the predicted 9.0M Cascadian Subduction Zone Earthquake and Tsunami occurs. I realize that this concern may fall outside of ECY's typical area of concern. However, as a citizen of Whatcom County, I feel that it is incumbent of me to point out that any work ECY does here can be utterly destroyed in a few short, brutal minutes by such an event. Therefore, I must ask you to implement Tsunami protection into any Whatcom Waterfront clean-up for both the sake of the environment and the lives of the citizens of Whatcom County,

Thanks for your time,

Ryan M. Ferris

1401 E. Victor

Bellingham, Wa

98225

Coal Trains in Bellingham Part III

2011-04-21T23:25:00.000-07:00

Tim Johnson covers coal export plans for Whatcom County in this weeks Cascadia Weekly. It is worth the time to pick up a copy downtown.The print issue contains numerous, lengthly comments from concerned citizens in the letters to the editor and a notice of two upcoming meetings:

I can't help but point out the irony/tragedy of possibly running 43 million metric tons/year of coal through the South Fork Valley. The closest thing Whatcom County now has to a "start-up community" of entrepreneurs are all those young families farming the rich earth of Whatcom County's South Fork Valley. Now that they are established feeding healthy, organic local produce to residents of the Northwest, of course we are going to run coal right through their farming. Yep, we really support small business here in the Northwest... By the way, if you don't think coal is dirty and dangerous, just plug the phrase "coal ash" into Google... Or read this article...

I caught a coal train coming and going last week: two engines in front, two behind. I would like to know why the rails squeal so much when the train passes. In the first part of the cell phone video below, I have my windows rolled up. Then I roll them down. Later in the day, I was hiking through Larrabee State Park and caught what looked like the same coal train returning with deafening sound. Almost hard to imagine living in those condos off Railroad Ave. downtown and listening to that squeal 18 times per day and night. Or would that be 36 times per day (with return trips)?

A poster child for overbuilding and lack of middle class jobs

2011-04-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

The Fourth Corner is a poster child for overbuilding and lack of middle class jobs. With an aging population, Whatcom County's housing market is traveling in one direction only. Down. I posted a bitmap of the Realty Trac's foreclosure stats.

Here they are as of today:

Whatcom County 609
San Juan 36
Skagit 574
Island 267
Snohomish 5,924

These are RealtyTrac's latest foreclosure stats for the Fourth Corner:

This is a google data chart of personal income per capita for the same counties:

Magdalena's Creperie

2011-04-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

09/26/2011 Update:
I ordered the 'Chef's Special' crepe sometime last week: Incredible folded triangle with wholesome, delicious, filling ingredients and pot of french press! I hope this restaurant continues to do well and make it. If we were flush, I would be a regular.

Magdalena Thiesen (and friends I think) have run for quite some months now, an excellent Polish restaurant in the Fairhaven district of Bellingham, WA. Magdalena apparently hails from Lubin, Poland and has brought her knowledge of her country's cuisine with her. The exterior of Magdalena's Creperie is almost non-descript, which provides a convenient reason for me to apologize for not sampling Magdalena's heart-warming and wholesome faire much earlier.

The interior of Magdalena's Creperie somehow reminds me of a home. Not a dirty, dusty home, but a tall grand home with high ceilings and a warming tile floor and friendly people in the kitchen. (The service, by the way, was extraordinarily friendly without being ostentatious.) I selected today, from the many menu choices, a cup of borscht soup and a 1/2 salmon sandwich, both of which were very wholesome, delicious and heart-warming. The borscht soup, a pink-red mixture seemingly made of beets, cream, cabbage, potatoes, and beet tops, tasted just like heaven. Not salty or too spicy. Not harsh in any way. Simply very wholesome and filling, as if I was eating something produced by my Swiss-Italian great grandmother; grown from her garden. This I followed with a salmon sandwich with greens which was equally wholesome and refreshing. Once again, flavorful without being overly spicy, wholesome without being too hearty, filling without being overly-rich.

By the time, I had finished the soup and the sandwich (reasonably priced at $9.00 together), I just had to ask about dessert. I selected a type of "Polish Pastry" (whose name I could not pronounce correctly) that seemingly consisted of a graham cracker like crust, a berried fruit filing, and a buttery, but crunchy topping. It was a served with a pot of french-pressed coffee that was brewed to perfection. The pastry was as wholesome and as comforting as the soup and sandwich. By the time, I had finished most of it, I was thoroughly on my way to a very happy afternoon. For some reason, Christmas carols rang through my mind as I exited Magdalena`s! What a nice lunch! I love it when I walk out of restaurant feeling better than when I entered. Magdalena's Creperie, which is now open 7:30 - 4:00 PM seven days of the week, is a find. Next time, I am going to show up at breakfast for a crepe...

Radiation Monitoring Part III

2011-04-10T01:57:00.000-07:00

100 Sieverts/HR in Fukushima No. 1 after April 8 7.1M aftershock.

Fukushima is still today, a month after the Tsunami hit Japan, a bleeding scab of radiation on the face of the Earth. Millions of gallons of radioactive water have already been released into the sea, Readings as high as 1000s of micro Sieverts/Hour are routinely being reported by Tepco, and picocuries of radiation are showing up in the air, water, and milk of the world. 60,000 tons of radioactive water still needs to be dumped into the Ocean. Two Japanese journalists took a makeshift tour of the evacuated zone with their Geiger counters. This is twelve minutes long:

For April 3 - 9, I changed my Aware Electronics RM-80 to record data per second. (30 or 60 second averages are much lower than the 100 plus micro-roentgen/Hr spikes I see while recording per second.) While cleaning my heating filters (Honeywell Electrostatic), I measured the pre and post filters. Very high consistent readings for both, reaching 50 - 80 MicroRoentgens/HR as measured per second. Data for 50 hours of testing done daily between April 3rd and April 9th is below. The geiger counter sits in my home office, where my Carrier Infinity 16 heating system pressurizes my office with outside air 24 hours per day:

April 6th looked like this:

I took 180 (TBU= 1 second) samples from milk, tap water, puddle water, wet ground soil. Those samples looked like this:

Radiation Monitoring... Part II

2011-03-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

Updates (4/2/2011)

UW has published a paper on the magnitude of airborne fission products arriving from Fukushima (1)
UC Berkeley Nuclear engineering department is now testing rain water and commercial milk supplies (1,2)
Japan has apparently communicated to the DOE that two reactors have suffered partial meltdowns (1)
There is discussion of localized and intermittent criticality inside the damaged reactors (1)
"Film is Truth" in Bellingham, WA has in its catalog an informative, and touching 2007 film:
Heavy Water

A film for Chernobyl
Directed by David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky

Am I the only one who isn't quite willing to believe that Fukushima poses no threat to the West Coast? Yesterday, radioactive iodine was found in milk in Spokane. I can think of at least four dairy regions on the West Coast that are regularly buffeted by jet stream winds that often pass over Japan including Whatcom County which has one of the top dairy producing areas in the United States. The EPA is telling us that these trace amounts found in their filters are "thousands of times below" any levels of concern. However:

There is quite a legitimate debate about the dangers of low-level radiation and
Fukushima crisis is not just "far from over" (1,2,3). In reality, there is a possibility it could release considerable amounts of radiation in the future.

To see a truly scary video about the "cover-up" at Chernobyl and the international study that reveals nearly 1 million people have died due to radiation releases from that accident, watch toxicologist Janette Sherman, M.D in this interview discuss this publication.

Whatcom County is more open to ground level winds coming from the Pacific because (unlike Seattle), it is not so blocked by the Olympic Pennisula. The nearest EPA monitoring station is Seattle, practically a different micro-climate and located 90 miles south. Since no health authority is publishing or monitoring radiation levels in Whatcom County currently, I put together this crude experiment below with my Aware Electronics RM-80 (There is monitoring with equipment from the same manufacturer going on in Seattle and Vashon Island and in Japan.) The usual disclaimers apply - I am not a physicist, health professional, or statistician, I am using a home PC geiger counter designed to measure background radiation levels, accept these results at your own risk, etc.

Collected rain water for 24 hours. I then measured:

rain water
milk from a local grocery store
soil(wet) from my garden plot
tap water
bottled water
empty jar (control)

for (25 each) 30 second periods and recorded micro-Roentgen/HR averages. The experiment looked like this:

From top left counter-clockwise: 24 hr rain water, local milk(?), soil, water.

Results for my experiment looked like this:

empty glass jar 8.18 average micro-Roentgens/HR
bottled_water 8.27 "
milk 8.27 "
tap_water 8.61 "
(rain) water 24 hr. 8.70 "
soil (wet from rain) 9.27 "

Here are the chart results. It can be downloaded in high resolution from here.

An excellent article I found on using anti-oxidants as protection from low level radiation can be here:

"Rationale for using multiple antioxidants in protecting humans against low doses of ionizing radiation.". The disaster at Fukushima may well turn out to be the engineering and systemic disaster of the 21st century to date.

Coal Trains in Bellingham (and South Fork!) Part II

2011-03-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Below are just some of the latest news items on "Coal Trains in Whatcom County". The project has been 'fast tracked'. For public access to project information, you must register. Sorry campers, I do not have coherent thoughts on this issue yet. I have highlighted in red selected 'must read' sites.

Websites:

Editorials/Alternative News

http://www.nwcitizen.com/entry/cross-county-rail-line-is-a-coming John Servais 3/25/2011
http://crosscut.com/blog/crosscut/20173/Bellingham-coal-project-gets-hard-push--/ Floyd McKay March 17, 2011
http://crosscut.com/2011/03/04/bellingham/20688/Bellingham:-Back-to-coal-with-planned-shipping-terminal--/one_page/ Bob Simmons 3/4/2011
http://crosscut.com/2011/02/23/bellingham/20662/Coal-plans-raise-questions-for-Bellingham--/one_page/ Floyd McKay 2/23/2011
http://crosscut.com/2011/01/07/environment/20522/How-great-corporate-power-shadows-Gregoire-on-coal-shipments-to-China/one_page/ Floyd McKay January 07, 2011
http://crosscut.com/2011/02/17/environment/20644/Longview-coal-port:-a-big-plan-well-hidden/one_page/ Daniel Jack Chasan 02/17/11
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/dirty-coal-clean-future/8307/ James Fallows 12/10
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013725499_guest21macfarlane.html Kevin Wilhelm and Ross MacFarlane 12/10

Blogs and News Releases:

http://blogs.bellinghamherald.com/politics/bellingham/workin-on-the-railroadwhere-is-that-coal-gonna-go/
http://chuckanutconservancy.blogspot.com/2011/02/coal-trains-could-alter-quality-of-life.html
http://pugetsound.org/news/news-about-people-for-puget-sound/030411coal/
http://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2011/02/coal-terminals-in-washington-state.html Dan McShane (former Whatcom County Council)
http://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2011/02/coal-terminal-preemptive-strike.html (Dan McShane former Whatcom County Council)

Local Headline News
Bellingham Herald

Columbia Basin News

Canadian News

You Tube:

http://wn.com/Southbound_BNSF_Coal_at_Bellingham,_Washington

Corporate Web Sites

Source Watch Articles

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Washington_State_and_coal

Radiation Monitoring...

2011-03-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

I have much I want to say about energy production and risk, but I don't have the time to say it all this week. It should be enough to say that the state of Washington and Northern Puget Sound have good reason to talk about BP's disastrous gulf oil spill and Japan's (and GE's) disastrous nuclear calamity and our new/old "War on Libya".

But for today, I am just presenting the statistical data I have gathered monitoring radiation in my office since March 15. Note that since I gather irregular periods, have the monitor located in my network closet, am not a physicist, have multiple layers of HVAC filtration, using a PC based Geiger counter, probably have lots of radon in my basement, etc...

Here are the last eight days of data that average micro-Roentgens/HR on a 30 second Time Based Unit 'TBU') based on a 10 point average. Since the 22nd, it seems like I am seeing a lot of higher spikes in the "background radiation" I am using Aware Electronics RM-80, their 7.9(k) software generated ascii files, and gnuplot in the next two charts.

Below compares March 15 with March 22nd for the same averages:

Here is all this data "unrolled" by Aware Electronics "DosBox" based 7.9(k) software (no averaged points) and with a polynomial regression trend. You will probably have to download this image and zoom in to see the detail. Note that I collected data 24/7 for the first two days and also mislabeled the 'March 19th' and 'March 18a'. Note also that the collection periods are not uniform.

I present this data without comment and interpretation in the interest of forwarding time sensitive information. What the data means exactly in relationship to the disaster at Fukushima and radiation received indoors on the West Coast in Bellingham, WA., I do not today fully understand.

"The system works...it works!"

2011-03-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

"Let me try to explain to you something that unfortunately people do not understand. These plants are designed for the possibility of an accident. Every conceivable thing that could go wrong is taken into consideration...The system works...it works. There was no accident."
Jack Lemmon to Jane Fonda in "The China Syndrome" now streaming (as of March 18, 2011) on NetFlix.com

Image From Digital Globe
http://www.digitalglobe.com/downloads/featured_images/japan_earthquaketsu_fukushima_daiichi_march18_2011_dg.jpg

This is the Union of Concerned Scientists report on nuclear safety in 2010.

This is their testimony to congress on "The Nuclear Plant Crisis in Japan and Implications for the United States."

Of Nuclear Power, Radiation, Tsunamis, and Global Politics...

2011-03-15T16:45:00.000-07:00

Historical 'Rim of Fire' Earthquakes from "Subduction Zones of the World: Comparison to the Cascadia Subduction Zone and the Potential for Producing Large-scale Earthquakes" by Alicia Thompson

Graph from Aware Electronics RM-80 radiation monitor in author's Home Office

In 1974, I was sixth grader in Oakland, Ca. I had an intrepid teacher, an ex-Marine drill sergeant, who had dedicated his life to teaching. He was an interesting combination of humility, enlightenment, real-world speak, and mental toughness. For some of us this worked, at least it did some of the time. Anyway, I was a precocious, 'science interested kid' (no one used the term 'geek' yet) and I had decided to research the safety of nuclear power reactors. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, there was a fierce debate about the safety of nuclear power. No one could miss it. In California, no proposed facility stirred more protest than coastally located Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas and Electric's flagship nuclear facility. As I remember it, anti-nuclear activism was an environmentalist springboard that contributed to the passage of the Coastal Act of 1972, which fundamentally preserves the coast of California from harmful development. Even today, the California Coastal Commission is still continuing to assess the impact of nuclear power plants.

So, eager sixth grade intellect that I was, I did my research then took the bus to Berkeley and wandered the literate,politically active streets until I found some storefront dedicated to halting nuclear power. (Times were less paranoid then, people more trusting, parental controls just a bit more 'relaxed'.) There, I got my fill of information, purchased an alarming book on the subject and returned to my Catholic school to prepare a report; certain by now that nuclear power was an evil that the good people of the world were dedicated to preventing. Imagine my surprise when I heard my intrepid sixth grade teacher start talking to the class about this subject after I presented my report. I must have absorbed too much of the activist's viewpoint for my teacher. He started telling the class about how he had contacts that were nuclear engineers who had assured him that nuclear plants could never, ever "blow up". (Of course, even I knew that wasn't the point. The point was they could 'meltdown' and spread lethal radiation.) In any event, I rather believed my sixth grade teacher all these years, until last Friday. Interestingly enough, as all this classroom dialog was taking place nearly forty years ago, the Fukushima reactors in Japan were being built as were many of the United States nuclear power fleet.

It turns out all those Berkeley activists were right. Fast forward forty years later, I am washed up middle-aged activist, my sixth grade teacher has probably passed on (or at least grown very old), and the Ring of Fire has suffered three (Sumatra, Chile, Japan) 8.8 Mw or greater earthquakes in the last seven years, each of them resulting in deadly tsunamis. And what were the odds of that happening? Whatever they were, it appears the odds that the Cascadia subduction zone may create a similar size earthquake/tsunami are very high (See 1, 2, 3 ). In light of this threat to Northwest, the activities of activists that stopped the build out of Nuclear Power on Samish Island appears to have had foresight.

Over the course of last weekend, as most people now know, three nuclear reactors have "blown up" and the entire world economy is being thrown into a downward spiral of chaos, dependent on whether or not these reactors 'melt down' and spew deadly radioactivity throughout the world. The Fukushima reactors are situated very much like Diablo Canyon: on the coast, facing the vast and tumultuous Pacific Ocean. Bellingham and Whatcom County are "connected to" the Far East by "Jet Stream". This weekend, we have been very connected as powerful winds passing over Northern Japan have bombarded us. Studies now show that the West Coast now receives a considerable amount of pollution from China. Weatherman Cliff Mass may have caused a controversy he wished he hadn't by revealing probable jet stream weather patterns in his post "Where would the Radioactivity Go?". However, I doubt if his concern or efforts are misplaced. The reality is that nuclear radiation is dangerous and insidious. After Monday's Fukushima (third) blast, the vessels of the Seventh Fleet, including the naval carrier Ronald Reagan (on a rescue mission in Japan) actually altered its location away from dangerous radiation. Potassium Iodide supplies are apparently now depleted - in America!

This is all rather a bit of bad news and at least ironic in light of little heralded announcement by China in January that it would be re-architecting the country's energy strategy to emphasize Thorium based nuclear reactors; a potential safe and efficient form of nuclear power. All of this somehow reminds me of a night in Berkeley when I saw Black Rain, a story of the survivors of Hiroshima....

"...Russia has the best engineers in the world..."

2011-03-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

Below is select dialogue as printed by the White House yesterday between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and American Vice President Joseph Biden in Moscow. Why the the White House printed this select translation snippet I am not quite clear. Please read with me:

PRIME MINISTER PUTIN: (As translated.) You might be interested in getting to know Russia better, visiting other sights and cities. And on top of that, the relationship between our two countries has been developing quite well. Last year, the (inaudible) Russia has grown by 29 percent.
Turning -- we have completed several important things, including seeding for and verification of START III, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. And the major American companies are doing business in Russia and are doing well. To name a few, General Electric, Boeing and Chevron -- virtually all the biggest companies are here.
And it is especially pleasing for us to witness the rise of the presence of big Russian investments between -- again, we are very pleased and very thankful to you for the fact that this has been -- (inaudible) -- and very sensitive areas such as I referred to earlier, use of nuclear energy. And I'm pleased with the fact that all of it has been passed through the procedures of the Foreign Investment Commission, and we are grateful for you for that to happen.
VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:...
You mentioned Boeing; yesterday, I met with a group of American and Russian CEOs -- conference. A Russian -- the chairman of a Russian organization, I'll not state it, said that there was reason for American companies to be here because the markets are here and named some other reasons why it was in the interest of American companies.
The chairman of Boeing USA in Russia said, I beg to disagree with my friend. He said the market in China for aircraft is seven times bigger. He said let me tell you why we're here. Russia has the best engineers in the world. Russia has intellectual capital. Russia is a great nation. Your titanium lets the planes fly that you buy.
PRIME MINISTER PUTIN: (As translated.) Allow me to make a point, we have the largest in the world engineering center here in Moscow. ...

I will express total support for the strengthening Russian/American economic relationships, but I don't want it done at the expense of American prosperity. GE, Boeing, and Chevron are all 'virtual GSEs'[1]. Their business models depend significantly on military contracts, government contracts, leases, subsidies, and tax credits from the federal government. I suppose it is good to see them investing those dollars in Mother Russia. After all, Russia is a significant buyer of Treasuries, although nowhere near as significant as China or Japan. And there is probably no doubt about the engineering and software development talent in Russia; an important 'side effect' of communism in the U.S.S.R. was the development of some of the finest mathematicians and scientists in the world. Certainly, they are used to salaries much lower than American engineers.

But I still resent seeing companies I support as an American taxpayer building jobs in foreign countries while total employment in the United States has collapsed so significantly in the last four years. Just in case anyone needs a reminder, here from google public data is what total employment has looked like in the United States and Whatcom County for the last few years on record:

Total Employment United States and Whatcom County, Seasonally Adjusted

So I have to ask: What does President Obama's "export economy" apply to? Does it mean we are exporting jobs at U.S. taxpayer expense? Well, perhaps we shouldn't blame Obama or Russia or large companies solely for this. But just exactly what is America's job creation and job retention strategy?

[To be continued...]

[1] 'virtual GSEs' : "government sponsored entities" without such an official declaration

What would a Marxist Revolution look like in the United States?

2011-03-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

"This ruthless operation to liquidate the inglorious inheritance of the Sun King was carried out quickly and efficiently in the course of 1716 by a secret committee known as the Visa. At the same time the law courts brought to trial about 8,000 persons who had been involved in some ways with the finances of the late king's reign: over half of them were convicted and either fined or condemned (to death, prison or the galleys) for fraud and malversation."

from The Emergence of Modern Finance in Europe 1550 -1730 by Geoffrey Parker as quoted in
The Fontana Economic History of Europe "The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" Editor Carlo M. Cipolla, @1974

"America is not broke...The country is awash in wealth and cash. Its just that its not in your hands. It has been transferred in the greatest heist in history from the workers and consumers to the banks and portfolios of the uber rich. Right now... four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals...now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined...For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond...with the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we would have to accept the humiliation that we have surrendered our precious democracy to the monied elite..."

Michael Moore in Madison, Wisconsin, March 5, 2011

It is commonly believed that the middle class in the United States has become too infantilized/narcotized to attempt a Marxist revolution. Yet, the previous century incurred much revolutionary activity originating from labor, class, and racial discord. Could this discord repeat and expand across the states? Tonight the Republican state senators in Wisconsin eliminated collective bargaining for Wisconsin's public sector unions, overriding the objection of the lone remaining Democrat state senator who had not skipped town. Will the union movement in America kow-tow to this heinous legislation? Most probably not. Let us mock out a scenario from this moment forward, presupposing tonight becomes "the shot heard round the world" that leads to state by state revolts against governmental authority and thus destabilizes the Republic.

There are several significant background processes to note. First, the states are running out of cash. So are their cities. The flow of municipal funding has dried up. Second, stimulus monies from Federal Government will all but be spent by Q4 2011. QE III, should it arrive, will probably do no more to stimulate employment (or the transfer of wealth) than QE I or QE II. Last, the Republican congress will block further taxes on the wealthy and support for the states. From this point on, all it will take to light the fuse maybe something incidental, like $5.00 per gallon gasoline. How this will all play out, I do not know. But I expect that nation wide strikes may lead to various types of violence and crime, followed by attacks on critical infrastructure, followed by a swift martial response (in a futile attempt to maintain order), followed by an even larger civic protest. At this point, gross market disruptions will occur: interstate commerce and transportation will be balkanized, banking communication will suffer outages, state militias will be deployed and the President will have to respond.

What will happen next may rule the fate of near history. Clearly, the President is going to have to ask for calm from the faithful, knowing that in a country with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the developed world and a broken and near paranoid middle class, this could be a futile request. Wealth will no doubt exit the U.S. to safe havens, complicating the President's ability to restore order. Some states may deploy onerous form of emergency/martial law. Unfortunately for the President, the rest of the world may weigh in, if they are not already in some manner doing so. Globalization has produced unique alliances. In a world where a thirty year old Google Engineer helped start the Egyptian Revolution on Facebook....

It is not historically unusual for violence to follow large scale economic displacement or "bubbles". It's just that...we've never really seen this is a world that currently has nearly 600 T of outstanding notional derivatives. Hang onto to your hats, because your retirement funds may well be worthless very shortly. If the President is paying attention, he knows that this crisis may become an opportunity. How he uses this opportunity may well define his Presidency.

"You load sixteen tons of number 9 coal, and the coal boss says..."

2011-02-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

The rush is on to transport Coal to China! Quite possibly from Bellingham. See here and here and here for recent local discussion of this issue.

There's no doubt transporting (or even producing) coal would create $$$$ for the city of Bellingham, Whatcom County, and for some people; the business of energy is (extraordinarily) lucrative. But at what cost and at what cost to our city and quality of life? China has made progress with cleaner burning coal plants in the last few years, but their northern tier of coal producing cities still reek with smoke. Coal pollution from China still travels across the jet stream to these shores and mountains. And (hundreds of) thousands still die immediately and prematurely from both coal mining and the pollution in China. Of course, pollution and coal mining kill people and ruin the environments here too, although (arguably I suppose) much less so than China. It is not hard to research this issue and think about what is at stake. If you plug "Coal in China" or "Coal in the United States" into Google you will produce a wealth of documents and images. We have one coal plant in Washington (which spews 300 - 500 pounds of mercury per year depending upon which source you read) and significant coal mining activity (2.6 million tons/year). Apparently, Bellingham opened WA first coal mine in 1853. We still may have plenty of it buried in the ground in Whatcom and Skagit Counties. These articles from SourceWatch , WORC, and Huff-Post provide excellent background:

Our community supports plenty of 'big energy' here in Whatcom County. And how much wealth does that bring us? It certainly provides at some of the jobs here and probably substantial amounts of banking assets. Coal is one of the most significant sources of energy in the United States and China. It will be tough in a recession to buck the still extant power of the "old economy". But coal really is a dirty, and brutal, and cheap form of energy. What is the price in terms of our health, the environment, world happiness that our continued extraction of coal demands from us? We are not the only city on the West Coast to have to make a choice between healthly lifestyles/envrionmentally responsible decision making and profit. Santa Barbra is probably the most proto-typical example (1 , 2 ). However, from Boulder to Santa Cruz, many small 'lifestyle' cities make concerted efforts to make ecologoically responsible decision making part of their economic policies. There are some links below that may prove interesting to the reader. A final last point: the business of energy is extraordinarily lucrative; cash from energy flows like rivers down mountains. How much of that cash will flow to the citizens of Bellingham and Whatcom County is the most critical of questions:

Madison, Wisconsin is on Fire

2011-02-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Chanting "Kill the Bill" and "Recall Walker", Wisconsin union members have stormed the Wisconsin Capital. They are protesting a bill sponsored by the Repbulican Governor that they claim will drastically reduce their rights to a fair wage and fair labor bargaining. One minister announced, "This is no more about the deficit than the war in Iraq was about those imaginary weapons of mass destruction." There is an excellent blog post by Rick Ungar at Forbes.com summarizing what is at stake.

Start-ups in Bellingham!

2011-02-16T14:16:00.000-08:00

Today, I attended an thoroughly excellent first meeting of the "Bellingham Entrepreneur Coffee" hosted by NWRIC director John Sechrest who is executive director of The Northwest Innovation Resource Center. This meeting focused on strategies to create startup groups in Bellingham and Whatcom County. This effort has been spearheaded this year by the "BIG idea lab" recently launched by a number of investors. Our "Entrepreneur Coffee" over impressed me with the amount of talent, experience and will that is continuing to be drawn to Bellingham's startup and high tech community. I find it nearly impossible to imagine any other community with so much underemployed enthusiasm, talent, business experience, and drive. Just in our small group today, many different backgrounds and experiences were represented.

There are a number of groups that have been active in stimulating small business and startups in Belllingham for years. These include especially:

There are a number of meetup groups designed for Bellingham and Whatcom County Entrperneurs, Facilitators, and Angels:

Some notable members or our business and startup communities have subscribed.

There are any number of problematic issues in the scope of "How do I encourage greater business activity and growth in my community?". Approaching the problem from any perspective (startups, small business, research and development, corporate recruitment,etc) lands one smack dab in the middle of thorny issues like local community needs, regional economic planning, land use, business and entrepreneur development, state and federal assistance and funding. People who work full time on this issue most probably spend a lot of time wandering around in a vaguely dissatisified state of confusion. This is because the problem is so multi-threaded with many possible diverse solutions. Thank goodness the President wants to help us with this with "Startup America":

Office of Social Innovation: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/sicp/blog
Middle Class Task Force http://www.whitehouse.gov/strongmiddleclass/blog
Small Business Administration http://www.sba.gov/empowering-americas-entrepreneurs-startup-america

With all these resources cheerleading employment development in Bellingham and Whatcom County, how could we possibly not succeed?

Of 68,000 sq. ft of Cinemas, Russia, and Cisco

2011-02-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

68,000 sq. ft. of Cinema. This is what is coming to Barkley Village, with construction starting this spring. The leasing promo for this development is very upbeat. It extolls the virtues of our fine city: close access to I-5, three higher educational facilities, 20 minutes from Canada, $60K plus 'median family income'. Below is what this area looks like now from the sky. The red oval is Haggens Barkley now. The light blue square is where this new complex with theater will be built. You can see a some illustrations here, here, and here. :

Funny, I don't remember anyone asking me if I wanted a 16 plex mega movie theater in my city. I see no evidence of any public hearing on the COB web site and I don't find it listed a "major project" on the COB planning web site. I have driven by this site many times, as many of us do on our way to the Barkley shopping center. I have always thought to myself that this would be a fine place for Cisco Systems to employee about 5000 engineers. But Cisco isn't bringing any engineers to Whatcom County. Instead, they are going to "fight unemployment in Russia". Cisco will be investing over $1 Billion in the development of "Skolkovo, Russia’s Kremlin-sponsored Silicon Valley."

Well that all makes sense of course! Who would want investment in long term engineering positions here in Whatcom County anyway? Entertainment is what we want here in Bellingham. Never mind that we have three Regal Cinemas here already. Or that our monthly foreclosures in Whatcom County just about matchs our number of new housing starts. You have to hand it to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. He walks right into Silicon Valley (during the middle of recession) and secures not just new jobs for a Kremlin sponsored Silicon Valley, but U.S. retraining for Russians as well !

" Russia has woken up to the idea of public-private partnerships and embraced it,[Cisco CEO John] Chambers said. “I think the Russian government is committed to creating a more balanced society” with a larger middle class, he said. "

Thanks Mr. Chambers! Next time you want to fight unemployment and build a larger middle class, please consider Whatcom County. We have nice movie theaters here to entertain you if you come.

Book of the Century (thus far)....

2011-02-03T22:59:00.000-08:00

Reading more like a financial thriller than a dry, academic treatise, The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report may well be the best historical work you will read this year. Or maybe for the next ten years. The FCIC has produced an examination of the financial collapse as shocking as it is revelatory. Most of us understand some of the forces that produced the financial crisis, but the The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report rips them open, suctions away all the vapid blood, and then coolly dissects the players and the partners that colluded in the calamity.

I opened the book to Chapter 8 ("The CDO Machine") the first night it arrived via special order from Village Books in Bellingham, WA. I continued to read ahead to Chapter 10 ("The Madness"). Even with four solid years of experience working with and often stationed on the floors of Investment Banks, almost every other page shocked me with excess, and defied what even a jaded cynic such as myself would have thought was possible. Did you know what a "CDO squared" was? Or the part it played in the collapse?

"According to data compiled by the FCIC, tranches from CDOs rose from an average of 7% of the collateral in mortgage-backed CDOs in 2003 to 14% by 2007. CDO-squared deals--those engineered primarily from the tranches of other CDOs--grew from 36 marketwide in 2005 to 48 in 2006 and 41 in 2007." [p203]

Have you wondered what "OTC Derivatives", "synthetic CDOs", "Credit Default Swaps", "Shadow Banking", or unregulated financial contagion actually look likes from the ground level? What role these structures have played in the collapse and what roles they may continue to play? Have you wondered how so much liquidity could have been injected into the world economy in the last ten years? Have you wondered how so many bright people let such a debacle come to pass? Are you looking for hard-hitting government journalism that names names? Then this, my friend, is the book for you. I purchased mine for $14.99 at Village Books. It is currently selling for as little as $8.43 on Amazon and free to download from the FCIC. Rarely ever does a government produce literature so dramatic and so thoroughly critical of corporate malfeasance and lack of governmental oversight. This is a landmark work. Bravo.

And the Revolution will be led by...Retired State Employees and Burned Municipal Bond Holders?

2011-01-27T12:27:00.000-08:00

Quietly and behind the scenes (until now), Republicans have been floating bills to allow states to go bankrupt so they can renege on public employee pensions and municipal bond obligations. Please read the New York Times article (and others) below. Make sure to read the comments from angry retired public employees!:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/business/economy/21bankruptcy.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48291.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70O66220110125
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/give-states-way-go-bankrupt_518378.htm

Martin Luther King Day 2011

2011-01-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

MLK day passed sleepily for us yesterday. We enjoyed a wonderful day at the Seattle Woodland Zoo where many, many parents and children found peace and quiet from their busy, hard-working yet humble lives. I may have seen two children yesterday with skin color indicative of "mixed" marriage. However, no African-Americans do I remember seeing. But then I don't remember seeing many native-Americans, or Hispanics (besides my wife), some Asians, some Indo-Europeans perhaps. But largely our day inside the great liberal metropolis of Seattle, like most days in the large and small cities of the Pacific Northwest was spent browsing amidst a sea of white faces. It does cost $90 for a three person family membership to Seattle Woodland Zoo. After $5.75 for all day parking, the wonderful cafeteria, some trinkets at the two gift stores, $2.00 per carousel ride, gas from Bellingham...You get the picture - even without the membership purchase, it is still a $50 day for a family of three. Not exactly working-class priced entertainment.

MLK day was celebrated among my daughter's first grade with exercises on their dreams and aspirations and a 'Scholastic' pamphlet entitled "Dr. King Was Peaceful" is posted with a refrigerator magnet in our house. "What does it mean?", my six year old daughter asked me. Fortunately, all she really wanted to understand was whether Martin Luther was a real doctor or not; the concept of a Ph.D in Theology being difficult to differentiate from a medical doctor for a six year old. Thus, was I spared having to cobble some inadequate adult summary of the history of racism, slavery, civil rights, civil disobedience, political reform, and social conflict in a capitalist society. Indeed, one could live their entire lives in Bellingham or Whatcom County without ever having to think seriously about any of these issues. Not so for my youth during the 1960s in Oakland, CA. But lets spend some time examining the issues of racial conflict, civil rights, and civil disobedience here in Whatcom County. Whatcom County now has substantial minority populations. Here's a snapshot from the latest data (2011 Census Statistical abstract):

The Statistics are a bit befuddling since in total there are about 35K non-whites listed in Whatcom County (Bellingham, MSA), but 179K out of 200K are listed as 'White Alone'. (Census data allows for multiple listing of your ethnic origins.) We will go with the non-white totals which show:

				Two or more races	Hispanic or Latino origin \1
Black or African American alone	American Indian, Alaska Native alone	Asian alone	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone	Two or more races	Hispanic or Latino origin \1

2,175

5,999

7,657

350

4,652

14,435

Imagine that we have 14,435 Hispanics and 6,000 American Indians in Whatcom County. How often in your day in Bellingham do you remember seeing a Hispanic or Native American? If you answered not often, you would not be alone. All though many might object to this statement, I think it is clear that Whatcom County "ghettoizes" the most impoverished of its racial populations through reservations and migrant/low wage worker living conditions. And it surprises me that there isn't more activism on the part of minorities in Whatcom County. This year,for example, Governor Gregoire has commented:

"The safety net will be stretched thin in some places and eliminated entirely in others," Gregoire said. "For the functions that government no longer will be able to provide, we must turn to neighbors, private charities, faith-based organizations and other local programs. Our communities, more than ever, will be asked to step up."

DSHS funding for the under insured is unquestionably going to take a big hit. When 42th District legislator Vincent Buys and other Republicans ran on the platform of "We don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem", I wonder if it occurred to them how many underpaid, under-insured, migrant workers reputedly responsible for harvesting much of Whatcom County's agricultural crops, would suffer from low-income health funding cuts? How many native Americans will also suffer from these cuts? How many of the poor in Whatcom County in general will suffer because of lack of adequate health insurance, wages, nutrition, housing? In his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King commented:

"In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

How much more bankrupt today in America is MLK's dream of "the riches of freedom and the security of justice" for Whatcom County minorities? How much has the promise of the American Dream in Whatcom County "come back marked 'insufficient funds'"? These are the questions I do not hear being asked much amidst all the celebrations of Dr. King's "peacefulness". As a note, I wonder about the characterizations that found Martin Luther King 'peaceful'. "This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism," the good doctor told us in 1963 with a strident sense of urgency. How much more applicable is this advice right now? For all of us?

"Inside Job"

2011-01-16T00:06:00.000-08:00

"Inside Job" now playing at the Pickford Cinema is a draining film to watch: the real life nightmare of the economic collapse plays out before your eyes. The film recited, to full house this Saturday night, the detail, players and outlines of the economic collapse. The film mercilessly impugns the financial logic and intentions of the United States Government and the financial regulatory and capitalist institutions that comprise Wall Street. There have been a number of significant authors that have described the causes and consequences of the recent economic collapse [1]. However this film, narrated by Matt Damon, succeeds in indicting the intentions of government and capitalism with a certainty and bombast that makes Michael Moore's documentaries look downright friendly.

Producer Charles Ferguson, who also did No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, gets a lot of important people to talk: Franks, Lagarde, Spitzer, Soros, Strauss-Kahn, Volcker, etc. The film, wittingly or not, drives home these conclusions:

that the economic crisis was not an accident
that those few in charge understood the dynamics of bubble economies and so
structured their business models to profit from the "pump and dump" of economic growth and collapse

This amazingly simple but radical argument makes the United States government and the financial community guilty of planning its own economic collapse. The question the film doesn't answer is: Why would someone or some group do this? Only conspiratorial answers stream to mind: to afford paying for wars without affecting the prosperity of the middle classes (at least in the short term), to bring down the economic health of world for purposes of social control, to commit economic sabotage against the working and middle classes and China, to centralize all banking to government controlled institutions, to bankrupt the USA, etc. Having asserted that the collapse was no accident, the film doesn't go on to provide any clear answers for motive. It does, however, effectively document the gains the "top 1%" made at the expense of everyone else because of the crisis. "Inside Job" plays at least through Thursday at the Pickford. Apparently, the film's reception at Cannes marked it as potential Oscar material.

Notes:
[1] Engdahl, Klein, Lewis, Nocera, Prins, Rajan, Reich, Roubini, Scheer, Stiglitz, Taibbi to name just a few such authors that have written books on the collapse. My favorite author, Doug Noland, has been writing a column about credit bubble economics for years. See also the film "Plunder: The Crime of Our Time" by Danny Schechter.

The President's Speech in Tucson

2011-01-12T20:39:00.000-08:00

This excerpt is from President Barack Obama's speech in Tucson:

"So sudden loss causes us to look backward - but it also forces us to look forward, to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. We may ask ourselves if we've shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we question whether we are doing right by our children, or our community, and whether our priorities are in order. We recognize our own mortality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame - but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others."

Gabrielle Giffords and Solar Power

2011-01-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords is one of the nation's strongest supporters of solar energy. You can see this on her "Solar Energy Page" and on every part of social media that she participates in. On her website, you can read her very wonky "Solar Power" blog complete with an informative January 7th post on updated Solar News and Links. Congressperson Giffords has also given extensive testimony on the value of Solar Energy and sponsored initiatives designed to jump start solar power in the United States and the American Southwest. You can see this enthusiasm on her Youtube Channel in this video. In that speech, she describes the amount of solar energy available in the state of Alaska as "having the same solar [potential resources] as Germany". Gabrielle Giffords, who miraculously survived brain surgery after being shot in the head by a "lone assassin" yesterday, has fashioned her political identity with bravery; she has been willing to support and sponsor legislation which would have reduced oil company tax breaks and national dependency on imported oil. In this video, Ms. Giffords speaks bravely about vandalism attacks on her office and having oil and gas champion Sarah Palin put Giffords in "gunsight crosshairs". Ms. Giffords, who is fully integrated in the world of social networking, has facebook, twitter, and flickr sites that can be followed. I suggest everyone who cares about solar energy subscribe to her feeds. Be well, damsel of the Sun and Earth; your citizens need you.

Fair Game!

2010-12-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

"Fair Game", now playing at The Pickford Cinema in Bellingham, WA is a surprisingly engaging anti-war movie. I learned quite a bit that was new to me, if the movie can be believed. What do Daniel Ellsberg, Valerie Plame, and Julian Assange have in common (besides high IQs, access to confidential information, and anti-war sentiment)? They have all been hunted and exposed by the White House. "Fair Game" is essentially the back story of a war-mongering Presidential administration hostile efforts to control CIA analysis. At times, the emphasis on this fact seems almost unbelievable and syrupy. The movie is peppered, as are Valerie Plame's and Joe Wilson available press interviews on youtube, with calls for citizens to have a commitment to creating a republic free of imperiousness and corruption. The premises of the movie have generated controversy (1,2,3,4) although Ms. Plame and Mr. Wilson have called the film an accurate depiction of events. Sean Penn and Naomi Watts are dynamic as an embattled pair. Sam Shepard has a cameo role as Valerie Plame's father. Ms. Plame resigned from the CIA in 2006. She has worked lately on creating a movie "Countdown to Zero" (available at Film is Truth in Bellingham, WA) that calls for disarming nuclear missiles and securing fissile material across the world.

Some alternative views on the "Wikileaks Crisis"

2010-12-18T23:03:00.000-08:00

Two respected geo-political commentators have come up with separate, but interesting conclusions on the "Wiki-leaks Crisis" that point to further censure of the internet. F. William Engdahl warns us:

"The process of policing the Web was well underway before the current leaks scandal. In 2009 Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller and Republican Olympia Snowe introduced the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773). It would give the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet. The bill "would allow the president to 'declare a cyber-security emergency' relating to 'non-governmental' computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat." We can expect that now this controversial piece of legislation will get top priority when a new Republican House and the Senate convene in January."

Michel Chossudovsky warns us that there is "more to the truth than meets the eye":

"In recent years, the CIA's relationship to the media has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. We are dealing with a mammoth propaganda network involving a number of agencies of government.

Media disinformation has become institutionalized. The lies and fabrications have become increasingly blatant when compared to the 1970s. The US media has become the mouthpiece of US foreign policy."

I like both these analyses. Disinformation requires a high level of truth to be believable. Long range political and psychological operations are flexible in goals and outcomes, have persistent emotional appeal, and serve state-based political objectives. The "wikileaks crisis" fits this bill. As a network security professional, I will warn that the popularity and spread of wikileaks could be easily monitored and that such surveillance produces important information - the IP addresses, domains, and supportive infrastructure of political opponents.

This surveillance of different sides over a polarizing issue produces an important calculus: the public opinion and reaction to censure and fascism. The 'authors' of the operation now know how much they can 'push' others into tighter social control and who the 'resisters' are and where they are located. Operation Avenge Assange could then be viewed as an action that plays into the hands of those wanting to censure and control the internet with greater ferocity.

The most important result may be that the "wikileaks crisis" should be viewed as a strong call to arms for the supporters of free speech. This Christmas break, we need to find out what exactly is in Joe Lieberman's "Cyber Security Act for 2010". If you listen to Senators Lieberman and Collins speak, you will have to admit the entire "wikileaks crisis" and Operation Avenge Assange seem tailor made to help smooth the passage of this large and encompassing bill.:

"In the event of an attack on America's cyberspace, or the the threat of an attack...our legislation gives the President of the United States the authority to impose emergency measures...Those emergency measures would expire within thirty days unless specifically renewed."

The Wikileaks Crisis...

2010-12-09T10:17:00.000-08:00

You can no longer donate to Wikileaks by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, or Swiss Bank Accounts, leaving bank transfers and postal transfers as your only option. Neither would be very secure or anonymous in the USA, I would think. In response to these Wikileaks accounts being shut down, "Anonymous" hackers are successfully launching DDOS attacks against these organizations (and others who have criticized Wikileaks) just in time to help shut down the the Christmas shopping season. The world has been slipping into a permanent state of electronic informational warfare for some time now. The decision to prosecute ex-hacker Julian Asange is now directly responsible for putting the bodies of the electronic masses against virtual street barriers. And they've come armed with DDOS weapons.
As Asange languishes without bail in a notorious British prison for "'consensual sex' sex crimes" he claims he did not commit, world leaders fall out on one side or the other in support or condemnation of Wikileaks (Lula for, H.Clinton against). Meanwhile Wikileaks keeps publishing intercepted American diplomatic cables daily and gaining hundreds of supporting mirrors daily across the world. In response, the right wing attacks corporal Bradley Manning for his sexuality while most of us who are network security professionals wonder just how it was possible that an E-1 was able to copy 250,000 or so diplomatic cables wholesale. This gets weirder and weirder by the minute....

At this rate, world global economic and political secrecy is about to be undone. Every fascist, fearful reaction from the American side is being met with mass electronic resistance. In the future, there will be more leaks and more fortifications and political society will begin to polarize around the issue of sharing critical information. (This a "quagmire" that is sure to end nicely for all!) I'm neither for or against Wikileaks at this point, although I admire their use of technology and their cheek. The non-violent left in the U.S. has staged protest after protest to stop our genocidal wars in the Middle East. None of them has succeeded in antagonizing the United States as much as Wikileaks.

Local implementations of the "wikileaks concept" could be important for community politics. I have some number of mind-blowing, critical, documents (mostly PDRs) on political issues in Whatcom County, that I would like to submit to some centralized server and I know others do as well. Local repositories of critical community documentation would be very helpful to those of us that have relocated here (or are thinking of relocating here) to get up to speed on the historical efforts of environmentalists, traffic calming,cancer rates, development planning, growth, business income, employment, the history of political movements, etc. Perhaps someone needs to start and open-source project: "Wikileaks in a Box" for local community activists.

Student Protests in Europe

2010-12-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

In case you are not following it, the UK is in crisis. These explosive videos shows what happens to the social fabric of a Europe teetering on an economic crisis. In the second video, mounted police charge the protesters in an obvious attempt to physically intimidate them. In the third video, police entrap (kettle) the protesters, not allowing them to leave the protest. The protests and occupations are aimed at overturning or preventing the recent student fee increases.

Is this the spoilage? And thanks for your efforts in Whatcom County!

2010-11-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

Having looked at these the latest (certified) general election statistics this morning, now I have to ask:
(87,431 Ballots Returned) - (86,993 Total Ballots Cast) = 438 spoiled ballots? That would be a pretty low percentage of spoiled ballots if so: 438/87431 = 0.005 or .5% (1/2 of 1%). It would be interesting to know what the causes of this election's spoiled ballots are in any event. Missing signatures, deceased voters, food spilled over the ballot?

If that is the percentage of spoiled ballots in the 2010 Election, "Vote By Mail" in Whatcom County may not have disenfranchised anyone. In any event, a fascinating and seemingly carefully run vote count this election. Lots of good data for the precincts on the Election websites, timely updates and much hard work to be sure to count all these ballots in Whatcom County. Thanks to the election team in Whatcom County for all your efforts!