If President Maduro dies...

Venezuela's Executive Vice President, Jorge Arreaza, will take over the presidency if President Nicolás Maduro dies.

Executive VP Jorge Arreaza giving 

the Chavista double index finger 

This post isn't intended to advocate Maduro's death, but current events signal that Maduro's life could be hanging from a thin thread if Raul Castro decides he's had enough of Maduro's stupid behavior (Maduro's personal security is provided by Cuban bodyguards who belong to the Castros' intelligence services, led by Raul's son and heir, Alejandro). 

Since taking over as acting president, in December 2012, Maduro has managed to shatter Venezuela's economy, increased human rights abuses, allowed crime and corruption to worsen beyond the terrible conditions left behind by Chávez....

Maduro's terrible performance caused a huge drop in his poll ratings (less than 25 % approval),    In recent weeks he has created a conflict with neighboring Colombia, apparently in an effort to create emergency conditions which will allow him to suspend Venezuelans' few remaining civil rights. I've heard Colombia's president Santos is very worried, thinks Maduro is expelling and terrorizing Colombian citizens who reside in Venezuela to inflame a conflict between the two nations. 

Colombians forced to flee Venezuela being helped 

by Colombian Army soldiers to cross a river by foot. 

A couple of days ago Arreaza showed up at the border and said the Venezuelan government was getting tired of Colombia's free market policies, and their lack of action to stop smuggling of gasoline and packaged subsidized food from Venezuela. He said he applauded Maduro's orders to close the border crossings and mobilize thousands of Army soldiers to the region. 

But does he? Arreaza got his VP post because he's married to Chavez' second daughter, Maria Virginia. Other than marrying into the Royal family he lacks the military background, or connections to go that high. But he's not as stupid as the other top Chavistas. Most of his statements amount to butt kissing and communist sloganeering, but he must be doing it to stay on Maduro's good side. And Raul Castro knows that. 

So what is Raul going to do if Maduro is freelancing and starts a shooting conflict with Colombia? I suspect he's gong to have his men, Maduro's bodyguards, put a Mickey in Maduro's drink to give him the mother of heart attacks, and have Jorge Arreaza take over as President. This will give the Castro family dictatorship a breather, because Arreaza may pull Chavismo out of the hole it fell in when Maduro took over that mafia. And Arreaza will know who moved the pieces to make him president. 

The only question in my mind is whether the Venezuelan military will accept another civilian in the presidency,  who may try to end their involvement in gasoline and food smuggling to Colombia, as well as in the cocaine trade run by the so called Cartel de Los Soles in alliance with the Colombian communist guerrillas, the FARC? Who will win that struggle? The Castro intelligence services operating in Venezuela, or the Venezuelan  narco generals? 

Will the Arctic be ice free on September 20, 2025?

This is dedicated to the wishful thinkers who pray for an ice free Arctic as soon as possible, so they can get on with peddling medieval socialism and the "rescue of climate refugees": 

Al Gore giving his 2007 Nobel Climate Speech. 

From Al Gore's Nobel Climate Prize acceptance speech: 

"Last September 21 (2007), as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study, to be presented by U.S. Navy researchers later this week, warns it could happen in as little as 7 years."

I'm stuck in traffic, and I'm late for a climate prediction conference, but if I jump from the next overpass and fall on a truck full of cotton balls I can bounce right back up, get a free ride, and if there’s no other traffic jams, I’ll be just in time to give a speech about the probability that the Arctic will be ice free on September 21, 2029, which just as likely as me getting to that conference on time. 

The latest set of 2015 predictions is here: 

http://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2015/august

Here's a website where you can get polar projection of temperature and wind streamlines at any time (click on "Earth", and then on "Now" to download the latest supercomputer run): 

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=21.14,94.12,388

What Cuba needs

I understand the Obama administration, its "progressive" supporters, agribusiness and corporate interests, cruise ship lines, and the mainstream media allied with these factions think the USA should abandon current economic sanctions against the Castro family dictatorship. But I think the following key items are needed at this time: 

• The unconditional release of all political prisoners and the repeal of all laws that violate fundamental freedoms.
• Freedom of speech, press, association, assembly, peaceful demonstration, profession and religion.
• And end of special privileges and status for the Communist Party and its members.
• The participation of the people in every decision of the nation, the legalization of all political parties and free and multiparty elections.

These changes are needed because Obama's proposal will strengthen the dictatorship, and allow a transfer of power from Raul Castro to his son Alejandro, and on to younger Castro generations. 

 The two Castro dinosaurs 

Alejandro Castro, Raul's son and next

 in line to sit in the Castro throne.

Their plan is to cement themselves in power with USA assistance, and screw the people forever. 

Climate Disaster Propaganda Design.

The Guardian, a British newspaper with an intensive focus on global warming has published a well crafted climate disaster propaganda piece "Food production shocks will happen more often because of extreme-weather". I've written this post to show you the link between the IPCC decision to create the exaggerated RCP8.5 projection, and the proliferation of papers, reports, and magazine articles discussing climate change, all of them based on what amounts to bogus science.

The article quotes a study published by the "UK-US Task Force on Global Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience". From what I gather this study was financed by the UK government. The leading authors are Tim G. Benton, Leeds University, Rob Bailey, Chatham House, Joshua Elliott, University of Chicago, Aled Jones, Anglia Ruskin University, and Kirsty Lewis, Met Office UK. The full report is here: http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/extreme-weather-resilience-of-global-food-system.pdf

The study appears to be pretty professional. It does use subliminal messages, such as two men chopping dried out ground, like this:

Salt harvesting in the Danakil depression, Eritrea, 

In the Horn of Africa (from avaxnews.net)

The study uses a climate model ensemble. They don't go into any detail, but they provide a reference (#16). If we search that reference we get to this webpage ("Agricultural Model  Intercomparison Project") https://www.agmip.org/ag-grid/ggcmi/. This Project is described in more detail in this brochure: http://www.agmip.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GGCMI-Flyer2013417.pdf

The brochure explains this effort uses the future climate data prepared for the UN's IPCC 2014 report (known as AR5). The climate model data they use is the CMIP-RCP8.5. And there's the rub. The IPCC invented an extreme case, with CO2 and methane emissions way above what's reasonable. Their propaganda system calls this extreme case "Business as Usual", but I think it should be known as "Bullshit as Usual".