Global Warming Scientists Abandoning Ship in Droves

Forbes magazine has a quite interesting story about how many of the world's formerly ardent supporters of Man-made Global Warming Theory have abandoned ship.

One is James Lovelock the father of the "Gaia Theory."


Forbes reports in Global Warming Chorus Discord Rising To Feverish Pitch: 

Some leading voices in the Global Warming Gospel Choir are now abandoning the old climate crisis hymnal. One is James Lovelock, the father of the “Gaia” theory that the entire Earth is a single living system who predicted that continued human CO2 emissions will bring about climate calamity. In 2006 he claimed: “Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where climate remains tolerable.” Time magazine featured Lovelock as one of 13 “Heroes of the Environment” in a 2007 article (along with Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford).

Recently, however, he has obviously cooled on global warming as a crisis, admitting to MSNBC that he overstated the case and now acknowledges that: “…we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.  That led to some alarmist books…mine included…because it looked clear cut…but it hasn’t happened.” Lovelock pointed to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other alarmist publications.

The 92-year-old Lovelock went on to note, “…the climate is doing its usual tricks…there’s nothing much happening yet even though we were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.”  He added, “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time.” Yet the temperature “has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising…carbon dioxide has been rising, no question about that.”

The Forbes magazine article goes on to list other scientists - once former devout believers in AGW - who have recently quit the global warming polemic.


To name a few: Fritz Vaherenholt, the socialist founder of Germany’s environmental movement. Another is Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Also Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore agreed that, “We do not have any scientific proof that we are the cause of the global warming that has occurred in the last 200 years.

Cool & Strange Music - Vol. Two - Fab Japanese Music From the Sixties - and Eartha Kitt Singing a Song in Japanese!?

Time once again for another version of Cool and Strange music from sixties Japan!

Eartha Kitt

Of course, you've all heard of Eartha Kitt? Orson Welles once called her the "The most exciting woman in the world." Eartha Kitt had a definite distinctive singing style. You might remember her for such smash hits as "C'est Si Bon," or "Santa Baby." Or, you might even remember that she played Cat Woman in the Batman TV series in the sixties. But did you know that she also sang a song in Japanese (well, part of it is in Japanese) that was a hit?


Yep. The song is a traditional Japanese kids song and it's about a temple in Japan that has a raccoon living there that comes out at night to have fun with friends. I love this song and it brings tears to my eyes as my mother used to sing this to me at bedtime when I was a very young boy of about 4 or 5 years old. This one song was probably very important for me to fall in love with Japan from a young tyke. 

Eartha Kitt - Sho Jo Ji

The next song is very cool too and I ask that you pay very close attention to the video. This is pretty racy stuff! There's a naked lady in there! I gather that this show is sort of inspired by American sixties spy and police shows ala "Mission Impossible." I crack up at what the narration says. In one part the narrator pronounces that, "They love freedom. They protect peace!"

Here's the opening sequence to the 1968 version of the smash hit TV show, "Key Hunter."

You can hear the original version of the theme to Key Hunter, without narration here.


The next interesting song is from a TV show from 1964 that actually had success overseas. The show was entitled, 忍者部隊月光 (Ninja Butai Gekko) but the title for the foreign audience was "Phantom Agents" (probably because back in the mid-sixties there hadn't been such a worldwide fascination with Japan yet... (Not sure). This is a great example of doing the best you can with basically zero budget. The Wikipedia description of Phantom Agents is pretty funny:

The Phantom Agents were modern day ninjas working for the Japanese government, mostly against the dastardly "Black Flag" organization. They wore "pudding basin" motorcycle helmets, and in the earlier episodes they ran everywhere in single file, but later graduated to a Toyota Crown Saloon.

No. Not this Black Flag!

The Phantom Agents were armed with ninja weapons such as shuriken and used guns "only as a last resort," as was patiently explained to the only female member in the title sequence of each episode. They had the ability to jump backwards up onto the limbs of trees and could hold a piece of cloth with a brick pattern on it in front of them and thus blend into the wall behind them, becoming invisible to their opponents.

Pretty funny and very cool stuff, eh?


Thanks for tuning in.... And thanks to my mom for singing Sho Jo Ji to me every night. When I stumbled upon this song by accident, I started crying. Thank you, Mom! I'll never forget!


But before you go.... Check out the scenes from the TV show Phantom Agents with the very silly scenes and the cool song starting at about 40 seconds! Enjoy! This is pretty funny too!

See you all next time! 

More on Why Japan's Economic D-Day Could be Coming Soon - The Euro Collapse Has Started

As predicted, events are quickly spinning out of control in the Eurozone and this is going to have many unforeseen consequences to Japan and the rest of the world's economy. The recent news and chain of events have even begun the clarion call that the countdown to the breakup of the European Union has begun.

When a politician holds up a copy of EU Constitution and says, "Elect me and I will make a country for our people, not the EU" He will be elected... Greece recently elected Neo-Nazis to parliament. Will it happen in other EU countries? I think the answer is "Of course!"

I think it is a safe bet that the Euro is a dead currency and I don't think it will last another two years. In fact, I believe that things will completely spin out of control this year (but have been wrong with timing before).


Zerohedge reports in Countdown to the Breakup of the Euro Has Officially Begun:

It turns out that austerity is extremely unpopular.  But if newly elected politicians all over Europe begin rejecting austerity, this puts Germany in a very difficult position.  Should Germany be expected to indefinitely bail out all of the members of the eurozone that choose to live way beyond their means?  If Germany pulled out of the euro tomorrow, the euro would absolutely collapse, bond yields for the rest of the eurozone would skyrocket to unprecedented heights, and without German bailout money troubled nations such as Greece would be headed directly for default.  The rest of the eurozone is absolutely and completely dependent on Germany at this point.  But as we have seen, much of the rest of the eurozone is sick and tired of taking orders from Germany and is rejecting austerity.  A lot of politicians in Europe apparently believe that they should be able to run up gigantic amounts of debt indefinitely and that the Germans should be expected to always be there to bail them out whenever they need it.  Will the Germans be willing to tolerate such a situation, or will they simply pick up their ball and go home at some point? 

"It turns out that austerity is extremely unpopular." Duh!


This looks to me like a lose-lose proposition. 


If the EU countries stick to austerity, the people revolt and their governments fall. If they reject austerity (which I believe they will) then the Euro collapses. Germany is not going to keep bailing out these countries.


I expect that Greece will leave the Euro - soon! And then Germany won't be far behind...


Couple that with US economic problems and the Japanese financial disaster we are faced with and, as I said, I expect the bug to hit the windshield this year... Possibly summer.  

What the Hell is Going On? Today's Crazy Japan News

Seriously, what the hell is going on here? Today's news in usually quiet Japan is a full year's worth of bizarre stuff.

Here's the weird headlines:

Tornados damage more than 2,000 buildings 

Tornados in Japan?! WTF?

Woman Bites Off Purse Snatcher’s finger:

You're kidding, right? Wrong!

Man arrested over Osaka hit-and-runs says he was high on legal 'herb'

Watch this video. It will blow your mind!

2 buried alive on golf course, 1 dead

Playing golf!!!???

Sex shop worker 'falls' from Tokyo building

What do they mean by writing, “Sex shop worker ‘falls’...” Do they infer foul play?

This doesn’t seem like Japan news... This seems like USA news. What’s going on here?

I hope this is juke a fluke and a one-day happening. 

You Go Girl! Lady in Hokkaido Bites Off Finger of Purse Snatcher!

Sometimes the news is so great that I chuckle and don't really need to make any comment. Today's story is one of those!

"What's for dessert?"

The News on Japan website reports in Woman bites off purse snatcher's finger

On Monday in Sapporo city, a woman broke her tooth while biting off the finger of a man who was trying to steal her purse.

At around 5:30 in the afternoon in Nishi ward, Sapporo, a 59 year old woman on her way home stopped in front of her apartment complex to check her mail when her bag was suddenly stolen from behind her by a man.

The man tried to escape on a bicycle, but ran into a dead end and was forced turn around where he was caught by the woman. During the struggle the woman bit his finger off and managed to retrieve her purse.

The woman broke her front tooth, and the man's finger, from the tip to the first joint, fell to the ground at the scene of the crime. She said the man was in his 30's, between 175 to 180cm tall with a solid build.

The purse snatcher is still on the loose.

Isn't this just great? Not only does this purse snatcher jerk have to suffer massive pain, I'm sure he'll have to go to the hospital sooner or later and when he does, he's busted!

In Japan, when Yakuza gangsters screw up they sometime have to cut off their pinky finger in repentance... This guy had the work already tailor made for him!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Thanks to News on Japan for the wonderful story and video!

Former Punk Daddy Has Children Who Play and Sing Jazz and Classical Music

Well, since I was in a one-hit wonder punk band in the seventies, I knew better than to subject my children to mind damaging loud music.... Thank god for that. I have one friend who was a hard-core Rolling Stones fan when he was young and brought up his kid listening to the Rolling Stones. Today? That kid has gown up to be a hard-core Hip Hop fan.... Yo yo man! (Chuckle!!!!)

Playing loud music to darling children can cause them to become, 

er, "fashionable" later on... Don't do it to them!!! 

The dad is so disappointed. I laughed at him and said, "See?" Rock music is brain damage. Don't play it for your children! 


But I digress....


It certainly amazes me sometimes. I don't know why but here's a video of my son playing Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty" when he was six-years-old. For some reason, this video has had over 10,000 views in these last two years.... 


僕の奥さんが撮影した、息子（６歳当時）のビデオ。僕はこれまで沢山の音楽ビデオを撮影してきたけど１万アクセスになったビデオは１本もない。それなのに！！！すごくない？？

What really blows my mind is that I will go out and make a promotion video for some rock band that plays in front of a few thousand people or tours Europe or appears at SXSW and those videos don't get more than a few thousands views.... What gives?


Anyway, I just told me wife that it makes me proud and it seems curious thing that I am the head of a household of musical people... Yes! Really! My daughter is a Jazz singer in Japan with her debut album just out to good sales, sold out shows and excellent reviews. My wife is a classically trained pianist who graduated from one of Japan's top classical music universities; my son has won awards from the Japan Association of Professional Piano Instructors, and the above video has surpassed 10,000 views... And all because daddy was in a sh*tty one-hit wonder punk band in the seventies????


Probably not.

Japan is a "Bug looking for a windshield?" I think we just found it.

I've been writing for months that Japan's situation is past desperate (well, me and many others who follow the markets)... I've written several times over the last year that we are heading for the cliff. I've actually stuck my foot in my mouth (gambling man and all, you know?) and called for another major crisis to hit Japan this summer because I believe that Europe will be the trigger for the next massive crisis and I believe it is coming this summer. Please refer to: Here's Comes Europe's and Japan's Debt Crisis - Just in Time for Summer: 

This debt crisis has terrible repercussions for the world economy and Japan. Reuters has a good article on it entitled: Europe Poses Global Recession Threat: IMF. The article is a good rundown of the debt problem but the solutions they offer of throwing money at the problem are completely wrong (Been there, done that. Didn't work)... For proof of that, just look at how well throwing good money after bad has done for Greece.

Looks bad. These things have a way of getting out of control. But Japan is OK, right? Because these European countries can't print their way out. Japan can. Let's look at a few charts there. Here's a chart that shows the world ratio of debt to GDP:

Here's one to show Japan's debt mountain in yen:

As an important note, as of 2009, the Japanese national public debt, according to my handy-dandy calculations equaled over ¥6 million yen per man, woman and child in the country (about $72,000 USD). That means that if every single one of us coughed up ¥6 million yen and paid off our total debt today, we'd still be back in massive debt tomorrow as the costs of running the Japanese government, social security and health care, etc., etc. are completely out of control.

...

But wait! Things are getting better, right? Wrong! Here's an article you might want to read from a the New York Times that asks the laughable question: "Could Japan's Debt Lead to a Crisis?" (Let me ask you: "Could the next Pope be Catholic?") But, like I said, that article is a year old. I add it because it is a typical example of the confused reporting emanating out of the MSM... "Everything will be alright as long as government's keep printing money! We have to save the system!"

Well, no. We don't have to save the system. We can't save the system. The system is a wreck.

.......

I think, as I've said many times before.... The summer of 2012 is going to be a very hot one for Japan - as well as all around the world.

Of course, making predictions on when exactly the sh*t hits the fan is difficult. But, as famous American baseball player Yogi Berra said, "Making predictions is difficult. Especially about the future." 


Well folks, it looks, unfortunately, like these predictions might come true. The chances of the fan getting blasted by the crap and the reverberations slamming the Japanese economy just jumped up a hundred-fold.


Socialists won the presidency in France... I predict that will seriously damage the power of the bailout and pro-austerity crowd in the EU and I believe this is the beginning of the end for the Euro. And, as Mish Shedlock has successfully predicted when he said that someday, a right-wing nationalist is going to go before the electorate in his European country with a copy of the EU charter and while tearing it up, he tell people to, "Vote for me and I will exit the EU!" 

Now it has happened! Neo-nazi groups won enough power in Greece to be recognized in parliament and now the rumbling is for an exit of the Euro and no deal to any bailout of the bankers.


These events are going to affect Europe and the USA and Japan in so many ways..The unforeseen consequences of so many years of massive debt and money printing are coming to a head. 


What cannot go on... Stops. Japan is going the have to hottest summer in decades this year and, no, I don't mean Global Warming either.