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Monday, 19 December 2005
If You Go Outside And Spit


You will have the same effect on the Climate as doubling carbon dioxide.

At least according to Reid A. Bryson who holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology?now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences.

There is a very interesting article on this to be found in the May 23rd issue of the

WISCONSIN ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE NEWS.











The Faithful Heretic

A Wisconsin
Icon Pursues Tough Questions


Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their
work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s
Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day,
delving into the science some say he invented.


Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology
granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor
and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department
of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of
what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of
Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations
Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize
“outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement
of the environment.” He has authored five books and more
than 230 other publications and was identified by the British
Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist
in the world.


Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and
a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted
discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and
from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots
earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and
the general’s apology the next day when he learned they
were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three
years before the Weather Service officially did such things,
and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the
Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s
trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.


How Little We Know


Bryson is a believer in climate change, in
that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s
climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s
existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further,
earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson
stood before the American Association for the Advancement of
Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter
climate.


“I was laughed off the platform for saying
that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.


In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely
considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned
almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without
some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens
to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation.
And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom.


“Climate’s always been changing
and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so
something was making it change in the past,” he told us
in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough
people to make any difference at all, two million years ago,
nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing,
okay?”


“All this argument is the temperature
going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues.
“Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the
early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re
coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting
more carbon dioxide into the air.”


Little Ice Age? That’s what chased the
Vikings out of Greenland after they’d farmed there for
a few hundred years during the Mediaeval Warm Period, an earlier
run of a few centuries when the planet was very likely warmer
than it is now, without any help from industrial activity in
making it that way. What’s called “proxy evidence”—assorted
clues extrapolated from marine sediment cores, pollen specimens,
and tree-ring data—helps reconstruct the climate in those
times before instrumental temperature records existed.


We ask about that evidence, but Bryson says
it’s second-tier stuff. “Don’t talk about
proxies,” he says. “We have written evidence, eyeball
evidence. When Eric the Red went to Greenland, how did he get
there? It’s all written down.”


Bryson describes the navigational instructions
provided for Norse mariners making their way from Europe to
their settlements in Greenland. The place was named for a reason:
The Norse farmed there from the 10th century to the 13th, a
somewhat longer period than the United States has existed. But
around 1200 the mariners’ instructions changed in a big
way. Ice became a major navigational reference. Today, old Viking
farmsteads are covered by glaciers.


Bryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers,
common grist for current headlines. “What do they find
when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”


We recall the two-year-old report saying a
mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had
been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the
first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.


“A silver mine! The guys had stacked
up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring
to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says.
“There used to be less ice than now. It’s just getting
back to normal.”


What Leads, What Follows?


What is normal? Maybe continuous change is
the only thing that qualifies. There’s been warming over
the past 150 years and even though it’s less than one
degree, Celsius, something had to cause it. The usual suspect
is the “greenhouse effect,” various atmospheric
gases trapping solar energy, preventing it being reflected back
into space.


We ask Bryson what could be making the key
difference:


Q: Could you rank the things
that have the most significant impact and where would you put
carbon dioxide on the list?


A: Well let me give you one
fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average,
outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed
to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by
water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?


Q: Eighty percent of the
heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first
30 feet by water vapor…


A: And how much is absorbed
by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth
as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and
have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.


This begs questions about the widely publicized
mathematical models researchers run through supercomputers to
generate climate scenarios 50 or 100 years in the future. Bryson
says the data fed into the computers overemphasizes carbon dioxide
and accounts poorly for the effects of clouds—water vapor.
Asked to evaluate the models’ long-range predictive ability,
he answers with another question: “Do you believe a five-day
forecast?”


Bryson says he looks in the opposite direction,
at past climate conditions, for clues to future climate behavior.
Trying that approach in the weeks following our interview, Wisconsin
Energy Cooperative News soon found six separate papers about
Antarctic ice core studies, published in peer-reviewed scientific
journals between 1999 and 2006. The ice core data allowed researchers
to examine multiple climate changes reaching back over the past
650,000 years. All six studies found atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations tracking closely with temperatures, but with
CO2 lagging behind changes in temperature, rather than leading
them. The time lag between temperatures moving up—or down—and
carbon dioxide following ranged from a few hundred to a few
thousand years.


Renaissance Man, Marathon Man


When others were laughing at the concept, Reid
Bryson was laying the ground floor for scientific investigation
of human impacts on climate. We asked UW Professor Ed Hopkins,
the assistant state climatologist, about the significance of
Bryson’s work in advancing the science he’s now
practiced for six decades.


“His contributions are manifold,”
Hopkins said. “He wrote Climates of Hunger back in the
1970s looking at how climate changes over the last several thousand
years have affected human activity and human cultures.”


This, he suggests, is traceable to Bryson’s
high-school interest in archaeology, followed by college degrees
in geology, then meteorology, and studies in oceanography, limnology,
and other disciplines. “He’s looked at the interconnections
of all these things and their impact on human societies,”
Hopkins says. “He’s one of those people I would
say is a Renaissance person.”


The Renaissance, of course, produced its share
of heretics, and 21 years after he supposedly retired, one could
ponder whether Bryson’s work today is a tale of continuing
heresy, or of conventional wisdom being outpaced by an octogenarian.


Without addressing—or being asked—that
question, UW Green Bay Emeritus Professor Joseph Moran agrees
that Bryson qualifies as “the father of the science of
modern climatology.”


“In his lifetime, in his career, he has
shaped the future as well as the present state of climatology,”
Moran says, adding, “We’re going to see his legacy
with us for many generations to come.”


Holding bachelor’s and master’s
degrees from Boston College, Moran became a doctoral candidate
under Bryson in the late 1960s and early ’70s. “I
came to Wisconsin because he was there,” Moran told us.


With Hopkins, Moran co-authored Wisconsin’s
Weather and Climate, a book aimed at teachers, students, outdoor
enthusiasts, and workers with a need to understand what the
weather does and why. Bryson wrote a preface for the book but
Hopkins told us the editors “couldn’t fathom”
certain comments, thinking he was being too flippant with the
remark that “Wisconsin is not for wimps when it comes
to weather.”


Clearly what those editors couldn’t
fathom was that Bryson simply enjoys mulling over the reasons
weather and climate behave as they do and what might make them—and
consequently us—behave differently. This was immediately
obvious when we asked him why, at his age, he keeps showing
up for work at a job he’s no longer paid to do.


“It’s fun!” he said. Ed Hopkins
and Joe Moran would undoubtedly agree.


“I think that’s one of the reasons
for his longevity,” Moran says. “He’s so interested
and inquisitive. I regard him as a pot-stirrer. Sometimes people
don’t react well when you challenge their long-held ideas,
but that’s how real science takes place.”—Dave
Hoopman




Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 5:54 PM CST
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Updated: Wednesday, 23 May 2007 5:30 AM CDT
It's Thank a Soldier Week
This just in from




Pass it on.

Take part in Thank a Soldier Week: Say 'Thank You' today

As we embark upon the holiday season, we must not forget those who are away from their families defending our freedom. Townhall.com is hosting Thank a Soldier Week this week, Dec. 19-25, to honor our heroes and collect messages of hope for our men and women in uniform.

I ask for your help this week:
Say Thank You: As you are out and about over this week, if you see a service member in uniform, take a few moments to stop and express your appreciation.

Send a Message: Go to thankasoldierweek.com to send your message of hope. Over 30,000 messages have been received thus far and will be sent to those in service in the U.S. and overseas. Encourage your friends to do the same.

Make a Donation: Contribute to one of the many worthy foundations that offers help and support to service members and their families.

I know there are friends and family that you will call up and tell about Thank A Soldier Week, but let Townhall.com do the work for you this time. Cut and paste their email address in the box below and hit submit.
Tell Your Friends Today!
Enter your friends' email addresses,
separated by a comma.



If every subscriber adds just one email address to our list, we will double the number of people who will be participating this week and saying thank you to those defending our freedom. We hope this week will make this season a joyous one for our heroes.




Drew Bond, Founder
Thank A Soldier Week


Linked to
third world county at Ironic juxtaposition: Guard the Borders/Open Post

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 1:57 AM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 20 December 2005 7:31 AM CST
The Open Trackback Alliance VII For Monday
When I first started upon my journey through the blogverse I created a Statement of Purpose
Now upon reading it, one can realize that I did not hold to every detail of that original statement, but from it's basic premise, I have never swayed, in my belief that the Blogs are in fact the Committees of Correspondence of the Second American Revolution.

And that it is a Revolution of Information, no longer can we afford and allow elite gateways to control what we can see, hear and discuss.

One of the most important discoveries I make in those early days was the website of Samantha Burns, which included a unique informal community of bloggers, who not only linked to each other but actually browsed and read the blogs they linked to.

Later I was honored to be allowed to join another more formal blog community. At that time I decided that while I welcomed blogs that wanted to link to me, I was not that interested in simply joining blogrolls to add links. After that I made no more attempts to join any blog alliances. I have been kept busy supporting the linkages I have and at times I feel guilty that I cannot get around to all the websites on my blogroll as I could when it was smaller.

So why do I welcome this recent invitation to join the Open Trackback Alliance? Have I reconsidered my former decision?

No I am posting and joining this Alliance because it is RIGHT for me to do so.

Because it FULFILLS my original Statement of Purpose that the Blogs are indeed the 21st Century Committees of Correspondence, whose duty and honor it is to SHARE information, thoughts, ideas, news and to discuss the same. To diligently search for the truths that lie behind the distortions and half-truths of the Legacy Media.

What the blogs associated with the Samantha Burns site did informally, and without structure, this Alliance only aids and structures. There is in fact no conflict between what I do now, and what I decided to do sometime ago.

For I believe that those bloggers who find their way, here and in particular from the Blogs associated with Sam.

HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

Some of us are more Serious, some of us are more lighthearted and some post the common ordinary things that make one smile and recall that Life without the simple things to treasure is meaningless.

And it is important that all have a platform from which to speak.

As I understand this process you can link to this post and trackback to this post on ANY subject or post you think important. It is open. I will repeat this every Monday.

The Committees of Correspondence welcomes your intelligent comments. And also welcomes you to join the

OPEN TRACKBACK ALLIANCE



Open Trackback Alliance


Blogs that Trackback to this Post:

On Monday
Ironic juxtaposition: Guard the Borders/Open Post from third world county
Jackass in a Fox Suit from freedom folks
Christmas Parody Songs from freedom folks
Guard the Borders: Round-Up from TMH's Bacon Bits

Y'al come back now, Y'heah? ;-)

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 12:42 AM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 20 December 2005 12:12 AM CST
Friday, 16 December 2005
Democrats will have an "issue agenda"

The Democrats Punt

Nancy Pelosi says that the Democrats will have an "issue agenda" for next year's Congressional elections, but it will not include a position on Iraq.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said yesterday that Democrats should not seek a unified position on an exit strategy in Iraq, calling the war a matter of individual conscience and saying differing positions within the caucus are a source of strength for the party.
Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq. There is consensus within the party that President Bush has mismanaged the war and that a new course is needed, but House Democrats should be free to take individual positions, she sa(i)d."

Let me see,

they were FOR it,

BEFORE they were AGAINST it,

but now they are NOT SAYING,

what their position is On what for most Americans is THE defining issue of the present era.



Oh and they want us to elect more of them to the Senate and House of Representatives to--

Uhh, "they are not saying?"

Just vote for us, we are not Bush, nor are we Repugs and when we figure out what we stand for, you will be the first to know, MAYBE.

Is that a firm unequivocal maybe, or a conditional,let's consult with a focus group before making any semipermanent decisions, maybe?

I wonder if they will take this firm a stand on the REST of the issues that may come up?

If having NO position as a Party on the Iraq War is a source of strength, will having no position on any other issue but them in a position of unassailable strength?


Vote for us, we stand for Nothing?



Linked to

third world county at OTA Free-for-All Post
Stray Dog at T.G.I.O.T.A.F.
Bloggin' Outloud at Friday Funny Stuff & Open Posts
NIF at It's a beautiful day
MacStansbury.org at So, did you think about Open Trackback spam, buddy?
Right Wing Nation at Friday Open Trackbacks
Colbert Report at Quote of the day
The Conservative Cat at Continue the Conversation and Evolve to a Higher Level




|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:44 PM CST
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Updated: Sunday, 9 July 2006 9:09 PM CDT
From Iraq,
this will make you smile

An Update from




Greetings.

This is a small happy story on a great day when Iraq celebrates a big happy story with its election.

Over a year ago we launched a project called "Operation Snapshot" in response to a request from Marines in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. They asked for Polaroid cameras and film so they could take pictures of local children and families and give those Polaroid photos as gifts.

Back then LtCol Jeff Vold emailed us, "in the end 200-300 Polaroid cameras with plenty of film spread across the Division zone may go farther in establishing enduring relations than a thousand soccer balls!" This also fit with my experience in Iraq (and pretty much anywhere else in the world). People love pictures of themselves. The original project is described here: http://www.spiritofamerica.net/projects/77

Fortunately, you - our donors - provided the money for the cameras and film. We sent 160 cameras and 2900 packs of film to Iraq. Unfortunately, violence in Al Anbar prevented the kind of interaction with Iraqis that the Marines hoped for and delayed the project.

Things are getting better. And, finally - a year later - Operation Snapshot is underway. A message from Sgt. Charity Lewis, USMC follows below. And the pictures tell the story!






Like the Marines above, we all hope the cameras and film will help reduce the need for the rest of their gear. You can see more photos here: (If you blog please link): http://www.spiritofamerica.net/site/blog/671

And here:

http://www.spiritofamerica.net/site/blog/670

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah and Happy New Year from all of us at Spirit of America to you and your loved ones. Thank you for your support that makes possible stories like the one above. They warm our hearts. We hope they do the same for you.

Jim Hake and the Spirit of America team


ps: As we're in the "giving season," we would appreciate it if you would consider a gift to Spirit of America or one our active projects. We believe your donation can be put to excellent use. You can give online via credit card or by phone or check. Details here:
http://www.spiritofamerica.net/site/give

------------------------------

Message from Sgt Charity Lewis, United States Marine Corps

From: Charity Lewis
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 3:41 AM
To: Michele Redmond
Subject: Polaroids

Michele,

Thank you so much. I was completely amazed. I am always thankful to get out of this office and out into the field. This, by far, was the greatest adventure yet.

We convoyed out and drove to a local Iraqi Army Station, from there the IA Soldiers took on us a foot patrol out to a local school not far from their area.

Yes, it was a little tense, but once we arrived at the school the children started to come from everywhere. The team I was with was delivering backpacks and I toted along with my backpack full of Polaroids and film.

The pictures were the hit of the day. I showed the Iraqi Soldiers how to take pictures and just let them go with it.

Again, thanks for all your support.

Sincerely
Charity

This e-mail was sent by Spirit of America, located at 12021 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 558, Los Angeles, CA 90025 in the USA. To not receive further e-mails, please click here or reply to this e-mail with "unlist" in the Subject line


Join Us and Make Freedom Win


Linked to
third world county at OTA Free-for-All Post
Michelle Malkin at IRAQI ELECTION: THE DAY AFTER
Stray Dog at T.G.I.O.T.A.F.
Bloggin' Outloud at Friday Funny Stuff & Open Posts
NIF at It's a beautiful day
MacStansbury.org at So, did you think about Open Trackback spam, buddy?
Right Wing Nation at Friday Open Trackbacks
Colbert Report at Quote of the day
The Conservative Cat at Continue the Conversation and Evolve to a Higher Level

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 9:06 AM CST
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Friday, 16 December 2005 7:44 PM CST
Thursday, 15 December 2005
Give A Heifer For Christmas
How about a Yule Goat or some New Years Chickens?
Now THIS site has some unique gifts indeed and they have a real good deal on Water Bufalos. :-)




Or Lamas do it for you?





How about a flock of Geese?



Linked to
TMH's Bacon Bits at Bacon Break ? Iraqi Democracy!
customerservant.com at Bored To Tears, and Open Trackback Time
The Conservative Cat at Ecosystem Stuff page
NIF at It's a beautiful day
Right Wing Nation at Thursday Open Trackbacks
Colbert Report at Mit Romney Clears way for GOP Bid
MacStansbury.org at Obsessed with losing
Liberal Common Sense at The Christmas Card..ummm Holiday Card battle continues

|


Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 7:04 AM CST
| Post Comment | Permalink | Share This Post
Updated: Thursday, 15 December 2005 8:01 PM CST
Wednesday, 14 December 2005
The Lusty Chinese Economy
Everywhere one looks these days, one sees articles in Business Journals and the Mainstream Media, buoyantly trumpeting messages such as,

Continued economic growth will make this the Chinese Century

Phil Ruthven - posted Monday, 17 November 2003
China was the world?s largest economy (in purchasing power parity terms) for most of the last millennium, excluding the 19th and 20th Centuries, when it had largely ignored the industrial revolution.

Today it is the second-largest nation after the USA in economic size (PPP GDP) ? although still just over half the size of the USA ? and will be fifth largest in $US terms by the end of 2003, having climbed several rungs on the ladder over the past two decades.




China will have overtaken Britain by the end of 2003 calendar year, and France by the end of 2004 or early 2005. Sometime on or around 2010, it will overtake Germany; and between 2015-2020 it is expected to overtake Japan to become the world?s second largest economy in both US$ terms and PPP terms.

Will China then set its sights on the USA? Yes, but it is unlikely to overtake the USA easily or quickly. By the same token, a fast rising number two often gets more attention than number one, as we saw with Japan in the 1980s before Japan?s economy slowed to a halt in the 1990s and early years of this new Century.

If China is to overtake the USA, it is expected to be in the second half of the 21st Century; and that feat, if achieved, would make this the Chinese century.

China has the numbers, of people that is. With 1.3 billion citizens (20.5 per cent of the world)


A market of that size does have a logic all of it's own. Of course the People's Daily is even more optimistic.

Wu on China's Economic Prospects in 21st Century

The reason why China has been able to maintain a good momentum of economic growth in an adverse economic environment is that it has, under the leadership of President Jiang Zemin, adopted timely measures to respond to the circumstances and gone ahead with reform and opening-up," he stressed.

China's Economy to Fly Colors in 21st Century

China is entering an upturn stage of its economic growth, and it will be one of the few economies that will experience faster growth in the 21st century, said a group of economists from the world's leading banking and investment institutions in Hong Kong.

The most important factor that keeps China's economy continuing to maintain an accelerating, sustainable growth is the country's impending accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO), said Yiping Huang, Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) vice-president for Asia Pacific economic and market analysis.

The move will not only bring in more foreign investments, but also create a more favorable environment for its development to promote thoroughgoing reform and wider opening up, Huang noted. "What is more important is that the entry into the WTO will result in a range of economic rules that conforms to the international conventions," he added.


But there are other visions, visions that give other reasons for the continual accelerated growth.

From Stratfor.com we hear of a seething volcano about to erupt.


Last week, a group of Chinese villagers staged a demonstration against a wind-power project near Shanwei, a town in Guangdong province about 100 miles from Hong Kong. In the first incident, protesters blocked access to the site of the wind-power generation project. The next day, Dec. 6, demonstrators returned. According to Chinese official reports, they were led by three men -- Huang Xijun, Lin Hanru and Huang Xirang -- and were armed with knives, steel spears, sticks, dynamite and Molotov cocktails. Members of the local People's Armed Police fired tear gas at the crowd, hoping to break things up, but the three leaders rallied the crowd to continue what, depending on who was telling the story, was either a protest or attack. According to the description of events given by the Chinese government, the demonstrators started to throw explosives at the police as night fell. The police opened fire. Official reports said that three people were killed, eight wounded"

"The shooting is new. The pattern is not. There has been intensifying unrest in China over the past year -- frequently, as in this case, over issues that have been simmering for years. This has been particularly true for peasants who have seen their land confiscated by the government for industrial projects. Money is issued to local officials by state-owned enterprises and other investment groups to cover the cost of the land. That money passes through the regional and local bureaucracies. By the time it should reach the owners, there often is nothing left; it has been stolen by officials at various levels. No one denies the farmers' claims to the land, but no one acts to compensate them. The laborers go from being small farmers to being destitute.

This is a critical process at the heart of Chinese industrialization. The purchase of land, including forced sale, is considered necessary for Chinese economic development. However, Chinese economic development is driven as much by corruption as by land. The government in Beijing has no particular desire to see the farmers dispossessed; on the contrary, the money is made available for delivery to the farmers. But the diversion of funds is hard-wired into the process. It is one of the primary means for capital formation in China. "

"The old economy was land-based: Mao created a peasant economy that was overlaid by attempts to industrialize. The new economy regards land as an input into the industrial machine. However, given the nature of the Chinese political system, the farmers are not simply bought out -- they are forced off the land. And that can lead to social explosions."




The specifics of what happened, of course, have no geopolitical consequence. What is important is that tensions in China have been rising steadily. Thousands of
(74,000, according to figures released last year by the government) have taken place)
-- some reportedly violent, if not fatal. In one case earlier this year, residents protesting corruption related to land seizures took control of their town, forcing the police out. The Chinese government appeared to capitulate to the demonstrators, giving into their demands -- but weeks later, those who had participated in the rising were quietly arrested. In another incident, which also turned deadly, brute squads believed to have been hired by local officials and businesses attacked protesters. There are numerous other examples to draw from.


"Beneath the surface, a number of things are taking place. The Chinese economy has been growing at a frantic pace. This is not necessarily because the economy is so healthy, nor because many of these industrial projects make economic sense. In fact, the government in Beijing has been very clear that the new projects frequently don't make a great deal of economic sense, and has been trying to curb them (though it does not necessarily command obedience in every case from provincial or local governments). On the other hand, China needs to run very hard to stay in place."

"China is a mass of dispossessed farmers, urban workers forced into unemployment by the failure of state-owned enterprises, and party officials who are urgently working to cash in on their position. It is a country where the banking system has been saved from collapse by spinning off bad debts -- at least $600 billion worth, or nearly half the GDP of China -- into holding companies. This maneuver cleaned up the banks' books and allowed Western banks to purchase shares in them, shoring them up. But it also left a huge amount of debt that is owed internally to people who will never see the funds."

"The important thing to note is that both the quantity and intensity of these confrontations is increasing. While the Western media focus on the outer shell of China's economic growth -- the side that is visible in Western hotels throughout major cities -- the Chinese masses are experiencing simultaneously both the costs of industrialization and the costs of economic failure. The sum of this equation is unrest. The question is how far the unrest will go"


For brevity I have cropped part of an email from stratfor.com.

I will put the full report on a separate page for those who wish to read it's entirety.


This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com.

Lest anyone feel my viewpoint is too pessimistic, I wish to point out there is an area of the Chinese economy that is growing, without the dislocations mentioned above, an industry that may make up between 6 to 12% of China's GDP.

It happens to be the Oldest Profession

Which Brings us now, full circle to the Title that started all this.



The Lusty Chinese Economy

A Close Look at China's "Sex Industry

[related link: Red Light District a book on prostitution in China]

by Zhong Wei (Lianhe Zaobao -- Singapore October 2, 2000)

"Prostitutes are people living on the edge, struggling for existence. If we estimate that 20 million prostitutes earn 25,000 RMB annually, that comes to 500 billion RMB or is 6 percent of the PRC GDP. More over, China's "new left" economist Yang Fan estimates that half of the prostitutes income goes to consumption, so that represents consumption of 250 Billion RMB. Prostitutes need quite a lot of equipment: beepers, cell phones, cabs, apartments or rooms in homes, expensive clothes and fine cosmetics and even bodyguards, pharmaceuticals.. so the sex industry may well move the economy along with an annual level of consumption of 1 trillion RMB.

The "sex industry" is certainly a significant part of the Chinese economy. When we consider that the Chinese GDP in 1998 and 1999 was 7.8 trillion RMB and 8.3 trillion RMB, the contribution of the "sex industry" to the GDP comes in at about 12.1 - 12.8 percent. Thus it is not moonshine to talk about the economic importance of the "sex industry". The economist Yang Fan even estimates that with the implementation of the "Regulations on the Management of Places of Entertainment" issued by the State Council during the latter half of 1999,

the Chinese GDP dropped by one percent. "

The sanbeinuu [prostitutes in dance halls, bars etc.] break down into three types:
-- From the countryside, very young with little education. They have no skills and have a hard time getting a decent job in the city so it is very easy for them to fall into that line of work. The cruelest fact is that after selling all of their self-respect they often kill them selves in their little hole in the underground spaces of the city.
-- The second type is the urban girl with a modicum of education who falls into this life because she want fancy things
-- The third type is the highly educated, pretty urban girl who goes into it voluntarily to have a golden nest.

As more and more rural people leave the limited lands in the countryside to move into the city, likewise are more and more industrial workers finding themselves jobless as the result of advancing technology. There must be over a hundred million unemployed women. Where can they go?"


There will be much opportunity and much risk it seems during the Chinese Century

A prudent investor might look south west of China to the Largest Democracy in the world with a market that rivals China, India.

I wonder why we don't read articles about the

Indian Century??

Linked to
Diane's Stuff at Wednesday Weekly Open Trackback Alliance Fest
third world county at Batting cleanup... and Open Post
Stuck On Stupid at Crooked Democrats in ByrdLand & Open Trackbacks & Link Fest
Rempelia Prime at Wednesday Open Trackbacks
NIF at Zing!
MacStansbury.org at If it's Wednesday, it must mean Open Trackbacks, cause you can't have Wednesday without Open Trackbacks, now can ya? Can ya?
Right Wing Nation at Wednesday Open Trackbacks
Colbert Report at Mr. Ambassador, Perhaps a Review of our Laws are in Order

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 8:32 AM CST
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Updated: Thursday, 15 December 2005 9:54 AM CST
Tuesday, 13 December 2005
The Flash
Mind Reader

Do Not Try




If having your mind read might upset you!

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 6:56 PM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 13 December 2005 7:16 PM CST
Why Might Jesse
Identify With Tookie?

It comes as no surprise that the

Media outnumber protesters in hours before execution

Neither came it as a surprise that

Among the anti-death penalty protesters were the Rev. Jesse Jackson,


Why Might Jesse Identify With Tookie?

As it turns out there may be other areas in which Jesse Jackson can identify with Stanley "Tookie" Williams besides the obvious.

I received the following tip from one of my readers a while back, but I have been saving it for a special occasion. ;-)

Court Rules Jesse Jackson Must Face Civil Trial for Assault and Civil Rights Violations

Judicial Watch represents Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson in claims against Jackson


(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes corruption, today announced that on January 17, 2006, Jesse Lee Peterson, et al., v. Jesse Jackson, et al. (BC 266505) will go to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court after a ruling last week by Judge George H. Wu. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit against Jackson, his son Jonathan, and others on behalf of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who was the victim of a physical and verbal assault at an event hosted by Jackson?s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. in December 2001. Rev. Peterson is an ordained minister, who has dedicated his life to working with underprivileged black youth and men in our society.

The Jacksons and the Rainbow/PUSH coalition, who had sought to have the case dismissed, will now face multiple civil charges, including: Assault, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress and a California Civil Rights Claim. Jonathan Jackson also will face the additional charges of Battery and False Imprisonment.



Judicial Watch?s lawsuit stems from a public meeting held in Los Angeles, California on December 10, 2001 to discuss participation in Toyota?s ?21st Century Diversity Strategy,? which had been announced after Jackson and Rainbow/PUSH threatened to boycott Toyota. After remarks from Jackson and Toyota representative Irving Miller, the meeting was opened up to questions from the audience. Rev. Peterson asked Miller if black Republicans and conservative groups like his organization, Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), would have to go through Rev. Jackson?s Rainbow/PUSH in order to participate in the Toyota program.



Jackson told the crowd, ?And the issue, for the record?is not conservative or liberal. The issue is certain parasites trying to pick up fruit from trees they didn?t shake.? Rev. Peterson testified that after the ?parasite? comment, the crowd became ?more hostile?.Some of the words I can?t even mention here.?



Within minutes following adjournment of the meeting, Jonathan Jackson struck Rev. Peterson and Rev. Peterson was physically threatened and verbally assaulted by both Jesse Jackson and Jonathan Jackson. Incited by Jackson?s earlier remarks, an angry crowd gathered, cursing, shoving and encircling Rev. Peterson and one of his associates. ?I feared for my life,? said Peterson.



Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, ?Jesse Jackson attempted to use every legal trick at his disposal to have this case dismissed, and he failed. This trial is a major step in holding Jackson accountable for his actions.?



?I?m pleased the court ruled in our favor,? said Reverend Peterson. ?I am looking forward to taking my case to court and to forcing Jesse Jackson to answer for his actions.?



To read a legal brief summarizing the allegations against Jackson, log on to Judicial Watch?s Internet site, www.judicialwatch.org, or click here.


Here is one of the parts that jumped out at me.

The issue is certain parasites trying to pick up fruit from trees they didn?t shake.?


It is public record that the Good Reverend moved to Chicago some 40 years ago and to my knowledge in Chicago the "Shake Down" has been for decades honed to a fine degree as has strong arm tactics to enforce it.

Sounds like Gang Style Tactics to me.

Linked to
Those Bastards! at If it's Tuesday, it must be an Open Trackback Day
NIF at Zing!
MacStansbury.org at Tuesday shill for Open Trackbacks Right Wing Nation at Tuesday Open Trackbacks
The Business of America is Business at Tire Tracks

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 8:11 AM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 13 December 2005 2:46 PM CST
Monday, 12 December 2005
The Open
Trackback Alliance VI
For Monday


My abject apologies for getting this up so late, I have been under the weather, I have posted all the trackbacks dated 12/12 in links on this newest OTA post and to make up for lost time consider Tuesday a make up OTA and trackback to this post if you wish

When I first started upon my journey through the blogverse I created a Statement of Purpose
Now upon reading it, one can realize that I did not hold to every detail of that original statement, but from it's basic premise, I have never swayed, in my belief that the Blogs are in fact the Committees of Correspondence of the Second American Revolution.

And that it is a Revolution of Information, no longer can we afford and allow elite gateways to control what we can see, hear and discuss.

One of the most important discoveries I make in those early days was the website of Samantha Burns, which included a unique informal community of bloggers, who not only linked to each other but actually browsed and read the blogs they linked to.

Later I was honored to be allowed to join another more formal blog community. At that time I decided that while I welcomed blogs that wanted to link to me, I was not that interested in simply joining blogrolls to add links. After that I made no more attempts to join any blog alliances. I have been kept busy supporting the linkages I have and at times I feel guilty that I cannot get around to all the websites on my blogroll as I could when it was smaller.

So why do I welcome this recent invitation to join the Open Trackback Alliance? Have I reconsidered my former decision?

No I am posting and joining this Alliance because it is RIGHT for me to do so.

Because it FULFILLS my original Statement of Purpose that the Blogs are indeed the 21st Century Committees of Correspondence, whose duty and honor it is to SHARE information, thoughts, ideas, news and to discuss the same. To diligently search for the truths that lie behind the distortions and half-truths of the Legacy Media.

What the blogs associated with the Samantha Burns site did informally, and without structure, this Alliance only aids and structures. There is in fact no conflict between what I do now, and what I decided to do sometime ago.

For I believe that those bloggers who find their way, here and in particular from the Blogs associated with Sam.

HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

Some of us are more Serious, some of us are more lighthearted and some post the common ordinary things that make one smile and recall that Life without the simple things to treasure is meaningless.

And it is important that all have a platform from which to speak.

As I understand this process you can link to this post and trackback to this post on ANY subject or post you think important. It is open. I will repeat this every Monday.

The Committees of Correspondence welcomes your intelligent comments. And also welcomes you to join the

OPEN TRACKBACK ALLIANCE



Open Trackback Alliance


Blogs that Trackback to this Post:

On Monday
TMH's Bacon Bits with The Moderates Surrender
freedom folks with Mexican Standoff
Bloggin' Outloud with Christmas Caption Contest
freedom folks with Blurring the Line on Immigration
TMH?s Bacon Bits with Light Up? Yer Out!
Conservative Cat with Desperately Seeking Community in a Fancy Box

On Tuesday
Peakah's Provocations...with Keeping a Good History Teacher from Becoming History

Y'al come back now, Y'heah? ;-)

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Posted by ky/kentuckydan at 8:02 PM CST
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Updated: Tuesday, 13 December 2005 5:42 PM CST

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