Russian Drillers Reached Lake Vostok

credit: Nature.com

Does ancient Lake Vostok in Antarctica contain dead Nazis or not? That question and many other much more scientifically relevant could be answered now Russian scientists have reached the lake's surface. It has taken 14 years of drilling to reach a depth of 3,768 meters and reportedly the surface of the sub-glacial lake. The head of the Russian drilling program confirmed the wire reports the lake was penetrated on 5 Feburary. The scientific world waits results with great interest because the ancient lake, buried under the ice cap, has been biologically isolated for 15 million years. Any creatures found living in the water may be unknown to science and genetically unique. In the summer of 2012-13 scientists hope to probe the depths of the 35 million year old lake with robots to collect water samples from depth and lake bed sediments. Now, the drilling station has been closed down for the long and severe Antarctic winter where temperatures have plunged to minus 45℉ and reached a record minus 129℉ in 1983.

Lake Vostok is about the size of Lake Ontario, 169 miles by 30 miles and is considered the largest of the sub-glacial lakes. Its waters are devoid of light but probably super-saturated with oxygen. It may harbor extremophilic microbes or be completely sterile. Some interested scientists are concerned with contamination of the lake water by the drilling and sample recovery operations in either case. Russia's Antarctic Research Institute submitted a final environmental evaluation on the project which was approved by the Russian government and the Antarctic Treaty's environmental protection committee. Lake Vostok may offer a terrestrial analog of exoseas that are thought to exist on moons of Jupiter (Europa and Ganymede) and Saturn.

"Oracle of Omaha" Profits from Tar Sands

Buffet: paying for face time?

Warren Buffett, the third richest man in the world with an estimated worth of $39 billion, will make even more money off the Alberta tar sands because his closed-end investment fund, Berkshire Hathaway, bought the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway in 2009. BNSF will transport bitumen south for refining at Port Arthur, Texas now that the Keystone XL project has been put on hold during an election year. According to an analysis by the State Department, railroads can transport all of the bitumen produced in Canada with modest expansion of facilities through 2030. The cost of hauling by rail will be more than a pipeline ($3 more per barrel), the potential environmental impact would be lessened but greenhouse emissions greater.

BNSF is already involved in the Alberta oil patch. According to the employees' newsletter it hauls the diluting agents such as natural gasoline and butane used to move heavyweight bitumen through existing pipelines. BNSF hauled 9,000 carloads of diluents last year and expects to haul 12,000 this year. BNSF also hauls pipeline components and heavy machinery used in Alberta operations. Buffet's railroad transported pipe material for the first Keystone pipeline, and probably will haul the material for the XL if it is built. The company is on the distribution list for State's environmental impact statement.

Buffet's ownership of BSNF is not his only financial tie to the Albert tar sands development. His fund owns pieces of Conoco-Phillips, Exxon-Mobil and General Electric. All of these companies are doing business related to the tar sand oil play. For example, in July the Silvertip pipeline owned by Exxon-Mobil burst while carrying bitumen, polluting the near pristine Yellowstone River with 1,500 barrels of oily sludge [photo credit: AP].

Obama's hand was forced by an unachievable deadline imposed by the House of Representatives and the pressure asserted by environmentalists to cancel for the immediate future Keystone XL. But the project is far from dead. Whether he can be counted on to cancel the project again during his second term is an open question. Warren Buffet is a big contributor to Obama. He hosted a 2008 Chicago fundraiser which cost attendees the maximum individual contribution of $28,500 just to get in the door! Obama reciprocated, awarding Buffet the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Even larger amounts are being spent on Obama by Buffet and other plutocrats this time around. To get into the VIP reception with Buffet and Obama in New York cost the well connected rich a cool $35,800 This is what happens when a nation equates money with freedom of speech*. Will Buffet get more than a medal if his man wins a second term? Stay tuned.

*The Obamacon raised an unprecedented $745 million for his first run and already has raised $224 million for his re-election effort. Obama refused public financing in 2008 so he could raise unlimited amounts of cash and has not advocated for a system of public financing to replace the auction we have now. Mitt Romney, who could be a stand in for the cartoon character Richie Rich, could raise that much and more not counting the soft money raised by right-wing super PACs. Already these debilitating spawn of Citizens' United have outspend GOP candidates in several of the primary races. Romney got Florida delivered to him on a golden plate by his super PAC (officially unrelated Mr. Justices). The plutocracy is solidly behind the former Massachusetts governor in holy underwear and they have the deepest pockets in America. Does US Person hear $1trillion?

Chart of the Week: Got McJobs?

Everybody including the Obamatron's campaigners are talking about the increase in the number of jobs created. His re-election campaign is waving around a bright red canyon and green mountain chart showing all the jobs lost during the Charlatan's occupation of the White House compared to the mountain of new jobs created on Obama's watch. But a few minutes of sober inspection shows that all is not hunky-dory in Lilliputia. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produced a projection through 2020 showing that of the five fastest growing job titles--registered nurses, retail clerks, home health aides, personal care aides and office clerks--only one requires any education beyond high school. Registered nurses only need an associate's degree available at any community college. So much for developing a highly educated and skilled workforce for the new green, technological economy. 30% of the projected job openings will require less than a high school diploma while less than 20% will require a bachelor's degree or more, and a whopping 85% will not require any relevant previous experience. Low-wage peonage for most is on the horizon while the elite educated plutocracy exemplified by the current Repuknik running for the Oval rake in the rents through capital manipulation. Marx called it the comodification of capital. Look it up.

Even more shocking is what these charts show courtesy of John Mauldin at marketoracle.co.uk:

Clearly disposable income in the US has gone flat since the first year of the chart (1996, black line) while the cost of living has continued to rise as measured by the CPI. So while there may be job growth, the wages those new jobs are paying are not enough to keep up with the cost of goods. This gap is one reason many Americans are finding it necessary to work multiple jobs. Furthermore, a lot of family income since 2002 is in the form of government benefit payments:

Without government checks to cover the gap, Joe Sixpac would be in even worse straits (yellow line).  Pariticpation in the civilian work force is at the lowest level in three decades (58.5%).  Most of us are Greeks now, Clint.

Stephen Hawking's Escapism

GJ667Cc, the latest ark of man

Celebrity physicist, Stephen Hawking, wrote recently that homo sapiens hope to avoid extinction is to spread itself into space. Perhaps this sort of thinking is why every discovery of a possibly inhabitable planet is reported in the mass media regardless of how many light years away it is. Given the state of man's technology any number of light years is a light year too far, now and for the foreseeable future. Exploration has played an important role in our civilization. Without question we are the globally dominant species, but with dominance comes responsibility. This writer is not advocating "lurking" on the planet with our large brain inserted into the sand while waiting for a supernatural rescue, but brave new world escapism is counter-productive to man's survival on planet Earth in US Person's humble opinion. Man's survival strategy should be focused on living with Earth in a harmonious way. First and foremost that means controlling his population currently at 7 billion and rising, and curtailing the fouling of the primal resources that make this planet inhabitable, air and water. Abuse of the environment has caused the extinction of great civilizations in the past and it could cause our own despite our advanced technology. In the very long term Earth's climate has gone rogue, but prior events such as ice ages and global warmings are thought to have geological or even cosmological causes. We as a species may not be extant or still resident to witness our sun's red giant phase and the Earth's inevitable incineration billions of years hence. Since our species first began to walk upright, an evolution that took millions of years, we are faced with the possibility of man's civilization so affecting his home's natural processes that he may cause his own demise before he can voyage to the stars. Because it is man's activity, it can be changed. Only the will to do so is not yet sufficient. Dreaming of distant planets and new worlds to exploit is exciting given our biology, but migration into space is not a viable solution to the problem of our own extinction. Taking care of our nest is.

'Toontime: Noblese Oblige

[credit: Jim Morin, The Miami Herald]
Wackydoodle axes:  Are they eatin' cake yet?

Some numbers encapsulate the moment and remain in the memory: 9-11; 99%; 38th; 54-40; 1776. Mitt Romney, the plutocracy's anointed son, is going to have to do a lot of fast talking to remove 15% from American voters' memory this election cycle. Nevertheless, he seems to relish throwing his conspicuous wealth into our faces by making misstatements like "I am not concerned with the very poor". Of course, the media and Newt have made hay with his malaprop out of context. Revealingly, Mitt thinks there is still a social safety net in America. Someone should tell him that Repugnants since Ronald 'Raygun' have been doing their upmost to 'monetize' it. Poverty has actually increased in America, with more people who think they are middle class falling out of it. All it will take for them to wake up from their happy dream is one personal catastrophe. Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty last year according to the Census Bureau, and median household income fell to the 1996 level. Official poverty reached a low in 1973 of 11.1%, but by 1983 the number of American poor reached 15.2% or 35.3 million. Poverty has remained above 12% except for the economic boom times of the 1990's when it declined. Currently, the Bureau says the rate is 15.1% or 46.2 million, the highest number in 52 yearsThe young and minorities are still disproportionately represented among the poor while older Americans, thanks to Social Security and private pensions, are doing better than previously in our nation's history.

Our government's response to this crossroads in history:

[credit: Glenn McCoy, Belleville News-Democrat]

Wow!: Queen Annuls Bankster's Knighthood

Queen Elizabeth ratified the stripping of Sir (former) Fred Goodwin's knighthood. Goodwin was the head of the Royal Bank of Scotland which insolvency started the worst recession in Britain since WW2. The head of British Civil Service notified Goodwin of the action Tuesday. The government said his prominent role in the 2008 Panic made him an "exceptional case" while some Labour ministers said the annulment was a "bow to the mob" given some people have been to prison and still have their knighthoods. Members of the House of Lords, for example, cannot have their honors removed (e.g., Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare) The Cabinet Office said Goodwin's knighthood was annulled because it brought the honours system into disrepute. Are they serious? The Royal Bank of Scotland was rescued by the government at ₤45.5bn ratepayer expense to prevent even more damage to the world's banking system. Sir Goodwin resigned under pressure as the bank's CEO and took early retirement in October 2008. Goodwin was knighted in 2004 for his services to banking. His knighthood was history when Tory Prime Minister David Cameron called for it to be removed. Goodwin joins spies Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby, dictators Nicolae Ceausescu, Robert Mugabe, and Benito Mussolini in the club of the disreputable. Mr. Obama, you should check this box: ◻.

Bat Death Toll Will Go Higher

Myotis lucifugus

Biologists are gearing up for the winter bat count, but they expect more bad news as the "white nose syndrome" continues to spread through North America's bat colonies. The cause has been isolated,a fungus (Geomayces destructans)that lives in cave soil, but no effective means have been developed to stop the virus from killing more beneficial bats. The state of Wisconsin considers the fungus to be an invasive species, perhaps transplanted to New World hibernacula by peripatetic spelunkers. Estimates of the death toll are between 5.7 and 6.7 million. Mortality rates in some caves reach 100%. 70-80% is common. Congress directed the Department of Interior to dedicate $4 million of the Department's 2012 appropriations to fund research and response. One of the problems facing researchers is the lack of population data on common species such as the little brown bat. Endangered species like the Indiana brown bat are more closely inventoried, but both species are dying from the disease. Six species of North America's 45 species of bat are affected; all of the affected hibernate in winter. A spokesperson for Bat Conservation International characterized the disease as a potential extinction event on the order of the passenger pigeon or bison. Reports that natural resistance to the virus is increasing among decimated northeastern colonies where the diseases was first detected in the Andirondacks, but that may only be wishful thinking. European bats seem to be immune to the disease, and may offer some clues as to how to combat the deadly infection before it wipes out bats worth $3.7 billion annually in insect control.