California: running out of water as seen from space

California water districts appear (for "good" selfish reasons) loth to accept what a pair of satellites is showing: the state is running low on groundwater.

How bad is it? Over the 2003-2010 period, California drew down nearly enough groundwater to fill Lake Mead, and I'll assume that's full-capacity, pre-bathtub-ring Lake Mead.

Looking at the map, some areas in the southwestern part of the Central Valley, around Tulare, look like they don't have a lot of life left.

That said, I wish the Times had produced a similar map for the Ogallala Aquifer. I doubt West Texans would totally wake up, even then, to the severity of water issues, but maybe some would.

Where data has been presented, though, and not just in California, it's been resisted:

In other areas of the world, like northern India, the novelty of the gravitational measurements — and perhaps the story they tell — has led to pushback, scientists say. ...

John Wahr, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado and his colleague Sean Swenson faced opposition for a study on aquifer depletion in northern India. As Dr. Swenson explained, “When in a place like India you say, ‘We’re doing something that is unsustainable and needs to change,’ well, people resist change. Change is expensive.”

In places on high-tension, water-focused borders, like India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine-Jordan-Syria and such, this is understandable in a way, but still lamentable.

An interesting sidebar is that the satellites were launched from Russia and some of their data would have been considered classified before the end of the Cold War. A peace dividend!

Obama hypocrisy - sanctions on Syria, not Bahrain (or Israel)

Yes, U.S. President Barack Obama is going to impose sanctions on Syria for its brutal crackdown on dissent, but not Bahrain. Nor Mubarak-era Egypt.

Nor, of course, Israel in light of the Goldstone Report.

Once again, feel the "change"? The fresh new air in foreign policy?

I thought so.

A new Godwin's Law — Holocaust analogizing needs a name

With a hat tip to Ed Brayton, I note that Michelle Bachmann has compared raising taxes to the Holocaust, and now Mike Huckabee has compared raising the debt ceiling to that.

So, whether we call this a corollary to Godwin's Law or a whole new law, it needs a name. Hit me up in comments with your suggestions.

The one possible consolation? Israeli Jews, including even the most Christian-tolerant among the Zionists, say "enough" to Religious Righters who keep up the Holocaust comparisons.

That said, not all inane Holocaust analogies are by political wingnuts. Hardcore antivaxxers apparently do the same.

Israel is in the wrong, in a complex situation

First, Israel's worries about ending the Gaza blockade and thereby allowing missiles into Gaza is at least somewhat realistic.

Second, don't forget the blockade also involved the agreement of Egypt (which has temporarily reopened its land border).

That said, the attack was in international waters, therefore is arguably an act of war.

But, yes, Israel will probably get away with it. To riff on Pat Buchanan, not only American Jews, but the Amen corner (or should we now call that the Palin corner?) is already gearing up. The Team Obama is certainly not the A-Team on this; don't forget Zionist apologist aka Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and his butt-kissing of American rabbis last month.

The bottom line on this issue DOES go back to Bush. We were al for democracy n the Middle East, until a free election put Hamas in power.

Israel appears guilty of serious war crimes

That’s the preliminary take on Israel’s actions in Gaza by the UN’s David Falk either directly or indirectly, by commission or omission.

He cites Israel’s failure, apparently deliberate, to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and possibly also, its constraining civilians from leaving a war zone.

Note to Israel Lobby and fundamentalist Protestant fellow travelers:

A. You can’t pressure UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, unlike President Obama;
B. Falk is Jewish.

Israel Lobby and fundamentalist Protestant fellow travelers will score down his assessment in part for having to rely on sources from Gaza to the degree his estimated death toll is the same as their’s.

Well, yes, that’s because Israel barred him from entering the country.

Annapolis: The 1 1/2 state solution

Let’s be honest. Even if Annapolis did propose to solve anything, the “solution” it offered would be from the U.S.-Israeli point of view. And that point of view is, bluntly, the 1 1/2 state solution.

Now, that phrase, “1 1/2 state solution,” can be understood in one of two ways. The first way would be that Israel doesn’t want a fully independent Palestine for quite some time. That may or may not be the case, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

No, the U.S.-Israeli 1 1/2 state solution is the solution of only recognizing Mahmoud Abbas’ rump Fatah Palestinian government in the West Bank. That’s been the “solution” both countries jumped on ever since Palestinian Hamas won a free parliamentary election in January by a smashing margin.

For years, Likud-based governments in Israel have deliberately puffed up Hamas’ psychological profile in order to make it easier to demonize Palestinians in general. Labor, the times it’s been in coalition, has basically gone along for the ride.

Well, guess what, Likud? That’s now blown up in your face.

George W. Bush has been all about democracy promotion in the Middle East, ignoring clear evidence, such as Algeria’s late 1990s election, that free elections in the Middle East are most likely to elect Islamicist parties.

Well, guess what, W.? That happened in Palestine and it’s now blown up in your face.

But, it’s not just W. Way too many Democrats, let alone Republicans enthralled by end-time prophecies of the Christian Religious Right involving red heifers, temple rebuildings and Jewish conversions, are under thrall of Zionist strains in Israeli politics and Zionist-grounded Jewish-American political action groups such as AIPAC.

Until these shackles are shaken off, Middle East peace conferences are going nowhere.

I’m not excusing past terrorist acts by Hamas, as wingers are wont to claim left-liberal dialogue about Palestine and Israel does. Nor am I excusing Yassir Arafat’s post-Oslo lack of statesmanship. I’m simply stating the fact that anything short of a full two-state solution is bound to fail.