From mfloegel at markfloegel.org Thu Feb 2 15:15:44 2012 From: mfloegel at markfloegel.org (mark floegel) Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:15:44 -0500 Subject: [Floegel Commentary] The Weeks of Winter Message-ID: The Weeks of Winter (2 Feb 12) Happy Groundhog?s Day. The news reports that the various prognosticating groundhogs cannot agree on whether winter has or has not ended. Maybe they can?t agree on whether it?s started. I?m not sure human-groundhog communication is all that sophisticated. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/groundhog-day-punxsutawney-phil-more-winter.html Yesterday was the Imbolc, the Celtic feast of pregnant ewes, a harbinger of spring soon to come. There are no ewes, pregnant or otherwise, in my vicinity (no groundhogs either, for that matter), so I can?t report on their gestational progress. I did hear a phoebe sing outside my window Tuesday and again this morning. The phoebe?s song is one of my favorite voices of spring, but it shouldn?t arrive here for another six weeks. The window of days likely below-zero temperatures is six weeks long; two of those weeks still remain, but we?ve only had a few days when the thermometer dipped below zero. Yesterday afternoon was in the high forties. There?s no snow on the ground and my snow shovels rest in a corner of the front porch, unused. The Vermont Beekeepers Association held its winter meeting last week, weather talk dominated there, too. A warm winter isn?t necessarily a good thing for bees, as they are more active, flying out in search of unavailable pollen, which can lead to consuming their honey stores at faster rate and shortening their life spans, which may reduce colony size in the crucial weeks before the first brood of the season hatch. Last summer in the Champlain Valley was brutal for bees. Many colonies (mine included) died and nucleus colonies for sale are few and expensive. One beekeeper that has a horse-drawn sleigh reported he has yet to take it out this winter. ?I?ve never gone this late before. I?ve had to return $3,000 worth of checks to people who?d prepaid for rides. I had the trail all groomed last week, then this,? he said, making an upward gesture with his hand, meaning the rain that had come in the three previous days. ?I ought to just give up.? Chickadees, sparrows and a female cardinal frequent the new feeder. Haven?t seen the phoebe there yet. Squirrels have learned to jump straight down on it from the porch roof in a Mission Impossible-style maneuver that succeeds in maybe one of five attempts. I try not to dwell on that as I consider backyard squirrel obsession a sign of advancing age. My New Year?s resolution was to pay more attention to day-to-day weather. What a year to pick that one. Last month, I said that I think by looking at a photo of northwestern Vermont, I could tell which week of winter it was taken. Not this year. It has seemed like the first week of April for the past three weeks. There?s still the winter light for me to use to gauge the date. It?s not exactly weather, but it changes day to day. The time of dawn and dusk, the angle of the late afternoon sun, the particular peak of the Adirondacks behind which I see it sink, should I be fortunate enough to be walking lakeside as it sets. Vernal equinox is still seven weeks away. By the calendar, most of winter is still ahead of us, regardless of what groundhogs say or don?t say. I don?t know what that means in our post-agricultural society. It may be going the way of Imbolc. Last autumn, I noted my neighbors lighting bonfires on the first Sunday of standard time. Daylight time, when modern people welcome the return of the light, is five weeks away. It might be time to plan a new ritual. ? Mark Floegel, 2012 -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, if you are not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, then please notify us by return e-mail immediately. Should you have received this e-mail in error then you should not copy this for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person. From mfloegel at markfloegel.org Thu Feb 9 15:46:30 2012 From: mfloegel at markfloegel.org (mark floegel) Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:46:30 -0500 Subject: [Floegel Commentary] The Graph Message-ID: The Graph (9 Feb 12) In the last week or so (31 January, that is), all your 2011 sources of income were supposed to have sent you an accounting of how much you earned. Adrienne is better at keeping track of these things than I, but I have learned through the years to put my W-2 in the folder on her desk when it arrives in the mail, so we don?t have to sift through the house looking for it six weeks later. This is also the time of year when I have to start scraping money together to make my annual contribution to my Individual Retirement Account. It strikes me as perversely appropriate that I make my 2011 contribution in calendar 2012, just as I did the year before and the year before that. The timing stinks. I just this morning wrote the check to pay off the credit card bill accrued over the year-end holidays. (I?m of the age that I don?t yet pay my bills via electronic funds transfers. I like ? well, like isn?t the right word ? I need to look at the bill every month, because when I see how much I owe, I always think, ?That can?t be right,? then I go through the items and by God, I did spend that much.) (Yes, I know the email that comes with the EFT is itemized, too, but I?m of an age group that doesn?t pay attention to pixels the way we do to ink.) (And yes, a good environmentalist should be more avid to save trees.) Every year, I promise myself I won?t wait until the calendar year is out before making my IRA contribution, so I don?t have the Christmas/IRA collision and every year I never do. Is having an IRA not forethoughtful enough that I should also be thinking about my contribution in the dog days of summer? I appreciate the grim humor that accompanies the word ?contribution.? I?m old enough to know how soon I?ll be eligible to draw down my IRA, but my payment doesn?t feel like a contribution. It feels like another bill to pay and a steep one at that. I suppose it?s worth it for a million dollars. That?s right Dr. Evil, one miiiillllliiion dollars! When I was getting out of college, my dad (and every other male his age) urged me in the strongest terms to get an IRA and make the maximum contribution every year ($2,000 per year then), regardless of the hardship it imposed, because by the time I was ready to retire, I?d have one miiiiilllliiion dollars! Clearly, this was a cruel joke that I wasn?t in on. I?m now more than halfway to what for my dad?s generation was retirement, only to find that the concept has gone the way of carburetors and rolls of film, two things once made in my hometown. Worse still, my IRA is invested in the stock market and controlled by those Wall Street One Percenters we loath so much. (I have one of those ?socially responsible? ? read: ?under performing? ? IRAs. I may get paper bills in the mail, but I?m not beyond redemption.) I get statements about my IRA a few times a year and we?re nowhere near one million dollars. I?m not sure all the money I?ve put in is still there. Despairing over the poor state of Wall Street, Adrienne and I consulted an investment specialist some time ago. He told us in a calm (?patronizing,? I thought) tone that the stock market ?via IRAs - is always the best investment for people like us (earning less than our peers). He pulled out The Graph, which showed how ? even though there are dips and troughs ? the stock market (here his voice dropped to a whisper appropriate for church) outperformed every other investment for? people like us. Problem with The Graph is that it begins right after the 1929 market crash. Of course it went up from there, where else could it go? Second, I don?t care what the market did before I commenced my IRA in 1983, because none of that applies to me. (Sorry to sound selfish, but this is the market.) It occurred to me the other day that 1975 was the first year in which IRA contributions could be made. (Such dull occurrences I have!) If a person was 22 in 1975, just getting out of college, got an IRA and made the maximum contributions every year (now $4,000 per year), would s/he now have a million dollars? This is the year those people will turn 59 and a half and are thus able to begin drawing down their IRAs. Two caveats: I know the million dollar thing was a prediction, not a promise and I know that every IRA fund is managed differently and makes different investments. (Third caveat: the best funds probably wouldn?t take a low-bag schmuck like me for a client.) That said, is there any diligent IRA contributor out there now sitting on a million dollars? If you hear of one, let me know. My guess is they?re living in a gated community with Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster. ? Mark Floegel, 2012 -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, if you are not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, then please notify us by return e-mail immediately. Should you have received this e-mail in error then you should not copy this for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person. From mfloegel at markfloegel.org Thu Feb 16 17:26:56 2012 From: mfloegel at markfloegel.org (mark floegel) Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:26:56 -0500 Subject: [Floegel Commentary] The Stalking Horse Message-ID: The Stalking Horse (16 Feb 12) A stalking horse, for hunters, is something of a moving blind. The idea is that the prey ? often birds ? would be startled by the appearance of a human, but not a horse or cow, so the hunter uses the stalking horse (?stalking cow? doesn?t have the same ring) to approach unseen, until the prey is within weapon?s range. In the modern world, a stalking horse is a metaphor for some third party that tries out an idea or technique for someone else, to see how it goes over, without exposing the ulterior party to the negative side effects of failure. The stalking horse is the way to go in the 21st century. This week?s famous stalking horse is the Heartland Institute of Chicago, Illinois. Isn?t that such a nice name, the Heartland Institute? What pleasant folks they must be! Actually, not. The Heartland Institute is a right-wing think tank for hire. If you?ve got cash and a libertarian idea, they?ll be happy to cook up some bogus nonsense to promote it and hide your identity. There?s the ?Free to Choose Medicine? which opposes the Food and Drug Administration?s ?extreme tunnel focus on safety,? you know, making sure drugs that are supposed to cure you don?t kill you instead. How could Big Pharma not like (and contribute to) that? http://heartland.org/ideas/free-choose-medicine There?s ?Operation Angry Badger,? (no, I?m not making this up) which seeks to save Wisconsin?s Republican Governor Scott Walker from a recall election prompted by his attack on the state?s public employees last year. Heartland says, ?Successful recalls would be a major setback to the national effort to rein in public sector compensation and union power.? http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Fundraising%20Plan_0.pdf Heartland, all other looniness aside, is best known as a home for global warming deniers looking for a facade (Hello, Koch brothers!). This week, an anonymous do-gooder sent a trove of Heartland?s internal documents to DeSmogblog, a web site devoted to pointing out the hunters behind the deniers? stalking horses. http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-exposed-internal-documents-unmask-heart-climate-denial-machine Among other things, Heartland has been planning to pay a Department of Energy consultant ? David Wojick - $75,000 to develop a K-12 curriculum on global warming. (Things get complex here, so pay close attention.) A document entitled ?2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,? says Dr. Wojick?s work ?will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.? http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/2012%20Climate%20Strategy.pdf Heartland denied this is its document. A document it does not disown, however, says Dr. Wojick will be paid $75,000 for a K-12 global warming curriculum; it just doesn?t have the inflammatory language about dissuading the teaching of science. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/heartland-institute-fraud-leak-climate http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Heartland%20Budget.pdf (To be clear, while Heartland did not disown the other documents, it didn?t verify them, either. A spokesoid said Heartland?s president, Joseph Bast, was traveling and couldn?t verify the other documents. Which raises the question: if he wasn?t around to verify most of the documents as true, how was he around to verify one as false? Oh, and another question: if he was traveling and unavailable for verification duty, how did he manage to write the rather lengthy fundraising letter about the leak that went out over his signature the same day the story broke?) http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20120216/NEWS07/120219914?tags=%7C299%7C75%7C305%7C340%7C303%7C335 http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/heartland-institute-documents-climate Here?s what caught my eye: ?the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain? and ?dissuading teachers from teaching science.? Reminds me of the ?intelligent design? nonsense we?ve seen, and still see, across the country. Was that another stalking horse? The ?creation science? debate was and is preposterous (?teach all the theories?) but it?s been a handy tool for keeping evangelical Christians firmly in the Republican Party, even as their wages erode, their life savings are wiped out by health care costs and their homes are lost to unscrupulous banks. (Republican operatives refer to these poor folks as ?useful idiots.?) Beyond that, maybe it was a test run for the bogus global warming debate in the schools. Pick a useful issue, but one not crucial to your primary agenda and conduct your test run, see how well you can manage to undermine real science. Get the bugs worked out, optimize performance, then apply the lessons learned to something you really care about. Makes sense to me. No one ever said these guys were dumb. ? Mark Floegel, 2012 -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, if you are not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, then please notify us by return e-mail immediately. Should you have received this e-mail in error then you should not copy this for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person. From mfloegel at markfloegel.org Thu Feb 23 16:38:23 2012 From: mfloegel at markfloegel.org (mark floegel) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:38:23 -0500 Subject: [Floegel Commentary] Poisoning Continues, Now with Grovernment Approval Message-ID: Poisoning Continues, Now with Government Approval (23 Feb 12) Twenty years ago, as a young(er) toxics campaigner, I and many others worked to limit the effects of the industrial uses of chlorine. Short version: when we put chlorine in the front end, we get a host of pollutants out the back end that persist in the environment and cause cancer, birth defects and reproductive disorders. Dioxin was the poster child for this class of toxicants. (The phrase ?poster child? was derived from the practice of charities raising funds by printing posters with photos cute children who are afflicted with a disease. Perhaps dioxin is better termed ?poster child enabler.?) In 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency undertook a three-year reassessment of dioxin?s toxicity. In typical fashion, the first results of that reassessment were released last week, 21 years later (and late on a Friday before a holiday weekend). http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/33bcba60ed25a9b1852579a700604ed7!OpenDocument The EPA concluded, ?current exposure to dioxins does not pose a significant health risk.? I?m used to my government agencies putting a polluter?s spin on science, but that?s not spin, that?s an out and out lie. I guess EPA was waiting for all its real scientists to retire or die, so the political hacks that replaced them could shovel this load of manure out the front door. The EPA says dioxins ?naturally exist in the environment.? There is no evidence of this. Industrial processes create dioxins; most of those present in our environment have been created since the close of the Second World War. Dioxin is created whenever chlorine is liberated (which requires substantial energy) in the presence of organic (i.e., carbon containing) chemicals. Many industrial processes contribute to dioxin formation, but according to EPA last week, ?The largest remaining source of dioxin emissions is backyard burning of household trash.? Huh? For one, I think that?s extraordinarily unlikely, as I think it?s unlikely many chlorinated compounds go into back yard burn barrels and two, how can such a dispersed and unreported phenomenon be measured with anything approaching accuracy? EPA?s dissembling is nearly as bad as its science. Then there?s Dow Chemical, which is probably responsible for more dioxin production than any other single entity in history ? and now has a petition before Department of Agriculture (no more politically courageous than EPA) to approve a genetically-engineered variety of corn that can withstand repeated doses of 2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/agent-orange-corn-biotech_b_1291295.html That might be alphabet soup to the under-40 crowd, but 2,4-D was one half of Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed over Vietnam during our war there and left generations of Vietnamese and American veterans with crippling disabilities and birth defects. Agent Orange and 2,4-D manufacture and use were also famous as sources of ? you guessed it ? dioxin. Stick that in your burn barrel. The heinous bastards at Dow Chemical want to soak the cornfields of the Earth with chemical weapons. They?re evilly smart, I?ll grant them that. They know if there was even a tiny chance spineless Democrats would do anything to stop them, they won?t do it in a presidential election year. Thanks, Barry. ? Mark Floegel, 2012 -- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This e-mail may contain confidential or privileged information, if you are not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, then please notify us by return e-mail immediately. Should you have received this e-mail in error then you should not copy this for any purpose nor disclose its contents to any other person.