WHEN IT'S MAY IN FEBRUARY [and] GOING WITH THE (chinook) FLOW II

WHEN IT'S MAY IN FEBRUARY

We had an interesting warm spell over the past week, here in Interior Alaska, so much so, that we feel the need to examine it in some depth.                                

Warm spells occur here every winter of course, and give us a welcome break from temperatures of -20 to -45C. This winter has been quite mild, our cold spells have been very short, only 3-5 days in duration, generally, separated by two to three week periods of much milder conditions, brought on by a weather pattern, like this, to the left. When a strong high pressure ridge builds north along the west coast of North America, and mild subtropical air flows north, all the way through Alaska to the Arctic.

This chart, above, shows a strong ridge that did just that, over the past 10 days, and brought very mild air north over Alaska. On Friday and Saturday, 19-20 February, surface temperatures reached 8-14C (46-58F!) over much of Interior Alaska, including here at the Chena Ridge Research Center, where we reached 8C. These temperatures are 15-20C (27-36F) above average for this time of year.  This chart, to the right, is the temperature and wind-profile, from the twice-daily radiosonde balloon release, in Fairbanks, from friday afternoon, 20 Feb. These are done in thousands of places world-wide, at 00 and 1200 Greenwhich Mean Time. These "soundings" provide the backbone of the data set for the supercomputer-based weather forecast models, which provide meteorologists with forecast charts for different atmospheric parameters and levels, going out as far as 10 days ahead (though accuracy rapidly diminishes after 3 days, and much more so after day 5). 

What the above upper-air profile is showing, is a very pronounced bubble of above-freezing air in the lower atmosphere here over Interior Alaska. The thick black line, on the left, is the temperature, measured by the balloon, as it ascends. You can see that it remains to the right of the light blue 0C line, up to about 2200 metres (7200 ft.). Meaning, that the free-air freezing level at this time, was around 2200 metres! This is unprecendented, in my experience, forecasting here in Fairbanks. And why, on this day, surface temperatures were so warm. This atmospheric "sounding", in fact, looks more like one we would see in May, than mid-February. The black temperature line, decreasing with height, shows a sharp break at 11,300 metres. This marks the top of the troposphere, the lower layer of the atmosphere where active weather occurs. This "tropopause" (height where the troposphere transitions into the stratosphere) height of 11,300 metres, is almost 3000 metres higher than average, for this time of year, in Alaska. Meaning, the troposphere is much deeper, because the air-mass is so much warmer, throughout its depth.

What was it about this ridging pattern that made it so warm here? This infrared satellite image from fri. afternoon 19 Feb. tells the story. You can see the clear skies over British Columbia and the Yukon, under the high pressure ridge. Over the Pacific and Gulf of Alaska, two low pressure systems are present. As these lows move north, in the southerly flow on the front side of the ridge, they transport very mild air northward, in their wake, after their passage. And reinforce the mild air. The longer this pattern remains, the warmer the airmass becomes, over Alaska.

Interior Alaska is locked in a drought pattern, caused by frequent occurrences of this pattern, since last spring. The period from last July, to mid Feb., is the fourth driest since accurate precipitation records began, here in Fairbanks (around 1920). Only 11.5 cm of precip. has occurred (of which, only 53 cm of snow has fallen, about a third of average). March and April are typically the driest months in Interior Alaska, so the odds are not in favour of any relief from this. And hence, when our Boreal Forest awakens from it's winter dormancy this May, it will have much less moisture to work with, for new growth and general health. If a dry pattern continues into May, June, and July, another very bad fire season will occur here. We hope this won't happen!

In our last article, while we were discussing the nightmarish environmental conditions produced in China by their embracing of unrestrained Capitalism (in a supposedly Socialistic country!), we mentioned it's pollution travelling across the Pacific, to the western U.S. Well, here's a good article that came out today describing the latest research on that issue.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/21-2

It seems like we are always at least a week ahead of other sources providing you with insightful and important information, here at the Alaska Progressive Review! Stick with us...

GOING WITH THE (chinook) FLOW II

A.P.R.'s favourite adventure and travel companion, Erik, and I had decided back in Dec., that we would like to ski in, if possible, to the Maclaren lodge, 67km west of Paxson, on the Denali Highway, in mid-February, but only if it was "warm" (above about -15C or so), because we wanted to skate ski, which is faster than classic skiing. The Denali Highway is closed to automobile traffic in winter, unmaintained by the Alaska DOT. But, the Maclaren lodge usually grooms it with a snow-groomer, providing a wide, level track for snowmachiners and skiers. Because there is alot of high-speed snowmachine traffic on the highway, Mattie and Homer had to stay back at the Chena Ridge Research Centre. We didn't want to jeopardise their safety, as sometimes snowmachines can be speeding along at 130-150 kph!

When we saw the warm spell coming together around 08 Feb., we finalised our plans. We'd meet the next fri. night in Paxson, stay the night there, then ski out to Maclaren sat., stay there sun. 2/14, and ski back out monday. Things went according to plan, we spent a nice night in a Denali Highway Cabin http://www.denalihwy.com/, then got up and hit the highway at 0900, on our skate skis.

Unfortunately, I had not called ahead about the highway conditions. After only about a half-km on our skate skis with our 20 kg packs on, we realised, this wasn't doable on the narrow, bumpy track, that wasn't groomed. Had we known, we could have brought our classic skis, and made it in just fine that way, though it would have taken several hours longer.

But, Erik is very resourceful, and forward-thinking. He brought along his little 25 year old Skidoo snowmachine, named Patrick. Very simple mechanically, with a small 300cc or so engine, no gages, and only a pull-start. Yet Patrick always starts on the first pull. So, we went back to Erik's truck, and loaded all our packs and skis onto the back of Patrick, started him up, and headed out. He ran smoothly the whole way. We had to go fairly slowly, with our precarious load, on the sometimes narrow, bumpy, and curved route, only about 35-50 kph.

It was fairly mild at the start, -10C or so, and after about 12km, we had to stop and readjust the load, at this beautiful point, with expansive views of the Alaska Range back to the east and north. I was starting to get a little cold though, mainly because I neglected to bring my insulated glacier pants, since I'd thought we'd be skiing. My knees began to get quite cold.

By the time we got to this point, at the top of Maclaren Summit, about 10 km from the lodge, my knees were numb and I could barely walk. We had to stop a few times to warm up. It was a little colder here, probably -15C or so (+5F). The warmer air aloft hadn't fully mixed down to the surface yet. Still, the view north here to Maclaren glacier, emanating from 4217 metre Mt. Hayes (13,832 ft.) in the distance, was sure beautiful.

We got to the lodge at noon after about a two-hour trip on Patrick, with three stops to warm up and readjust our shifting load of packs and skis.  Erik's skillful pilotage of the machine kept us safe and level on the sometimes bumpy track (he used to be an avid snowmachiner many years ago, and it showed).   We rushed right into the lodge and warmed up next to the big woodstove to thaw our cold hands, feet, and knees. Maclaren lodge is open year-round. When the highway is open to cars and buses, alot of tourists stop in, and hunters, in the fall, looking to take a caribou from the large Nelchina herd, that roams the vast expanse of open tundra.  

We had just missed the tail-end of the Denali Double 200 dog-mushing race. Teams departed from Paxson, went down the highway to Cantwell, then back to Paxson. So the staff at the lodge were very tired, from serving the mushers and helping out with the dog teams.

I inquired about the highway grooming situation. It seems their groomer, here, a very expensive and large one, acquired from the Whistler Ski Area in BC (yes, the Whistler, of Olympic fame), is down for the moment mechanically. But, their also isn't really enough snow anyway for it, it needs close to a metre or more of snow depth, and there was only about half that on the highway.

We had reserved a little cabin, but were a little taken aback by the fly situation. It was infested with blackflies. I would leave the door open to freeze them out, then sweep them up and throw them outside. But after that, in a few hours, a new batch appeared! Finally I gave up, and we just endured the two nights with them in there. It would require opening up the cabin for a day or two with temperatures of -30C or so, to freeze all of them and their eggs, out of every nook and cranny.  

After warming up and unpacking, a couple hours later, we decided to at least see how skiing would be on the highway from the lodge, without packs on. I put on my skate skis and pushed out just about 13 km west on the highway, then headed back. It was quite bumpy and narrow in sections, so I knew we had made the right decision to snowmachine in. Erik met up with me on my way back to the lodge, and snapped this as I headed up a short hill. Skating is my favourite form of nordic skiing, because you can go so much faster, and further, with less energy expenditure, once your technique evolves, and when conditions are good. 

 On the way back to the lodge, as the sun began to set, I was rewarded with a view of Mt.Hayes pink in the rays of the setting sun. Had to stop for a picture of that! Sunday the 14th dawned cloudy and cool at the lodge, still only about -15C or so.

After a leisurely breakfast and a few hours of reading and relaxation, we decided to run back east up the highway, to Maclaren summit, 10km, and further, if we felt up to it, then back. Since skiing conditions weren't the greatest. Once we got on the valley slope 100 metres or so higher, the warmer chinook winds were blowing, and it felt much warmer. 

The Denali Highway is the second highest roadway in Alaska, because of this, Maclaren Summit. The only higher one is on the Dalton Highway (of Ice Road Truckers fame), Atigun Pass, at 1463 m (4800 ft). Running on the loose-packed snow on the highway was extremely taxing, like being on beach sand, so I only ran up 11 km, then turned back. Erik though is used to this, running in Valdez, which gets so much more snow than Fairbanks, so he was able to go out 14 km, before heading back. As you can see here, south of the Denali Highway is a vast expanse of open semi-tundra; swampy country, broken up by hills and low mountain ranges, for over 200 km, until you get to the higher Talkeetna and Chugach mountain ranges, and then the milder, wet coast along the Gulf of Alaska.  

We enjoyed another nice evening in the lodge sun. after being out part of the day. The food there was pretty basic, as you might expect in a place that has no auto traffic for half the year. But not bad, considering. The other guests, 5-10 or so, had all snowmachined in as well, so we talked with them. There is a full bar there, but I was able to discipline myself, and not cut loose too much, though it was tempting. 

Sunday night, the chinook winds came up in full force through the valley, and shook the cabin, waking me up around 0300. It warmed up to about -2C, so when we packed up for the ride back out to Paxson, at 0900, we knew it would be an easier, more comfortable trip. 

This time too, we decided to wear our packs, with both sets of skis strapped to mine, rather than bundle everything up on the small rack behind me. On the way in, my lower back got quite bruised from bumping the metal rack. This way, it was protected, and we didn't have to stop to readjust the load. 

It was definitely the way to go. We were both much more comfortable, in the warmer conditions, and my back wasn't getting battered. During our trip back, other snowmachines heading west would sometime zip past us so fast, by the time I noticed them, they had passed! They must have easily been going at least 130 kph! Near Tangle lakes, about 35 km east of Maclaren, we stopped and watched as some of the Nelchina herd of caribou crossed the highway. We saw hundreds of them here in August, 2008, when Mattie and I packed around for a few days north of Maclaren Summit, near Sevenmile Lake.  

This was the trip when little 20 kg 15 month old Mattie ran off a 150 kg large bull caribou nosing around our camp, unhappy at our presence in "his" area. Before I could stop her, she charged after him, running up and around him, barking. He could have dispatched her with one kick, but fortunately decided to run off. Mattie is not as large, or imposing, as Homer, with his wolfy presence, but our intrepid assistant editor has a strong, courageous heart, and epic endurance. 

So, even though we were not able to skate ski in to the Maclaren Lodge, like we had hoped, we had a nice weekend getaway to a beautiful place in the Alaska Range, where few people travel. Had we known beforehand we probably would have brought our classic skis, and skied in to the lodge. Because then we could have skied in to near the Maclaren glacier, here. It pays to call ahead!

The mild weather of course, greatly helped our enjoyment of this trip. But we know, it is coming at a price. More frequent mild chinook/southerly flow patterns like this are allowing our more of our permafrost to melt, releasing more CO2 and methane, positive feedbacks to global warming, and not allowing the Arctic sea ice to freeze as thick each winter. Leading to increased melting each summer. Which will lead to ice-free summer conditions in the Arctic Ocean, within a decade. Another positive feedback. Cheers.

ICE ROAD SKIING [and] FORWARD TO 1900?

ICE ROAD SKIING

February through mid-April is our favourite time of year here at the Chena Ridge Research Centre. The higher sun angles gives us longer, warmer days, with ample good-quality snow for our nordic ski outings. Just the view alone of the bright light through our windows lifts our spirits, after the dim times from early Dec. to mid-January.

Everyone thinks of Alaska as nearly roadless, and vastly "undeveloped", which it is. Every so often, state politicians and the local news media hype about building new roads across the state. A road to Nome from Fairbanks. A road to connect Juneau to the Alaska/Canada road system.

What many, especially in the lower 48, don't realize, is that we have multitudes of roads, at least in the interior, South-Central, and Southwest/West portions of the state, for almost half the year. These are our frozen rivers. By December, there is usually 25 to 80 or more centimetres of ice on all of the large interior rivers.  Such as this, on the Copper River, near Copper Center, early this past January.

We are fortunate in Fairbanks to have the large, Tanana River, on the southern edge of town. Just about 8km down from the top of Chena Ridge, a nice park/boat launch area allows all manner of access to it, throughout the year. We usually start skiing on the Tanana in late November or  December, but just for skating. Which requires, generally speaking, -20C or warmer temperatures, to be enjoyable, along with a packed-down surface, in this case, by snowmachine traffic. Along with a day off, that meets those criteria. This year that didn't happen until last week, but the ice is even twice as thick now, especially since our snow-cover is very skimpy this winter; we've only had 30% of our average snowfall so far.

The Tanana is very large in this area, sometimes easily 500 or more metres across. It runs very swiftly in summer, so ice safety is essential, to fall through would be fatal, as the swift current would sweep you under it. So we stick to proven snowmachine trails as often as possible out in the middle of the river. Which is what we want anyway, for skate skiing.

It really is a highway, mushers can run their teams between villages, for hundreds of kilometres, if they wish. Similarly, people on snowmachines can visit different villages this way, along the rivers, and across country that is brutally swampy in summer, but smooth and packed, in winter, with hard snow. Ideal for snowmachines, dog teams, skiers, and snowshoers. If we ever had the time and funds, we would ski from Fairbanks to the Bering Sea, preferably in March/April, when the days are longest, and conditions not as cold. It would be at least 900 km, but doable in a month or so. Some cyclists with winterised mountain bikes have done so before, and probably skiers, but we aren't sure.

We decided to hit the Tanana River road this week, on a day when it warmed to about -19C (-2F) in the afternoon. As you can see, the river is quite wide here, over 500 metres, just a few km down from the parking area. And the trail, very wide, about 10 metres in spots, from all the snowmachine traffic. It had just snowed a much-needed 1 cm, the day before, so that helped freshen the surface.

Even though Mattie is half husky, since she grew up on Kodiak, and came from the pound, we don't think she was ever a "real" sled dog, in the sense of serving on a team, and learning the commands, etc.. So she's very curious when she sees the teams running down the river, or on different trails in the region. But she doesn't get too close, I think because she is very independent, and would't want to be in harness.

Homer on the other hand, remembers his days in the harness, and always stays well clear!  The weather was beautiful and sunny, but as usual in mid-winter, a down-drainage breeze was present. Cold air drowns down through the river system to the Bering Sea all winter, in the absence of any opposing general winds from weather systems. If the general wind flow is aligned with the river drainage/canyon, they can get quite strong and nasty. It was about a 15-20 kph breeze that day, and the snow quite stiff, as it hadn't warmed much from the colder morning.

Which meant we only went down 8 km or so before turning back. With the very diminished glide, and cold breeze, not a very pleasant ski. When temperatures are -15C or warmer, and the snow surface suitable, one pushoff in skate skiing can propel you 10 metres or more. Which then allows us to cover vast distances in a much shorter time, with the same energy expenditure or less, as would be needed, for a much shorter run. We were only getting about a third of that glide this day.


FORWARD TO 1900?

Since the Ray-gun days of the 1980's, a focused assault on worker's rights and conditions in this country has been undertaken by the corporate world. Starting with the firing and blacklisting of the PATCO air traffic controllers by Reagan in 1981, and accelerating during the 1990s, as outsourcing to countries with no labor protections (allowing for deadly low pay and long hours in often unsafe conditions, along with little or no environmental regulations) began in every major manufacturing, and software development firm. Countries like India, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and of course, the giant of them all, China. Conditions for factory workers in these countries is very much what it was like in this, or European countries, in 1900. Which is to say, dismal. There was no workmen's compensation. An on-the-job injury from unsafe working conditions gets you fired, with no medical or wage benefits. Labour organisers are frequently beaten, jailed, or murdered. The workweek is always 60 hours long, or more, at least six days a week. The pollution from all unregulated industrial activities poisons the air and water over vast areas; China's incredible air pollution from it's thousands of coal-fired power plants and factories churning out our consumer items now reaches the west coast of the U.S., in significant, and sometimes unhealthy concentrations.

This is the World that will return to this country, within a few decades, unless organised labour reinvigorates, and all people look in their hearts, and support causes and politicians who will actually work to regulate Capitalism, and humanise our political/economic system.  We came across this article yesterday, it puts things in good perspective.

http://counterpunch.org/macaray02102010.html

A Dagger in the Heart of Labor

Congress Nixes Becker

By DAVID MACARAY

Just when organized labor had entered the seventh and final stage of the grief cycle—after having witnessed the death of the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act), they’d already passed through shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt and depression—they get dealt another crushing blow, this one in the form of Craig Becker, Obama’s nominee to the NLRB, being denied confirmation by a hostile congress.

The Becker rejection could hurt even more than the EFCA (“card check”). Why? Because Becker’s chances were infinitely better than those of the EFCA, which, beneficial as it would have been, remained broken down in the driveway. In truth, the ambitious legislation never really got any momentum behind it. By contrast, the Becker nomination appeared to be running on all eight cylinders.

True, the Republicans had played games by stalling the vote for five months, but the Democrats had the 60 senators necessary to avoid the procedural roadblock of a filibuster and, once over that disgraceful parliamentary hurdle, had more than enough votes to carry the nomination. At least they did until Massachusetts elected Scott Brown, a Republican.

Then, to make matters worse, Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) announced that he would join the Republican filibuster, killing Becker’s chances. Say what you will about Martha Coakley, Brown’s Democratic opponent, she wouldn’t have joined the Republican filibuster. And without the filibuster, Becker gets confirmed.

So what made Craig Becker so unappealing to the Republicans? He was unapologetically pro-labor, an old-fashioned labor advocate. He was a champion of America’s working class, of its struggling middle-class, and of its impoverished bottom-class.

In other words, Becker was all the things you would expect in an NLRB member, all the things the position called for going back to 1935, when the New Deal agency was invented, and all the things that had been missing in the NLRB under eight years of the Bush administration. And, of course, it was precisely these qualities that the Republican party and U.S. Chamber of Commerce objected to.

Despite the Republicans’ attempt to demonize him, Becker, a lawyer for the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), is a recognized labor expert. Becker earned both his law school and undergraduate degrees from Yale University, and has either practiced or taught law for the past 27 years.

On Tuesday I asked the IBT (International Brotherhood of Teamsters) what their thoughts were on the Becker rejection. The Teamsters were instrumental in lobbying for passage of the EFCA, and were very much in favor of Becker filling one of the vacancies on the Labor Board.

James P. Hoffa, General President, IBT, replied: “The President ought to be able to appoint who he wants to sit on the NLRB. Politics should not stand in the way of a well qualified appointee. Craig Becker has impeccable credentials and has devoted his professional career to the field of labor law….Blocking his confirmation is, in reality, just a cynical strategy on the part of people who don’t believe in the statute to prevent it from being enforced.”

How cynical? The Republican minority is using stalling tactics and bogus parliamentary techniques to deny the Democratic majority the goals they were entitled to pursue by virtue of having been elected. The Republicans may have lost the election fair and square, but they are determined to thwart the administration at every turn, which includes not allowing Obama nominees to be voted upon. If you don’t have the votes to get elected, and don’t have the votes to defeat a measure, you embark upon the only strategy left to you: governing via paralysis.

Incredibly, three of the NLRB’s five seats still remain vacant. Becker was supposed to fill one of them. The only thing these three vacancies continue to do is postpone indefinitely hundreds of important labor cases—cases that deserve to be heard. Which is perfectly fine with the Republican minority because that is precisely how they intend to govern.

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright and author (“It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor”), was a former labor rep. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net

Labour unions and the struggles (and often-times injury and death) they endured from 1850 to 1940 brought us everything we take for granted in our working experience. The 40 hour workweek. Time-and-a-half overtime. Paid holidays, vacation, and sick leave. Worker's compensation for on-the-job- injuries. Inspection and regulation to prevent injury and fatality from unsafe working conditions.

It's quite clear by now, that if we wish to hold onto these just and beneficial aspects of working experience, we must support labour unions, and oppose any politicians that don't. The Democrats have expressed only tepid support since the 1990s, and their support of NAFTA in 1992-94, decimated the U.S. industrial base. The Republicans of course, are really fascists, who overtly work to bring back 1900s conditions to our society. Both parties still actively support countries like Colombia (which is the only South American country now that will allow a US military base on it) that intimidate, jail, and murder labour organisers. That is why we support the Green party, primarily.  http://www.gp.org/index.php

To that end, we at A.P.R. do not support or recommend, generally speaking, supporting or voting for any Democratic politician, unless they meet stringent pro-labor, anti-war, and environmental support criteria. Those that "make our cut" are very few in number, like Congressman Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio, or Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont. 

We definitely try to avoid purchasing products from companies that are documented as being particularly sociopathic in their drive for short-term profits.

http://www.greenamericatoday.org/programs/responsibleshopper/learn_hub.cfm

And of course, we have divested ourselves competely from the profit-driven financial sector. All our financial transactions and loans are with non-profit credit unions.

Everyone should read "The Peoples History of the United States",

http://books.google.com/books?id=P8V7J5qm5-YC&dq=people's+history+of+the+united+states&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=1QN1S-r0EovisQPptPDKCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false

which documents the struggles of workers and indigenous people that is not told about in our schools. It is very eye-opening. It's author, celebrated historian and peace activist Howard Zinn, passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 87, a great loss to this country, and for progressive people everywhere.

http://howardzinn.org/default/     Thank you for your inspiring work Howard!

WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

SEEING THE LIGHT [and] THINKING AHEAD

SEEING THE LIGHT

Sometimes we at A.P.R. come across an article in our daily news-scans that just brings things into focus, about major issues. One major issue is the U.S.'s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which is going badly, like all imperial "adventures" have in that country for the past 3000 years. Ostenstibly started in 2001 to apprehend the perpretrators of the 9/11 attacks, and punish their supporters, the Taleban, it is in it's tenth year now, with no end in sight. Thousands of innocent civilians have died in that country, and hundreds of U.S. troops. We saw this article today (naturally, not in the US corporate media) , and found it very revealing. See what you think...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/01-6

Afghan 'Geological Reserves Worth a Trillion Dollars'

Karzai exclaims 'very good news for Afghans', but perhaps history tells us that regular Afghans should be very cautious of such news

KABUL - Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Miners work in the Anyak copper mine in Afghanistan. While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones. (Afghan Government photo)The war-ravaged nation could become one of the richest in the world if helped to tap its geological deposits, Karzai told reporters.

"I have very good news for Afghans," Karzai said.

"The initial figures we have obtained show that our mineral deposits are worth a thousand billion dollars -- not a thousand million dollars but a thousand billion," he said.

He based his assertion, he said, on a survey being carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), due to be completed in "a couple of months".

The USGS, the US government's scientific agency, has been working on the 17-million dollar survey for a number of years, Karzai said.

While Afghanistan is not renowned as a resource-rich country, it has a wide range of deposits, including copper, iron ore, gold and chromite, as well as natural gas, oil and precious and semi-precious stones.

Little has been exploited because the country has been mired in conflict for 30 years, and is embroiled in a vicious insurgency by Islamist rebels led by the Taliban.

More than 100,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command are battling the insurgents, with another 40,000 due for deployment this year.

China and India have bid for contracts to develop mines, with the Chinese winning a copper contract. An iron ore contract is due to be awarded later this year.

In 2007, China's state-owned metals giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.

First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.

The Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms bidding.

The contract is for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore, involving processing, smelting, steel production and electricity production.

© 2010 Agence France-Presse

There were alot of good comments, in the comment section, at the end of the article, on the Commondreams Web-Site. Here are a some of our favourites:

"I suppose the U.S. is in Afghanistan to stabilize what might otherwise be its shaky mineral and petroleum wealth. And that wealth would become unstable if the Chinese took an interest in it."

"Wow, Afghanistan is worth something, imagine that!
Too bad the current residents don't do something with it, you know the world needs cheap copper!
Labor is cheap in Afghanistan, so I imagine U.S. companies are lined up too.
If only the people of Afghanistan had a say, if only the people of the U.S. had a say... how their resources are being stolen."

"i thought imperialists were supposed to make money off their wars. can we do anything right?"

Yes, this article was definitely enlightening. Just as much as our rapidly brightening days here in Interior Alaska, where the sun is blazing at 9 degrees above the horizon now at mid-day.

THINKING AHEAD

Another interesting article that came across the A.P.R. laptop the other day, was this. Give it a read, and then we'll provide our analysis.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/31-3

Pentagon to Rank Global Warming as Destabilizing Force

US defense review says military planners should factor climate change into long term strategy

by Suzanne Goldenberg

The Pentagon will for the first time rank global warming as a destabilizing force, adding fuel to conflict and putting US troops at risk around the world, in a major strategy review to be presented to Congress tomorrow. The Quadrennial Defense Review, prepared by the Pentagon to update Congress on its security vision, will direct military planners to keep track of the latest climate science, and to factor global warming into their long term strategic planning.

"While climate change alone does not cause conflict, it may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world," said a draft of the review seen by the Guardian.

A fisherman in the dried reservoir of Lam Takhong Dam, Thailand, a consequence of global warming.

The Pentagon says climate change does not cause conflict but it could act as an accelerant. Heatwaves and freak storms could put increasing demand on the US military to respond to humanitarian crises or natural disaster. But troops could feel the effects of climate change even more directly, the draft says.

More than 30 US bases are threatened by rising sea levels. It ordered the Pentagon to review the risks posed to installations, and to combat troops by a potential increase in severe heatwaves and fires.

The review's release coincides with a sharpening focus in the American defense establishment about global warming - even though polls last week showed the public increasingly less concerned.

The CIA late last year established a center to collect intelligence on climate change. Earlier this month, CIA officials sent emails to environmental experts in Washington seeking their views on climate change impacts around the world, and how the agency could keep tabs on what actions countries were taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The CIA has also restarted a program - scrapped by George Bush - that allowed scientists and spies to share satellite images of glaciers and Arctic sea ice.

That suggests climate change is here to stay as a topic of concern for the Pentagon.

The Pentagon, in acknowledging the threat of global warming, will now have to factor factor climate change into war game exercises and long-term security assessments of badly affected regions such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

Military planners will have to factor climate change into war game exercises and long-term security assessments of badly affected regions such as the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia..

"The leadership of the Pentagon has very strongly indicated that they do consider climate change to be a national security issue," said Christine Parthemore, an analyst at the Center for A New American Security who has been studying the Pentagon's evolving views on climate change. "They are considering climate change on par with the political and economic factors as the key drivers that are shaping the world."

Awareness of climate change and its impact on threat levels and military capability had been slowly percolating through the ranks since 2008 when then Senators Hillary Clinton and John Warner pushed the Pentagon to look specifically at the impact of global warming in its next long-term review.

But the navy was already alive to the potential threat, with melting sea ice in the Arctic opening up a new security province. The changing chemistry of the oceans, because of global warming, is also playing havoc with submarine sonar, a report last year from the CNAS warned.

US soldiers and marines, meanwhile, were getting a hard lesson in the dangers of energy insecurity on the battlefield, where attacks on supply convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq inflicted heavy casualties.

"Our dependence on fuel adds significant cost and puts US soldiers and contractors at risk," said Dorothy Robyn, deputy Undersecretary of Defense for the Environment. "Energy can be a matter of life and death and we have seen dramatically in Iraq and Afghanistan the cost of heavy reliance on fossil fuels."

She told a conference call on Friday the Pentagon would seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions from non-combat operations by 34% from 2008 levels by 2020, in line with similar cuts by the rest of the federal government.

In addition to the threat of global warming, she said the Pentagon was concerned that US military bases in America were vulnerable because of their reliance on the electric grid to cyber attack and overload in case of a natural disaster.

The US air force, in response, has built up America's biggest solar battery array in Nevada, and is testing jet fighter engines on biofuels. The Marine Corps may soon start drilling its own wells to eliminate the need to truck in bottled water in response to recommendations from a task force on reducing energy use in a war zone.

But not all defense department officials have got on board, and Parthemore said she believes it could take some time to truly change the military mindset.

Parthemore writes of an exchange on a Department of Defense list-serv in December 2008 about whether global warming exists. It ends with one official writing: "This is increasingly shrill and pedantic. Moreover, it's becoming boring."

© 2010 Guardian/UK

Again, the first thing to notice about this article, is that it is not from any US corporate media source. Isn't it interesting, that the US military, which is the globe's largest greenhouse-gas emitting single entity (not counting actual countries, but militaries and industrial sectors), is recognising the threast global warming  poses to all countries, peoples, and ecosystems? How are all the brownshirts (Teabaggers, Limbaugh/Palin/Beckites) going to fit this into their world-view? Now, if only the US military could be acting to counteract global warming, rather than exacerbating it. Dreams are the beginning of new realities.  

OK folks, time to lay it out again. I know we tend to harp alot on climate change. But your lead editor has acquired some expertise in this area, and we feel comfortable in presenting the state-of-the-science research results about it. And the news is not good.

http://akprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-seems-likely-based-on-what-weve.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/23-0

What the latest research is saying, is that the last time the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 390 ppm, which is what it is today (up from 280 ppm 60 years ago), 128,000 years ago, sea levels were 18 to 25 feet (5 to 7 metres) higher than they are today. [higher than most of Florida]

This was due to naturally occurring volcanism, it is thought, and it is unknown how rapidly they rose to this level. But what would this mean, a sea level, that much higher? If it were to occur relatively quickly, say within 20-30 years (or even 10), could humanity adapt? Because all the major seaports and their infrastructure would be underwater, which is where and how the bulk of the global food and energy is distributed. Would all the different countries be able to rebuild all the transport and distribution facilities on higher ground that quickly? If not, shortages of food and energy would cause great hardship, and could lead to societal collapse, in many areas. It's not inconceivable that this rapid of a sea-level rise could occur.

Research is also showing that the Greenland Ice Cap is shrinking rapidly, especially on the coastal margins. And that large areas of it could collapse quite quickly, within a matter of a few years, which could raise sea levels on it's own, by a few metres. Which would quickly drown many areas like Bangladesh, and low-elevation island countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Cheers.

LEGITIMISED SOCIOPATHY

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopath

SOCIOPATH:

–noun Psychiatry. a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

It can be shown that many large corporations, in all the major corporate structures, military-industrial, pharmaceutical/health insurance, fossil-fuel, and agriculture, which generally control and dictate policy to the U.S. Government, act in sociopathic ways. History is replete with examples, from the destruction of indigenous peoples in the 1800s, repression of the labour movement from the 1800s-mid 20th Century, to modern-day struggles, especially in third-world countries, where they support and keep in power repressive, authoritarian governments which torture and murder citizens in them who work for basic human rights (Colombia, Nigeria, Myanmar, Mexico, etc...).

This is because a corporation is chartered to make profits, and will do what is necessary to achieve that aim. Under the anonymity of collective approval (executive board, shareholders groups, etc...), people are able to get away with actions that if undertaken by individuals, would result in imprisonment, and societal disapproval, in every country and culture. This is not to say that all corporations, big or small, act in these ways, but their very reason for existence, makes these actions all the more likely. And some psychologists have argued that people with sociopathic tendencies tend to do very well in the corporate and political worlds. How else can you explain policies where thousands of people are thrown out of work, so profits can be maximised, by moving jobs to countries with no worker's rights, unions, or environmental protections. Or, the proven deliberately-started war of aggression against the sovereign nation of Iraq, which was no threat to it's neighbours, or this one. Which has claimed at least a million innocent civilian lives there, and laid waste to their economy and environment. And from which many American and European large corporations are profiting enormously.

Well, unfortunately, the Supreme Court of the U.S. this week, has rendered a "decision" which will have far-reaching effects, to further support and legitimise corporate power and domination over the political and cultural structure of this country (which of course is already nearly total). This of course, is the definition of FASCISM, as given by Benito Mussolini, considered the politician who really developed the modern form of this nightmaric political structure.

One of the few places in the corporate media where actual news and commentary can be seen and heard, is Keith Olbermann's Countdown show, on MSNBC. Here is an excellent commentary he aired a few days ago on the incredible U.S. Supreme Court decision this week, preceded by some comments from politicians in the past who were able in moments of candour, to describe things as they were/are:

"I hope we shall ... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln

http://www.truthout.org/olbermann-supreme-court-campaign-finance-ruling56311

Transcript:

"Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on the Supreme Court's ruling today in the case titled "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

On the cold morning of Friday, March 6th, 1857, a very old man who was born just eight months and thirteen days after the Declaration of Independence was adopted; a man who was married to the sister of the man who wrote "The Star Spangled Banner;" a man who was enlightened enough to have freed his own slaves and given pensions to the ones who had become too old to work read aloud, in a reed-thin voice, a very long document.

In it, he ruled on a legal case involving a slave, brought by his owner to live in a free state; yet to remain a slave.

The slave sought his freedom, and sued. And looking back over legal precedent, and the Constitution, and the America in which it was created, this judge ruled that no black man could ever be considered an actual citizen of the United States.

"They had for more than a century before been, regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

The case, of course, was Dred Scott. The old man was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States of America, Roger Brooke Tawney. And the outcome, he believed, would be to remove the burning question of the abolition of slavery from the political arena for once and for all.

The outcome, in fact, was the Civil War. No American ever made a single bigger misjudgment. No American ever carried the responsibility for the deaths and suffering of more Americans. No American ever was more quickly vilified. Within four years Chief Justice Tawney's rulings were being ignored in the South and the North.

Within five, President Lincoln at minimum contemplated arresting him. Within seven, he died, in poverty, while still Chief Justice. Within eight, Congress had voted to not place a bust of him alongside those of the other former Chief Justices.

But good news tonight, Roger B. Tawney is off the hook.

Today, the Supreme Court, of Chief Justice John Roberts, in a decision that might actually have more dire implications than "Dred Scott v Sandford," declared that because of the alchemy of its 19th Century predecessors in deciding that corporations had all the rights of people, any restrictions on how these corporate-beings spend their money on political advertising, are unconstitutional.

In short, the first amendment - free speech for persons - which went into affect in 1791, applies to corporations, which were not recognized as the equivalents of persons until 1886. In short, there are now no checks on the ability of corporations or unions or other giant aggregations of power to decide our elections.

None. They can spend all the money they want. And if they can spend all the money they want - sooner, rather than later - they will implant the legislators of their choice in every office from President to head of the Visiting Nurse Service.

And if senators and congressmen and governors and mayors and councilmen and everyone in between are entirely beholden to the corporations for election and re-election to office soon they will erase whatever checks there might still exist to just slow down the ability of corporations to decide the laws.

It is almost literally true that any political science fiction nightmare you can now dream up, no matter whether you are conservative or liberal, it is now legal. Because the people who can make it legal, can now be entirely bought and sold, no actual citizens required in the campaign-fund-raising process.

And the entirely bought and sold politicians, can change any laws. And any legal defense you can structure now, can be undone by the politicians who will be bought and sold into office this November, or two years from now.

And any legal defense which honest politicians can somehow wedge up against them this November, or two years from now, can be undone by the next even larger set of politicians who will be bought and sold into office in 2014, or 2016, or 2018.

Mentioning Lincoln's supposed ruminations about arresting Roger B. Tawney, he didn't say the original of this, but what the hell:

Right now, you can prostitute all of the politicians some of the time, and prostitute some of the politicians all the time, but you cannot prostitute all the politicians all the time. Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts this will change. Unless this mortal blow is somehow undone, within ten years, every politician in this country will be a prostitute.

And now let's contemplate what that perfectly symmetrical, money-driven world might look like. Be prepared, first, for laws criminalizing or at least neutering unions. In today's Court Decision, they are the weaker of the non-human sisters unfettered by the Court. So, like in ancient Rome or medieval England, they will necessarily be strangled by the stronger sibling, the corporations, so they pose no further threat to the Corporations' total control of our political system.

Be prepared, then, for the reduction of taxes for the wealth, and for the corporations, and the elimination of the social safety nets for everybody else, because money spent on the poor means less money left for the corporations.

Be prepared, then, for wars sold as the "new products" which Andy Card once described them as, year-after-year, as if they were new Fox Reality Shows, because Military Industrial Complex Corporations are still corporations. Be prepared, then, for the ban on same-sex marriage, on abortion, on evolution, on separation of church and state. The most politically agitated group of citizens left are the evangelicals, throw them some red meat to feed their holier-than-thou rationalizations, and they won't care what else you do to this corporate nation.

Be prepared, then, for racial and religious profiling, because you've got to blame somebody for all the reductions in domestic spending and civil liberties, just to make sure the agitators against the United Corporate States of America are kept unheard.

Be prepared for those poor dumb manipulated bastards, the Tea Partiers, to have a glorious few years as the front men as the corporations that bankroll them slowly unroll their total control of our political system. And then be prepared to watch them be banished, maybe outlawed, when a few of the brighter ones suddenly realize that the corporations have made them the Judas Goats of American Freedom.

And be prepared, then, for the bank reforms that President Obama has just this day vowed to enable, to be rolled back by his successor purchased by the banks, with the money President Bush gave them his successor, presumably President Palin, because if you need a friendly face of fascism, you might as well get one that can wink, and if you need a tool of whichever large industries buy her first, you might as well get somebody who lives up to that word "tool."

Be prepared for the little changes, too. If there are any small towns left to take-over, Wal-Mart can now soften them up with carpet advertising for their Wal-Mart town council candidates, brought to you by Wal-Mart.

Be prepared for the Richard Mellon Scaifes to drop such inefficiencies as vanity newspapers and simply buy and install their own city governments in the Pittsburghs. Be prepared for the personally wealthy men like John Kerry to become the paupers of the Senate, or the ones like Mike Bloomberg not even surviving the primary against Halliburton's choice for Mayor of New York City.

Be prepared for the end of what you're watching now. I don't just mean me, or this program, or this network. I mean all the independent news organizations, and the propagandists like Fox for that matter, because Fox inflames people against the state, and after today's ruling, the corporations will only need a few more years of inflaming people, before the message suddenly shifts to "everything's great."

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh don't even realize it: today, John Roberts just cut their throats too. So, with critics silenced or bought off, and even the town assessor who lives next door to you elected to office with campaign funds 99.9 percent drawn from corporate coffers - what are you going to do about it? The Internet!

The Internet? Ask them about the Internet in China. Kiss net neutrality goodbye. Kiss whatever right to privacy you think you currently have, goodbye. And anyway, what are you going to complain about, if you don't even know it happened? In the new world unveiled this morning by John Roberts, who stops Rupert Murdoch from buying the Associated Press?

This decision, which in mythology would rank somewhere between "The Bottomless Pit" and "The Opening Of Pandora's Box," got next to no coverage in the right-wing media today, almost nothing in the middle, and a lot less than necessary on the left.

The right wing won't even tell their constituents that they are being sold into bondage alongside the rest of us. And why should they? For them, the start of this will be wonderful.

The Republicans, Conservatives, Joe Liebermans, and Tea Partiers are in the front aisle at the political prostitution store. They are specially discounted old favorites for their Corporate Masters. Like the first years of irreversible climate change, for the conservatives the previously cold winter will grow delightfully warm. Only later will it be hot. Then unbearable. Then flames.

And the conservatives will burn with the rest of us. And they'll never know it happened. So, what are you going to do about it? Turn to free speech advocates? These were the free speech advocates! The lawyer for that Humunculous who filed this suit, Dave Bossie, is Floyd Abrams.

Floyd Abrams, who has spent his life defending American freedoms, especially freedom of speech. Apparently this life was spent this way in order to guarantee that when it really counted, he could help the corporations destroy free speech.

His argument, translated from self-satisfied legal jargon, is that as a function of the First Amendment, you must allow for the raping and pillaging of the First Amendment, by people who can buy the First Amendment.

He will go down in the history books as the Quisling of freedom of speech in this country. That is if the corporations who now buy the school boards which decide which history books get printed, approve. If there are still history books. So, what are you going to do about it?

Russ Feingold told me today there might yet be ways to work around this, to restrict corporate governance, and how corporations make and spend their money. I pointed out that any such legislation, even if it somehow sneaked past the last U.S. Senate not funded by a generous gift from the Chubb Group would eventually wind up in front of a Supreme Court, and whether or not John Roberts is still at its head would be irrelevant.

The next nine men and women on the Supreme Court will get there not because of their judgement nor even their politics. They will get there because they were appointed by purchased presidents and confirmed by purchased Senators.

This is what John Roberts did today. This is a Supreme Court-sanctioned murder of what little actual Democracy is left in this Democracy. It is government of the people by the corporations for the corporations. It is the Dark Ages. It is our Dred Scott. I would suggest a revolution but a revolution against the corporations? The corporations that make all the guns and the bullets?

Maybe it won't be this bad. Maybe the corporations legally defined as human beings, but without the pesky occasional human attributes of conscience and compassion maybe when handed the only keys to the electoral machine, they will simply not re-design America in their own corporate image.

But let me leave you with this final question: After today who's going to stop them?"

That was an excellent and concise summation of what we, in the U.S. (and in other countries that will try and follow, if their citizens can't stop them) will be facing, as a result of this ruling. Thanks Keith!

Another thing to remember is this. The five supreme court justices who ruled in the majority on this decision, while nominated by Republican presidents, were approved in Congress by Democrats and Republicans. With little real debate or probing questions given to them.  We think it should be clear now that it doesn't matter which party is in power at State and Federal levels (and soon, even on the local). Corporate power and influence dominates. Is this the kind of society we think is desirable? If not, vote and support alternative political parties. We support the Green Party of the U.S.A., http://www.gp.org/index.php,  but there are many others out there seeking fairness, and a sane, just, and sustainable political and economic system. Please join us!

Finally, here are some good common-sense comments I've seen written in on the Commondreams.org website recently, in articles about the supreme court decision:

Corporations, artificial constructs, have the constitutional privileges of humans, but are not bound by the same laws.

If I throw poison into my neighbor's yard and their kid eats it, dies, and I'm found guilty, I'll be going to jail or possibly executed by the state.

If a corporation does the same thing it suffers only a minor financial penalty and continues with its life as normal.

Why do artificial constructs, corporations, have all the privileges and protections of the law but are not subject to the same penalties as their human counterparts?

How can anyone who argues in defense of Citizens United not be a hypocrite for not also demanding corporations be subject equally to all the laws of human beings?

Every defense, oil and banking company in this country is guilty of the murder of innocent people. If ALL the laws were applied equally, and not just the privileges, such as free speech, they should've been subjected to the death penalty long ago (having their corporate charter dissolved.)

If corporations, are in essence "beings", they MUST be subject to all the laws.

Cheers.