In the Wall Street Journal article, Can the World Still Feed Itself?, Austrian Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, portrays genetically-modified (GMO or GM) crops as the hero, and food-for-fuel as the villain in the effort to feed six, seven, or even nine billion planetizens:
 

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy

from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.

In his September 3, 2011 NY times OpEd, The Limping Middle Class, Robert Reich continues to make a now-familiar argument that only John and Jane Doe can prop up our floundering economy.
 

When so much income goes to the top, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without sinking ever more deeply into debt — which, as we’ve seen, ends badly. An economy so dependent on the spending of a few is also prone to great booms and busts. The rich splurge and speculate when their savings are doing well. But when the values of their assets tumble, they pull back. That can lead to wild gyrations. Sound familiar?

In, Has Peak Oil Come To The Non-Opec World? Maybe., Forbes advises investors that the traditional Western Big Oil firms have peaked, and to look elsewhere for profits from new production:
 

Comcast/Xfinity still hasn't restored my TV, Internet and Phone, so I can't watch the US Open. Mind you, I'm extremely grateful to not have been killed by a tree branch, to not be flooded out, to not be without power, but I would have liked to see a few matches before Labor Day weekend, when I'll be limited to whatever they show on the major networks. I looked at the Comcast forums (on the office computer), and customers there are cursing a blue streak - threatening to leave for Dish or Verizon, expecting fee reductions, etc. People aren't used to disruptions.

ESPN Classic was showing a 1980 US Open Men's semi final last night, and I happened to catch the fourth set. I remembered watching the other semi in which Bjorn Borg came back from two sets down against Johann Kriek, 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 but I didn't remember this match between Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. The idea that Kriek might actually take out Borg was amazing at the time. Kriek was muscular - he looked like a mini Lou Ferrigno - and fast, but no one was as fast as Borg.

I felt a small vibration around 9 AM this morning, like a big truck was near the building. My nearest coworker thought I was tapping my foot. That was apparently the 3.6 quake that Dickday posted about.

Update: We heard it again this morning. The guy that parks right below my desk must have gotten a diesel.

The Quiz

We love our Dark and Stormy night writing contests, but the New Yorker points to a Bulwer or Dickens quiz that is a lot harder than it sounds:

There's a famine in Somalia, and the World Bank has issued another stern warning about global food prices. Asia Sentinel admits concerns, but their headline reads, Global Food Crisis Fears Abate:

Given our recent discussions of Westen's OpEd and Chait's response, last night's episode of Charlie Rose with Drew Westen, Jonathan Chait and Fareed Zakaria is well worth watching. ~30 minutes

Charlie Rose - a discussion about President Obama's leadership

While I was away from the internet last week, some suit on CBS said that once an entity was downgraded, they stayed downgraded. I bought a Washington Post to read more about the crappy debt ceiling agreement. I read the whole damn thing, then put some recycled wood trim on top of it for scraping, cleaning and restaining. Our old trim is hard, or heart, pine, and is much harder than the soft pine they sell now. You can dent soft pine with a fingernail.

A few weekends ago, I watched Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980) again. I first watched it circa 1982, and enjoyed it so much that I brought a different girl to see it a week later. I rented it on VHS for one girlfriend, and then another, to see. Several years ago I bought the DVD to show my wife, and I probably watch it about once a year.

A NY Times chart reposted and discussed on Econbrowser.

The image above is a webcam of Watershed, the University of Maryland's entry in the 2011 Solar Decathlon. The Baltimore Sun reports:
 

Climate activist Tim DeChristopher due for sentencing
 

An activist who disrupted a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry by bidding $1.8m (£1.1m) he did not have for the right to drill in remote areas of Utah is due to be sentenced on Tuesday.

As Bidder No 70, Tim DeChristopher put in bogus bids and won drilling rights to 14 parcels of land at the auction, seen at the time as a last scramble by the Bush administration to open up wilderness lands to oil and gas extraction.