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August 09, 2012

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Considering the reports of low crop yields around the world, the reckoning may be coming sooner than we think. What will happen when the 1% drive up the price with their usual speculative "free" enterprise. The US media is quietly ignoring mass demonstrations in Canada over just college tuition hikes. What will they do when it's over food (think Tunisia, Egypt, Mexico, Oman, India)?

I've added two comments in the previous thread: (1) warming trends specific to Phoenix (very ugly); (2) A reply to "morecleanair" specifying a simple, effective "path to lead us out of our malaise" of global warming.

Beware of the Morrison Institute's pet sprawl pipe dream called "THE SUN CORRIDOR" that waxes delusional over putting approx. 8 MILLION people between Prescott and Tucson. They are clueless about the environmental disaster this would create.

People point to the brief period in the mid-20th century as the gold standard in US politics because so much historic legislation (Civil Rights, SS, Medicare, etc.) got passed and seem to be under the impression that's the norm and the current climate is an aberration. Throughout most of US history, though, our politics has been as polarized as our electorate (always) is. What happened in that brief anomalous period is that the reactionaries were more evenly distributed between the parties because of the Dixiecrats who opposed desegregation (and most other forms of modernity). The Southern Strategy realignment on racial issues and the emergence of the Religious Right led to the GOP becoming the comfortable home for the white reactionaries.

So yeah, Jon is right that Republicans having full power is a nightmare.

Willard Mittens Romney (not "Milton", Jon) isn't looking too good right now, is he? His plastic qualities are hard to mask. Looking more like Barbie Doll's running mate, Ken!

Romney Girl (to the tune of "Barbie Girl".)

The tea baggers get their man Ryan
The dilemma? How to get Romney out of the road?

Side note: a new reply to phxSUNSfan in the previous thread ("Corrupt or stupid?") dealing with changes in Phoenix temperatures over the last ten years (not since 1948 or over the last 30 years). There is a remarkable correlation with a tripling of Chinese CO2 emissions from 2002 through 2011. This ten year change isn't just Phoenix, either, it's national.

P.S. A third new comment added to previous thread, documenting the fact that as of 2011 China's CO2 emissions have ALREADY surpassed those of the United States and the European Union combined.

Not to hijack the current thread (it's a fine commentary), but I don't think Mr. Talton will mind my noting the following facts from ASU's Greater Phoenix Housing Report for June 2012.

For single-family homes sold in "normal resales" (i.e., traditional sale/purchases between ordinary homeowner-residents), home prices in June 2012 are down by all measures relative to June 2011:

Average (mean) sales price: -6.0 %

Median sales price: -1.2 %

Average price per square foot: -3.4 %

http://wpcarey.asu.edu/finance/real-estate/upload/FullReport201207.pdf

Because you won't read this in the Arizona Republic, which already put its boosterish spin on the issue by reporting overall housing market (i.e., investor driven) price changes.

Speaking of investors, the June report linked to above indicates that investors accounted for 31.9 percent of home purchases in Maricopa County in June 2012, up from 25 percent a year earlier.

This is about the same percentage of buyers that investors made up at the height of the housing boom in 2005, according to Information Market.

The ASU report notes: "Since distressed supply is well down, it is clear that investors are active buyers of normal and new homes as well as homes flipped by other investors."

So much for a resurgence of normal homeseller activity.

Given that rising home values were a BIG part of the Metro Phoenix appeal in the pre-recession 2000s, one wonders how long it will take for a return to the old growth model.

Even the Arizona Republic noted (April 25, 2010) that:

"People from other parts of the country, particularly California where the average house cost twice as much, saw they could afford a new home in Phoenix and watch the value rise 15 percent to 30 percent in only five years.

"Arizona's population swelled on speculation, jumping from 4.2 million to 6 million in 12 years. In 2005, metro Phoenix home sales hit an all-time high of 165,000."

P.S. In a single year (2006) metro Phoenix home prices increased 50 percent.

Mr. Talton wrote:

"Not just that their leaders and members exist in an alternative universe, hermetically sealed with answers for everything, but that unfortunately has no connection with reality. Or that they are highly disciplined and many of their stars very telegenic in an era when privilege buys more than ever before. Or that all this is backed by money and infrastructure that the Democrats can't match. It is all these things. This is what the Republican Party is today."

I loved this. Says it all. Great historical background on "the party of Lincoln", too.

I am trying not to be too optimistic about Romney's decision to pick Ryan as a running mate. But this could be a good thing for the Obama camp if they pounce and clampdown for the kill.

Old people tend to have short-term memories and do frighten easily; reminding them that Ryan will kill their beloved Medicare could turn some blue-haired, dependable Republican voters into RINO's just in time to vote for Obama.

Side note: I've added a new comment to the previous thread ("Corrupt or stupid?") replying to phxSUNSfan's latest, addressing some reasoning errors he (and to be fair, his news source) made in attributing climate changes of the last ten years primarily to the urban heat-island effect.

Please refer to the Front Page article on "Welcome to the new normal climate".

Would you "climate change chicken littles" please explain the 3 mega-droughts which occurred 1500 years BEFORE the industrial revolution?

Side note: another follow-up or two in the previous thread (brief, but good, explaining two common ways in which climate change is (accidentally or deliberately) minimized and showing the reasoning errors behind them.

AzRebel, in order to explain any climate changes, you have to examine the specific climate dynamic in the period in which the change occurred. Right now, the big alteration in the dynamic is the mammoth addition of greenhouse gases, not geological events. (Out of online time.)

The party's over, but the skewering may have just begun . . . as Paul Ryan's "survival of the fittest" plan goes up on the carving table. PSF is to be commended for his caution, but Mittens has just doubled down on his position as a cold-blooded financial hawk. The target this presents looks absolutely delicious, calling attention to the obscene but poorly-publicized disparities in net worth.

its a 104 in the shade in Austin

hey REB, lick your finger, stick it out the window and tell me how long it takes it to dry?

Oh my cal. I had licked my finger and I was bent over when at the last second I caught the word window. Whew, that was close.

To answer your question, .0001 second.

Global Warming!

The party may be over but the WAR is on.
cal
from the river bank in Austin

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