Dirty Jobs: Soil Contamination in China

Not good.  The report says 20%.  Seems kind of a low figure, actually.

A River Runs Through It

Watch the Chinese Air Force bomb the iced-over Yellow River.  Note how the website filed this under the tag "WTF." 

Suppressing Little Forest Fires Leads to Deadly Megablazes

Well, DUH.

The Hungry Dragon: China and Raw Materials

Zambia-born, Oxford-trained economist Dambisa Moyo has a new book out on the subject, and her conclusion is sobering.

I Got Your Apocalypse Right Here: the Acid Volcano

No, really.

Magi Market Issues: Frankincense Shortage

Oh, my!  

Privatizing Elephants

Here's something I'd never thought about!  More here.

Swan Upping on the River Thames

How did I miss this annual avian census, complete with royal livery?  It dates from the 1100s!  By the way, check out the chaps who make it happen, the Queen's Swan Marker and the Swan Uppers of the Vintners' and Dyers' Livery Companies.  Call me crazy, but that sounds like the name of a band.  An Elizabethan punk rock band that plays at Renaissance festivals.

UPDATE: Oh!  Here's a tidbit especially for my friend Lady Bird, herself an ornithologist. The Swan Upping crew even has a resident nerd -- Professor Christopher Perrins of the University of Oxford, an ornithologist who specializes in swans (natch). His role is helping to check Her Majesty's swans and cygnets for disease.  He gets the very cool title of "the Queen's Swan Warden."  Just imagine how that looks on a CV!

Quirky Asia Files: Chopsticks to China

Here's a neat little tale about a Georgia company making chopsticks to send abroad because China's got a chopstick shortage.  The company also exports to Japan and Korea.  Well, whaddyaknow?  (I like bamboo chopsticks instead of wooden ones, but to each their own.) Belated link xie-xie to Sushiphagos the Progenitor of Alessandra!

A Tale of Two Shale States

Read this.  Also this.

If You Built It, They Will Come

The "Field of Dreams" principle apparently does not apply to British breezes for wind turbines.

Eco-Guilt Trip of the Day: Hot Showers

I am really, reeeeeeeeeeeally sick and tired of eco-fanatics wanting me to feel guilty for living my life. I'm even more tired of them telling me how to live my life.

Listen, if I really did live my life the way they wanted me to, it wouldn't be a life worth living, and I might as well lemming myself off a cliff and put myself out of my misery. Then it'd be one less human being tormenting Gaia with her carbon footprint ... Hey, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a minute!

Anyway, the latest eco-guilt trip is hot showers. I'm totally not listening. NOBODY is going to tell me how to take a shower, for Pete's sake. It's almost winter here in Nerdworld. What kind of nutcase takes cold showers in the winter? I pay for my utility and water bills, and that means I pay for my hot showers. SO BACK OFF.

Hey, eco-fanatics! Here's a wee message:

"Get out of my shower!"

Eco-fanatics: even scarier than Norman Bates.

Environmentalists Not Welcome on Indian Reservations

Identity politics-a-palooza!

Total reductionist possibility here:

Tree-Hugging Greenie: "Look, you Native Americans, you need to do X and Y and Z to protect the Earth!"

Annoyed Native American: "Your ancestors massacred my ancestors and forced the survivors onto this reservation. And now you want to tell me how to live? BACK OFF, MAN."

MM: *snort-giggle*

Seriously, though, the Hopi and Navajo tribes are not pleased with enviro-crusaders who want to shut down coal operations on tribal lands. The tribes are concerned that doing so will further harm their already-bad economies.

Even better is this quotation by Navajo leader Joe Shirley:

"Environmentalists are good at identifying problems but poor at identifying feasible solutions," Shirley said in a news release. "Most often they don't try to work with us but against us, giving aid and comfort to those opposed to the sovereign decision-making of tribes."

. . . "Unfortunately, many of these people don't know about Navajos, sovereignty or self-determination," he said. "They just want any use of coal stopped. However, coal is the Navajo Nation's most plentiful resource, and our prosperity depends on it."

Indeed.

But who cares about the livelihood of a bunch of minorities anyway, man? We gotta SAVE THE EARTH BECAUSE AL GORE SAID SO!

Anyhoo, this is just the sort of thing that I'm talking about: enviro-nuts simply do not seem to understand (or care) that many of their "green" policies ultimately mean the economic devastation of many people, a large number of whom are already poor! Plus it's much easier and more glamorous and much more narcissistically satisfying to cavort around on some wild-eyed messianic mission to SAVE THE WHOLE FREAKING PLANET than to deal with the harsh practical realities of folks trying to pay their bills and make a living for themselves. Oh, don't EVEN get me started on cap-and-trade!

Satire Alert: Cunning Government Plan Revealed: Stimulus Bill to Lay Foundation for New Clean Power Plants

My new, stimulus-inspired satire is now online. Enjoy!

(And, YES, I am fully cognizant of the word choice about how the bill got through Congress.)

Weird News of the Day: Thieves Steal Jamaican Beach

No, really! Somebody managed to steal an entire beach -- in the form of 500 truckloads of sand from a resort.

Life's a beach, man.

Beijing Olympics Watch: Thousands of Peasants Face Man-Made Drought

SURPRISE. Not really:

THOUSANDS of Chinese farmers face ruin because their water has been cut off to guarantee supplies to the Olympics in Beijing, and officials are now trying to cover up a grotesque scandal of blunders, lies and repression.

In the capital, foreign dignitaries have admired millions of flowers in bloom and lush, well-watered greens around its famous sights. But just 90 minutes south by train, peasants are hacking at the dry earth as their crops wilt, their money runs out and the work of generations gives way to despair, debt and, in a few cases, suicide.

In between these two Chinas stands a cordon of roadblocks and hundreds of security agents deployed to make sure that the one never sees the other.

The water scandal is a parable of what can happen when a demanding global event is awarded to a poor agricultural nation run by a dictatorship; and the irony is that none of it has turned out to be necessary.

. . . About 31,000 people around Baoding are said to have lost their homes or land.

Disgusting. Read the whole thing. More here with a slideshow that should make you cringe.

But haven't I been telling you forever that the shiny face of Olympics-ready Beijing conceals an entire underworld of misery that the CCP big shots don't want you to see? that they feel no qualms about steamrolling over their own people? that the vast populations of invisible peasants are the ones who suffer the most? Besides, man-made disasters are a fine old tradition in Communist China, doncha know?

PS: Hey, Obama, do you still want the US to emulate China in our infrastructure? Wise up.