Up to 90,000 expected to die from H1N1 this fall. Yeah, we're doomed.

"The H1N1 flu virus could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths, mainly among children and young adults, if it resurges this fall as expected, according to a report released Monday by a presidential advisory panel.
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu virus, could infect between 30 percent and 50 percent of the American population during the fall and winter and lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported.
The report says 30,000 to 90,000 deaths are projected as part of a "plausible scenario" involving large outbreaks at schools, inadequate antiviral supplies and the virus peaking before vaccinations have time to be effective."
LINK to CNN

Detroit...

Unreal.

"People are leaving Michigan at a staggering rate. About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving -- young, well-educated high-income earners -- are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.

...Since 2001, migration has cost Michigan 465,000 people, the equivalent of the combined populations of Grand Rapids, Warren and Sterling Heights -- the state's second-, third- and fourth-largest cities.
Population loss of that magnitude is so rare that its impact has never been studied.

..."These numbers -- my God," said Kurt Metzger, a demographer who heads a local nonprofit. "It's like a perfect storm -- the education, the income, the young people, everything is going in the wrong direction." "

LINK

But, if you stay, there's meat to be had:

"When I arrived in the office one morning, I eagerly told my co-workers about my run-in (almost, but not literally) with a pheasant that crossed my path as I cut through a Highland Park neighborhood. Turns out, such sightings are not all that uncommon.
One guy I work with says locals hunt pheasants and other small game at an east side neighborhood park and they've seen coyotes at the nearby cemetery.
Today, Detroit News writer Charlie LeDuff writes about the Coon Man, a 69-year-old licensed hunter and furrier and retired truck driver who supplements his Social Security check with the sale of raccoon carcasses that go for as much $12 and can serve up to four. The pelts, too, are good for coats and hats and fetch up to $10 a hide.
Charlie writes that a beaver was spotted recently in the Detroit River, fox skulk at the Palmer Park golf course, wild turkey roam vacant fields and bald eagle, hawk and falcon dot the city skies.
Mind you, hunting is prohibited within Detroit city limits. But with things being what they are, "Starvation is cheap," Glemie Dean Beasley says."

LINK

Frak. We're so effing stupid.

Unbelievable. WTF, mate? From Discover-

"In preparation for future oil shale mining projects near the Rocky Mountains, six oil companies have gained rights to billions of gallons of water in the American West, potentially jeopardizing water supplies throughout the region, according to a new report by Western Resource Advocates [pdf], an environmental group. It is still preliminary to speculate on the implications of the findings, but many are concerned that if the companies put their rights to use, water will be shifted away from agriculture and community use.
Using public records, the report examines more than 200 water rights held by six energy companies, including Shell and ExxonMobil, which, it is estimated, are collectively entitled to divert at least 6.5 billion gallons of water from rivers in western Colorado, as well as almost 2 million acre-feet of water from the state’s reservoirs, which is enough to supply the Denver metro area for six years. Shale oil production is a water-intensive process: up to five barrels of water are consumed for every barrel of oil produced. This means that projects producing 1.55 million barrels of oil per day would require 378,000 acre-feet of water each year, compared to the Denver metro area’s consumption, which is less than 300,000 acre feet. Should oil shale production hit full stride in the next 15 to 20 years — something the White House under President George W. Bush tried to accelerate by opening up 2 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management to leasing and approving royalty rates and leasing rules — there will be a major political battle over water rights."

LINK to Discover blog, which has further links in it. Amazingly good coverage of this shit.

Everything old is new again! New Depression, meet New Dustbowl! You're going to really go well together.

"“You can see how the sand is just drifting,” said Mr. Brown, 65, digging his toe into the dust piled up at his feet. “This normally would be grass.”
The worst drought in nearly 100 years is racking three-quarters of Texas. Much of the state has not had a significant rainfall since August. Winter wheat crops have failed. Ponds have dried up. Ranchers are spending heavily on hay and feed pellets to get their cattle through the winter. Some wonder if they will have to slaughter their herds come summer. Farmers say the soil is too dry for seeds to germinate and are considering not planting.
“The last time we had a drought this bad was in January 1918,” said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist. " LINK

WTF. Members of Congress told to vote for the bailout or there would be martial law.

Well holy mackerel. WaMu is out, and McCain fucked the bailout.

"A rescue for the U.S. financial system unraveled late Thursday amid accusations Republican presidential candidate John McCain scuppered the deal,
and Washington Mutual was closed by U.S. authorities and its assets sold in America's biggest ever bank failure.

As negotiations over an
unprecedented $700 billion bailout to restore credit markets degenerated into chaos, the largest U.S. savings and loan bank was taken over by authorities and its deposits auctioned off. U.S. stock futures fell by more than 1 percent." LINK

Tent cities during an economic disaster? You don't say.

"In hard times, tent cities rise across the country
Since foreclosure mess, homeless advocates report rise in encampments

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.
Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening." LINK

So put on a happy face!

No you can't have a house. Not yours!

This is one I'm just not sure what I think about.

"Some Ike victims may not be allowed to rebuild
Little-known state law could put Texas beach home owners in a bind

By MICHAEL GRACZYK and CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writers Thu Sep 18, 6:46 PM ET

GALVESTON, Texas - Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state.
Now here's the saltwater in the wound: It could be a year before the state tells these homeowners what they may or may not do.

The reason: A 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.
Over the years, the state has repeatedly invoked the law to seize houses in cases where a storm eroded a beach so badly that a home was suddenly sitting on public property. The aftermath of Ike could see the biggest such use of the law in Texas history."LINK

WOW. Wow. This is an intersting story. I mean, this is really interesting.

I wonder how this law will be applied. So, if people are living, say, across the road from a beach, and a big storm wipes out the road (I'm thinking Matunuck, here, for Rhody-minded people, the new beachfront people suddenly on public property, and their home is condemned? Yikes!

But I VERY strongly support high/low tide line public access- in fact, it is one of my all time favorite things about Rhode Island- that that was written into the Rhode Island Constitution- "The Rhode Island Constitution specifically protects citizens' rights to fish from the shore, to gather seaweed, to leave the shore to swim in the sea, and to walk along the shore. In Rhode Island, state waters of public domain extend from mean high water three miles out to sea. Above mean high water, land and resources can be, and often are, privately owned."LINK

And hey, I want my right to fish from shore and gather seaweed, and if that's suddenly your front doorstep, I like my coffee cream, no sugar, thanks. I

ll be there.

So, all in all, a VERY interesting story, especially in light of all the the land loss we're looking at as the global warming/global storming plays out.

Lehman Brothers? More like Bush brothers. Cousins. Whatever.

Startling, isn't it, what comes up when you Google bush + lehman.
Heckuva job, kids. Seems like everything these fuckers touch turns to gold for them and to shit for everyone else.

In August 2007, Lehman hired Jeb Bush as an advisor.
"Jeb Bush: Lehman’s Secret Weapon
In the arms race by private-equity firms to line up ever-higher profile “advisers,” Lehman Brothers may have just taken the lead.According to a small handful of reports Friday, including this one in Investment Dealers’ Digest and another in Private Equity Hub, the investment bank has hired former Florida Governor and presidential son and brother Jeb Bush for its in-house investing arm. " LINK

In May 2006, "Bush Cousin Heads to Lehman
Lehman Brothers(LEH Quote - Cramer on LEH - Stock Picks) has nabbed George H. Walker, the CEO of Goldman Sachs(GS Quote - Cramer on GS - Stock Picks) Hedge Fund Strategies, to be the global head of its $188 billion Investment Management Division, Lehman Brothers announced today.
Walker has already resigned from Goldman Sachs and could not be reached for comment. A spokesman at Goldman Sachs did not return a call.
Walker, who is President George W. Bush's second cousin, had joined the merger and acquisition group of Goldman Sachs in 1991 and became a partner in 1998. He soon grew to be one of the principal architects of Goldman Sachs' investment management strategy and was overseeing a $70 billion group of alternative investments, including hedge funds of funds and private equity investments.
At Lehman, Walker will oversee two and a half times the amount of assets under his belt at Goldman, as he will run a global group that includes not just alternative investments but also traditional assets, including mutual funds. He succeeds Theodore Janulis, who recently became global head of the firm's mortgage capital business. " LINK

Feeling extra DOOMED!

Well, the market tanked, oil spiked, ridiculous numbers of tornadoes are erasing whole towns in the midwest, and worst of all (ok, for me!) - it is going to get stupidly hot. In June.

"That once glorious sunshine will scorch, burn, and become unbearable. The sweet smell of blooming flowers will be lost in breezes that are soupy and stifling. Air conditioners will be lugged out of basements even though snow shoveling is still a fresh memory.
Spring is expected to come to an abrupt end this weekend as temperatures top 90 degrees in Boston on Saturday, igniting what may be the year’s first three-day heat wave. In Western Massachusetts the mercury may creep up near triple digits.
"Normally we don't see these temperatures until late July or early August," said Charlie Foley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. "We will be just a touch away from real tropical, sultry, New Orleans-style weather." LINK

Interesting on many levels.

I don't know what to say about this, really, except how terrifying it is that "Approximately one in every 150 children in the United States has autism or a closely related disorder -- a figure higher than most recent estimates -- according to a federal survey released yesterday, the most thorough ever conducted." LINK

1 in 150 is not good odds, dude. No freaking way. I have seen enough autistic kids to know that there is no way people could pray in peace around one who is having a freakout- that, in fact, it might cause people to re-evaluate the whole freaking fairytale about a loving bearded dude who made them out of clay or whatever. Yeah. And, um, so scared of ever having a child. My understanding is that it's not something that happens until the baby is a year old or so, and then, it's like, some light is off- I can't imagine. My heart really does go out to people with autistic children- you are the unhailed saints of our day. But dude, please, if they are going to go batsh*t all over some public place, is that ok for everyone else to suffer?

Again I realize that this is not a comfortable topic- at all. For me, either. I don't know what to say, but I do fully support this priest in trying to keep this boy out of his services. Eeeeek. Thoughts on this are welcomed.

"The parents of a 13-year-old autistic boy in Bertha, Minnesota, are facing a restraining order from their parish priest because of their handicapped child.
The priest filed a court complaint against the parents for what Rev. Daniel Walz says was their boy's unruly behaviour during mass. He wants them to keep their son -- Adam Race -- away from church.

Walz claims Adam has urinated and spat in church and that his behaviour presents a danger to other parishioners. " LINK

The boy is over 6 feet tall and weighs over 225 pounds. LINK

So long and thanks for all the fish, take 2. Different dolphins, headed out.

And it's not in China.

The tiny vaquita, the smallest known porpoise, which is found only in the waters of Mexico's Sea of Cortez, is now on the edge of extinction. Go humans- we're #1!

"A drop in vaquita numbers to as few as 150 from around 600 at the start of the decade could see the famously shy animal go the same way as the Chinese river dolphin, which was declared all but extinct in 2006.

The drop in numbers suggests they are getting tangled in fishing nets at a faster rate than they can reproduce.

Female vaquitas only produce young once every two years and the genetic pool is now too small for effective breeding.

Meanwhile mesh gillnets used to catch sea bass, mackerel, shrimp and sharks also trap and drown air-breathing vaquitas, whose name is Spanish for "little cow."

The government is trying to persuade some fishermen to ditch their nets and start conservation-based tourism businesses, like boat trips to see marine life.
But one person in four in the area lives off fishing..." LINK