Tom Faranda's Folly

Coping with breast cancer if you're a young woman

The Washington Post had a feature article today on young woman dealing with breast cancer. The author is a reporter for the Post, who was diagnosed with the cancer at age 32. A long and interesting feature. My close family friend and part time assistant Amy died five years ago of breast cancer at the age of 35. Catastrophic for those of us who knew Amy.

After the Tears - washingtonpost.com

Only 3 percent of breast cancer patients are under the age of 40. Of course, that number certainly feels larger if you happen to find yourself as one of those 250,000 women in the United States living with breast cancer.

Treatment can be as disturbing and isolating as the diagnosis since the cancer ward is often filled with much older women, including grandmothers who talk about how relieved they are that at least they got a chance to see their grandchildren born. Young patients desperately crave help with fertility issues, dating, stalled careers and where to, say, buy the best eyelashes.

"One second you're a young, healthy, energetic, sexy woman ready for late nights out with friends, marriage, and maybe children," said Amy Ebeid, an Alexandria resident who received her diagnosis at 28, 10 weeks after her wedding. "The next second, you're bald, boobless, and having hot flashes that could set a small country on fire. Your biggest achievement of the day is that you were able to stay awake until 10 p.m."

Global Warming Update #10

You may have heard that the former vice president and current anti-global warming crusader Al Gore has come in for some criticism of his lifestyle. Here's the gist of it, which is excerpted from opinionjournal.com OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today. You have to love the fact (or rather, I love the fact) that George Bush leads a "greener" lifestyle then Mr. Gore.

"An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's global-warming horror flick, picked up an Oscar the other night for Best Documentary. Yesterday the Tennessee Center for Policy Research issued an inconvenient report on Gore's own personal "carbon footprint." The center obtained utility records from Gore's mansion "located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville":

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore's extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

The Tennessean reports, however, that Gore is buying his indulgences:

Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That's a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. . . .

"Every family has a different carbon footprint," said Kalee Krider, a spokeswoman for Gore. The Gores' 10,000-square-foot house on Lynnwood Boulevard has a large one.

The Green Power Switch program isn't all that Gore and his wife, Tipper, are doing, Krider said.

They use compact fluorescent light bulbs and are in the midst of a renovation project that includes having solar panels installed on their home to reduce fossil fuel consumption, she said.

Their car? A Lexis hybrid SUV.

"They, of course, also do the carbon emissions offset," she said.

That means figuring out how much carbon is emitted from home power use, and vehicle and plane travel, then paying for projects that will offset that with use of renewable energy, such as solar power.

Not every wealthy politician lives in a vast private mansion, and TreeHugger.com reports on one who lives more simply:

Is it possible that George Bush is a secret Green? Evidently his Crawford Winter White House has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. "By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small," says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. "Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses." Furthermore for thermal mass the walls are clad in "discards of a local stone called Leuders limestone, which is quarried in the area. The 12-to-18-inch-thick stone has a mix of colors on the top and bottom, with a cream- colored center that most people want. "They cut the top and bottom of it off because nobody really wants it," Heymann says. "So we bought all this throwaway stone. It's fabulous. It's got great color and it is relatively inexpensive."

Of course we don't begrudge Gore his life of luxury--only his sanctimonious insistence that the rest of us sacrifice our comforts to the dubious god of global warming. And there's no reason he couldn't live in a smaller house and throw his money at solar power.

Here's a column that defends Gore's lifestyle - sort of - while making the very valid point (in my opinion) that fighting worldwide poverty is more important:

TCS Daily - Following Al Gore's Example for Energy Use

Regardless of what Al Gore preaches about these matters, the way he lives strikes me as reasonable. He was of the manor born, to be sure, but he has earned a lot of money on his own. He has every right to a ginormous house, a fleet of cars, and to be flown around the world in private planes to speak out against the dangers of global warming. While it's funny in microcosm, it strikes me as a perfectly defensible trade-off to use a thousand times more energy than the average guy in an effort to influence macro-level energy and environmental policy.

Where Gore and I differ is that my aim is for more people to get to live like Gore. While environmental degradation in general and global warming in particular are real problems, certainly a serious case can be made that they pale in comparison with the ravages of poverty. Further, if millions of people not starving to death isn't its own reward, UC-Berkeley professor emeritus of energy and resources Jack Hollander explains in The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment's Number One Enemy, that, contrary to conventional wisdom, as societies become more affluent, they produce less pollution. That's not particularly surprising, when you think about it, as those whose basic human needs are met have both the inclination and resources to worry about cleaning up their environment.

Increased freedom and prosperity is a wonderful thing. Thankfully, outside of sub-Saharan Africa, it's where the world is heading.

The key, then, is to figure out how to allow that to continue happening while at the same time ensuring that we have the energy to sustain that trend while coming up with ways to reduce the negative externalities caused by that production. Market-based solutions like cap-and-trade and similar offsets are no doubt part of the answer. Removing the stigma that surrounds nuclear power would also go a long way toward that end. Mostly, though, it'll take proper incentives to unleash the technological ingenuity to figure out how to produce lots of clean energy.

The stock market drop

This is the 758th post I've put on this weblog.

In all those posts, I think I have only a couple of times discussed anything related to my business as a financial advisor. Back around election time this past November I had a couple of posts on what various election scenarios might  mean for the economy - here Tom Faranda's Folly: the election and financial markets and here Tom Faranda's Folly: Post election wash-up. I also reviewed a book last month dealing with investing and the capital markets Tom Faranda's Folly: Latest read: The Only Three Questions that Count (an excellent book; highly recommended!).

But what with the worldwide stock market decline in the last 24 hours, I figure I'll write about it.

DISCLAIMER: Do not view the following as advice or recommendations - i am speaking in general terms, whether or not you happen to be a client of mine.

The drop in the Chinese market started the downward worldwide spiral (although the S & P 500 has been down the past four trading days, and today made it five in a row) by dropping almost 9%. But that market has risen about 140% in the past year. And you have to remember that the Chinese stock exchange is not like the U.S. or European exchanges; it is very unregulated - a bit of the Wild West.

Then today there was some weak economic data on the U.S. economy - durable good orders slid in January more then expected - the former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan used the word "recession" in a speech in the Far East, and a few economists made comments to the effect that the economy may be moving from moderate growth to slow growth.

The stock market has had a very good past year and a half, and I think all of this gave investors an excuse to take some profits. Ergo, the Dow and S & P both finished down about 3.3% on the day. This is the biggest one day drop since March, 2003. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now about 4.5% off it's all time high of just a few days ago. A "correction" in the stock market is generally viewed as a 10% pullback in the price of the major indexes; that becomes a "bear market" when the indexes have dropped 20%.

Could the market continue to drop and hit the correction level? Sure. Is it likely to drop to the level where it's called a bear market? Recognizing that nothing can be totally ruled out, I would say very unlikely.

First off, "money follows earnings" (that's an old saying) and company earnings are looking pretty solid. Secondly, the Federal Reserve could lower interest rates and pump up the money supply if it appeared that the economy is seriously faltering.

Three more points.

One, don't pay any attention to pundits on TV, especially guys like Jim Cramer who I watched tonight while in the gym. He hosts a show on CNBC called "Mad Money" (or something like that) and while he's an amusing showman, his public record in the late 90's and early 2000's (he was a hot item on the internet), was pretty mediocre. His opinions change from one day to the next, and even if you use a discount broker, you'd be killed by trading costs.

Two, make sure you have a plan, including understanding your own willingness to take on market risk. When I say plan, I mean a financial game plan. Where am I, where do I want to go? Do I need to save money for a house? Are my kids starting college in 18 months? That sort of thing.

Three, it's very likely that this is a buying opportunity. If you have cash reserves that's you've been holding onto, hoping to buy some individual stocks or mutual funds, now's a good time to start buying.

UPDATE: This Washington Post article, emphasizing the Chinese and overseas action yesterday, is well worth reading. Stock Sell-Off in China Hits Wall Street - washingtonpost.com

Spectacular rugby score

A couple of days ago I mentioned this big rugby match - with interesting historic and social implications - to be played between Ireland and England.Tom Faranda's Folly: Rugby: England v. Ireland, and with an historic twist

Ireland won the match and here is a marvelous try (like a touchdown in football) from the match. It's on youtube and is in the middle of the three minute excerpt, with replays. Really great skill and athleticism shown by the kicker and catcher!

YouTube - IRELAND V`s ENGLAND RUGBY SIX NATIONS 07

Latest Read: The Complete Walker IV

This is the fourth edition of a book which first came out in 1968, which I read probably around 1970, and which as the name implies is all about walking. Or more accurately about hiking, backpacking and camping in all sorts of environments and situations.

The author is a colorful character named Colin Fletcher, although for this edition (which came out in 2002) he has a co-author named Chip Rawlins. He needs the co-author since he was just short of 80 in 2002, so wasn't getting out on the trails as frequently as he used to. And there's a lot of new gear out there.

Over the years Fletcher has written a number of books about his long hikes, including a six month walk through the Grand Canyon. Wikipedia has a good brief biography right here: Colin Fletcher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Complete Walker IV contains a huge amount of information, much of it irrelevant to me, since I wont be snowshoeing through mountains or crossing the Colorado river on my air mattress. But it also contains great information if, like me, you are planning on doing some brief campouts in the spring and summer, including possibly a two or three night backpacking expedition with young boys.

This is why I decided to re-read the book in it's new edition. After all, there's plenty of stuff that didn't even exist in 1970, like fleece clothes and self-inflating sleeping pads, as well as huge improvement in things like tents and backpacking stoves. So  figured it was worth re-visiting the book.

And I wasn't disappointed. The Complete Walker IV is still a breeze to read (skimming or skipping the irrelevant sections), written with "elegant humor... and vigorous prose" and loaded with advice on equipment and technique. It is very comprehensive, and also offers many suggestions for additional reading. For example, based on their recommendations I looked at a number of books on first aid and mountaineering medicine and have purchased two through Amazon.

So highly recommended if you have any interest at all in the subject - still "the hiker's Bible" as it was first labelled by Field and Stream in 1968.

Lent

Lent began a little early this year, with Ash Wednesday last Wednesday. So we are five days into it.

I am making a conscious effort to make a "good" Lent. One thing I am going to do is try and use the Magnificat prayer book on a very regular basis, with the hope that this very good habit will carry over past Lent.

Magnificat is a publication with a modification of Divine Office prayers which vowed religious are required to pray during the day. The goal of course is to sanctify your day. Brigid and I have had a subscription to Magnificat pretty much since they started publishing it about eight years ago. It is a  monthly publication in a convenient size, and has morning and evening prayer, the day's Mass prayers and readings, a daily meditation (very interesting; sometimes by a contemporary author, sometimes a classic), and other good stuff.   

Unfortunately we've both gotten out of the habit of using it regularly. I am going to try and get back into it. So far these five days, I haven't been perfect, but I am using it semi-regularly.

And I am going to try and read (as I always make a special effort to do during Lent) several good, spiritual books. Last year the best one I read was a book by Fr. John Neuhaus entitled "Death on a Friday Afternoon". As the title implies, a meditation on Christ's passion and death - the "seven last words."

This year I am going to read Fr. Ronald Rolheiser's book "A Holy Longing" which was given to me a couple of years ago by my friend John Lally (actually it may have only been a long term loan, but I still have it) but which I'm only now getting around to. I'll read it that is, when I find it again, since having had it a few days ago I have misplaced it.  I hope to also read another of Neuhaus's books, "As I Lay Dying", which is about his own near-death from cancer several years ago.

Also on my short term list "Spontaneous Healing" by Andrew Weil, MD, sub-titled "How to Discover and Enhance Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself".  And a history work, "the Fall of the Dynasties" written in 1963 and sub-titled "The Collapse of the Old Order, 1905-1922."

AND, I want to lose five or six pounds. That's about the amount I've gained since my MSK discharge back in January 2006. I've decided it's not about exercise for me - I am doing  enough of that - it's about avoiding over-eating.

So that's the game plan, subject to modifications - like if I can't find the Rolheiser book. I may have to substitute a re-read of a Fr. Raymond Brown (the great Catholic scripture scholar) book for Rolheiser.

Buy or lease a car?

I frequently am asked whether leasing makes more sense then buying when it comes to a car. My answer is usually "It depends, but in most cases I think it makes sense to lease your primary vehicle." I then quote a friend of mine who was in the real estate business, and who always used to say "We buy what appreciates and lease what depreciates."

What depreciates faster then a new car? Drive it off the lot and it drops 20% in value.

There's a good article up on AOL on the subject, well worth reading if you're interested in the question.

- Lease or Buy - AOL Autos

Rugby: England v. Ireland, and with an historic twist

Today the BIG match in the European Six Nations Championship will be England playing Ireland at a venue called Croke Park. And for more reasons then it just being an important International rugby match. This is the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and rugby is not normally played there. However Ireland's rugby ground is being refurbished, so the match will be played at the Park (which holds 82,000).

Here is the history and why this will be an emotion-charged event.

On November 12, 1920, Croke Park was the scene of a massacre, as British police came into the ground and shot indiscriminately into the crowd, killing 13 people. This was a reprisal shooting, for the assassination earlier in the day of 14 British intelligence officers by Irish operatives in the IRA. The date is known as "Bloody Sunday" in Irish history.

A horrible day and history. Hopefully the rugby will be played in a different spirit.

UPDATE: Here's the result!   English bounced out of Croke Park - Rugby News, Results, Fixtures and Features from Planet-Rugby.com

Health Update

Had my blood test today, but wont have the results until next Monday or Tuesday.

As far as the sinusitis, eleven days into the antibiotic regimen and feeling good. I have gotten to the gym five of the last seven days and will go today (Saturday) and tomorrow. I am also going to see Dr. Zeitlin, the ENT lady on Tuesday. I suspect she'll find I still have dripping sinuses.

Weekend humor

This from Dear Abby -

Dear Abby:

My husband is a liar and a cheat.  He has cheated on me from the
beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything.  What's worse, everyone knows
that he cheats on me.  It is so humiliating.  Also, since he lost his job
six years ago, he hasn't even looked for a new one.  All he does all day
is smoke cigars, cruise around and shoot the bull with his buddies while I have
to work and pay the bills.  Since our daughter went away to college he doesn't even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian.  What should I do?

Signed, Clueless

Dear Clueless:

Grow up and dump him. Good grief woman, you don't need him anymore. You're a United States Senator from New York, act like one!

BUT...

Of course the Junior Senator from New York's husband actually has done quite well for himself in the past six years, earning 40 million dollars in speaking fees! Go here: For Clinton, New Wealth In Speeches - washingtonpost.com

The Two Americas

Here's another take on the John Edwards theme - the haves and the have nots.

Indeed, there are two Americas, those who work for the government and those who do not. From USA Today:

A typical full-time state or local government worker made $78,853 in wages and benefits in the third quarter of 2006, $25,771 more than a typical private-sector worker, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The difference was $7,604 in 2000. The compensation advantage holds true for all types of public workers, from teachers to laborers and managers.

Edwards is right: that's a pretty huge "Income Inequality"!

The full article is very interesting:

USATODAY.com

Bald Eagles on Elmore Ave.

For awhile we have been spotting bald eagles in our neighborhood (only 35 miles north of Manhattan). About four months ago an eagle sat up in a (big) tree in the back of our neighbor's yard across the street (UPDATE: Brigid says it was more like two years ago, and there were two of them, as the boys arrived home on the bus).

Recently they've been popping up all over the place. Brigid has seen them on the grounds of St. Augustine's school and church (Catholic eagles evidently) and they are frequently visible from river side parks as they fly up and down the Hudson or fly over the Croton Dam and hang out at the Croton river.

These are all part of a group of 13 (or maybe 16) roosting at George's Island, in the Montrose/Buchanan area, a few miles north of us.

This afternoon I was home for lunch and at 1 o'clock Brigid pointed out two eagles and two hawks (or possible three eagles and a hawk) at about 300 feet, looping around our neighbor's back yard and also up the street. I grabbed the trusty Fuji E550 and took two shots out the picture window and then went outside and took another picture. The first picture window shot and the outside picture were pretty interesting.

Here's the first one with all four birds - can you spot them?

Here I've cropped and blown up the image of the three raptors on the left above:

Here's the outdoor shot of just one of the eagles:

and here's the cropped and enlarged section from the picture above:

All right, I realize that I wont be getting any calls from National Geographic any time soon, but not bad for shooting through a window and then running outside with a small digital camera.

And it is tremendously cool that the once endangered Bald Eagle is now regularly appearing in my neighborhood.

If you've spotted Bald Eagles lately, please leave a comment!

Obama-mania Update V

Obama wows hollywood!!

Hollywood Gives Obama Both Cash and Credibility - washingtonpost.com

Hollywood has always gravitated to the fresh face, so the crushing turnout there yesterday at a rally and a series of fundraisers for presidential contender Barack Obama followed a familiar Tinseltown story line.

The Democratic senator from Illinois drew thousands to a South Los Angeles park, then headed to Beverly Hills for a fundraising double feature that organizers said yielded him an estimated $1.3 million.

Movie stars Tom Hanks, Jennifer Aniston and Denzel Washington wrote checks, and scores of producers and agents paid $4,600 per couple -- the maximum allowed -- to jam a hotel ballroom for a two-hour, closed-door cocktail reception hosted by entertainment moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

Those who collected $46,000 in checks for the event, which attracted 300 people, were invited to Geffen's house for a more intimate sit-down dinner with Obama.

Organizers said they expected the freshman senator to leave town flush not only with money but also with valuable connections in a city that has for decades served as a lifeline for Democratic presidential contenders.

Trappist monks unfair to chickens?

This just in (the Trappists are a contempletive Roman Catholic order. Thomas Merton was a Trappist):

Trappist monks’ egg factory under fire as cruel to chickens | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

Friedrich (Ed note: People for the Ethical treatment of Animals VP) defended PETA’s undercover tactics: “Documenting a crime sometimes requires undercover police officers, and documenting this horrible and nonstop cruelty to 38,000 animals required our undercover investigation. There’s nothing unethical about using undercover cameras to expose hypocrisy and cruelty to animals. The treatment of these hens is grotesquely unethical; using a camera to expose it is our moral obligation.”

In his letter, copied to Trappist Abbot Generals Dom Bernardo Olivera and Dom Mauro Esteva, Friedrich wrote, “Your cruel treatment of these poor animals, by the tens of thousands, would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims. But chickens are intelligent animals who suffer and feel pain, just like dogs and cats do.”

Friedrich said, “Chickens understand sophisticated intellectual concepts, learn from watching each other, demonstrate self-control, worry about the future, and even have cultural knowledge that is passed from generation to generation.”

He asked that the abby “please shut down this operation forever” once the current population of hens dies. “It is an ugly stain on your otherwise blessed community. Instead of raising funds for your abbey by abusing animals, please consider solely making foodstuffs that don’t involve animals”

Gumula (ed. note: Trappist priest and spokesman for the abbey) said the abbey about 30 years ago gave up on its “free-range” practice, which allowed the hens to move about on the floor, saying the hens are “in much better conditions now.”

Under the free-range system, the hens “were susceptible to rodents, to snakes and all kinds of disease and bacteria,” Gumula said. “The situation they are in now is not that way.”

Gumula said Mepkin’s hens are “not on top of each other. The droppings go into a pit that we flush out daily. We’re following all the guidelines of the United Egg Producers for the humane treatment of chicken that’s based on a group of scientists that were not beholden to the egg industry.”

Gumula said the egg production operation accounts for about 60 percent of the abbey’s annual earned income. The facility produces approximately 9 million eggs annually, which are delivered to local customers in the Charleston, S.C., area, bringing in about $140,000 a year to Mepkin.

Consumers “are getting a much cleaner, wholesome product than what we were able to do when we had floor chickens,” Gumula said.

Gumula said PETA has an inflexible position.

Interesting decision in the Supreme Court today

The Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision, throwing out a huge ($79.5 million) punitive damages award to the widow of a smoker. The vote was 5-4. The link is below. The interesting thing is the fact that the justices reputed to be the most liberal (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stephens) joined with the justices supposedly the most conservative (Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) in opposing the majority decision.

Money News:- Court Tosses Award Against Philip Morris - AOL Money & Finance

I confess to not understanding the arguments - they partially have to do with how the jury was instructed - but if you want to read a bit about it, go to law professor Ann Althouse's posting here:

Althouse: The punitive damages case.

Althouse says that this "case on due process and punitive damages looks very important."

Great but old blonde joke

If you haven't heard it before - pretty good

A blind man wanders into an all girls biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders some coffee. After sitting there for a while, he yells to the waiter, "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?"

The bar immediately falls absolutely silent. In a very deep, husky voice, the woman next to him says, "Before you tell that joke, sir, I think it is only fair -- given that you are blind -- that you should know five things.

"One, the bartender is a blonde girl.

"Two, the bouncer is a blonde girl.

"Three, I'm a 6 foot tall, 175 lb. blonde woman with a black belt in karate.

"Four, the woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weightlifter.

"Five, the lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

"Now, think about it seriously, mister. Do you still wanna tell that joke?"

The blind man thinks for a second, shakes his head, and mutters, "No, not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

The NY Times can't figure out why Venezuela's economy is going into the toilet

Amazing. Here Chavez takes the advice of the NYT and look what happens (The link to the NY Times will only bring you to the story for free, for one week. After that you'll have to join TimesSelect [$50/yr. - some people actually pay it] to read it. The Times believes in a market economy for themselves, just not for Venezuelan businesspeople).

Chávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators - New York Times

Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.

Mr. Chávez, whose leftist populism remains highly popular among Venezuela’s poor and working classes, seemed unfazed by criticism of his policies. Appearing live on national television, he called for the creation of “committees of social control,” essentially groups of his political supporters whose purpose would be to report on farmers, ranchers, supermarket owners and street vendors who circumvent the state’s effort to control food prices.

You have to wonder; will the "committees of social control" be wearing brown shirts, or have armbands?

“It is surreal that we’ve arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom,” said José Guerra, a former chief of economic research at Venezuela’s central bank, who left Mr. Chavez’s government in 2004. “If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe.”

Some President's Day quotes from the two presidents

Two great ones from Mr. Lincoln

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

"The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use."

Here are two from George Washington:

"It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it."

And

"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Health and domestic scene

Feeling much better six days into the antibiotic regimen - cough is almost gone. And went to the gym yesterday and today. Did 20 minutes on the bike, stretched and lifted weights yesterday - felt pretty good.

Today rode the bike for 28 minutes and then struggled on the ellyptical machine for 14 minutes. Really puffed, even though I cut back from the level I usually set the machine at. Also, as soon as I stop the cardio workout, I get a cough for a couple of minutes - the "sinusitis cough" for want of a better description. It doesn't happen while I'm working, only when I'm finished. I'm sure there's some physiological reason, which I'll ask Dr. Zeitlin about when I see her (unless someone leaves a comment/emails me with the answer).

I have been reading a very sprawling book called The Complete Walker IV (as in 4th edition), which I first read (the first edition) way back around 1970. It's all about camping and hiking, written by an interesting character named Colin Fletcher. The latest edition came out in 2002, and Fletcher (because he was around 80) enlisted a co-author for the fourth edition.

We are aiming to do some car camping this summer with the family - maybe back to Pennsylvania, and definitely up to Vermont - AND I (and Brigid) also want to do some one day hikes in the area. My goal is to walk the length of the Appalachian Trail in NY State (it runs 88 mile in NY), spread over several different days. No camping out. Several other people are interested. I'd hoped to do it the last two summers, but then lymphoma made it a no-go. Hence the re-read of Fletcher's book.

Then today, whilst in the gym I watched most of an episode of the interesting Discovery Channel Show, Man vs. Wild. In this series the host is a survival expert named Bear Grylls (Bear is a nickname he's had all his life). The guy is a former member of the  British Army Special Forces, has climbed and reached the top of Mount Everest, and  crossed the North Atlantic (not alone) in an open inflatable boat. Yup. Not exactly car camping in Pennsylvania. Tough guy, but nice fellow.

Here's what he looks like.

Anyway in this show, he gets dropped off in the Mohave Desert and has to walk his way out. All he has are his clothes, a flint, a canteen and a knife. (And of course a cameraman and sound man following him around.) An interesting show. At one point his head gets so hot (his "hat" is his undershirt, sliced and re-shaped into a protective turban) that he decides the only way to cool it down is to pee on the headress and re-wrap it around his head! Which he proceeds to do, commenting that "It's pretty gross and smells bad, but there's nobody else out here."

I went to the Man vs. Wild website tonite and it's pretty cool - complete with interesting videos (No worries - rated G). Worth a look if you're so inclined.

Man vs. Wild: Discovery Channel

A jarring contrast - World Hunger and Luxury Private Jumbo Jets

The following two articles - something about mis-placed priorities?

Top News- Hunger Kills 18,000 Kids Each Day, U.N. Says - AOL News

"The little girl in Malawi who's fed, and goes to school: 50 percent less likely to be HIV-positive, 50 percent less likely to give birth to a low birth weight baby," he said in an interview Friday. "Everything about her life changes for the better and it's the most important, significant, humanitarian, political, or economic investment the world can make in its future."

Morris, an American businessman and former president the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, one of the largest charitable organizations in the U.S., is stepping down as executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program in April after five years of leading the world's largest humanitarian organization.

He said that while the percentage of people who are hungry and malnourished has decreased from a fifth of the world's population to a sixth of the population, the actual number of hungry people is growing by about 5 million people a year because of the rising population.

"Today 850 million people are hungry and malnourished. Over half of them are children. 18,000 children die every single day because of hunger and malnutrition," Morris said. "This is a shameful fact - a terrible indictment of the world in 2007, and it's an issue that needs to be solved."

Morris said the largest number of malnourished children are in India - more than 100 million - followed by nearly 40 million in China.

"I'm very optimistic that India and China are very focused on this issue," he said. "They're making great progress - (but) need to do more. (It) needs to be a top priority."

Elsewhere, there are probably 100 million hungry children in the rest of Asia, another 100 million in Africa where countries have fewer resources to help, and 30 million in Latin America, he said.

Then this, on AOL off the Wall Street Journal:

One 'World's Biggest Jet,' Please - AOL News

With some 10,000 private jets flying in the U.S., a few billionaires are signing up for something roomier -- jumbo jets that can be outfitted as mobile mansions. Boeing says it has taken orders for 11 wide-bodies -- planes typically configured with two aisles, such as the 747 series or the new 787 Dreamliner -- over the past two years for "VIP use." The price of a Dreamliner, interior not included, is about $150 million.

Now an individual customer is raising the bar, signing up for the largest passenger plane in history. European jet builder Airbus has signed a letter of intent with a Middle East buyer for one of its new A380s, which sell for about $300 million, according to John Leahy, Airbus's chief commercial officer for customers. Commercial versions of this plane can be configured to seat as many as 853 passengers on two decks. But this buyer, whom Airbus declined to identify, will spend an additional $100 million to turn the craft into a more exclusive conveyance Airbus calls The Flying Palace.

New York-based jet-interior expert Edése Doret says he is designing the A380 for the customer, who he says is a head of state. While the jet hasn't yet been built -- Airbus is as much as two years behind schedule for the A380 -- Mr. Doret says his plan includes two dining areas, a 600-plus-square-foot master bedroom and a game room. His plans also call for a lounge with giant curtains that will mimic tents of the Arabian desert, and a fiber-optic mosaic that will depict a shifting desert scene.

Mr. Doret says he is including a whirlpool tub, believed to be the first in the air. To comply with Federal Aviation Administration regulations, the tub will have a rapid drainage system that can empty the standing water in seconds to a tank in the cargo hold. The plane is also slated to include a missile-defense system, he says. (Such systems aren't certified for civilian use.) In all, Mr. Doret expects the job will run $100 million to $150 million.

The tabs for the wide-body jets easily surpass the prices paid by a previous generation of jumbo-jetsetters, including Donald Trump. In 2005, for example, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page bought a used 767-200 that had seated 180 during its years in commercial service. Industry sources estimate Messrs. Brin and Page paid less than $15 million, 1/20th the cost of the big new Airbus. The latest private jets dwarf the most expensive Gulfstreams and Learjets, as well. The top-of-the-line Gulfstream, the G550, carries 10 to 15 passengers and costs about $47 million. These newest flying mansions can also equal or surpass the cost of the world's biggest yachts ($200 million and $300 million) and are well beyond the most expensive estates on the market ($100 million to $150 million).

The High School decision for Joe is in...

And it's Fordham Prep. I'd written about this issue here - and there's also a good picture of Joe doing  one of the things he finds cool ...Tom Faranda's Folly: On the Faranda domestic front

A friend of ours (Laurie Hurley) emailed me tonight asking what we were doing and here's the gist of what I wrote back:

Fordham Prep.

For a couple of reasons. I would have been happy if he'd gone to Stepinac (biased; I went there) but the commute required taking a public bus to White Plains and transferring to another public bus in White Plains bus terminal and then to the H.S.. takes about 70 minutes +.

Fordham Prep is a train ride to 125th St in Manhattan and then switch trains to go out one stop to Fordham Rd. back in the Bronx (different train line). Train stop is next to the campus. Door to door just over an hour. But a lot easier to study/sleep on the train.

I think that while the Prep is probably a trendier school and may be viewed as one up on Stepinac, but I think (remember, biased) Stepinac has just as much to offer.

But it was the commute that decided it.

Stepinac would have cost $6,800 a year; the Prep is about $11,500. So a lot of money.

But worth it. We think (hope) the Prep will challenge him. Interestingly, boys who go there, love it! Who ever heard of guys loving high school?

Kennedy is a fine school and that's where Joe wanted to go (more friends - and girls - going there) but the vote was 2-1!!

Health update

I am feeling much better, from Tuesday's update when I said I felt "rotten" due to sinusitis. I guess that's what four and a half days of antibiotics (another ten to go) will do.

Thanks to the several emails I got with practical suggestions - much appreciated.

Had my CBC today and the quick study done in Sleepy Hollow indicated that the white count had bounced right up (to 10.5), as you would expect after last Thursday's shot of neulasta.

Hoping to get back into the gym tomorrow afternoon.

Sudan and Darfur - Evangelical meets Islam

Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham and head of the Christian Relief Group Samaritan's Purse, was in the Sudan -

U.S. Evangelist, a Critic of Islam, Reaches Out to Sudan's President - washingtonpost.com

Graham, for his part, was warmly welcomed, even though he told the Raleigh News and Observer newspaper in October that Islam is a religion that seeks to "persecute" others until they convert, with the ultimate goal of "total domination."

Asked Tuesday after the meeting whether his views of Islam had changed, Graham said "no."

In the meeting, Graham said, he urged the president to work toward a resolution in Darfur, but focused mostly on issues of religious freedom across the country.

While the south is a semiautonomous secular state, the north is governed according to Islamic law. Christian groups there complain that they are blocked from building churches and are not allowed to buy television airtime for religious programming, among other problems.

Graham said Bashir pledged to allow groups to build their churches and to look into Graham's other requests, including one for $15 million to help rebuild at least 600 churches in the south destroyed during the war.

Global Warming Update #9

Here's an interesting essay from a columnist who is a statistician and economist by profession. He asks the question "What if the Global Warming models that are predicting slow change are not pessimistic enough?" To put it another way, what if Al Gore is an optimist on Global Warming?

TCS Daily - 'Just-in-Case': How to Think About Uncertainty and Global Warming

Some excerpts:

Pundits, politicians, and the public have a hard time coming to grips with uncertainty. This makes the atmosphere for debating global warming policy especially foul, because the key issues with global warming are the uncertainties involved. Those who would try to reduce the issue of global warming to a yes-or-no question ("do you believe or do you deny?") are not scientists.

Real scientists understand uncertainty. Real science deals with uncertainty through relentless, skeptical inquiry. Real science resolves arguments not with consensus, but with data.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

If we lack "just-in-case" mechanisms, then any approach that we take toward climate change risks making significant errors. We might sacrifice a lot of the world's standard of living in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, only to discover that it was unnecessary, because global warming was not going to accelerate, regardless. Conversely, the reductions that we carry out might turn out to be insufficient.

If we do opt for sacrifice, then most economists would agree with Weitzman that the best approach would be to tax carbon emissions.

"One can only wish that U.S. political leaders might have the insight to understand and the courage to act upon the breathtakingly-simple market-friendly idea that the right carbon tax could do way more to unleash the decentralized power of greedy, self-seeking American inventive genius on the problem of developing economically-feasible non-carbon-intensive alternative technologies than all of the command-and-control schemes and patchwork subsidies making the rounds in Washington these days."

It is possible to have a civilized, sensible discussion about the issue of global climate change. However, doing so requires speaking in the language of uncertainty, rather than moral righteousness.

Global Warming Update #8

Al Gore, Superstar

Al Gore to Sound Off On Climate Change With Concert Event - washingtonpost.com

Gore is scheduled to announce the concerts today in Los Angeles. He's expected to be joined there by rock stars Jon Bon Jovi and Sting, rap musician Pharrell Williams and media executive Kevin Wall, who served as worldwide executive producer for Live 8, the 2005 concerts that drew attention to African debt relief.

The Gore-promoted event will be held July 7, according to published reports, with seven major concerts on seven continents. Producers are said to be considering Washington as the North American host city, but one likely venue -- the Mall -- might be unavailable to them, a National Park Service spokesman said yesterday.

A Gore representative declined to comment, as did Yusef Robb, a spokesman for the concerts.

Gore's profile has been rising in the entertainment industry lately: He was a presenter at Sunday's Grammy Awards, and "An Inconvenient Truth," his movie about global warming, is nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards.

Details of the July 7 event have been guarded as closely as a National Intelligence Estimate. The event's official name has not yet been announced (it will be either "Live Earth" or "Save Ourselves," according to Advertising Age), and no performers or host cities have been publicly confirmed. A bare-bones Web site, http://saveourselves.com, offered little beyond the 7/7/07 date and a logo of dots and dashes -- Morse code for "SOS."

Latest read: The Challenge of Jesus

N.T. Wright is the Anglican Bishop of Durham (England) and also a leading scriptural scholar. (By the way, for some reason he doesn't use his full name when writing and publishing - the N.T. stands for Nicholas Thomas.) I've been wanting to read a sample of his work, and "The Challenge of Jesus" was a good choice. It is an abbreviated version, with some new material on the resurrection, of his book "Jesus and the Victory of God." And that book is the second of a projected six volume series! So this book is not really designed for other scholars, but for serious amateurs!

In the preface, Wright outlines the three goals of the book: (1) maintain historical integrity, (2)examine how Christian discipleship flows from following Jesus, and (3) how we are to be for the contemporary world, what Jesus was to Israel?

There are eight chapters, with the first six taken up with Who was Jesus? (Of course this is the question, isn't it? How many books have been written addressing that question?) He looks at the historical Jesus as he would have appeared to a first century Palestinian Jew. Some of Wright's commentary looks at Jesus' understanding of his Messiahship (P. 89), Jesus Messiahship and his followers understanding of divinity (P. 110), Jesus as the new Exodus (P. 115).

In Wright's view, Jesus self-understanding and the understanding of his followers (post resurrection)is that Jesus replaces the Jewish concept of incarnation - the physical Temple and the Torah - with Jesus as the living word of God. 

Chapter six is entitled "The Challenge of Easter" and here Wright defends the resurrection as an historical event - something in history, not "outside" of history, or "transcending" history, or just a psychological resurrection in the minds of Jesus' followers. Wright doesn't have much time for trendy groups like "The Jesus Seminar" who come up with brilliant insights like Jesus' body was probably eaten by wild dogs (That's former Catholic priest John Dominic Crossan's theory).

The last two chapters address the practical difficulties of trying to be a disciple in the post-modern world, where scepticism reigns supreme. He offers a wonderful interpretation of the Lucan story of the disciples on their way to Emmaus. For Wright, Jesus stands as Lord; not Marx, Freud or Nietzsche.

So this is a very good book; not a great book, but solid scholarship and thoughtful reflections on Christian discipleship in today's world.

For me, the best short, thorough study of modern scriptural views about Jesus is the late Fr. Raymond Brown's "An Introduction to New Testament Christology".  Brown was a great scholar and he pours his years of study into 210 pages of solid analysis and thinking. If you are interested in this kind of academic study - designed for serious, thinking amateurs, without "The Jesus Seminar" baloney - read Brown first.

Health update

Boy do I feel rotten. Not lymphoma, just a continuation of my sinusitis/upper respiratory infection. I am back on antibiotics for the fourth time since November. I finished a course of aungmentin xr last Wednesday, the day before my double doctor visit to Sloan Kettering. And I felt pretty good - until Sunday night into Monday. Then it was coughing, coughing, coughing. I spoke with the ENT doc, Jill Zeitlin, on Monday and she put me on a 14 day repeat course of augmentin xr.

I suggested that perhaps I was having allergy issues, or needed to see a pulmonary doctor. She said that it wouldn't likely be allergies since I'd had a good response to the augmention, and allergies don't respond to antibiotics (something that I should have realized!). So she will see me at the end of the augmentin course.

Anyway, I am pretty zonked out and the fact that tomorrow is a snow day is probably good - I will postpone my Wednesday evening appointment in Weston CT, until Friday.

Another culinary masterpiece by our friend Doreen

Saturday night we were out at Chez Novotny, hosted by Paul and Doreen Novotny. Doreen cooks up a big meal with a theme for all of us about once a year.

This time it was a french meal, with a few contributions from the Farandas, Riners, and Cannons.

Here's our glamorous hostess -

And here's our host Paul, offering some sort of Papal Blessing -

The women during the appetizer / apperitif  portion of the meal - That's Doreen, Brigid, Karen and Denice

Here's trouble. Paul, Mike and Dennis. How many bottles of wine are there?

And the piece de resistance - the now obligatory group photo in the Novotny bedroom. I'm afraid it doesn't go any further than what you see.

A great evening -Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!

Klondike Day for cub scout Tim

Yesterday was Klondike Day for the Webelos. Tim and his den (& parents) spent about five hours at FDR State Park, where the boys were introduced to a number of skills and then had the big sled-pulling race.

There were six stations spread around an area the size of about two football fields, and the different skills (stuff like map-reading, carrying a litter, etc) were introduced. The most popular station was fire starting, where I learned that (1) it takes about an hour to start a fire with a magnifying glass and (2) It takes even longer to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

HOWEVER the skill that was practiced was starting a fire with flnt and steel, and the boys got the hang of it pretty quickly. In fact Tim was the first guy in his den to produce some sparks, and had the makings of a fire in about two minutes. Pretty cool. Now we have to get up to Walmart and spend $5 to buy their flint and steel firemaking kit (that's what the instructor had; the boys all had little kits). I am also going to send away for the magnesium fire starting kit, which I saw last night in a catalog for $6.

After the fire-starting and lunch, came the big sled-pulling face off between the dens The idea is one boy pushes the sled at the back and everyone else pulls on two long ropes in front of the sled - a bit like sled dogs. Despite having never done it before, our boys (pack 49, den 2) came in second, being edged out by a den a year older, who had done it before. Tim was pushing the sled while the rest of the den was pulling it, and (could be biased here) I think he provided the bulk of the propulsion.

Here are some pictures, first the den, then fire-starting, then the race!

To the starting line. That's Patty Mead, Tim's GREAT den mother -

The starting line -

and the race - Tim is pushin' pretty hard -

many of the boys who are supposed to be pulling have dropped back even with the sled. Nevertheless second place is sweet.

By the way, it was darned cold - here are two Moms doing their best impression of being Eskimos!

More on the local rail transfer controversy

I mentioned a few days ago the local scrap about allowing a rail transfer facility (complete with big, trucks) to operate in my little town of 7,000.Tom Faranda's Folly: My neighbor Sue, and some local Croton politics

Here's a recent article on the controversy from the local Westchester daily, the Journal News

Opponents criticize Croton rail transfer station

More than a dozen speakers went to Village Hall this week to protest any deals with the operators of the transfer station at Croton Point Avenue, just north of the village train station.

As the election season approaches, the Democratic majority on the village Board of Trustees, which has not ruled out the possibility of finding an out-of-court settlement, heard an earful from residents who want the facility closed permanently.

Litigation involving the old Metro-Enviro transfer station has cost more than $1 million in legal fees.

Dr. Antoinette Cosentino, a local pediatrician, pointed to the impact that truck traffic generated by an active transfer station, which loads and unloads materials from trains onto trucks, could have on air quality.

"As those trucks rumble down our streets, they will pass all of our schools," she said. "We breathe all of that air in."

She also pointed to other concerns about contaminants from the facility, which at this point has been allowed only to load and unload construction material. She called on the board to "stick to your guns" in seeking to permanently close the station.

The local blog, "Crotonblog" had a nasty attack posted against the people who went to the meeting, claiming they were "nefarious", "unscrupulous", and "hijacking" the town. I'd have thought it was good citizenship to attend a public meeting - I guess that's local politics for you.

Statue of Reagan to replace Soviet statue in formerly communist East European country

You gotta love this.

BREITBART.COM - Soviet monument to make way for Reagan: report

Opponents of Poland's former communist regime reportedly want to pay a posthumous homage to US President Ronald Reagan by erecting his statue in the place of a Soviet-era monument.

In an open letter to the mayor of the southwestern city of Katowice, the former anti-regime activists said that the staunchly anti-communist Reagan had been a "symbol of liberty," the Polish news agency PAP reported.

As a result, they said, he deserved to become the centrepiece of the city's Freedom Square, replacing a monument to the Soviet troops who drove out the occupying Nazis in 1945.

They also said that they wanted the site to be rebaptised "Ronald Reagan Freedom Square."

City hall spokesman Waldemar Bojarun said that Katowice's councillors would consider the issue.

Bojarun said that he had "enormous respect" for Reagan. ...

There are already separate plans to erect a statue in memory of Reagan in the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, which would be paid-for from private funds.

Health Update - today's visits to MSK

By Memorial Sloan Kettering standards we had a whirlwind visit. It's the first time I've seen two doctors on one visit AND I had a bone marrow biopsy, and still was out of there in just over two hours (including cafeteria stop to buy lunch for the road.)

At 11AM I was in the hematology suite, where they very quickly drew my blood, and then prepped me for the bone marrow biopsy. (For neophytes, a bone marrow biopsy is done by sticking a needle into your iliac crest - above your rear end - and pulling out some marrow, and a tiny piece of bone. Probably sounds worse then it is.) I was chatting away with the nurse, who told me she'd assisted at 10,000 bone marrow procedures. Needless to say, she was not a twenty-something nurse.

So Dr. Klimek shows up, does the bone marrow and walks me over to Dr. Zelenetz' suite. A few minutes later she came back with the results of the cytogenetic studies from the last bone marrow and we discussed those results (normal) as well as my continuing low white counts.

She continues to believe the low counts are simply due to the high dose chemo and follow-up Rituxan therapy. She was again kind of apologetic about the fact that we are in a "watchful waiting" mode. I triply assured her that doing nothing but watching is fine by the Farandas reckoning. Dr. Klimek said "there's nothing to treat." No pathology beyond the low counts.

So she ordered another dose of neulasta to boost my white blood cells and scheduled me to see her in another month.

I then saw a resident doing an oncology fellowship (nice guy - can't pronounce his last name - started with an M) who asked me the usual questions, and then met for a few minutes with Dr. Zelenetz. I will be having a CAT scan in three months and then seeing Dr. Zelenetz again. Basically all the two of them said was, "You're doing very well."

Zelelnetz did voice some concern about my repeated sinus infections (three since Novemeber; I just finished another antibiotic regimen yesterday) and ordered an immunoglobulin study.

and I was done! 12:45 - amazing! Except Brigid was nowhere to be found. She'd parked the car at 11AM after dropping me off, and never caught up with me. I was actually worried, expecially since I called her twice and got no answer. I finally found her over in the hematology area, and she hadn't turned her phone on.

All in all, no surprises. Things went about as I expected, and no news is good news!

NY Times publisher: "I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either..."

Here's an interview with Arthur Sulzberger, major domo of the NY Times, in an Israeli newspaper.

Pretty interesting. Sulzberger feels newspapers could be internet-only operations in five years.

NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet - Haaretz - Israel News

Given the constant erosion of the printed press, do you see the New York Times still being printed in five years?

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either," he says.

Sulzberger is focusing on how to best manage the transition from print to Internet.

"The Internet is a wonderful place to be, and we're leading there," he points out.

The Times, in fact, has doubled its online readership to 1.5 million a day to go along with its 1.1 million subscribers for the print edition.

Sulzberger says the New York Times is on a journey that will conclude the day the company decides to stop printing the paper. That will mark the end of the transition. It's a long journey, and there will be bumps on the road, says the man at the driving wheel, but he doesn't see a black void ahead.

Health Update

Tomorrow is a doubleheader for me. I'm going down to Memorial Sloan Kettering at 11 o'clock and see Dr. Klimek. She'll do a follow-up bone marrow biopsy (she did one two months ago). Then at noon I'll see the lymphoma guru, Dr. Zelenetz.

I didn't get my blood test results from last Friday, but I will get them tomorrow, as well as having a CBC done. I don't expect any striking news one way or the other, and will probably end up getting another shot of the white blood cell booster, neulasta.

Will write about the visit tomorrow evening.

A few fun pictures

These were sent to me by Alan Mehldau, under the title "When it's okay to use the 'S' word!"

Indeed.

Some of them bear the mark of "photoshop"!

Global Warming Update #7 - the UN report

A couple of days ago I put up a brief post with a link to the new UN report on climate change. Tom Faranda's Folly: Global Warming Update #6

Well I read the report. It's 21 pages long (pdf format), the last seven pages being charts and graphs illustrating what the text and tables say in the first 14 pages. It takes about 45 minutes to read, including the footnotes conveniently placed at the bottom of each page.

I would strongly urge anyone interested in the environment to read the report. Here's the link - http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

The Report is nuanced and sensible. The report has "very high confidence" (that's nine out of ten) that the "net effect of  human activities since 1750 has been one of warming..." (Pg. 3).

BUT the net effects have not been dramatic. They estimate that in the past 100 years the sea level has risen 0.17 meters (that's seven [7] inches) (Pg. 5).

They estimate that over "the next two decades a warming of about 0.2 C. per decade is projected." That comes to about 1 degree fahrenheit for the twenty years. And that is if nothing is done.  They state that "even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1 C per decade would be expected." (Pg. 10).

By the way, aerosols have the opposite effect of raising temperature; they cool things down. (Whatever happened to aerosols poking a hole in the ozone layer?)

A table on page 11 has "Projected globally averaged surface warming and sea level rise at the end of the 21st century for different model cases."

The average scenario projects a sea rise of 0.38 meters by the year 2100. So we have 93 years to adjust to a 15 inch rise in sea level. The worst case scenario - which is highly unlikely when you read the modelling description - is for a 0.59 meter rise (about 23 inches) in sea level.

The mean rise in temperature is projected to be 2.8 C., or a little less than 6 degrees fahrenheit.

What about the Greenland ice sheet?  "If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for a millenia, that would lead to virtual elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting sea level rise of about 7 meters." (Pg. 13). Now a millenia is 1,000 years. So in 1000 years we could have (if all of Greenland melts) a total rise of sea levels of about 22 feet. Humanity can probably adjust to that over 1,000 years.

So read the report!

Now I love the environment and nature. I love hiking, I loved scuba diving when I lived in the Cayman Islands, and I want to preserve nature for future generations. But we have to ask the question, where are our priorities? Disrupt world economies and prevent third world countries from gaining a substantial rise in their standards of living,  all to prevent a 15 inch rise in sea levels spread over 100 years?

I don't think so. There are a lot more risks out there - we're more likely to suffer from "nuclear winter" then from global warming. It's a question of resource allocation.

Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say this morning on the subject: Climate of Opinion OpinionJournal - Featured Article

Here's the Washington Post:Global Warning - washingtonpost.com

And a good editorial on National Review:The Editors on Global Warming & U.N. on National Review Online

However moveon.org (they probably didn't read the report) sent out an hysterical fear mongering email, designed to raise money. The first sentence says:

The science is in. The clock is ticking. On Friday, a major new report by the world's top 2,000 climate scientists ended all debate. Climate change is real—we caused it—and unless urgent action is taken, it will be catastrophic.

If you really want the full text of the Moveon email, let me know and I'll forward it to you.

NY Times says Super Bowl commercials reflect Iraq War

This morning I read the NY Times bizarre article in their Marketing and Advertising section on the Super Bowl commercials. Quite a number of websites picked up on the craziness.

Here's a quote from opinionjournal.com - click the link to read the NYT article.

this morning's New York Times brings us what will probably be the all-time classic in the genre of gratuitous Iraq references. We won't even bother quoting from the story; the headline says it all: "Super Bowl Ads of Cartoonish Violence, Perhaps Reflecting Toll of War."

The Times also pointed to the Prudential commercials, featuring their stylized logo of the Rock of Gibraltor - Well "the rock" actually meant "Iraq."

You can't make this stuff up.

My neighbor Sue, and some local Croton politics

I don't get involved in local politics, but my friend and neighbor Sue Konig is running for village Trustee. The election is March 20th. And there's actually an important issue. Has to do with the local environment.

Croton Republicans running against transfer station

CROTON-ON-HUDSON - The Republican Party is running on a platform to close a controversial rail-transfer station and has selected a vocal critic of the operation as a candidate for office.

Susan Konig, 44, was nominated to run with Mayor Greg Schmidt, who is seeking a second term, and Thomas Brennan for three open seats on the village Board of Trustees. ...

... Konig, who has written for a number of publications including The Washington Post and New York Post, said concern over the future of the rail-transfer facility prompted her to run. The site north of the Croton-Harmon train station has been loading and unloading construction material since Buffalo Southern Railroad began limited operations there last year. The previous operator, Metro Enviro, closed in 2005 after a long legal battle over operating violations.

Konig said the Democrats have not been forceful enough in seeking to close the operation, and she favors the hard-line Republican approach involving litigation, not negotiations.

"I just felt I had to step up and work for the best interests of the people of Croton. They don't want another (rail-transfer) company in Croton. And, as a mother, I don't want 20,000 trucks a year rolling through Croton," said Konig, who has not run for office before.

Here's Sue!

And here's some other postings about her, and her husband Dave

Tom Faranda's Folly: Latest column by my neighbor, author Sue Konig

Tom Faranda's Folly: Konig's to shake up media world

Super Bowl pick

Well, the Bears are underdogs.

BUT they have the much better defense and special teams. And the better defense wins over 80% of the time in the SB.

However I will stick with my pick of the Colts. Mostly because I'd like to see a win for Archie Manning's family. If you're old enough, you know that Manning was a fine QB for 14 years - but with a lousy team (the Saints). So it would be nice if his kid Peyton gets a win (and also shuts up the moronic sports pundits in newspapers, radio and TV who say he can't win "the Big One")

But mostly, I hope it's a really good game.

This posted three hours before kick-off!

Global Warming Update #6

Haven't done one of these in almost two months. Here's the "Summary for Policymakers" from the just-published UN Climate Change Study.

It's in PDF format and 21 pages long. Very dire (they say) and there's little we can do about it.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Follow up to one of my book reviews

Back on January 15th I wrote up a review of my "latest read", The Only Three Questions That Count, and as I usually do, then posted the review on the amazon website. Here it is:

Tom Faranda's Folly: Latest read: The Only Three Questions that Count

Yesterday I got a nice email from the author, investment manager Ken Fisher. Here it is -

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your very kind and very thorough review of my new book, The Only Three Questions That Count, on Tom Faranda’s Folly—and for including the review at Amazon.com! I’m glad you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

As I’m sure you are well aware, writing a book is tough, but nothing compared to promoting it. As an update my book has been doing very well, steadily among the top 50 among all books on Amazon and at times as high as number seven—and number one in business and investing. Getting notice and assistance from the blogosphere not only makes marketing the book easier, but makes the whole undertaking worthwhile.

Again, thanks for your very kind notice. It’s always nice to get support from a fellow oenophile. Here’s to a profitable and healthy 2007.

Kind regards,

Ken Fisher

I sent him a quick line back -

Ken

Thanks for your note - keep up the good work especially with the redwoods!

Tom Faranda

The reference to redwoods is to the fact that Fisher (ranked #297 on the Forbes 400 wealthiest people in America list) has endowed the only University chair dedicated to one species of tree - the California Redwood.

The review has been well received on amazon so far. Readers can comment on the review if they wish and here's what is posted -

"99 of 101 people found the following review helpful"

The latest nominees for the Nobel Peace prize?

Gore and Limbaugh? This is pretty pathetic.

BREITBART.COM - Al Gore Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

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A rabbi, a priest and a minister got together for lunch once a week.

(Off Donald Luskin's website)

One day, one made the comment that preaching to people wasn't really all that hard. A real challenge would be to preach to a bear.

One thing led to another, and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it.

Seven days later, they all got together to discuss the experience.

Father Flannery went first. His arm was in a sling, he was using crutches to walk, and his arms and legs were heavily bandaged.

"Well," he said, "I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him I began to read to him from the Catechism. Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle a lamb. The bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation."

Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, with an arm and both legs in casts, and an IV drip. In his best fire and brimstone oratory he claimed, "WELL brothers, you KNOW that we don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to READ to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled DOWN one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek. So, fast as I could, I DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus."

They both looked down at Rabbi Goldberg, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IVs and monitors running in and out of him. He was in bad shape.

The rabbi looked up and said, "Well, in hindsight, circumcision might not have been the best way to start."