I found this little gem on Craigslist. The home itself isn’t notable. I’m bringing this ad up because of the realtor’s staged pictures. Take a look at this gem from, what I assume is, a bedroom. Given its proportions in this picture it seems more appropriate for a kid’s bedroom or an office.

We know this is staged because no one would ever set up a room like that. The owners obviously moved out but instead of taking a picture of a bare room, the realtor decided they must dress it up a little. So we get this bizarre setup. A rocking chair next to a lamp isn’t so off the wall by itself except when it’s in a room by itself! Am I supposed to believe this is the rocking/reading room? And what is that makeshift side table? It looks like it’s a stack of boxes with a print on them. But it gets even better.

This strains for an explanation. Two pillows, a plant and a lamp have never been placed more strangely. The lamp isn’t even visible! I guess the realtor was trying to create some sort of dramatic lighting effect behind that plant, but he only explained why people go to school for photography. And the pillows are just there; plopped on the floor.

All that said it’s still a pretty decent house and that means a lot from a person like me who hates modernist design. Oh how I despise those wood plank ceilings! I should say, although I’m no expert, I think painting those ceilings is a modernist sin. That type of ceiling is so common in these homes because part of the philosophy of this design is being in tune with the environment. That’s not just how the house is situated on its land but includes the construction elements as well. So by covering up that wood with paint, you’re covering up part of nature. Personally I don’t like it natural or painted. If I bought the place I would cover it up with drywall.

The rest of the house is unremarkable. I could live there but it wouldn’t be my dream home. That kitchen could use a little livening up. The light wood and tan colored tile backsplash together look really washed out to me. I really like glass mosaic tile so I would probably put that in there. I’m no fan of that shower either. It looks very cheap for a recent renovation.

It is near a beach which is a huge plus. However it is in El Granada and I should tell you a strange story about that town. I visited there once to investigate a plot of land I was considering bidding on at auction. El Granada is built up along a hillside near the ocean. I’m sure that provides some awesome views but it does make for some steep roads. So while I was looking for the street with the land I was interested in I ended up at the edge of town. I was driving back down the hill when I decided to make a phone call. I pulled over, parked on a steep road and got out my phone. While talking, across the street from me, I see a woman pull into her driveway. After a few minutes I notice she’s lingering at her SUV and glancing in my direction. While I was noticing her I was caught off guard by a pickup truck coming up the street. It roared just inches away from my car and took a parking spot behind me. A grizzled looking guy got out and walked into the house he parked in front of, but a few minutes later I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him watching me as he stood next to his pickup. Plus that woman was still out front keeping an eye on me. I felt so creeped out I got off the phone and drove away. El Granada must be a cloistered little down that never receives visitors.

I got this bit of spam last week. Without risk of exaggeration, this is the best spam I ever received. Instead of the usual gibberish, that subject totally grabbed my attention. When I first saw it I was so excited by the news I completely forgot this was probably spam. Boy was I disappointed to see they were just trying to sell me Viagra.

By the way our long national nightmare is over. Rosie O’Donnell announced she would not accept a job as host of the Price Is Right because she doesn’t want to move her family to LA. I didn’t even know she had a family but apparently, “O’Donnell lives in Nyack with her partner, Kelli, and their four children.” That sounds so mundane doesn’t it? I would have expected some arrangement between her and three or four other women.

I wanted to write about this last week when I first read about it and when it was closer to the climate change hullabaloo at this year’s G8 meeting. Sadly, I’ve become obsessed with an online game and am having a hell of a time pulling myself away from it. Today though, thanks to a slow work day, I can take some time to talk about a solution to the carbon problem.

Yeah I said a solution. This isn’t some marginally more efficient process that might shave off 0.5% from carbon emissions. This idea could actually remove all carbon dioxide that we wish from the atmosphere. It relies on a natural physical process that is occurring as you read this. The most simplistic way to explain it would be to say we should supercharge the interface between our atmosphere and our magnetic field.

Alfred Wong, a UCLA physicist, wants to use the Earth’s magnetic field to hurl molecules of carbon dioxide into space. At the Earth’s poles the magnetic field doesn’t completely cover the surface. At these areas ionic gases are already being expelled from our atmosphere. Any carbon dioxide carrying an extra electron, thus becoming negatively charged, would be guided out into space along the magnetic field lines. At least that is the case for ions that make it up to 125 km above the surface. At that level the atmosphere is so thin these ions can move without interference. Below that level turbulence from other atmospheric gases often impedes these molecules from following the magnetic field. What Wong wants to do is give carbon dioxide ions extra help in getting above that level.

There are two steps to his plan to achieve this. First is to ionize more carbon dioxide. He would do this by firing lasers at dust in the atmosphere. The energy from the laser would release electrons from the dust. These free electrons would be caught by carbon dioxide, thereby ionizing them. Yes other molecules will be ionized by these electrons but that doesn’t matter because of the next step.

These new carbon dioxide ions would then be helped into the upper atmosphere using radio waves at 17 hertz. That’s because carbon dioxide ions spiral along the magnetic field lines at 17 times a second. Radio waves at that frequency would energize the ions, and only the carbon dioxide ions, so they could make the trip out into space instead of being knocked deeper into the atmosphere by colliding with another molecule.

It certainly sounds like a plan worth investigating. It’s based on an already observed natural process (satellites have measured this occurring with oxygen ions). Shouldn’t we put forth the effort? I think so but it will never happen. Read these comments about the scheme at Treehugger. These people are actually afraid we’re going to vent all our carbon dioxide and oxygen into space. Nevermind that you can turn Wong’s radio transmitter off! Instead they retreat to the old standby – use less resources!

It’s like I said before. Environmentalism is not about protecting the environment from damage. It’s about anti-industrialism and anti-capitalism. We’re constantly bombarded by the message we need to do something about climate change immediately. We’re told to ride bicycles, use less lighting and reuse everything because the danger to our planet is imminent. Yet here we have a plan to solve the problem in a matter of years, but no one is excited about the possibility. Shouldn’t the IPCC or Greenpeace be demanding we investigate a plan to remove carbon from our atmosphere? Giving up our cars and switching all the light bulbs in the world to compact fluorescents would hopefully just stabilize the carbon dioxide content of the air. This idea could remove carbon dioxide from the air. Why aren’t environmental groups lining up to support this?

It’s because we’re not supposed to solve the problem. Environmentalism provides a respectable argument for people who hate big business and consumerism. These people could be honest and attack conspicuous consumption as a wasteful use of limited resources. They could attack big business for being soulless entities. They don’t do it because they know most of the public doesn’t respond to those arguments. Yet if they bemoan our consumer culture because its destroying the planet they get a lot more attention. People become willing to listen and, more importantly, willing to follow. That’s why you will never find an environmental group who supports this plan. If a scientist comes along and puts an end to the growing carbon dioxide problem, these groups will be left powerless.

If I came upon a street with a “bike box” I would be utterly confused. I’ve never heard of these things before. I don’t think I would drift into it because I can understand the stop line, but still I would feel really uncomfortable sitting there so far behind the light. According to Streetsblog these things are popping up on streets across New York City, the rationale being it’s safer for bikes to go first I guess. I would expect them all to get passed though. When I have a cyclist next to me my objective is to get away from them.

Perhaps this helps bikes make turns? A bike lane is confined to one side of the street so usually a cyclist has to merge with car traffic to make a turn that’s opposite of the bike lane. This gives them a chance to stay away from cars, which as a driver I appreciate.

It makes me wonder though how changes in street markings are explained to the public. I doubt everyone in NYC received a mailer explaining what a bike box is. Just repainting the lines and expecting drivers to figure it out is the cheap way but I’m pretty sure it will lead to a number of screwups.

I guess I will always be amazed at the small town feel you get at Safeway. I had off from work on Monday so I took advantage of the day to run a bunch of errands. One of which took me to Safeway. They were supposed to have a good sale on soda – 18 pack, buy one get one free. Since I knew I was stopping there I decided to do all my shopping there. Ya see, I fell back into my old habit. Even though I do get better service at Safeway, I ended up going back to Albertson’s for my regular shopping. I know I said I switched but it didn’t stick.

Albertson’s is just more convenient being one street over from me. Plus I never got used to Safeway’s soft lighting. It’s too dim in there. I feel like I’m walking around in someone’s house. Albertson’s uses these bright white fluorescents. It’s a very clinical look. I’m aware that does not sound appealing but I prefer it that way. I want to think the food I buy is untainted and protected using the most hygienic procedures. I’m sure Safeway is as clean as anywhere, but I don’t get that vibe when I shop there.

So there I am waiting at the deli counter. The guy in front of me is making a fuss over his order. I think he wants them to throw in some berries from the fruit salad into his rice pudding. By the way it’s not a very good looking pudding. At first glance I thought it was cole slaw with raisins in it. Anyway as my mind was drifting off this kid from behind the counter says hello and startles me. I’m a little unnerved because this is really unexpected. In the past the only counter people I’ve been served by were older. These were people in their 30s through 50s who must have chose this as a permanent job. Now all of a sudden there’s a teenager there. The first thing that came to mind was, ‘Shouldn’t he be in school?’ I nearly said it out loud. Then I realized this must be his summer vacation.

I didn’t think kids still did that. It feels like such a throwback to another time. Wasn’t there an episode of Leave It To Beaver where the kids try and get summer jobs? It seems like there would be. I guess I just assumed in a well off place like the Bay Area that parents would spoil their kids and just give them money. I wonder if working at Safeway was his idea or his parents’ idea. Only at Safeway can you see a slice of small town life while living in a modest sized town of a 100,000 people.

I guess this means Safeway employees are not union either. I’m sure a union would oppose hiring any students because they wouldn’t be around long enough to join.

I know this makes me sound incredibly old but it’s nice to see a kid developing a work ethic.

I never thought terrorism could be ridiculous but the French have proved me wrong. In the Languedoc region of southern France a group called CRAV has given an ultimatum demanding the French government raise the price of wine.

Not being the least bit interested in wine, I had no idea French vintners were struggling to turn a profit. Consumption has been declining for years, all while other countries have been expanding their wine industries. These vintners are left fighting more competition for a smaller piece of the pie. Recently they have been forced to sell their wine at a loss just to get rid of their stock. That surprises the hell out of me. I never expected the French thirst for wine to wane.

Yet I found it striking that the vintner the BBC interviewed blamed the profit taken by wholesalers for their financial woes. The falling demand for wine should not be unknown to him. A shopkeeper the BBC also interviewed blamed wholesalers as well. Even though the French government has admitted demand for wine is in a long term decline, there doesn’t appear to be any understanding that such a fall would lead to lower prices. I guess all of France needs to take an Economics 101 course.

That would be a fitting punishment for these CRAV members. In a video message, these nuts warned “blood will flow” if the government doesn’t do something to raise wine prices. As stupid as they sound, the CRAV has shown themselves to be dangerous. Besides petty vandalism they have hijacked a truck carrying foreign wine and planted explosives in stores selling foreign wine. So far no one has been killed but that won’t last if these attacks continue. It’s a guarantee that there is at least one hothead in the group who will take things too far.

The government can’t ban or raise tariffs on wine imports because I think that would violate EU trade rules, but it’s possible they could set some mandated minimum wine price that must be paid no matter where the wine comes from. No doubt the CRAV and the vintners they represent would consider that a victory but it would be short lived. Wholesalers would only be willing to eat the extra cost for so long. Raising the wholesale price will ultimately lead to higher retail prices later. That will accelerate the decline in wine consumption.

There are two real solutions to this. Either some of these vintners need to go out of business to lower the supply of wine, or they need to find ways to cut their expenses. I imagine anyone going out of business would be considered unacceptable. I’ve never made wine in my life so I can’t offer cost cutting advice, but since this is France I’m willing to bet these guys aren’t using industrial production methods. Some mechanization should be considered. It could help improve production. Sure you have to give up the fantasy of the local French vintner making wine the same way it has been done for a 1000 years, but look at the other choices. Either go out of business or terrorizeg your customers into buying more of your wine.

The odds are Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and Giuliani will take the Republican one. Better yet it’s getting more likely Mike Bloomberg will run for the presidency as an independent. A third party candidate is always a load of fun. I remember the madness of Ross Perot’s run. He started out as the straight talking businessman who wanted to bring results oriented discipline to Washington’s politics. I remember at his peak he was polling at 40% of voters. Then Perot dropped out of the race mysteriously. Weeks went by before he announced he pulled his candidacy because someone threatened to circulate a doctored photo of his daughter having lesbian sex. Yet he decided to get back into the race after making himself look nuts. That is a hard legacy for Bloomberg to top.

Below is my prediction for a three-way race between Clinton, Giuliani and Bloomberg. Click to see a larger image.

In a normal Democrat vs. Republican race, you can mostly rely on past election history to tell you which party will claim which the electoral votes. A strong third party candidate is a real onion in the ointment because it’s hard to predict who the third party will steal the most votes from.Bloomberg plays the role of a social liberal, but fiscal conservative. For my electoral map I made the assumption Bloomberg would hurt Clinton in the east because of his social liberalism. I think he could do something similar in that region to what Nader did to Gore in 2000. Bloomberg will cost Clinton environmentalists. They love him for proposing congestion pricing in New York City. I’m pretty he’s also in favor of establishing a carbon credit market. Out west he would steal votes from Giuliani because those mountain folk love a politician who wants to keep finances in good order.

Arizona is the exception to this logic. Illegal immigration is a huge issue for that state. I think Giuliani’s tough talk about that will appeal to them and deny Bloomberg many votes there. Bloomberg will do more damage to Clinton in that state.

Third party candidates never win states but I gave New York to Bloomberg nonetheless. I wouldn’t call that a lock, but I think it’s a possibility. He’s loved in New York City and I think the remainder of the state will be persuaded to vote for him because of his stature in the city. Now this probably won’t extend to the northern most counties but they don’t really count anyway.

I struggled hard with Florida. The Cubans and the Jews are the two groups all politicians pander to when they run in Florida. In a normal race I think Clinton would take this state, but Bloomberg running will wreck her chances. I think he will siphon the Jewish vote from Clinton. The rest of Florida has no problem voting Republican. Jeb Bush was very popular, and Charlie Crist, the current Republican governor, is also very popular.

Ohio and West Virginia are probably the two states were I’m least sure of the results. In the end I gave them to Giuliani under the assumption Bloomberg would steal more votes from Clinton. I am wavering on that though. With coal dominating the West Virginia economy I doubt people there will be receptive to Bloomberg’s eco-credentials. Actually I don’t think people there are very friendly towards the big businessman type either. So really this is a straight Clinton-Giuliani contest and I give the win to Rudy because I think his tough guy act will play well there. Clinton has a shot if she can copy her husband’s I feel your pain act, but I am not confident she can.

Ohio is a more complicated situation. It’s famous for its industrial decline. So you would expect a politician who bemoans free trade and business to do well here. People often forget the state is a lot more diverse. It has a sizable agricultural base and a modern commercial sector. These areas keep the Republicans in contention. I don’t expect Bloomberg to get much support from bitter blue collar workers but he can hurt Clinton in the cities among well to do progressives. This is uncertain but I’m going to give Giuliani the edge.

That means a Giuliani presidency. Of course all this could change. There is a long time before the election and as more people learn about Giuliani’s social liberalism he could lose a lot of Republican support. Someone on the McLaughlin Group said two-thirds of Republicans don’t know Giuliani’s stand on abortion. If people start to see beyond “Mr. 9/11″ he’s in trouble.

Frankly I hope the situation changes. I wouldn’t vote for Giuliani. I don’t trust him not to trample on all of my civil liberties. Actually I’ve warmed up to the idea of Bloomberg as president. I didn’t like it at first, but the more I think about it, the more I feel he could get this country back on track. His environmental plans are too far left for me, but maybe Congress can tone it down. There’s a lot to consider. Good thing we have over a year until we have to vote.

I think Czech President Vaclav Klaus has been reading my mind. Klaus penned an editorial in the Financial Times this week regarding the new dogma of global warming.

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

-Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic
Financial Times, June 13, 2007

Ain’t it the truth! The world is adopting human caused global warming as a new tenet no one is permitted to question. Just two weeks ago NASA’s administrator, Michael Griffin, was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition radio show. During the interview Griffin stated he didn’t think climate change was something humans necessarily had to reverse.

MR. INSKEEP : And I just wanted to make sure that I’m clear. Do you have any doubt that [global warming] is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?

MR. GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown, and second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Griffin agreed there is a warming trend, and although he didn’t explicitly say it I thought he conceded it was human caused. Even so his statement caused a furor. The head of NASA’s climate science division denounced Griffin and called his statement “arrogant and ignorant”. I find it fascinating a statement questioning who decides the Earth’s climate is itself arrogant. Griffin’s sin was to question the need for action, nay, the urgent demand for radical action!

Climate science is too political now to answer any remaining questions. In spite of what the new dogma says the effects of global warming are still uncertain. Climate models aren’t accurate. They still cannot correctly handle the effects of a basic element like clouds. I am also still uncertain why we ignore the role of water vapor as a greenhouse gas. A NOAA webpage on greenhouse gases says changes in water vapor are assumed to be the result of feedbacks from global warming. That is to say something else started climate change and the change in water vapor is the result of that. Why make that assumption?

I think it’s pretty brave for President Klaus to write that editorial. Europe has drunk deep of the Kool Aid and if they haven’t already I would expect many European politicians to denounce him.

I’ve often felt our justice system is illogical. Yesterday while reading BBC News I found another example to reinforce my belief. Elisa Kelly is going to spend two and a half years in jail. When I hear a sentence like that I think of crimes like car theft or some kind of fraud. Yet Ms. Kelly isn’t guilty of anything like that. Her crime was serving beer at her teenage son’s sixteenth birthday party.

Kelly made certain the kids wouldn’t leave the house and used her Hummer to block their cars in the driveway. So at least we know she tried to be responsible about this. I wonder if her biggest mistake was not telling the other parents she was letting the kids drink. On the one hand it seems like a good idea because then the disapproving parents can keep their kids home, but it does seem like a bad idea to draw attention to your underage drinking party. It doesn’t seem to matter now because word got out about the party and someone called the police. Now she’s sitting in jail. For letting some kids drink she has to spend the next 27 months in jail. Amazingly that sentence has been reduced from the original 8 years.

Yes Elisa Kelly sounds like a real permissive parent. Letting those kids drink was a pretty stupid idea but her sentence is ludicrous. It’s completely out of proportion to the offense. If I were giving the sentence she would get 30 days and that’s it. That’s enough to keep her from being so permissive in the future and violating the law. Kelly is no threat to society. Jailing her for years is simply unnecessary.

I stayed up late to watch Ron Paul’s appearance on the Colbert Report. I actually forgot this guy was running for president. He has completely dropped off my radar screen. Aside from a few interviews on cable news I’ve never seen him. He never gets mentioned when pundits talk about the Republican nomination race either.

Still though I thought it would be good to hear some of his ideas. I remembered he had a libertarian streak so I figured it might be nice to hear someone with those values. He started out explaining his governing philosophy. Calling himself a constitutionalist Paul claims his political decisions are based entirely on how the Constitution applies. It all sounds very noble and admirable and I’m actually starting to like the guy. That is until Colbert asks Paul to raise his hand if he would like to abolish an government agency or institution. Colbert then rattles off a list and Paul does not lower his hand once.

I have no problem with abolishing the Department of Education and Department of Energy. I agree with Ron Paul there. They are both worthless agencies. America has a decentralized school system so the Dept. of Ed. has no authority over any school districts. I don’t see the need for a federal education agency with no powers. The Department of Energy was a knee-jerk response by President Carter to the first energy crisis we had in the 1970s. As I sit mired in our second energy crisis I have to wonder what good it has done.

Colbert read off many other names. I remember the WTO and NAFTA and the Interstate Commerce Commission were in there. The funny thing is the ICC was abolished in 1995. Oh well. That’s just details! I guess his point is to abolish everything.

My biggest concern was Paul’s desire to abolish the IRS. That got me wondering what tax scheme did he have in mind to replace it. Given his tone I would have bet he wanted to turn the clock back to the 19th century, reopen the New York Customs House and start charging tariffs on everything again. After all if he opposed the WTO and NAFTA could he be in favor of free trade? So I went over to his website to try and look up the answer. There I found he objects to trade organizations because he thinks they erode American sovereignty. He opposes the Federal Reserve System and seems to object to foreigners owning US government debt. I still have no idea what he would replace the income tax with or how he would regulate the money supply without the Federal Reserve. Does he want to go back to the gold standard?

The fact that he’s so light on information about a central issue of his campaign makes me think this guy is just a crank using the race to get attention for himself. Really I hope that’s the case because if he truly believes he has a chance of winning, he’s lost touch with reality just like his supporters. Here are some watching him arrive at the Colbert Report for his interview. What a sad collection. I have to wonder if they have really deluded themselves into thinking he has a chance.