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Morning glories. Photo by: joanneleon. September, 2013.
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Colorado's Thousand-Year Flood
Repeated assaults culminate with epic floods in Colorado
There is now a sincere effort to understand what’s happening. Last Thursday when Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle commented, “it is not your ordinary disaster,” he said what he saw, but didn’t apprehend the full scope of this catastrophic flood.
[...]
We’ve come to know now that the flood in the Boulder Creek is instead—a 1000-year flood!
Andrew Freedman, senior science writer for Climate Central wrote an excellent article “Colorado’s ‘Biblical’ Flood in Line with Climate Trends.” Based on 1981-2010 average rainfall data, Freedman points out that Boulder “gets about 1.7 inches of rain during September.” As of his writing Boulder had received 12.3 inches of rain. Based on that he had concluded that the current flood in Colorado qualifies “as a 1 in 1,000 year event.” He also pointed out that the “average yearly rainfall in Boulder is 20.68 inches.” As of this writing, more than 15 inches of rain has already fallen, and more is predicted for today. So it is no surprise that the National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said, “This is clearly going to be a historic event."
There are two things to note in Freedman’s analysis: the actual volume of rain that has fallen, and the timing. Month of September is not known for heavy rain in the American southwest.
Really good artice. Last night I saw some articles coming out saying maybe Citibank ties were the thing that sunk Summers' nomination, or maybe it was this reason or that reason. But as this article shows, it was a whole plethora of reasons. It's truly amazing that Pres. Obama didn't see that. Or perhaps it shows just how little respect he has for the people and the Congress and felt he could just railroad Summers through anyway. But anyway, happy dance that Larry Summers won't be the Fed chair. I just hope that he gets beaten out by a woman. That would be some true karma there.
The Populist Rebellion That Tripped Up Larry Summers
Remarkably, the decision came exactly five years after the financial meltdown of September 2008.
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Though he had friends in the White House, Summers faced mounting opposition from Democrats in the Senate and from grassroots progressive groups. The prospective nominee was criticized by women’s organizations for controversial statements made during his tenure as president of Harvard. He was criticized for revolving-door Wall Street ties. And in the most dramatic show of anti-Summers sentiment, key Democratic senators began to signal in recent days that they could not confirm a man who has so frequently opposed needed regulation of the financial sector of the US economy.
“The truth is that it was unlikely he would have been confirmed by the Senate,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats. “What the American people want now is a Fed chairman prepared to stand up to the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, not a Wall Street insider whose deregulation efforts helped pave the way for a horrendous financial crisis and the worst economic downturn in the country since the Great Depression.”
And now for the bad news. It looks like that UN resolution on Syria is not a done deal after all. France is saying a threat needs to be included in it and that the threat of military force is not off the table. We already know that this is a dealbreaker for Russia. John Kerry met with Netanyahoo in Jerusalem yesterday and he reiterated that the "threat of force is real" and that the US might still do a unilateral attack on Syria.
Hollande warns UN resolution on Syria must contain threat of sanction
Kerry says US threat of force is real while Israel says it awaits action ‘not words’
Speaking on French prime-time television, Mr Hollande said resolution could be voted by the end of the week. He added that a political and diplomatic solution to the wider Syrian conflict was possible but stressed that the option of military strikes must remain on the table.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state John Kerry said today that the United States would maintain its threat of unilateral military force to ensure the success of the plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
“This will only be as effective as its implementation,” Mr Kerry said in a joint news conference with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“The threat of force is real.”
It sounds like the language about maintaining the military threat is coming from the madman, Netanyahu. If he insists this language be put back into the UN resolution, it could blow the whole deal. Why Israel, not even a member of the UN Security Council, has a say about what goes into the resolution, is beyond me.
Kerry to Syria: 'The Threat of Force Is Real'
A day after US/Russia 'framework' agreed to, US still clings to bellicose rhetoric
Speaking in Jerusalem flanked by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kerry made the warning a day after the U.S. and Russia reached a "framework" on Syria's chemical weapons.
"The threat of force is real and the Assad regime and all those taking part need to understand that President Obama and the United States are committed to achieve this goal," Kerry said.
[...]
Netanyahu echoed Kerry's comments from Saturday, saying, "if diplomacy has any chance to work, it must be coupled with a credible military threat."
[Emphasis added]
Summer's End at the Fed
Obama, in reply, praised Summers as "a critical member of my team as we faced down the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it was in no small part because of his expertise, wisdom, and leadership that we wrestled the economy back to growth and made the kind of progress we are seeing today."
But behind the polite exchange, a frantic politics was at work. In such circumstances, at some point the political team realizes that a nomination is a lost cause, word is passed to the prospective nominee that it's over, and a gracious exchange of letters is drafted. It's hard to believe Larry Summers, of all people, voluntarily falling on his sword for the greater good.
This past week, a fourth skeptical Democratic member of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, made clear that he would not support Summers; Republican opposition mounted; Joseph Stiglitz published a devastating bill of particulars in the New York Times online; and the Times itself ran a scathing editorial.
A prestigious group of over 350 economists sent a letter to the White House urging the appointment of Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen and not Summers. All of this gave a preview of an explosive confirmation hearing.
A Tumblr site to go along with the post we saw here yesterday.
IS THERE A MEDIA BLACKOUT ON THE FRACKING FLOOD DISASTER IN COLORADO?
We need the national news stations to go cover the environmental disaster that’s happening in Colorado right now.
Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
The Evening Blues
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