​Karl Bodmer.  "Mandan Village," from Prince Maximilian of Wied's Travels to the Interior of North America, 1843-1844.  The Newberry Library, Chicago. This view of a Mandan village was executed in 1833, a generation after Lewis and Clark visited the upper Missouri River, but it captures a scene that closely matches the explorers' descriptions.

John Batchelor Show on location in Bozeman, Montana at the Property Environment Research Center (PERC)

Monday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):   .Paul Vigna, WSJ, in re: appalling ISM numbers.  The US. manufacturing sector contracted in June for the first time since July 2009 as new demand crashed, according to data released by the Institute for Supply Management.  When New China was slowing down the question developed, for how long and how bad in Europe and the US?  Former optimism is dwindling. If China's wildly-growing economy slows a lot, it'll be a different country.  The vaunted "consumer-led recovery" is not happening.

Hawker Beechcraft just sent out an additional 125 pink slips in Wichita.  

Five jobs numbers to come before the election.  The 100K just reported probably won't increase before November. August first cheap money, the drug rehab.  Fed sees the limits of its powers.

Note: Capital Economics is a Canadian analytic firm worth following because they're outside US spin control. These are grim numbers going into the 3Q for re-election. The former 2% GDP for 2012 is now agreed to be "too optimistic" and that the employment numbers are at sharp risk of falling.  Is 1% GDP or less for 2012 a re-election number?

Monday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time):   .Terry L Anderson, president of PERC (Property and Environment Research Center), in re: intro to PERC. We develop market-based solutions to environmental issues.  For example, in privately-owned streams, the fish are the property of the owner. With cattle: much better brush, colder and fresher water, the entire ranch is upgraded.   This s about doing good while doing well.  Environmental entrpepreneurs are passionate about saving and improving the envt; it's difficult to do that in dealing with a vast bureaucracy.  In Montana, there are a lot of public ands, state and federal; Montana's forests are healthier, have better wildlife, and make money for the state's educational trust. Locals are heavily invested in this.  National forecasts, however: lucky to make 50 cents for every dollar that's spent on them. In Kenya: remember people imported rare wildlife into Texas, being very well maintained on large ranches. Most states claim that wildlife belongs to the state; Colorado allows ranchers to own wildlife, then helps manage and can sell some hunting permits. Wildlife and terrain there are frankly better managed.

Monday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time):   .Satyajit Das, Economonitor, Australia, in re:  When the Euro finance ministers get together to save the world, [Katy bar the door].  Italy beat Germany 2 to 1 in Warsaw, but 16 to 1 in Brussels [i.e., 17 members of the eurozone]. European inability to solve its problems connects to US slowdown, in that [Americans watch in dismay and back off from investment]. Almost naught was achieved at he summit; 322-word communique.  Capital to banks, European bailout funds for Spain and Italy with conditions still to be negotiated; Merkel held firm on the principle that there wd be no more money. Germany hasn't committed one extra euro to the bailouts since last summer.   ECB has committed almost a trillion euros (bond and bank-lending); then German banks have committed a trillion; multiple small, northern states have committed 700 mil.  Money, itself, will not necessarily fix this problem. Everyone knows there exists no solutions to bad loan. No one wants to absorb the loss. The imperative here is political: everyone trying to get through the next election (Merkel in Sept 2013). Euro unemployment is 11%; but youth unemployment is 30-50% .

Fairy tales: This is the fault of the profligate Mediterranean states; another: German and French banks pitched unsustainable growth with cheap money, the suckers in Ireland and the Med thus got in trouble.  Both are true, Everybody expected something for nothing.  The day of reckoning is upon us.

German fears of Weimar and hyperinflaton.  Expect radical politics across Europe. The central bankers think they have the answers; but they'll be discredited. It'll be fought at political and social levels.  

In the US Harley Davidson is down sharply because of European business. Roughly 25% of US exports go to Europe. 

Monday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):   .Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, in re:   The swing-state edge: if a candidate is going to do well anywhere, obviously the place to beat expectations is in the swing states that will decide the election. It's fine to rack up big vote margins in the states firmly in your camp, and fine to let your opponent win big in states you have no hope of winning. The key is battleground states such as Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

Monday 1005P (705P Pacific Time):   .Taegan Goddard, Political Wire, & John Fund, American Spectator and NRO, & John Avlon, in re:   People are jockeying to write the first draft of history of the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare.

Monday 1020P (720P Pacific Time):   .continued. Randy Barnett, the Georgetown law professor who was an intellectual sparkplug for the legal arguments against Obamacare, is optimistic about the future. "The fact that this decision was apparently political, rather than legal, completely undermines its legitimacy as a precedent," he tells me. "Its result can be reversed by the people in November, and its weak-tax-power holding reversed by any future Court without pause."  Pat Cadell says, "I've done a parallel week-by -week analysis: very similar to the malaise in the Carter White House. Carter stayed even with Reagan till the fall, then lost in the last debate. A weak economy puts an incumbent in deep trouble."

Monday 1035P (735P Pacific Time):   .Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:   Iran. Romney's visit to Israel. Syria.   Missile tests in Baluchistan; part of response to 1 July sanctions in place, Iran, Iraq, Syria are connecting their power grids.  EU is frustrated; expected breakthrough and response.  Britons have taken the lead.  Iran trying to prove it has h=the capacity to confront the sanctions - despite currency shortages ; Mombasa; IIRGC members captures planning  attacks on US, European and Western installations. Will be creating terrorist attacks in peripheral spaces. ! Prestige. 2 Proof they can still do this. 3. Divert intl intell svcs from focus on nuke program.   

Russian specialists working with Syrians on the downed lane. Turkish planes scrambled six time yesterday as Syrian choppers approached the border.  Defections? Counterintimidation?  Nobody assumes Assad will hold back on anything after he shot down the Turkish lane. Russia in Iran: have been slightly more cooperative with he West; in Syria extremely destructive role Lavrov bragged that he blocked any mention of sanctions in recent talks .

Monday 1050P (750P Pacific Time):   . Gordon Chang, Forbes.com & The Daily, in re:  "More heads roll in Chongqing chain reaction. Aides linked to police chief's flight to US embassy may soon face trial as Bo Xilai blogger wins justice."   Hong Kong. Mfrg and industrial numbers.  

Hundreds of thousands turned out to protest C Y Leung because Hu Jintao (leader passing on his power later this year) went to HK to install Leung.  Largest protest in eight years - resentment and anger bldg up. Leung is unpopular before he took power.  Recall US physician who called out to Hu on White House lawn in 2006.  On Leung's first day in ofc, went to a small town mtg, had to be bundled out the back door for his safety.  Bloomberg identified that in the hills of HK is a $31.5mil mansion owned by the crony family of Xi Jinping, soon to be in charge of China.  Story blocked by the Great Firewall; citizenry will eventually hear he whole story.  As leadership tries to censor, everyone assumes that censored material is true, Party pronouncement are not.  Can find people from Shenzen in Hong Kong protests. Mainlanders see (a certain amt of) freedom, democracy, and information in HK. As Chinese people start to emulate Hong Kongnese, society will shift.  

Two close aides of former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun may soon face trial in Anhui province, a source said, after they were removed from their jobs yesterday.

Wang Pengfei, the police chief of Chongqing's Yubei district, and Li Yang , the head of Chongqing's criminal investigation squad, were formally removed from their posts, Xinhua reported yesterday. No other details were given, but sources said earlier that the two officials had resigned and been detained after Wang Lijun fled to the US consulate in Chengdu in February.

Wang Pengfei was believed to have helped arrange the car in which Wang Lijun made his bid for asylum.

Li was involved in the initial investigation into the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in a hotel room in Chongqing in November, before Wang Lijun's relationship with former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai turned sour.

Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, has been arrested as a suspect in Heywood's murder.

The Hong Kong-based Ta Kung Pao newspaper reported earlier this week that Wang Lijun had tendered his resignation as a National People's Congress (NPC) deputy, citing "personal reasons".

NPC deputies are exempt from arrest or criminal trial without higher-level authorisation.

Professor Zhang Ming , a political scientist at Renmin University in Beijing, said: "This shows the central government wants to finish Wang's case before the once-in-a-decade leadership change this autumn."

In a related development, a court in Chongqing yesterday overturned the sentence of a blogger who served a year of re-education through labour after posting a derogatory joke on a microblog service mocking Bo and Wang Lijun.

The blogger, Fang Hong, a 51-year-old former Chongqing forestry officer, was sent to a local labour camp on April 28 last year for "inciting social disturbances".

The Chongqing No 3 Intermediate People's Court said yesterday that despite Fang's rude language, the microblog messages did not constitute a serious threat to social order, Xinhua reported. It ruled that the panel that had sentenced Fang had acted illegally.

Fang's microblog had fewer than 30 followers and his joke was forwarded only three times before he was arrested.

"I'm so excited," Fang said yesterday, adding that he did not regret his actions. "Everyone should be aware that the right to free speech is protected by our constitution," he said.

Fang is believed to be the first person to have overturned a sentence handed down during Bo's time in charge of Chongqing. Bo was sacked as Chongqing party chief in March and suspended from the Communist Party's Politburo in April.

Fang's lawyer Si Weijiang said: "I believe the success of Fang's case has sent a positive message to the public, that the city is starting to correct the wrongdoings and restore law and order."

..  ..  ..  

Monday 1105P (805P Pacific Time):   .P J Hill, PERC Senior Fellow, in re: Western property rights argued that the West was no place of great violence on property.

Monday 1120P (820P Pacific Time):   .Kurt Schnier. Senior Research Fellow, PERC; prof of economics, Georgia State University in re: CO-DIRECTOR OF PERC ENVIROPRENEUR FELLOWSHIP, also developing property rights for fisheries, especially the fly-fishing on MT. 

Monday 1135P (835P Pacific Time):   .  Daniel J Kaufman, senior Fellow, PERC; prof emeritus, Clemson, in re: trash and haow to dispose of it in the modern incinerators, why NYC refuses to modernize and continues to export trash. 

Monday 1150P (850P Pacific Time):   .Wally Thurman, senior Fellow, PERC, & prof , North Carolina State, in re: colony collapse disorder of bees and the state of beekeeping on modern America.

Monday/Tues 1205A (905 Pacific Time):   .Logan Yonavjak, Conservation Private Capital Group, & PERC Fellow, enviropreneur in residence, in re: DC conservation investment note. Fixed-rate income investment vehicle.  How to develop investors and beneficiaries to enhance the value of conservancies and provide competitive return for foundation investors.

Monday/Tues  1220A (920 Pacific Time):   .Dieter Erdmann, PERC enviropreneur Fellow, in re: no-profit land trust. Preserve private lands investment easements in Colorado.  How easements preserve and enhance the worth of private property.

Monday/Tues  1235A (935P Pacific Time):   .Satyajit Das, Economonitor, Australia, in re:  When the Euro finance ministers get together to save the world, [Katy bar the door].  Italy beat Germany 2 to 1 in Warsaw, but 16 to 1 in Brussels [i.e., 17 members of the eurozone]. European inability to solve its problems connects to US slowdown, in that [Americans watch in dismay and back off from investment]. Almost naught was achieved at he summit; 322-word communique.  Capital to banks, European bailout funds for Spain and Italy with conditions still to be negotiated; Merkel held firm on the principle that there wd be no more money. Germany hasn't committed one extra euro to the bailouts since last summer.   ECB has committed almost a trillion euros (bond and bank-lending); then German banks have committed a trillion; multiple small, northern states have committed 700 mil.  Money, itself, will not necessarily fix this problem. Everyone knows there exists no solutions to bad loan. No one wants to absorb the loss. The imperative here is political: everyone trying to get through the next election (Merkel in Sept 2013). Euro unemployment is 11%; but youth unemployment is 30-50% .

Fairy tales: This is the fault of the profligate Mediterranean states; another: the German and French banks pitched unsustainable growth with cheap money, the suckers in Ireland and the Med thus got in trouble.  Both are true, Everybody expected something for nothing.  The day of reckoning is upon us.  German fears of Weimar and hyperinflaton.  Expect radical politics across Europe. The central bankers think they have the answers; but they'll be discredited. It'll be fought at political and social levels.    

In the US Harley Davidson is down sharply because of European business. Roughly 25% of US exports go to Europe.   

Monday/Tues  1250A  (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt.   Chris Gadomski, Bloomberg, in re: new-energy nuclear: Japan reopens a nuclear power plant at Ohi; San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego remains closed and unsolved problem; Czech Republic investing in a new nuclear power facility.

..  ..  ..  

Music

9:00 Downtown Abbey 
9:15 Downtown Abbey 
9:30 John Carter 
9:45 Cowboys & Aliens  

10:00 Cowboys & Aliens 10 & 6
10:15 Cowboys & Aliens 1 & 2
10:30 Munich 3 & 5
10:45 Tomorrow Never Dies 14 & 15

11:00 Frost/Nixon 3 & 5
11:15 Frost/Nixon 6 & 7
11:30 X-Files 6 & 7
11:45 X-Files 12 & 16\

12:00 Downtown Abbey 15 & 16
12:15 Downtown Abbey 12 & 13
12:30 John Carter 6 & 7
12:50 Thirteen Days 5