Current Texas Wildfire Situation

Wildfire update – Sept. 9, 2011

Current situation:

• Yesterday Texas Forest Service responded to 19 new fires for 673 acres, including new large fires in Camp and Hill counties. 

• In the past seven days Texas Forest Service has responded to 186 fires for 156,517 acres. 

• 250 of the 254 Texas counties are reporting burn bans. 

• Daily detailed fire information can be found at inciweb.org.

New large fires from yesterday (more than 100 acres in timber, 300 acres in lighter fuels; or where homes were lost):

HICKORY HILL CEMETERY, Camp County. 181 acres, contained. Burning in cutover and pine. This fire started Tuesday, however TFS resources were not utilized until yesterday.
DAM, Hill County. 250 acres, 80 percent contained. It appears that up to six homes were lost on this fire yesterday.


Uncontained fires from previous days (more than 100 acres in timber, 300 acres in lighter fuels):

BASTROP COUNTY COMPLEX, Bastrop County. 34,068 acres, 30 percent contained. Crews and equipment continue to mop up and patrol. Good progress was made on the fire yesterday. An assessment team has confirmed 1,386 homes have been destroyed. Two civilians were found dead Tuesday as search crews went through the charred subdivisions. A Southern Area Type I Incident Management Team is assisting in managing the fire.

BEAR CREEK (#536), Cass County. 25,000 acres, unknown containment. Acreage may be higher than what is estimated at this time. MODIS satellite image indicates approximately 40,000 acres have burned. The fire is burning very actively in heavy timber and is threatening numerous houses. Scoopers, heavy airtankers, and Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System engines are assisting. Eight homes have been destroyed. A Type 1 Incident Management Team is assisting with management of the fire.

PEDERNALES BEND (Spicewood), Travis County. 6,500 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning 4 miles southeast of Spicewood. Sixty-seven homes were destroyed.

RILEY ROAD, Grimes/Montgomery/Waller counties. 15,000-plus acres, 60 percent contained. Active fire behavior was observed yesterday as the fire moved to the southwest in Waller County. Approximately seventy-five homes have been destroyed on this fire burning just west of Magnolia.

UNION CHAPEL, Bastrop County. 719 acres, 90 percent contained. Twenty-five homes were destroyed on this fire just west of Bastrop. Aircraft responded immediately after the fire was reported, but was ineffective in the windy conditions.

WHITE OAK ROAD, Gregg County. 300 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning in pine and hardwood. No new information was received.

PETERS CHAPEL, Harrison County. 650 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning actively in pine plantation. Numerous homes have been evacuated. Two homes were destroyed. No new information was received.

CLARKSVILLE, Red River County. 350 acres, 90 percent contained. Two homes were lost on this timber and grass fire burning near Clarksville.

#521, Cherokee/Rusk County. 256 acres, 90 percent contained.

#538 (Lansing Switch Road), Harrison County. 200 acres, 50 percent contained. The fire is burning in pine and hardwoods. No new information was received.

DELHI, Caldwell County. 6,000 acres, 85 percent contained. Twenty homes were saved and six were lost on this fire east of Lockhart.

DIANA (#545), Upshur County. 2,500 acres, 70 percent contained. The fire is burning in grass and timber. Twenty homes are threatened. No new information was received.
LUTHERHILL, Fayette County. 2,700 acres, 95 percent contained. The community of Ruttersville was evacuated. Fourteen homes were destroyed.

BONBIEW RANCH, Van Zandt County. 350 acres, 80 percent contained. Twenty homes were saved southeast of Canton. No new information was received.

MOORE, Smith County. 1,556 acres, 90 percent contained. Ten homes were evacuated and five were lost on this fire burning on the Smith/Gregg County line. The fire continued to be active Wednesday night. Two civilian fatalities were reported last Sunday.

BOOT WALKER (#553), Marion County. 1,000 acres, unknown containment. A wind shift to the south could threaten 30 homes.

TOAD ROAD (#552), Upshur County. 350 acres, unknown containment. The fire is burning in timber. Three homes were lost and dozens remain threatened. No new information was received.

HALSBRO COMPLEX, Red River County. 958 acres, 95 percent contained. The fire is burning in grass. Fifteen homes are threatened, but none reported lost.

#507, Anderson County. 1,400 acres, unknown containment.

#504, Anderson County. 800 acres, unknown containment.

#502, Nacogdoches County. 4,000 acres, unknown containment. MODIS satellite shows the fire may be approximately 9,000 acres. The fire was very active yesterday. More than a dozen homes have been evacuated, but none lost.

ARBOR, Houston County. 3,000 acres, 90 percent contained. The fire is burning in timber. Up to 15 homes are reported lost.

OLD MAGNOLIA, Gregg County. 1,000 acres, 80 percent contained. Several structures and a gas plant are threatened. No new information was received.

101 RANCH, Palo Pinto County. 6,555 acres, 85 percent contained. The fire is burning on the south side of Possum Kingdom Lake near the town of Brad. Thirty-nine homes and nine RVs have been reported destroyed. Crews continue to mop up and aircraft are monitoring.

Weather Outlook:
A surface ridge of dry high pressure will maintain a dry air mass and northerly component to the flow to much of the Lone Star state into early next week. A weak surface trough of low pressure in place over the panhandle during may lead to some localized gusty winds at times over the far northern portions of the panhandle where an isolated shower or thunderstorm could occur. The pressure gradient will be strongest near the Interstate 35 corridor today, where winds should again be around 10 mph sustained for a few hours in the late afternoon to early evening hours. Relative humidity this afternoon will be similar to yesterday afternoon, with minimum relative humidity below 20 percent across most of the state. High temperatures will range in the 80s and 90s in general, but will approach 100 over Deep South Texas. Poor overnight recoveries will continue for areas away from the coast, especially locations west of Interstate 35. Dry conditions will continue as high pressure over the Southern Plains continues to push dry air over the East Branch. Winds will be lighter with more variable through the morning hours becoming north and northeast during the afternoon 5 to 8 mph with gusts up to 15 mph. Mostly sunny skies with afternoon highs in the upper 80s to mid-90s. The relative humidity will fall back into the 12-20 percent range and 25-35 percent south where a late afternoon sea breeze will creep inland. Poor to moderate overnight recoveries 50-60 percent in the northwest to 65-85 percent in the east and south.

Terror In The Dust

U.S. government to sue major banks over mortgages

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, September 7, 2011

The United States plans to file lawsuits against more than a dozen big banks over mortgage-backed securities seen to have fueled the 2008 economic crisis, the New York Times said.

The lawsuits are set to be filed Friday or early next week against Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and others, the newspaper reported, citing three unnamed individuals briefed on the matter.

The lawsuits will accuse the banks of bundling toxic mortgages -- held by borrowers with inflated or falsified incomes -- as securities and marketing them to investors.

When the borrowers failed to pay their bills, the securities lost value, contributing to the loss of $30 billion by government-backed mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, losses borne mostly by taxpayers, the Times said.

The two firms, along with two other smaller agencies, currently insure or guarantee 90 percent of all new US home loans.

Instead of trying to force the banks to buy back the tainted bonds, authorities are demanding reimbursement for losses on the securities held by Fannie and Freddie, the Times said.

None of the banks in question responded to requests for comment from the Times, but it said they argued privately that the losses were caused by the general economic downturn and not by any deception related to mortgages.

They also argue that Fannie and Freddie were sophisticated investors who knew that the bonds carried a certain level of risk.

The Times said the suits are being filed now because of a statute of limitations that expires on Wednesday, the three-year anniversary of the government's takeover of Fannie and Freddie.

Who Will the Super Committee Fight For?

Thursday, September 8, 2011 by The Nation

by Katrina vanden Heuvel

 

 

While President Obama’s highly anticipated jobs speech seems to be all political junkies are paying attention to today (that is, if you’re not a football junkie), attention must also be paid to the first meeting of the infamous super committee.

Today these 12 men and women begin the business of finding $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in new revenues and spending cuts over the next decade. What this committee comes up with might go a long way towards determining the kinds of resources that will be available (or not) for any lasting economic recovery.

Before embarking on a GOP “cuts only” approach that too many Democrats seem willing to buy into, the super committee members—six from the House and six from the Senate, evenly divided between the parties—should look homeward to their own districts and states and see how their constituents are doing. That should serve as a reminder of just whom it is they were elected to serve—it’s not K Street and the nearly 100 registered lobbyists who used to work for super committee members and now expect to be “heavily involved” in this debate, according to the Washington Post. It’s their constituents back home.

That’s why Half in Ten—a national campaign to reduce poverty by 50 percent over the next 10 years—along with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, have put together a comprehensive fact sheet for each of the twelve members, describing the conditions in their districts and states—from the jobs picture, to the impact of tax policy, to poverty and education.

For example, in the district of Committee co-chair Jeb Hensarling—a Republican Congressman from Texas who raises nearly 40 percent of every $100 in campaign donations from finance, insurance, or real estate—the poverty rate is over 14%, including more than 1 in 5 children. More than 1 in 5 residents are living without healthcare.

30 percent of families in his district are dealing with hunger. Since August 2008, the state has lost nearly 95,000 manufacturing jobs as well as 84,000 construction jobs, and the teen unemployment rate is 60%. Meanwhile, those who are doing well can thank a skewed tax policy that’s making the rich richer: individuals earning more than $200,000—3 percent of the state’s residents—reduced their tax liability by $23 billion on capital gains and dividend earnings write-offs alone in 2009. Too bad that for every individual earning $200,000, 24 earned $50,000 or less.

Should Hensarling be looking to cut Pell Grants for the 578,000 recipients in his state? Or the benefits of nearly 71,000 people in his district who receive Social Security income? Or food stamps for 21,000 households in his district that turned to them over the past 12 months? Maybe instead he should simply say thank you very much to his corporate donors, but then allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors just like the VA does for veterans. Or eliminate the tax deduction for vacation homes. Maybe even support a modest financial transaction tax that reins in speculation—such as the one called for by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, or used in the UK—which could raise up to $175 billion per year. (Hey, combine that with closing the corporate tax havens that cost $100 billion in lost revenues every year and your job is done, super committee.)

But it’s not just Republicans who need to take stock of conditions back home. For starters, two-thirds of the lobbyists with committee ties are Democrats. Thirteen of them worked for committee co-chair, Senator Patty Murray, who has strong ties to the defense industry in Washington State. Although she has a record of standing up for at-risk populations, The Nation’s Ari Berman reports that both she and fellow super committee member Senator John Kerry signed a letter in March calling for a “grand bargain” deal that would include “discretionary spending cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform.”

But nearly 30 percent of Murray’s constituents are already living on less than $44,100 for a family of four, and more than one-quarter live on income from Social Security. Since August 2008, the state lost nearly 63,000 construction jobs and 29,000 manufacturing jobs. With one in five families now dealing with hunger, more than 250,000 households needed food stamps in the past 12 months. One in five children under age five are now living in poverty, and over 1.1 million people receive Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program benefits.

In contrast, the state’s richest 2.9 percent earning $200,000 or more decreased their tax liability by over $6.5 billion in 2009 through capital gains and dividend earnings deductions alone.

The story is the same virtually everywhere in the country. If you look only at the eleven states represented on the committee (Michigan has two members—Republican Congressmen Dave Camp and Fred Upton), the wealthiest states’ residents aggregated over $94 billion in capital gains and dividend earnings deductions just in 2009. 11 states—nearly $100 billion in deductions just for capital gains and dividends for the richest 1.6 to 4.4 percent. And we’re having a hard time finding revenues? Please.

“Super committee members have a choice: to represent the interests of their constituents or protect the wealthy and special interests,” says Melissa Boteach, manager of Half in Ten. 

“With so many of their constituents living in poverty, struggling to access good quality jobs, and relying on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other effective services, the choice is clear.”

And yet more and more Congress and statehouses are looking to balance budgets on the backs of those already struggling.

The GOP with it’s human slashonomics approach has now set its sights on the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, which give thousands of dollars a year to working families and lifted 7.2 million people out of poverty (below $22,400 per year for a family of four) in 2009 alone. Many states are reducing unemployment benefits and state earned income tax credits, as well as cash assistance to poor families. Phil Oliff, policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reports this week on lawmakers in Missouri who want to eliminate a property tax credit for low- and moderate-income seniors and people with disabilities in order to help finance new tax credits for businesses. This would continue a nationwide trend of enacting expensive tax cuts while slashing education, healthcare and other vital public services needed by vulnerable citizens.

The grand bargain isn't grand if it only lifts a few yachts while letting millions of boats flounder or sink. Get the facts.

The Path to Real Prosperity

Thursday, September 8, 2011 by YES! Magazine
A new jobs plan is thinking too small. What we need is a new economy.

by David Korten

 

 

Like most white middle class Americans of my generation, I grew up believing that our strong market economy and democratic political institutions make us the world's greatest and most prosperous nation. The America of my youth was the product of a strong social contract that said we are all in this together—at least the white folks—and we all do best when we all do well. That contract made America the envy of the world. With the civil rights movement, many of us hoped we could expand the contract to truly include everyone.

Then Wall Street got greedy, abandoned the contract, and created a winner-take-all economy controlled by an oligarchy dedicated to growing its personal financial assets.

Contrary to what Wall Street propagandists would have us believe, Wall Street is a job killer, not a job creator. It prospers by depressing wages, eliminating and outsourcing American jobs, and extracting usurious interest rates from Americans forced to borrow to put food on the table or to maintain a middle class lifestyle. The result is an America in decline and out of work.

Wall Street flies the American flag when it is convenient. It relates to America, however, as an alien occupier, much like the British prior to the American Revolution. Tax breaks and deregulation for Wall Street will only strengthen the role of the occupier and destroy more jobs than they create. An effective jobs program will increase taxes on Wall Street corporations and billionaires and regulatory restraints on their destructive practices.

As I witness the devastation wrought by the Old Economy, my greatest source of sadness comes from an awareness of the profound gap between our human reality and our human possibility.

 

Main Street is the job creator. We rebuild America’s productive capacity through programs and institutions that support and invest in Main Street businesses, farms, and infrastructure owned by people who have a stake in being responsible citizens in their communities. These programs and institutions are properly funded, at least in part, by taxing the financial wealth expropriated by Wall Street corporations and billionaires through deception and unproductive financial manipulation.

To build a prosperous 21st century America we must declare our national independence from Wall Street and build a New Economy adapted to the realities of a finite planet and an interconnected 21st century world.

The underlying institutional structure of this New Economy will look a good deal like the Main Street economies of human-scale, locally rooted businesses that produced the American middle class, made America the world leader in industry and technology, and fulfilled the American Dream for millions of Americans. This economy was the product of rules put in place in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s to limit Wall Street power and hold it democratically accountable to Main Street needs and interests.

Shifting economic and political power from a predatory Wall Street economy to a generative Main Street economy is the common theme of most every initiative documented or recommended in my book, Agenda for a New Economy and this blog series.

Unlike the American economy either before or after the Wall Street takeover, America’s new 21st century economy will:

• Bring America’s material consumption into balance with our ecological resources.
• Secure for every American—irrespective of race or gender—the opportunity to achieve an adequate and dignified living.
• Take a bold new step toward true democracy by creating a nation of owners who have a strong stake in the health and vitality of their local communities and natural environments.

We humans are a species of many possibilities. Wall Street has proven our ability to create a culture and institutions that cultivate, celebrate, and reward the pathologies of our lesser evolved reptilian capacities for ruthless individualism, greed, and violence. We can, if we choose, create a culture and institutions that nurture, celebrate, and reward the higher order capacities for creativity, sharing, and cooperation that make us distinctively human.

We can turn as a species from an economic system devoted to perfecting our capacity for violent exclusionary competition to one devoted to perfecting our capacity for caring, inclusive cooperation. We can turn from economic institutions that draw down Earth’s nonrenewable reserves of fossil energy to oppose, dominate, and mine Earth’s biosphere to institutions that work in integral partnership with the extraordinary generative capacity of Earth’s self-organizing living systems.

As I witness the devastation wrought by the Old Economy, my greatest source of sadness comes from an awareness of the profound gap between our human reality and our human possibility. My greatest source of joy and hope is my awareness of the vitality of the human spirit as demonstrated by the millions of people who are working to realize their shared vision of a just and sustainable world that works for all. My greatest source of motivation is the knowledge that it is within our collective means to unleash the positive creative potential of the human consciousness and make that vision a reality.

We are privileged to live at the most exciting moment of creative opportunity in the whole of the human experience. Now is the hour. We have the power to turn this world around for the sake of ourselves and our children for generations to come. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Jobs Plan? End the Wars, Save 400,000 Jobs

Thursday, September 8, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Robert Naiman

 

 

President Obama is preparing to deliver a major address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, outlining his plans for spending and tax cuts to create jobs.

Here's a plan that would likely save at least 400,000 jobs over the next ten years, without increasing the deficit or raising a dollar of additional revenue: bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan as previously scheduled, and use the savings to reduce the debt in place of proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits - or other cuts in domestic spending.

The total savings to the federal budget of using the chained CPI as a measure of inflation (including cuts in Social Security benefits) and raising the Medicare retirement age appear to be on the order of $200 billion over 2012-2021. This proposal was a key feature of the deal that President Obama and Speaker Boehner agreed to in the debt ceiling negotiations. The deal collapsed, because Speaker Boehner could not deliver the House on the deal, since it also included revenue increases. Judging from press reports, the President and others would like to revive this deal. So - unfortunately, from the point of view of the values and interests of the overwhelming majority of Americans - this proposal appears to still be on the table.

As good fortune would have it, $200 billion is a conservative estimate of the savings to the federal budget from 2012-2021 of withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq this December (as previously agreed) and withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan after 2014 (as previously announced.) It's a conservative estimate for at least three reasons: because it assumes that the Pentagon's plan is to keep 25,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, which is towards the low end of the estimates that have appeared in press reports; because it uses the current average cost of keeping troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the average cost is likely to be higher when troop levels are lower; and because it is only based on current appropriations, not future implied costs of current action, like veterans' health care.

In addition to the direct benefit to the overwhelming majority of Americans of protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits from any cuts, taking the money from the military rather than Social Security and Medicare would have the effect of protecting U.S. employment, since spending money in the domestic economy creates more U.S. employment than military spending in general, and war spending in particular.
Here is a rough estimate of the effect this proposal would have on saving jobs.

In a 2007 paper, Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts estimated the impact of an additional billion dollars in military spending on employment compared to other uses, using a standard input-output model of the U.S. economy.
They found that an additional billion dollars in military spending would create 8,555 jobs. In contrast, an additional billion in tax cuts for personal consumption would create 10,779 jobs. Other categories of federal spending examined - education, health, mass transit - created more jobs than tax cuts for personal consumption. [See table 1, page 6.]

Thus, the net effect of moving one billion dollars from the domestic economy to military spending would be to destroy at least 2,224 jobs; moving $200 billion from the domestic economy to military spending would destroy at least 444,800 jobs. Conversely, saving $200 billion by ending the wars as previously scheduled, rather than saving it from the federal budget by using the chained CPI and raising the Medicare retirement age, would save more than 400,000 jobs.

What does saving 444,800 jobs mean in the context of the U.S. economy? The U.S. labor force is about 150 million people, so 400,000 jobs represents about 0.3% of the labor force. If those jobs were added to the economy today, the measured unemployment rate, instead of being 9.1%, would be 8.8%. Not at all where we want to be, obviously, but still a significant improvement - for hundreds of thousands of people - from where we are now.
Of course, there are much more savings to be had by cutting the military budget. We could draw troops down in Afghanistan between now and 2015 faster than the Pentagon wants. Every year we have 25,000 fewer troops in Afghanistan, we more than $17 billion. As David Ignatius notes in the Washington Post, according to the analysts of the CIA, we're currently spending $100 billion a year in Afghanistan for "stalemate."

And then there is the question of cutting the "base," non-war, Pentagon budget. Under the automatic trigger, currently projected Pentagon spending would be cut by roughly $600 billion over ten years, in addition to the $350 billion reduction that the Administration and press reports say was implied by the previous debt reduction agreement. Pentagon chief Leon Panetta has said this additional reduction in projected Pentagon spending would be unacceptable, and the money should come from "entitlements" - the Social Security and Medicare benefits we have already paid for through our payroll taxes - instead.

But if taking $200 billion out of the military instead of domestic spending would save 444,800 jobs, then taking $600 billion out of the military instead of domestic spending would save 1,334,400 jobs. If you added 1,334,400 jobs to the economy today, the unemployment rate would be 8.2%, rather than 9.1%. If we end the wars as scheduled and cut projected Pentagon spending by an additional $600 billion, instead of taking money out of the domestic economy, that would save 1,779,200 jobs, an effect akin to reducing the unemployment rate today from 9.1% to 7.9%.

Ending the wars and cutting the base military budget by $600 billion will not by itself solve our unemployment problem. But failing to end the wars, and failing to cut the base military budget, and cutting domestic spending instead, will, so long as we have an unemployment problem, make our unemployment problem significantly worse; and ending the wars and cutting the base Pentagon budget will have the effect of significantly lowering unemployment relative to taking cuts from the domestic economy.

Here's another way of looking at the stimulus effects of moving money from the military to the domestic budget. If you find a billion dollars lying on the sidewalk, you can use that to create 10,779 jobs through tax cuts for personal consumption, the least efficient means of creating jobs besides military spending. If you move a billion dollars from military spending to domestic spending, you create 2,224 jobs. Thus, every time you move a billion dollars from the military budget to domestic spending, it's as if you found $206 million lying on the sidewalk to use for economic stimulus. If you move $800 billion to the domestic economy by ending the wars and cutting projected Pentagon spending, it's as if you found $165 billion lying on the sidewalk to use for economic stimulus.

You can urge Congress to end the wars as part of the deal to reduce the nation's debt here.

Greek Taxis, Doctors, Dentists on Anti-Austerity Strike

Thursday, September 8, 2011 by the Greek Reporter

by Apostolos Papapostolou 

 

ATHENS, Greece — Taxi drivers, tax collectors, doctors and garbage collectors in Greece all signaled a new round of strike action on Wednesday in response to government pledges for the swifter enforcement of austerity measures.

Taxi drivers called a 24-hour strike, to begin at 5 a.m. on Thursday, and hinted at more action on Saturday, after the government refused to amend legislation opening up their sector to competition.

As daily Kathimerini reports, according to the bill, which is to be submitted in Parliament next month, anyone will be able to apply for a taxi drivers’ license – as long as they do not have a criminal record, speak good Greek and pay an application charge, to be set somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 euros.

Assuming that the legislation is voted through Parliament, the first new licenses will be issued by the end of the year.

Cabbies – who vehemently object to the reforms, complaining that there are already too many taxis on Greek roads – caused havoc to the crucial tourism sector last month by not only striking for two-and-a-half weeks but also blocking ports, airports and roads.

The taxi drivers’ sector is not the only one up in arms over austerity.

Tax collectors called a 48-hour strike for next Monday and Tuesday, protesting plans by the government to suspend civil servants with reduced pay for 12 months.

Doctors, protesting planned cutbacks, are to start a two-day walkout on Thursday.

Athens’s municipal garbage collectors are to start rolling 48-hour work stoppages on Sunday, calling for the reinstatement of colleagues whose short-term contracts have expired.

And state school teachers are also to start rolling strikes from September 22.

Current Texas Wildfire Situation

Wildfire update – Sept. 8, 2011

Current situation:

• Yesterday Texas Forest Service responded to 20 new fires for 1,422 acres, including new large fires in Red River, Smith, and Cherokee/Rusk counties. 

• In the past seven days Texas Forest Service has responded to 176 fires for 126,844 acres.

• A more comprehensive assessment has been completed on the Bastrop County Complex by FEMA and the State Operations Center. The total number of homes destroyed on that fire is now confirmed at 1,386. Approximately 240 additional homes have been reported lost on other fires since Sunday, for a total of approximately 1,626.

• 250 of the 254 Texas counties are reporting burn bans.

• Daily detailed fire information can be found at inciweb.org.

New large fires from yesterday (more than 100 acres in timber, 300 acres in lighter fuels; or where homes were lost):

CLARKSVILLE, Red River County. 350 acres, 90 percent contained. Two homes were lost on this timber and grass fire burning near Clarksville.

#526, Smith County. 450 acres, unknown containment.

#521, Cherokee/Rusk County. 256 acres, 90 percent contained.

Uncontained fires from previous days (more than 100 acres in timber, 300 acres in lighter fuels):


BASTROP COUNTY COMPLEX, Bastrop County. 34,068 acres, 30 percent contained. Heavy airtankers, scoopers, helicopters, and single-engine airtankers assisted on this fire that started in the Lost Pines area just northeast of Bastrop. Most of the forward progress of the fire has stopped, but significant intense burning continues in the interior. An assessment team has confirmed 1,386 homes have been destroyed. Two civilians were found dead Tuesday as search crews went through the charred subdivisions.A Southern Area Type I Incident Management Team is assisting in managing the fire.


BEAR CREEK (#536), Cass County. 25,000 acres, unknown containment. The fire is burning very actively in heavy timber and is threatening numerous houses. Numerous aviation resources and Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System engines are assisting. Eight homes have been destroyed. A Type 1 Incident Management Team arrives today to assist with management of the fire.

PEDERNALES BEND (Spicewood), Travis County. 6,500 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning 4 miles southeast of Spicewood. Sixty-seven homes were destroyed.

RILEY ROAD, Grimes/Montgomery/Waller counties. 11,000 acres, 60 percent contained. Active fire behavior was observed yesterday as the fire moved to the south. Seventy-five homes have been destroyed on this fire burning just west of Magnolia.

TAMINA ROAD, Montgomery County. 150 acres, unknown containment. Hundreds of homes were evacuated Monday evening, but none was reported lost. No additional information has been received.

UNION CHAPEL, Bastrop County. 912 acres, 90 percent contained. Twenty-five homes were destroyed on this fire just west of Bastrop. Aircraft responded immediately after the fire was reported, but were ineffective in the windy conditions.

WHITE OAK ROAD, Gregg County. 300 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning in pine and hardwood.

PETERS CHAPEL, Harrison County. 650 acres, 80 percent contained. The fire is burning actively in pine plantation. Numerous homes have been evacuated. Two homes were destroyed.

STEINER RANCH, Travis County. 125 acres, 50 percent contained. The fire started just north of the Steiner Ranch subdivision. More than 1,000 homes were evacuated. Thirty-five homes were destroyed.

#538 (Lansing Switch Road), Harrison County. 200 acres, 50 percent contained. The fire is burning in pine and hardwoods.

#491, Limestone County. 3,000 acres, 95 percent contained. Six homes were saved and one was lost on this fire 20 miles east of Waco.

DELHI, Caldwell County. 6,000 acres, 850 percent contained. wenty homes were saved and six were lost on this fire east of Lockhart.

BAILEY, Colorado County. 2,300 acres, 90 percent contained. This fast-moving fire threatened 40 homes near Columbus. Ten homes were destroyed.

DIANA (#545), Upshur County. 2,500 acres, 70 percent contained. The fire is burning in grass and timber. Twenty homes are threatened.

LUTHERHILL, Fayette County. 2,700 acres, 95 percent contained. The community of Ruttersville was evacuated. Fourteen homes were destroyed.

BONBIEW RANCH, Van Zandt County. 350 acres, 80 percent contained. Twenty homes were saved southeast of Canton.

MOORE, Smith County. 1,500 acres, 90 percent contained. Ten homes were evacuated and five were lost on this fire burning on the Smith/Gregg County line. Two civilian fatalities were reported.

BOOT WALKER (#553), Marion County. 1,000 acres, unknown containment. Thirty homes are threatened.

TOAD ROAD (#552), Upshur County. 350 acres, unknown containment. The fire is burning in timber. Three homes were lost and dozens remain threatened.

HOPEWELL (#854), Walker County. 1,035 acres, 90 percent contained. Thirty homes have been evacuated, five homes were destroyed.

HALSBRO COMPLEX, Red River County. 958 acres, unknown containment. The fire is burning in grass. Fifteen homes are threatened, but none reported lost.

#507, Anderson County. 1,400 acres, unknown containment.

#504, Anderson County. 800 acres, unknown containment.

#502, Nacogdoches County. 4,000 acres, unknown containment. More than a dozen homes have been evacuated, but none lost.

ARBOR, Houston County. 3,000 acres, 90 percent contained. The fire is burning in timber. Up to 15 homes are reported lost.

PETTYTOWN, Caldwell County. 200 acres, 95 percent contained. Twenty homes were saved east of Lockhart.

OLD MAGNOLIA, Gregg County. 1,000 acres, 80 percent contained. Several structures and a gas plant are threatened. Two fuel tanks exploded.

#839, Leon County (Concord Robbins). 4,689 acres, 90 percent contained. An estimated 20 homes are reported lost and more than 300 were evacuated.

101 RANCH, Palo Pinto County. 6,555 acres, 85 percent contained. The fire is burning on the south side of Possum Kingdom Lake near the town of Brad. Thirty-nine homes and nine RVs have been reported destroyed.

Weather Outlook:
A surface ridge of dry high pressure will maintain a dry air mass and northerly component to the flow to most of the Lone Star state. A surface trough of low pressure in place over the panhandle during the afternoon will lead to some gusty winds at times over the far northern portions of the panhandle where an isolated shower or thunderstorm could occur. The pressure gradient will be strongest near the Interstate 35 corridor today, where winds should generally be strongest sustained, around 10 mph for a few hours in the late afternoon to early evening hours. Relative humidity this afternoon will be slightly higher than yesterday in most places, but the majority of the state should experience minimum relative humidity below 25 percent. Many areas will fall to the 10 to 20 percent range. High temperatures will range in the 80s and 90s in general, but will approach 100 over Deep South Texas. Poor overnight recoveries are expected again for areas away from the coast, especially locations west of Interstate 35. Dry conditions will continue as high pressure over Texas and Oklahoma moves very slowly east. Northeast flow 6-10 mph, with gusts to 12-15 mph will be common. Partly sunny skies with high clouds moving into the northern areas, and sunny skies across the south will allow afternoon high temperatures to climb to 85-92. Relative humidity values fall to 14 to 20 percent in the northwest and 18 to 30 percent across the southeast. Poor to moderate overnight recoveries of 50 percent in the northwest to 60-65 percent in the east and south are expected.

Rick Perry's Budget Leaves Texans In Bind Amidst Historic Wildfires

First Posted: 9/7/11

WASHINGTON -- As wildfires engulfed her Bastrop County, Texas, neighborhood on Sunday, Betty Dunkerley was forced to evacuate her home for safer ground. There were few options for shelter, she said. Only a middle school and a Catholic church had been opened up to evacuees, and the middle school were already crowded.

While seeking shelter, Dunkerley saw others who had been displaced -- families with nowhere to go and no support system in place to assist them. Some slept in parking lots, with kids sleeping in sleeping bags in truck beds alongside the family dog.

"A lot of people were trying to camp out," Dunkerley, a former Austin City Council member, told The Huffington Post.

The wildfires threatening Dunkerley and her neighbors are being met by an inadequately funded response team. Back in May, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) signed a budget presented by the state legislature that cut funding for the state agency in charge of combating such blazes.

The Texas Forest Service's funding was sliced from $117.7 million to $83 million. More devastating cuts hit the assistance grants to volunteer fire departments around the state. Those grants were slashed 55 percent from $30 million per year in 2010 and 2011 to $13.5 million per year in 2012 and 2013. Those cuts are effective now.

As of Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle reported that wildfires had consumed more than 33,000 acres in Bastrop County, clearing out 20 neighborhoods and claiming two lives. Fires had also sprung up in several counties outside of Houston, burning at least 7,000 acres. Aerial photos from the Bastrop blaze showed a huge smoke plume had drifted over Austin.

Dunkerley was lucky. She had a key to her church and was able to set up camp there. Her house was not among the 800 or so turned to ash. It had survived. But, she was told, her neighborhood had not. It looked like a "war zone."

Dunkerley had managed to flee with her three cats, a dress she planned to wear for an upcoming family wedding and little else. She said she doesn't know when she will be allowed back into her home.

"In hindsight, we should have all had a better plan on a personal level and a governmental level," she said. "All over central Texas you can have this repeated," she added. "Everything is a tinderbox."

Texas is currently facing its worst single-year drought on record, with agricultural losses topping $5 billion. Similar drought conditions and water rationing caused deadly fires that raged two years ago. Despite that history, Texas's governor and state lawmakers failed to make any allowances for wildfires this year.

Perry, who is now the frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary, returned home from the campaign trail to address the fires on Monday, the day after Dunkerley had been evacuated.


"I think our local state senator has been very visible," Dunkerley said. "Our county judge and our mayor in Bastrop have been very visible." She added that once Perry returned to Texas, "some of our state resources were showing up a little faster."

But the consequences of the cuts to firefighting funding remain evident.

"We were outvoted -- what can I say?" said Texas state Sen. Mario Gallegos (D), who voted against the state budget. "Obviously this money is needed for natural disasters like the ones we have right now."

"We do have a rainy day fund, and I would hope that the governor goes into the rainy day fund," he added. "But we have to also be responsible here locally, and cutting the Forest Service budget significantly was not being responsible."

Gallegos, who worked for 22 years in the Houston fire department, noted that outside major cities like Houston and Dallas, volunteer firefighters are the backbone of the Texas firefighting force.

"Out in the suburbs and in the woods, we have to count on our volunteers," he told HuffPost.

Analiese Kornely, executive director of the Perry watchdog group Back to Basics PAC, said that the governor had the money to fund volunteer fire department programs.

"[Budget writers] did actually have the $60 million needed to fund the program at 2010-2011 levels but did not use it," she said in an email. Instead, the volunteers took the 55 percent cut.

In Texas, volunteer firefighting programs receive state money through tax revenues set aside in a dedicated fund.

"We're all paying this money to a dedicated fund," said Jim Dunnam, a former state representative and current fellow at the Texas First Foundation. "And they're not spending the money because they need that money to offset their spending elsewhere." State officials, he said, "are telling people, 'You need to pay taxes for fire prevention,' and then [they] don't spend it. It's crazy."

Instead, the funds are left in a general account. "It is one of the gimmicks they used to balance the budget in Texas," Dunnam said. "[Perry's] good at flying back to Texas for a photo op," he added, "but over his tenure as governor, we've just had chronic neglect of basic things to allow Texas to move forward."

Robert Ryland, a democratic precinct chair in Elgin, a town located 18 miles north of Bastrop, called the decision to cut volunteer firefighter funds "horrible." He noted the area had endured wild fires in recent years, and drought conditions were already a big problem when the cuts came down.

"You're literally playing with fire," Ryland told HuffPost. "When you are talking about essential public services, those things to tend to be a third rail even in Texas. This is the first time in my memory that I've ever seen funding for that kind of thing tossed around or used as an accounting trick to keep their numbers where they wanted them, where Perry wanted them to be."

Bastrop has a small fire department, Ryland said, and the surrounding towns had volunteer forces. "These are truly volunteers, with other jobs and families," he explained. "Just having that available in small communities is a life line for a lot of folks. This is not something you should mess with."

It's not just the funding, but Perry himself who has been MIA during the wildfires, Ryland said. "He basically came down here and told us FEMA would be here on Wednesday," he said, "and then he took off."

Eva DeLuna, a budget analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, told HuffPost the Texas state legislature almost always deals with natural disasters after the fact.

"We tend not to do prevention because we're the lowest-spending state in the country," DeLuna said. "We tend to deal with things once it’s an emergency." She cited creating firebreaks as one preventative measure fire departments could take if they had the resources.

"We know what we should do, but we just don't have the money to deal with it," she said, adding, "well we do -- we just don’t want to collect it in taxes.”

In an email to HuffPost, Texas state Sen. Kirk Watson (D) scolded his fellow lawmakers for failing to prepare for the wildfires.

"It would be refreshing to see those in control -- of the Capitol and of the budgeting process -- express as much concern about preventing these tragedies before they take place as they do after land, property and possessions of Texans are lost," he wrote.

"During the session, budget decisions are presented as little more than math problems," Watson continued. "They're presented as raw numbers, and the discussion ends as soon as those numbers balance -- or even just appear to balance, by any means necessary. Events such as these fires show these kinds of debates aren't just about numbers. They're about specific impacts on very real people and their lives."

Perry has berated the Obama administration for not approving quickly enough a request he put in to FEMA for federal funds to assist firefighting efforts in Texas.

"You see hundreds of thousands of acres of Texas burning and you know that there will soon be emergency declarations, and we did that now a couple of weeks ago, but still no response from this administration," he told local news radio station WOAI in an April interview. "There is a point in time where you say, hey, what's going on here," Perry added. "You have to ask why are you taking care of Alabama and other states? I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail."

But after complaining to the feds and conducting a statewide prayer for rain earlier this year, Perry appears to have shifted his focus to the 2012 election.

Recent polls showed Perry surging ahead of Mitt Romney and the rest of the GOP 2012 pack, with 29 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents listing him as their first choice for the Republican nomination. His closest competitor, Romney, landed just 17 percent of respondents.

People in Texas, however, are not as convinced by Perry's performance. A survey conducted by Public Policy Polling found Perry trailing Obama 45 percent to 47 percent in Texas, which hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1976. The June poll showed Perry's approval rating at just 43 percent. Another University of TexasTexas Tribune poll shows him doing considerably worse.

A call to Perry’s office Wednesday was not returned.

Buddy Roemer Was Not Invited

Decline of the Empire 09/08/2011

Those vying to become the leaders of the Republican "cult" (as renegade congressional staffer Mike Lofgren put it) held a "debate" last night. It apparently has not occurred to anyone on National Public Radio this morning that any  "debate" featuring Michele Bachmann, who is always painted as a front-runner, indicates the complete collapse of political legitimacy in the United States. I wonder how Angela Merkel views this. Not to mention Hu Jintao.

Former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer was not invited to participate, although he is running for President on the Republican side. Unlike Michele, he does not have enough support yet to warrant a spot on the Big Debate Platform. Buddy has a pet peeve about politics in America. His problem with the whole process is that special interests run the show. Here is an excerpt from his speech to the National Press Club on August 17, 2011. He called his talk The Tyranny of The Big Check. I will quote it at length. I've presented Roemer's remarks on money in politics just as they appear on his campaign website.

But today, i want to talk about why these bold actions will not take place, will not happen.

Special interests own this town.

And the special interests have never been so well off. They are in control, and in a land run more and more by the government, they finance the choice of national candidates, and the presidential election itself.

We are broken and need to take bold action to grow again, but the special interests have never had it so good —- why change?

I agree with those who say that our political system, our nation’s capital, is institutionally corrupt.

For example, special interests write the tax code. You cannot read it. They can. General electric is the largest corporate giver in the last election cycle, made a profit last year of $5.2 billion and paid zero federal income taxes, while the average profitable small business person pays 36%. Fair?

Every year the costs of elections rise, and the same 1% or 2% of America give the money. 98% give nothing. That’s the system and it results in special favors and provisions and opportunities for those at the top who give the money.

We are owned from the top down by special interest money, political action committee (PAC) money, by wall street money, and by the big check.

Institutionally corrupt and it’s getting worse.

Look at the record.

Healthcare reform under president Obama was designed to lower the cost of healthcare yet it didn’t include tort reform. The tort lawyers are big givers to both parties.

It didn’t eliminate the protection that insurance companies have to prevent competition from out of state. Big givers, those insurance companies.

It didn’t require pharmaceutical companies to discount prices on government business. Oh no! Big bucks and the threat of big bucks from these multi-nationals.

A 2,300 page bill, unconstitutional at its core with the insurance mandate, and it didn’t even touch three of the most expensive healthcare costs.

Special interest money wrote healthcare.

Did you know that PACS and lobbyists with Washington dc area addresses gave more money in the last presidential campaign than 32 states combined?

Washington dc is a boom town and the rest of America is hurting.

Now, four years later, it’s worse.

The PACS are now uncountable. They can give twice as much as individuals. Why? There is no disclosure, no names, and no accountability as to purpose or source.

Then there is the “bundler”, who collects checks from others, delivers them to the candidate in a bundle with political credit going not to the sucker who give their $2,500 or $5,000, but to the collector who gives the PACkage to the candidate at $100,000 or $200,000 or $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 political value.

I recently read a paper written by a Harvard law school student about bundling and the selection of united states ambassadors under Obama and his predecessors. Checkbook diplomacy he called it.

Historically, all presidents have appointed about 30% political appointees versus 70% professional Foreign Service selections. President Obama is at 65% political (58 out of 90), and the major portion went to “bundlers”, such as

Roos to Japan with a $500,000 bundle
Susman to Great Britain with a $500,000 bundle
Rivkin to France with a $800,000 bundle
Gutman to Belgium for a $775,000 bundle
Beyer to Switzerland for a $745,000 PACkage.

On and on it goes.

And this is just 5 out of the first 24 bundler-nominees put forth by president Obama. These 24 nominees bundled more than $11 million minimum without counting their contributions to other fund raising opportunities such as the inaugural committee, the president’s leadership PAC, and the democrat national committee. There is no end to the cash these bundlers give and to the power and control it buys.

Both parties have done it, but Obama is the master.

We are selling important public jobs for special favored private money like a third world country.

The Tyranny of the Big Check. Position for sale!

It doesn’t end there.

Lobbyists have become fundraisers in an institutionally corrupt system. Lobbyists have been a critical source of information and focused industry knowledge since the beginning of our nation. It is a position considered honorable and necessary to the function of a representative democracy.

But it should not be combined with the role of a political fundraiser, where the danger is that the size of the check should determine the action of the representative.

Vote buying is a dangerous and slippery slope in a world where fair play and level playing field are as American as “apple pie”.

In short, a registered lobbyist should not be allowed to both lobby and fund raise. His/her choice, one or the other.

Jack Abramoff is a name that comes to mind.

The American bar association just endorsed this separation of registered lobbyist from the act of fund raising.

Special interest money, PAC money, bundled money. They never stop. They never cease. They never sleep.

Announce a new committee or a new appointment? A fundraiser by the special interest lobbyist immediately follows!

Two weeks ago congress agreed on a pitiful budget-debt ceiling resolution which called for a special committee of six dems and six republicans with awesome power of spending cuts and tax increases. It was a bad idea in my opinion, but it is now the law.

We immediately contacted the office of the speaker of the house and the president of the senate asking that all meetings of the special committee be held in a public forum and that members selected pledge not to accept PAC or lobbyists checks during the remainder of their term of office. Let the vote of the people be the ultimate decider of the choices inherent in this unusual situation, not the power of a special interest check.

No response from the congressional leadership.

Last week the leadership’s selections were made public and 24 hours later one of the members selected, congressman Becerra, had leaked the fact that he had accepted a major fundraiser by a group of lobbyists at $1,500 a ticket high lighting the fact that he was on the committee that would imPACt their special interests, their budget earmarks, and their tax loopholes.

It never stops. Incredible.

And Becerra’s answer? “I will continue to do what i have to do as a member of congress. So yes, we are going to move forward.”

So exactly what is his role as a member of congress? Collect fat special interest and lobbyists and PAC checks to get re-elected?

Or to represent his district and help rebuild America?

Watch the money!!!

We challenge the leadership of the house and the senate. Let the people decide these issues at the voting booth, not the special interest cash and check booth.

It is not too late to make a statement. Ask members of the special committee to eschew lobbyists, PACS, and special interest fundraising for the duration of this term. Ideas are welcome. Contributions from the vested interests are not.

The system is institutionally corrupt. Both parties are guilty and it is getting worse.

Which leads me to something new: “SUPERPACS”.

SUPERPACS do not have to disclose the contributions received and dollar amounts are unlimited. Their only requirement is that they have to be independent of any candidate although concepts can be shared.

What a joke!!

Independent? Romney’s SUPERPACS (or does he have two?) Got a $1 million contribution from a corporation formed special for that purpose and which dissolved after the check was delivered. When word leaked out about the million, Romney reluctantly revealed the source. Why was the million dollars hidden?

Independent? The PAC is run by former chief of staff, business partners, former employees, and is funded by individuals who already have contributed the maximum amount.

This is not disclosure or independence. This is phony, shadowy, hidden, corrupt in the truest sense of the word, corrupt in every sense of the word.

And I don’t want to pick on Romney alone. He is not unique. It is revealed that governor Rick Perry has seven SUPERPACS headed by former associates, staff, and maximum operatives. Bachmann has a SUPERPACS as does Paul and Huntsman.

Don’t do it. I challenge them. Don’t do it.

Join with me and let’s give ourselves a chance to take bold, clean action to restore America and to energize the plain people of our country who fight the wars, build the roads, start the small businesses, teach the kids, and raise the families of America.

Let’s restore honesty, and faith, and transparency to this corrupt political system.
These SUPERPACS are phony. They are not independent. They are just bald-faced efforts to hide the facts of the power of the big checks from the American people. They are just special interests buying yet more influence. You don’t believe the SUPERPACS are phony in their pretending to be independent?

Do you know that the candidate can attend the fundraising dinner, speak and be acknowledged, have it run by his henchman, and claim independence?

It is a joke, but a joke on our country. Don’t do it candidates. Join with me.

Still unsure about the below the surface corruption of our system? Look at the so-called banking reform of last year. Read Grethchen Morgenson in the New York Times every Sunday as she describes banking corruption, or ask a community banker in your town.

Our financial system is still not out of the woods, because “banking reform” did not eliminate too big to fail. Glass-Stegal is still dead. Goldman Sachs is still the largest political contributor in the financial sector and no one went to jail after they lied to the congress and abused their client privilege. And Obama is on wall street a month later having a huge fundraiser at $35,000 a ticket.

See how this corrupt system works? Jobs for sale. Wink and nod for change. Oh the president is a great fundraiser. Just what I’m looking for in a president — how about you?

I don't have much to add. See my post The Root Of All Political Evil. Today's post should not be taken as an endorsement of Buddy Roemer, but he's the only one running who is willing to talk about the only issue that matters. I'm never going to vote again, and I recommend you do the same.

What If Everything Worked Like BCS: The Spelling Bee

Texas is Burning! Texas Wildfires

Central Texas Fires (Help Now!) from Roadwings on Vimeo.

Imagery

2011 Dallas Cowboys Regular Season Schedule

(Because their labor issues didn't disrupt the season, I am still a fan  of the DALLAS COWBOYS.--jef)

2011 Dallas Cowboys Regular Season Schedule

DEA Moves to Emergency Control Synthetic Stimulants

(Bath salts that are really drugs...this is from the DEA website.--jef)

Agency Will Study Whether To Permanently Control Three Substances

SEP 07 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is using its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control three synthetic stimulants (Mephedrone , 3,4 methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and Methylone).   This action was necessary to protect the public from the imminent hazard posed by these dangerous chemicals. Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals should be permanently controlled.  

A Notice of Intent to temporarily control was published in the Federal Register today to alert the public to this action. This alert is required by law as part of the Controlled Substances Act. In 30 days or more, DEA intends to publish in the Federal Register a Final Order to temporarily control these chemicals for at least 12 months, with the possibility of a six-month extension. The final order will be published in the Federal Register and will designate these chemicals as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no currently accepted medical use in the United States. 

“This imminent action by the DEA demonstrates that there is no tolerance for those who manufacture, distribute, or sell these drugs anywhere in the country, and that those who do will be shut down, arrested, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart.  “DEA has made it clear we will not hesitate to use our emergency scheduling authority to control these dangerous chemicals that pose a significant and growing threat to our nation.”  

Over the past few months, there has been a growing use of, and interest in, synthetic stimulants sold under the guise of “bath salts” or “plant food”. Marketed under names such as “Ivory Wave”, “Purple Wave”, “Vanilla Sky” or “Bliss”, these products are comprised of a class of chemicals perceived as mimics of cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and/or methamphetamine. Users have reported impaired perception, reduced motor control, disorientation, extreme paranoia, and violent episodes. The long-term physical and psychological effects of use are unknown but potentially severe. These products have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops and over the Internet.  However, they have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption or for medical use, and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process. 

In the last six months, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding products containing one or more of these chemicals.  Thirty-three states have already taken action to control or ban these or other synthetic stimulants.  The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to temporarily schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSA are being conducted. 

Are jobs obsolete?

By Douglas Rushkoff, Special to CNN

September 7, 2011 9:33 a.m. EDT

 

(CNN) -- The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology's slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That's 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms.

We can blame a right wing attempting to undermine labor, or a left wing trying to preserve unions in the face of government and corporate cutbacks. But the real culprit -- at least in this case -- is e-mail. People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps.

New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures -- from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs.

We like to believe that the appropriate response is to train humans for higher level work. Instead of collecting tolls, the trained worker will fix and program toll-collecting robots. But it never really works out that way, since not as many people are needed to make the robots as the robots replace.

And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned.

 

U.S. companies unpatriotic not to hire?

I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks -- or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?

We're living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That's because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, there is enough food produced to provide everyone in the world with 2,720 kilocalories per person per day. And that's even after America disposes of thousands of tons of crop and dairy just to keep market prices high. Meanwhile, American banks overloaded with foreclosed properties are demolishing vacant dwellings to get the empty houses off their books.

Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.

Jobs, as such, are a relatively new concept. People may have always worked, but until the advent of the corporation in the early Renaissance, most people just worked for themselves. They made shoes, plucked chickens, or created value in some way for other people, who then traded or paid for those goods and services. By the late Middle Ages, most of Europe was thriving under this arrangement.

The only ones losing wealth were the aristocracy, who depended on their titles to extract money from those who worked. And so they invented the chartered monopoly. By law, small businesses in most major industries were shut down and people had to work for officially sanctioned corporations instead. From then on, for most of us, working came to mean getting a "job."

The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we're in the digital age, we're using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits.

While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn't this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?

Instead, we are attempting to use the logic of a scarce marketplace to negotiate things that are actually in abundance. What we lack is not employment, but a way of fairly distributing the bounty we have generated through our technologies, and a way of creating meaning in a world that has already produced far too much stuff.

The communist answer to this question was just to distribute everything evenly. But that sapped motivation and never quite worked as advertised. The opposite, libertarian answer (and the way we seem to be going right now) would be to let those who can't capitalize on the bounty simply suffer. Cut social services along with their jobs, and hope they fade into the distance.

But there might still be another possibility -- something we couldn't really imagine for ourselves until the digital era. As a pioneer of virtual reality, Jaron Lanier, recently pointed out, we no longer need to make stuff in order to make money. We can instead exchange information-based products.

We start by accepting that food and shelter are basic human rights. The work we do -- the value we create -- is for the rest of what we want: the stuff that makes life fun, meaningful, and purposeful.

This sort of work isn't so much employment as it is creative activity. Unlike Industrial Age employment, digital production can be done from the home, independently, and even in a peer-to-peer fashion without going through big corporations. We can make games for each other, write books, solve problems, educate and inspire one another -- all through bits instead of stuff. And we can pay one another using the same money we use to buy real stuff.

For the time being, as we contend with what appears to be a global economic slowdown by destroying food and demolishing homes, we might want to stop thinking about jobs as the main aspect of our lives that we want to save. They may be a means, but they are not the ends.

JP Morgan explains the euro crisis with Lego

Felix Salmon

This chart comes from a Michael Cembalest’s research note today. The key is in there too. I’m not making this up:

1. The toreador in a floppy hat, and the F1 driver with his helmet, represent Spain, Italy and the rest of the Euro Periphery.
2. The three men with helmets, shields, and medieval weaponry represent the CDU, CSU and FDP parties in Germany.
3. The blue-and-white sailor boy is Finland. Obvs.
4. The woman with an oversized carrot and her friend in overalls with a shovel represent the Social Democrats and Greens.
5. Wotan represents the Bundesbank.
6. The piggy bank is the IMF.
7. The grey-haired Banque chap is the ECB.
8. The chap in the red bib is Poland.
9. The artists are France.
10. The angry chef, the sweeper with a broom, the airline pilot, and the rest of the motley crew at bottom left, represent EU taxpayers in Core countries.
11. The storm troopers are the EU Commission and Euro Group Finance Ministers, chaired by Jose Manuel Barroso and Jean- Claude Juncker.
12. The monocled banker and his assistant are EU bondholders and shareholders.

Full credit here is given to “Peter Cembalest, who specializes in conceptualization of such phenomena”; I assume that Peter (age 9) helped out too with the Icelandic bonus extra, for people who make it to page three. But Iceland sadly didn’t make the cut as one of the “12 players in the EMU Debt Crisis most likely to affect policy from here”.

Cembalest does at one point feel the need to explain what he’s doing here:

If today’s diorama analysis borders on the absurd, so does maintaining the fiction that accumulation of massive public and private sector claims in Europe can somehow be engineered away.

Still, I like the idea of sitting all the key European players in a room with a box of lego and telling them to work things out that way. The results couldn’t really be more farcical than those of the EU bank stress tests.

Sad Keanu Image Collection

from Dixi World