Cat Tales

Sunday I saw Vern the neighbor's cat in the yard-- we have a bird feeder, and access to the woods-- and he was acting frisky, climbing a bit up a tree and sharpening his claws on a stump. Then he looked up on our deck to see if I was there. I went to the sliding door and he ran right up.

He's sort of friendly; he will rub and be affectionate, and then suddenly start hissing and bite and run off. I have let him in the house before, where he does a quick tour and then leaves. Needless to say, this is when Sue isn't home-- she is mildly allergic, but mainly just doesn't like animals. I have given him catnip on the rug by the door, and that's what he wanted Sunday: he knew just where I keep it and was all excited when I took it out.

This stuff is 20 years old: I got it when I first got Alice and Trixie as kittens in Florida; it was some special "weed", not your run-of-the-mill Hartz stuff. I keep it in an old peanut butter jar. It's a mark of how often I treated the cats that I still have any left after all this time.

So Vern got a good dose, rolling and rubbing in the pinch I put on the carpet. Sue was squalling all the while-- "Get that cat out of my house!" but I let Vern have his fill, and then he left. I had to vacuum immediately. The picture is Vern on the wall in the back yard, taken that same Memorial Day weekend before I went to the hospital.

Today, Tuesday, I telecommuted, as I try to do once a week to save some gas (110 mile round-trip commute). I took advantage of the weekday at home to visit a nearby office, Bailey's Insurance, in a shopping plaza. They have an in-house cat, Mr. B, who just loves me: a long-haired orange tabby. They have just adopted a stray kitten, but Mr. B, who was hiding from the kitten in his play tunnel, came right out when he recognized me and jumped in my lap. He loves to be scratched and rub his chin, and I was covered with hair. I had a good 15-20 minute visit, lowering my blood pressure, before I had to put him down and leave.

This is what I'm reduced to in order to get my pet fixes. I also play with Sophie, the black Lab next door. Come the cooler weather, when the cats come back inside, I can visit the Book Barn in Niantic, who have about 20 cats-- grab a book and a seat and get a good hour or more of Lap Time (Mrs. Howell is my favorite).

Knock, Knock, Knockin'

I was feeling tired leading up to the long Memorial Day weekend, and by Sunday was panting for breath just standing up to walk to the next room. Must be some bug, that will go away if I just rest, huh? Memorial Day I did nothing but sit in my La-Z-Boy. Just getting up to pee was a major event-- being a Type-II diabetic I pee often, and I would stand there with my head spinning and heart racing. Tuesday I stayed home from work, and finally I got the hint when I threw up some bright red blood. Ah-ha! Bleeding ulcer! So *that's* why I was shitting this black goo (oh, yeah, that's what digested blood looks like: now I remember). So when Sue got home she drove me to the clinic (the bloody sink really impressed her). Thinking I might pass out, I told Sue to tell them I had an ulcer and needed blood. The clinic doesn't do blood. Hunh. They sent me right over to the hospital via ambulance.

At the hospital I went straight to ICU where they gave me four units, did an endoscopy, and patched up some severe bleeding in my stomach. I put off going to the hospital for so long I almost bled to death. The doctor later told me that it was one of the longest endoscopys he had done in 30 years; I was coming out of the sedative they give you (no anaesthetic) towards the end-- not pleasant.

They were poised for emergency surgery the next morning because the doctors weren't sure they plugged all the holes, but they had. The remainder of the time until Sunday --two days in ICU, four days in a private room-- they spent pumping blood back into me-- nine units total! --and checking to see that my blood count was going up as it should: checking for leaks, as it were. The long time in hospital was due to it not going up as they expected, but neither was it going down as if I were bleeding. They finally let me go home, with me feeling fine and out of ICU from Thursday on, just lying and sitting around the hospital room. I finished a large book, and enjoyed looking out all week on the bright sunshine. The day I was released, it poured rain. Figures.

I actually went back in for an overnight: I was released on a Sunday, and beginning on about Tuesday my legs/ankles/feet were swelling up: I was retaining water. I called my doctor and he had me come in, and he gave me a high-powered diuretic to take Thurs/Fri/Sat and come see him again Saturday. It was like turning on a tap at first-- peeing every five minutes. Finally died down but I was still up every 20 minutes: hard to sleep (I had the same issue during my hospital stay, once they restored my fluids). The swelling went down: between visits to the Doc, Thursday to Saturday, I lost 25 pounds in water! The overall hospital stay I lost for real about 20 pounds.

So now the swelling is gone, but I am beginning to feel dizzy standing up again Sunday night and Monday morning. Am I still bleeding internally? No other symptoms, but better safe than sorry: Sue drove me to the emergency room Monday morning; I was dizzy and sweating profusely but still ambulatory. They did a blood test and I was down, way down, on potassium, and my other levels were screwed up, too: between the transfusions and the diuretic, I was AFU. So they kept me overnight (had to share a room this time) and pumped me full of fluids again. Since then I've been okay, but taking plenty of iron pills while I build up my red blood cells.

I went for a follow-up endoscopy a couple months later: nothing. They see an old, healed ulcer, and this current one is healed. Nothing to indicate a cause, no tumor, nada. I'm still on stomach pills, but that's it: goodbye, have a nice day, don't come back. Go figure.

Scribendi Cacoethes

I have lots of things to post about. I compose marvelous essays on many topics, but when it comes time to set them down I run out of time. Tonight I have Things To Do, and I have to get up a bit earlier than usual in order to drop my car off at the shop (safety inspection for buying out my leased car, and timing belt replacement). There's another topic for you.

I will give up most of the political stuff (after all, I have been so verbose on it lately), and just tell the none of you that read this about my daily life and the random thoughts that cross my mind.

I can bore you with the thrilling saga of my Recent Brush With Death, via an upper GI (gastro-intestinal) bleed-- procrastination on my part carried out until I almost bled dry, literally. My adventures with my PC: I am having a Mac thrust upon me. And more!

Stay tuned...

Department of Wretched Excess

People driving RVs will frequently tow another vehicle behind them-- a small car, maybe, for tooling around in while the RV is at a campsite.

Today I passed a large RV towing a Hummer H2. Not only does an H2 suck up gas (about 9.6 mpg around town), but it weighs three tons! Imagine towing that around, just to cruise to the convenience store! Let's be generous; maybe they go off-roading in it at their destinations... no, who am I kidding. This thing was tricked out and immaculate.

People are just amazing.

Outrage Overload, Again

By the end of the day, I'm just weary-- tired of the constant beat of news, the sense that the world is going to hell while the powers that be do nothing. Heck, the Senate won't even debate the issues, much less do anything about them.

Global warming, Iraq, Iran, for Pete's sake; Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and on and on.

Healthcare, taxes, the economy, income disparity, jobs (or lack thereof), energy policy, environmental policy, et cetera, et cetera.

I am reducing the list of blogs to my right to better represent a good list of what I keep up with; for example Froomkin's White House Watch is a good daily summary.

I guess the most immediate thing to worry about, and work to prevent, is an attack on Iran. Via Froomkin, among others, here's a snippet from James Fallows:

"Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard -- on the merits, and in the politics. It's hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from 'surge' to 'get out now' and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. It's just a question of by whom and for how long. On a balance-of-misery basis, my own view changed last year from 'we can't afford to leave' to ' we can't afford to stay.' And the whole issue is hard in its politics because even Democrats too young to remember Vietnam know that future Karl Roves will dog them for decades with accusations of 'cut-and-run' and 'betraying' troops unless they can get Republicans to stand with them on limiting funding and forcing the policy to change.

"By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran."

Super Bowl

Today is the Super Bowl, and I am rooting for the Colts in a half-hearted way. I am a Patriots fan, and was sorry to see them lose, but at least now we'll see if Peyton Manning can overcome his past. He has been winning Big Games lately to get this far, and I suspect he will be able to pick apart the Bears defense with little trouble.

On the menu is my famous chili, to which I will add a bit of leftover sausage: chili is a work of art, with no set recipe. The downside to "flavoring to taste" is that as the process continues, I get inured to the spiciness, and the end result is a little hotter than others care for: I always have to make it a bit less hot than I think is proper.  Not that anyone will be with us: the problem with a football party is that I want to watch the game, and with a bunch of people around it's hard to concentrate.

I just thought: maybe I'd want some beer: but now it is Sunday, and this is Connecticut: package (liquor) stores are closed.  Ah, well, no big deal.

From the gathering yesterday we brought home some pastry and such, plus I have my creampuffs. We have some cheddar cheese, but will have to pick up some more crackers. Tomorrow it's back to eating properly.

Get-Together in New Jersey

Yesterday I went to a get-together in New Jersey; a bunch of school friends we met again at the class reunion in November. It was a very pleasant gathering; we were able to talk now as we weren't able in the party noise, and the food was good. I had made the Stella D'oro Anginetti Creampuffs, but left them in the fridge, and so I am eating them myself.

I am starting up a group blog that I am hopeful the others will want to join, and maybe we can keep in touch better that way.

 

Still Here

I'm still alive, and posting will resume shortly. I plead outrage burnout, a bad chest cold, and an overwhelming lethargy.

I am 44 years old today, and I just attended my 25th anniversary High School reunion. I will have thoughts on each of these momentous events to share with you.

The political stuff will be muted, now. I am still doing my reading, but it will take a while to recharge. You will just have to suffer my maunderings on other subjects for a while.

At the same time, I am posting new material to my Navy website, www.qmss.com. That will take priority until I can generate some new content to keep it from getting stale.

And now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. I'm getting old, after all.

The United States: A Beacon Of Democracy

Setting the example. From Dan Froomkin:

Nick Wadhams writes for the Associated Press: "Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in fighting terrorism, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture said Monday.

"Manfred Nowak said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the United States does something, it must be all right."

To Bolivian And Back Again

...So I'm back. Been busy at work and home, and too tired to write. My promised "next post" was foiled by none other than Paul Krugman, who wrote on that same subject: that voting in this election and next should be on party lines, regardless of the individual. Any Republican elected to office is going to enable the Bush Administration, and we can't afford that.

Here in Connecticut I had a certain regard for both Chris Shays and Nancy Johnson. Whenever I heard of Shays, he was speaking sense against some Republican position; and I had heard nothing against Johnson (neither of whom represent my district). Now, however, not only do I think they should be kicked out just for being Republican, they have been showing their true colors; Johnson's ads have been truly misleading and mendacious, and Shays is allowing his mouth to override his brain.

The polls here show Lieberman in the lead over Lamont; wherever you see a cluster of GOP yard signs, there is sure to be a "I'm Sticking With Joe" sign among them. He is the pet of the right wing, and we can only hope Lamont comes through. My own yard boasts two Lamont signs, a Courtney for Congress sign (US 2nd District) and a "Had Enough? Vote Democratic" sign.

The Big Picture

I used to get irritated with actors or sports figures who supported a particular charity, typically a disease with which they were afflicted: Christopher Reeves and spinal injuries, Michael J. Fox and Parkinson's. But eventually I understood: there are so many causes, from drought and starvation in Africa to Muscular Dystrophy-- no on can possibly cover all of them, or even keep in a persistent state of agitation at the tribulations in the world. Narrowing your focus to a particular problem and trusting others to pick up their share is rational and legitimate.

So, too, with political discourse. There are so many issues that can get your blood pressure up that it becomes necessary to limit yourself to a few choice ones at most and let the rest take care of themselves.

Some topics of particular interest to me:

• The recent bill authorizing torture and unlimited detention without legal recourse, even of American citizens
  
• The war in Iraq, which comes with several subheads: the continuing incompetence in the overall policy (if any), the lies that led to the invasion itself, the corruption endemic in the letting and execution of contracts, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge facts when they conflict with political desires, and so on ad nauseum.
  
• Lack of oversight by Congress and the usurpation of power by the Executive Branch
  
• Rampant corruption in Congress and the inordinate power wielded by lobbyists
  

Those are the biggies off the top of my head. Others that come to mind that are useful for beating up Republicans on, and are in and of themselves important, but don't threaten the republic (in no particular order):

• The Republican leadership's handling of the Foley issue, ignoring a problem for political reasons and then covering it up when exposed (sorry)
  
• The economy: driving every decision to the benefit of Big Business
  
• Tax policy: the enrichment of the already rich on the backs of the middle and lower classes
  
• Environmental policy: the watering-down of the Clean Air Act, the opening of national forests to lumbering, the relaxing of regulations all around, and on and on
  
• Energy policy: the focus on drilling for more oil rather than on increasing fuel economy standards or renewable resources
  

There are many more, and my one-line summaries don't do justice, of course, to the complexities of each, but I'm running out of my lunch hour here. The real focus should be on defeating the Republicans in November. More on that later.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying...

How many people are going to use that line? Lots, I'll bet. It's appropriate. That North Korea felt that now was the time to test a nuclear device says a lot about the opinion held by them of the United States. President Bush has his trifecta-- he has managed to take his "Axis of Evil" and make our situation with each worse. Forget Teddy Roosevelt: Bush has his own policy: "Speak loudly, but carry a limp dick." And there's no chance of scoring any Viagra until January, 2009.

Here's David Wallechinsky in The Huffington Post. It's short, so I am copying the whole thing.

In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, President Bush dubbed North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil." When he invaded Iraq fourteen months later and overthrew Saddam Hussein, many Americans thought that this would teach a lesson to the leaders of the other two axis members, Kim Jong-il of North Korea and the ruling mullahs of Iran.

They did learn a lesson...but it wasn't the one the Bush administration intended. The North Koreans and the Iranians looked around the world and saw that countries that had nuclear weapons, like Pakistan and China, were not in danger of being invaded by George Bush, while Saddam Hussein, who didn't have a nuclear weapons program, was in prison and being tried for war crimes. If you were the leaders of North Korea or Iran, what would you do to ensure that your country would not be invaded by the United States? Easy call: you build nuclear weapons, which is exactly what both of them are doing. Nice going, Mister President.

Here's a brief excerpt of what Glenn Greenwald has to say:

Independent of how well or poorly the Clinton administration dealt with North Korea -- and there is room for reasonable debate on that question -- there is no getting around several facts: (a) the North Korean threat has grown substantially during the Bush presidency; (b) the course we have followed for managing that threat has failed on every level; and (c) our ability to credibly threaten any military confrontation is virtually nonexistent.

It may seem to be a sideshow, that there is all this finger-pointing going on: shouldn't we be working on resolving the issues? Well, that would be nice, but a) we should know how we got to this point so that we don't repeat our mistakes, and b) from a political standpoint, you know the right is going to be vigorously pointing the other way (Clinton, anyone?). There has been one party in charge for the last six years, and it ain't been the Democrats, and Bill Clinton hasn't been President.

Here is Eric Alterman, in his new Altercation blog site, with some background, taken from The Book on Bush. He has much of interest; read the whole thing. This is a sample:

Bush had already undermined the extremely sensitive negotiations under way to bring the North Korean regime into the international system. When South Korean president (and Nobel laureate) Kim Dae Jung visited Washington six weeks after Bush took office, Bush humiliated both his guest and his own secretary of state by publicly repudiating the negotiations after both had just publicly endorsed them. (Powell had termed their continuation "a no-brainer.")

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly floats the possibility that the test may have been a dud. Brad Plumer has a post up in which he discusses the situation, with many good links to more information.

And Kevin Drum (again) quotes Glenn Kessler reporting that administration officials have been eagerly anticipating the North Korean's test. Kevin sums up:

Let's recap: The Bush/Cheney administration took a bad situation with Iraq and made it even worse. They've taken a bad situation with Iran and made it even worse (see here, here, and here). They've taken a bad situation with North Korea and made it even worse (see Fred Kaplan here). At every step along the way, they've deliberately taken actions that cut off any possibility of solving our geopolitical problems with anything other than military force.

Once is a singular event. Twice might be a coincidence. But three times? That's a policy. Encouraging these "clarifying events" appears to be the main goal of the Bush administration. This is not the way to make America safer.

The Armed Forces is in no condition to invade Grenada again, much less face North Korea. Air strikes, naval bombardment, cruise missiles, sure; and the response to that will be a massive land attack over the DMZ. South Korea will enjoy that scenario. And what of Japan? I wouldn't be surprised to learn they are cranking up their own nuclear research-- the Israel of the Far East. Who could blame them? Thank our Limp-Dick Diplomacy.

Thank You, Folks. I'm Here All Week

This one is hilarious. Via Atrios, go here to see a Congressman brag about "how the Republican government does so much for the people. His example? Katrina." The audience laughs at him. Priceless!

Habeas Corpus, RIP

From Froomkin, President Bush in one of his rabble-rousing speeches says:

...one senior Democrat, their ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, compared the brave Americans who question the terrorists to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. I believe this exposes a dangerous mind-set on the part of Democrats in the United States Congress. You can't defend America if you can't tell the difference between brave CIA officers who protect their fellow citizens and brutal dictators who kill their citizens. (Applause.)

"I'm not making any of this up. (Laughter.)"

"Ah, but of course," says Froomkin, "Bush was making it up." Here is a portion of the speech by Senator Patrick Leahy, and you really should go and read the rest of the quote at the link above:

Initially, you are not very worried. After all, this is America. You are innocent, and you have faith in American justice. You know your rights, and you say: I would like to talk to a lawyer. But no lawyer comes. Once again, since you know your rights, you refuse to answer any further questions. Then the interrogators get angry. Then comes solitary confinement, then fierce dogs, then freezing cold that induces hypothermia, then waterboarding, then threats of being sent to a country where you know you will be tortured, then Guantanamo. And then nothing, for years, for decades, for the rest of your life.

That may sound like an experience from some oppressive and authoritarian regime, something that may have happened under the Taliban, something that Saddam Hussein might have ordered or something out of Kafka.

Welcome to your new United States of America.

Pretty Obvious

From The Carpetbagger Report (via Atrios). Go and read the whole thing; as a Republican spokesman, Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) leaves something to be desired:

LAHOOD: It just — it's a program that simply is flawed. It has its flaws. We should fix it. And then if it's a valuable program, perhaps bring it back.

MILES O'BRIEN [CNN]: Well, that's kind of a sorry state of affairs. In essence, what you're saying is that members of Congress can't be trusted to be around young people.

LAHOOD: Well, that's pretty obvious.

I really have nothing to add to The Carpetbagger but, "Heh. Indeed."

They Knew, After All

Update to my previous post: George Tenet told select members of the 9/11 Commission about the July 10, 2001 meeting. They chose not to pass that to the whole commission, nor to put it in the final report.

But wait-- there's more! Seems that the original presentation was given not only to Rice, but to Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft as well:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.


The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning...

Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who's now Rice's top adviser.

hat tip Josh Marshall

She's Not Called A Secretary For Nothin'

This is a bit from the 9/11 Commission's questioning of Condoleezza Rice. It was quoted by Greg Mitchell in this piece about the July 10, 2001 meeting Condi didn't mention.

It tells you all you need to know about your Secretary of State: she's perfectly willing to act, as soon as someone tells her to. Hello? Condi? You're at the top of the chain of command-- you're supposed to initiate these things! If the whole administration works this way, it would explain a lot: one decisive man (*cough* Cheney *cough*) could run the show. (emphasis mine)

ROEMER: So, Dr. Rice, let's say that the FBI is the key here. You say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was. We have done thousands of interviews here at the 9/11 Commission. We've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper. To date, we have found nobody -- nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices.

We have talked to the director at the time of the FBI during this threat period, Mr. Pickard. He says he did not tell the field offices to do this.

And we have talked to the special agents in charge. They don't have any recollection of receiving a notice of threat.
Nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information, on knowledge of al Qaeda in the country, and still, the FBI doesn't do anything.

Isn't that some of the responsibility of the national security advisor?

RICE: The responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility. Now, I...

ROEMER: You don't think there's any responsibility back to the advisor to the president...

RICE: I believe that the responsibility -- again, the crisis management here was done by the CSG. They tasked these things. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it. In fact, as I've...

ROEMER: But don't you ask somebody to do it? You're not asking somebody to do it. Why wouldn't you initiate that?

RICE: Mr. Roemer, I was responding to the threat spike and to where the information was. The information was about what might happen in the Persian Gulf, what might happen in Israel, what might happen in North Africa. We responded to that, and we responded vigorously.

(updated to correct spelling errors)

Republican Page Scandal:Gay=Predator

I have nothing to add to the multiple commenters on this from the blogs to the right of this page; the initial revelation is bad enough, but what makes it really significant (from a national point of view) is the appalling initial concealment of the activity, and the subsequent cover-up.

This, however, via Glenn Greenwald, is pretty pathetic:

After reviewing the fact that Hastert was told months ago about the e-mails sent by Foley to the 16-year-old page (a fact which Hastert first categorically denied and -- after Reps. Reynolds and Boehner both said they told Hastert -- he now claims not to recall), Hinderaker offers this defense of Hastert:

I've never been Speaker of the House, but I can imagine that such a conversation would not be among the most significant Hastert has had in the last year, and would not necessarily make a deep impression. Foley was, I take it, generally assumed to be gay.

Hinderaker then devotes two paragraphs to discussing the cases of Gerry Studds and Barney Frank -- two other gay Congressmen involved in sex scandals (with individuals of legal age) -- and Hinderaker then says:

So I'm not particularly surprised that Foley wrote some "over-friendly"--I'm sure I would find them creepy--emails to one or more underage pages.

So as best I can tell, this is Hinderaker's defense: Hastert knew that Foley was gay, so it would hardly have been a surprise to Hastert to learn that Foley was harassing underage pages. Hastert is a very busy and important man and something as unsurprising as the fact that the homosexual Foley was a sexual predator pursuing underage pages would hardly have been news to Hastert and certainly isn't anything that should have prompted his attention. A gay Congressman pursues minors, the sun comes up in the morning. That's just the way the world works. Why would Hastert take notice?

So, as far as Hindraker (of the Powerline blog) is concerned, a man lusting after young boys is standard operating procedure for a gay person, and nothing to be surprised at. Pedophile == gay, and vice-versa, case closed.

I just don't know what to say; draw your own conclusions and let me hear them in comments.

AFK

I have been away for a bit, having a personal life. I have accumulated a whole backlog of links and opinions, but they essentially boil down to this:

Congress is about to legalize torture, and the indefinite detention (without recourse to lawyers, or judges, or anything) of anyone the administration decides is an enemy combatant, with that term expanded to include, well, anyone. Including American citizens on U.S. soil.

The only reason they are letting the illegal wiretapping remain illegal is because they can't get their act together in time to pass a bill exculpating Bush and his minions for their crimes.

The march to Iran continues.

And so, to quote Vonnegut, it goes.

And I just dropped $400 replacing the ignition switch on my 11-year-old Honda minivan. We don't even have a heavy keyring; it just went. Which actually isn't bad when you spread that and the other minor repairs over 11 years, I guess.

Go read Digby, all of it. It'll do ya good.

Get Ready! Get Ready!The W-o-o-o-r-l-l-l-d Is Coming To An End!

Ten points if you can name that source.

This is via Billmon:

The End of Eden
James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far
[...]
He measured atmospheric gases and ocean temperatures, and examined forests tropical and arboreal (last year a forest the size of Italy burned in rapidly heating Siberia, releasing from the permafrost a vast sink of methane, which contributes to global warming). He found Gaia trapped in a vicious cycle of positive-feedback loops -- from air to water, everything is getting warmer at once. The nature of Earth's biosphere is that, under pressure from industrialization, it resists such heating, and then it resists some more.

Then, he says, it adjusts. Within the next decade or two, Lovelock forecasts, Gaia will hike her thermostat by at least 10 degrees. Earth, he predicts, will be hotter than at any time since the Eocene Age 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic Ocean.

"There's no realization of how quickly and irreversibly the planet is changing," Lovelock says. "Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover."
[...]