McCain changes auto emissions stance

I know - what a surprise!

U.S. Sen. John McCain backtracked Friday on a pledge to set national auto emissions standards that would supersede those California and other states want to set.

"I guess at the end of the day, I support the states being able to do that," he said at a town hall meeting at the GM Technical Center.

The statement appears to contradict a statement McCain made to The Detroit News last month, when he said he hoped to set a national standard that would make state standards unnecessary.

So I can buy a guzzler in PA and bring it to MD. Sounds effective.

"It'd be nice to have a friend in Washington," said Don Jamison, 49, a bumper systems engineer. "Of course, he's politicking for votes, so he's going to be telling us all kinds of things."

You think?

Diary: Colorado River drought

BBC reporter travels along the Colorado River, keeping a diary. Days are in reverse order on the page. This is from Day One:

The river helped form the Grand Canyon. It is one of planet Earth's most iconic rivers.

It has also been the source of life for this region and the people living here for hundreds of years, which is now a problem, as far as people like Shana Watahomigie are concerned.

Two vast dams were built along the river in the last century. They have caused changes to the ecology of the river.

The lakes behind the dams supply water to agriculture, to industry and to tens of millions of people living in the south-western US.

"We are compromising [the river] by controlling it," says (park ranger Shana) Watahomigie. "The plants have suffered. The wildlife has suffered, as well as human beings. Now the water isn't reaching them."

...

For the best part of a decade the water levels have been falling rapidly.

The tens of millions of water users downstream, in huge sprawling cities like Las Vegas and Los Angeles, are simply using too much water.

Day Two:

The rock is naturally black, but where the water used to be it has turned white, because of the calcium in the water. The bathtub line is 100ft high here.

This matters.

The reservoir, and the Colorado River which serves it, is still the principal water source for millions of Americans. Some argue that one day there may not be enough water to feed the cities here.

There are disagreements as to why water levels in the lake are dropping.

Many environmentalists argue climate change is to blame.

Day Three

There's plenty of disagreement about what's causing the drought. Many here say it's just a dry spell, that the rains will return.

But the General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Patricia Mulroy, says there's no doubt in her mind that man-made climate change is to blame.

"We're going to have to change our whole approach to water management in this part of the United States", she says.

It's such thinking that helps explain the water authority's push to stop any water being wasted.

Already they recycle all the city's used water. If it goes down a plug hole, or a drain it stays in the system.

But if a rogue sprinkler sprays the road, or a hosepipe is left running into a lawn, the water is lost.

Hence the water police.

Chez posts a gem of a story about media machinations in Florida:

Steve Wilson and Jane Akre -- WTVT's husband-and-wife investigative team -- had discovered that, despite promises to the contrary, grocery stores across Florida were selling milk produced through the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone, or rBGH. ... To make a long story short, Wilson and Akre's story never aired because Monsanto found out about it ahead of time and put pressure on Hutt-like Fox News chief Roger Ailes who told Dave Boylan to handle it. After putting them through the ringer -- forcing rewrite after rewrite in an effort to supposedly try to give the story more "balance" -- Boylan killed the thing outright and fired Wilson and Akre for reportedly refusing to include what, by almost all accounts, was false information in the story, but not before telling them (according to the lawsuit they immediately filed against the station), "We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is."

IndyMac account holders who lined up as early as midnight the Encino, CA branch vent to reporter after learning they must be on a list to get service. Bank officials claim the list includes people from yesterday's line, but some folk claim that they were waiting yesterday, but didn't get on the list. The weatherman says that he's been locked out of ATMs and online banking. A disgruntled fellow in line expresses some confidence in the FDIC, but wonders what happens if several banks fail.

I'm wondering what I'd do if my bank went belly up.

The blackouts spread
by Tom Whipple

"Of the 266 distinct nations or entities on the world today, nearly 100 are now reporting continuing energy shortages, mostly in the form of inadequate electricity supply, but in a growing number of cases, shortages of liquid fuels and natural gas."

Persistent power shortages have destroyed Pakistan's and Bangladesh's export industries, without which they can't afford oil and natural gas. Already the Saudis are forgiving half of Pakistan's $12 billion annual oil import bill. Water and agricultural problems threaten food supplies for their 150 million+ populations.

India's nukes are failing, water for hydro-electric is drying up and 85% of their subsidized oil must be imported.

China is desperately trying to conceal their electricity shortages during the Olympics.

"The global wave of blackouts and shortages is almost certain to get worse. Although most governments have announced optimistic plans to increase electricity production and bring oil to market within the next few months or years, these are almost certain to fail. The cost of building electrical generation capacity is soaring and finding affordable fuel unlikely."

The energy shocks Whipple is talking about can be monitored at the Energy Shortage website.

I think we are almost certain to see both candidates endorse heavy government investment in wind, solar, "clean" coal, nukes - anything that will keep the lights on - except conservation. McCain will soon realize he was in favor of funding better rail service all along. Conservation is still too radical for either party, as it invokes comparisons with Jimmy Carter.

Pickens has an interest in switching NGas from electric plants to transportation fuel, but that may be a tough sell if domestic manufacturing picks up, or when winter heating season reveals that NGas prices have risen along with auto fuel.

Short sellers have best month in more than 7 years

The Strunk Short Index, which tracks a handful of managers that specialize in short selling, jumped 10.47% last month. That was the best performance since March 2001, when the index surged 12.45% during the dot-com bust.
...
In a short sale, traders sell borrowed shares, hoping to buy them back at a lower price and return them to the lender. The difference is kept as profit.
...
Short-sellers are often blamed when a downturn in the economy or a financial crisis pushes stock markets lower.

Short-sellers get blamed for falling prices just as commodity traders are getting blamed for rising oil prices. It is sort of like blaming the vultures for dying of thirst.

In Defense of the American Dream, a one hour special on NBC this evening, featured Jim Cramer wrapping himself in NASCAR. At a speedway in Charlotte NC, Cramer cited his own rise from living out of a '77 Fairmont to assure folks that the American Dream, "something that feels like it is slipping away," was alive and well, and to urge them to buy stocks from a bevy of heavily-advertised companies.

He brought out driver Carl Edwards to say he maintained a dream throughout years of hard work. "Find a brand you like and do the homework," Cramer advised. "This is not an easy time for American business." At a time when many investors have long since left for the commodities markets, he told his audience, "Farming is a long-time trend and an answer to world-wide famine," but "Nothing has done so well as stocks."

On high gas prices, Cramer was everyone's apologist, saying that we're, "running out of oil a lot faster than we expected," "going deeper and deeper to find it," and that it wasn't really anyone's fault. Echoing Matt Simmons, he said we should be grateful gas was so cheap, comparing the cost of a gallon of locally-produced milk and a gallon of shipped and refined gasoline. Cameras showed his working class NASCAR Moms and Dads nodding in sudden understanding.

Cramer asserted that the price was high enough to make wind, "which we love," and solar affordable alternatives. But also, he said, "buy shares of the very same oil companies you're throwing your wallets at!" Ethanol, though he called a "fuel that no one wants" that is "starving the world." Cramer started to say, "ethanol is the single biggest reason ..." but the sentence was crudely cut off finishing with a 'back in a minute.' That was truly strange.

Driver Jimmie Johnson assured us that "NASCAR's continued to grow" for 60 years. Jeff Burton spoke his piece, then Casey Mears.

Cramer then featured some fellow who had fallen off his roof and was never supposed to walk again. He was walking though, and advised us, "Be patient and don't panic." and related how much money he had lost with brokers, "No one cares as much about your money as you do." He laid the groundwork for Cramer's recommendation that folks keep an eye out for, "new technology," American companies doing things better. (IOW, please invest in Cleantech/Alt Energy stocks.)

At 7:55, Kyle Busch walked out and that was enough for me.

Cramer speaks very loudly, of course, but here he spoke much more slowly and simply than he does on Mad Money, which I've only seen a few times. He used simple terms and was not afraid to repeat himself. The whole event seemed completely scripted, and seemed intended to get the working middle class into the stock market, particularly alternative energies, to replace investors that have left stocks for commodities.

Obviously Cramer is not going to blame oil prices on speculation, or on the oil majors, but I was surprised that he blamed no one, offering an explanation that would be at home on any Peak Oil blog.

A court reporter writes about the plea situation facing "illegals" after a huge Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the largest US kosher slaughterhouse far from the border in Postville, Iowa. (pdf)

“Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”

He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.”

No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another.

The unanswered question is whether anyone from the employers, Agriprocessors, was frog-marched off to prison as well. Republicans want to please the working class by loudly opposing illegal workers, but they quietly allow a cheap, disposable labor force to serve their large corporate supporters.