The Angry Bear

The situation at the Rafah crossing from the Gaza strip to Egypt is crazy beyond belief. Crazy things are happing. Sane things are not happening, basically because it is closed even though there are US citizens desperate to cross it to get out of the Gaza strip and a desperate need to get food and medicine and fuel for generators into the Gaza strip. The Rafah crossing is closed partly because, although Israel can not order it closed, their...

This post will be long and confused. It is on a topic on which I am unusually especially ignorant as I decided that the case was hopeless 20 years ago and stopped following it. The current war makes me think that, at least things could be less horrible than they are, and I can’t help trying to think of how the horror could be reduced. First, I think that the current Israeli military action is a strategic mistake. I also think that the civilian...

I thought this article was a solid rehash of what took place in the early seventies when we were driving the inefficient monsters Detroit was manufacturing. It was only a short time earlier, smaller and more efficient foreign cars arrived in the US from places such as Japan. I was fortunate to snag a Datsun 510 shortly before the oil embargo. Some information on this article, where it came from, and the authors. The Conversation allows...

Also, is the solution just dissolved iron sulfate or also dissolved silica ? Sorry for the pun in the title. It is a reference to one of the hives on twitter — the nuclear energy enthusiasts who note the large fraction of zero carbon electricity currently produced by nuclear reactors.* Another approach to dealing with global warming is carbon capture. There is industrial scale carbon capture technology (which makes nuclear energy look cost...

I do not follow the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians closely because it is complex, well outside my area of expertise, and deeply depressing.  I find it depressing because I have always believed in a two-state solution, and it has long been difficult watching that goal slip ever further out of reach.  After the barbaric terror attack on Israelis by Hamas and the increasing likelihood of an excessively brutal Israeli response it is worth...

Real average wages decline, while real aggregate payroll gains remain below peak  – by New Deal democrat With the report on September inflation yesterday, we can update two measures of how well average American workers are doing: real average wages and real aggregate payrolls. Nominally wages increased 0.2% for the month. With consumer prices up 0.4%, real wages declined -0.2%: Real wages had been in an increasing trend since gas prices...

State of Global Water Resources 2022, World Meteorological Organization, wmo.int. The hydrological cycle is undergoing significant changes, with increasing global variability. Mainly due to climate change and human interventions. Living with Water Scarcity, Angry Bear, Dan Crawford, Living with Water Scarcity (2nd edition), The one-handed economist, David Zetland. ...

It appears that one important source of the appalling success of the Hamas terrorist invasion of Israel was their use of Drones. Israel relied on a medium tech remote sensing and viewing system with video cameras and remote-controlled machine guns connected to controllers through a cell-phone like system. Hamas used drones to knock out the cameras, machine guns, and, especially, the cell-towers. This means they could enter Israel without being...

Currently US ally Israel is responding to a massive terrorist invasion. The US response is slightly hampered by the fact that the  United States has “no confirmed ambassadors to Israel, Egypt, Oman, or Kuwait”, also “the counterterrorism envoy position and human rights envoy position as well as the top job at the U.S. Agency for International Development are unfilled. ” ” these nominations … have been held in limbo all these months thanks to...

Except for fictitious shelter and vehicle repairs, September inflation was moderate  – by New Deal democrat With the main exception of fictitious shelter, consumer inflation in September remained relatively subdued, but as anticipated has stopped decelerating. First I’ll look at the headlines, then the problem children. Total inflation (blue in the graph below) rose 0.4% for the month, but only 0.3% less food and energy (red). Less shelter...