Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Good News from Texas

It's still unseasonably warm in Austin, but at least the season has changed. While it remains very dry here, major storms have been quite visible to our north and south of late. So, it seems that October is bringing us a normal summer pattern, and it's raining a more or less normal amount in Texas. Far from enough to bust the drought, but not threatening us with turning into Arizona.

We'll see if the double-dip La Nina makes for another severe outlier of a summer next year.

Also, it looks like Rick Perry is no more serious about becoming US President than Sarah Palin.

Also, occupy Austin is happening. I am nervous about actively supporting the Occupy thing. Since I still hold Canadian citizenship, it seems far safer for me to go up to Toronto and occupy it. But I've been very impressed with the way these guys are managing things; it seems the only people advocating foolishness at these groups are pro-corporate agents provocateurs.

As manifestos go, this one is marvelous. Majorities are for amateurs. (h/t PHA.)

This was really why I had no enthusiasm for cap-and-trade. Without near-unanimity in the public, globally and in each nation, the prospects for climate stability are grim.

We need to have traditional government chasing a social media consensus. And so that social media consensus has to be competent.

9 comments:

  1. Bad news is the SLR at Galveston; also the suppression of a report about it.

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  3. "We need to have traditional government chasing a social media consensus. And so that social media consensus has to be competent."

    Could you unpack that a bit? What do you mean?

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  4. A heads-up:
    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Professor-says-state-agency-censored-article-2212118.php

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  5. Chuckle. Well the millenial monk seems to be in a good place now.

    Looks like he got to that place fleeing twin strawmen -- scary ones: http://www.worldhouse.org/2011/09/the-millennial-monk/

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  6. PS, I recall learning long ago that the real longterm value in a railroad or pipeline is having a continuous right-of-way across many jurisdictions, because it can be repurposed. Lots of glass fiber optic cable followed railroad rights of way, I vaguely recall, back when that was being overbuilt.

    Could anyone in Texas be hoping for a long drink of glacial meltwater, over the next century or two?

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  7. Hoping you get rain in Texas soon. I've been on station at OccupyChico California for most of the last week. If you want to help your local occupation bring by some fruit or salad greens. People can live only so long on pizza, donuts and coffee.

    Also, going down and simply talking to people on the fringes of the occupation matters a great deal without necessarily involving yourself with whatever district the local police are squabbling over.

    At my location the local City Council is bending over backwards to accomodate us without actually changing the city codes. It involves a lot of fine tuning over where exactly the cracks are.

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  8. "Our leader is a meme that
    majorities are for amateurs
    we seek unanimous accord."

    Seriously?

    There were a few pieces of enviro legislation that came close to this in the early 70s, but only because the bad guys didn't realize their consequences. Certainly no significant enviro legislation since then, and no social legislation ever, has met this criteria.

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  9. Brian the same friend who pointed out that slogan to me said "We have to up our game or nothing much matters"

    And not just a little.

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