China Leads Weather Control Race

By Brandon Keim
November 14, 2007
From Blog.Wired.com

Not content to push the edge in cloning, architecture and geological engineering, China's also leaving the rest of the world behind when it comes to controlling the weather.

A few years ago, Australian journalist John Taylor reported,

It's uncanny living in Beijing how it rains on the eve of major events. Be it a big domestic event, or a visiting foreign politician, the rain has usually fallen the day before, making for temporary blue skies free of the normal haze.

Chinese officials say cloud seeding has helped to relieve severe droughts and water shortages in cities. In Shanghai officials are considering the measure to cool the daytime temperature, easing demand for electricity.

When next summer's Olympics roll around, the Beijing Weather Modification Office will be poised to intercept incoming clouds, draining them before they get to the festivities. No fewer than 32,000 people nationwide are employed by the Weather Modification Office -- "some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers" loaded with cloud-seeding compounds. Some estimate that up to 50 billion tons of artificial rain will be produced by 2010. But Taylor noted that this has resulted in competition between cities to seed clouds first, and bitter acrimony when when region receives water claimed by another.

During my cloud seeding reportage, a few weather modification scientists praised China's initiative. My gut instinct was to focus on China's less-than-stellar human rights record and just say, "Well, it's easy to mess with the weather when there's no paperwork to fill out or reparations to pay if you flood a village or turn a county into desert." But that's reductionist. At some level, it's about vision and will -- and China's got it.

The whole article here.

Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Economy

By PETER S. GOODMAN
Published: July 19, 2008
From: www.nytimes.com

You have heard that Fannie and Freddie, their gentle names notwithstanding, may cripple the financial system without a large infusion of taxpayer money. You have gleaned that jobs are disappearing, housing prices are plummeting, and paychecks are effectively shrinking as food and energy prices soar. You have noted the disturbing talk of crisis hovering over Wall Street.

Whole article here

Funky Chicken

Do American birds taste funny because we chlorinate them?
By Nina Shen Rastogi
Posted Monday, July 28, 2008, at 6:58 PM ET
From www.slate.com

Barack Obama was vague about key trade issues during his recent trip to Europe, according to an analysis published in Friday's New York Times. The article referred specifically to the 11-year European ban on importing chlorinated chickens from the United States, a sanction that "is less about safety than about taste." Does chlorine really make our chickens taste funky?

It might. In 1999, researchers at the University of Georgia conducted a thorough taste comparison of chlorinated vs. nonchlorinated chicken. The researchers made light- and dark-meat patties out of both treated and nontreated meat, then baked and refrigerated them. An eight-member panel was trained in the use of a standard taste-intensity scale and then sampled reheated portions of the patties over the course of four days. The panelists tested for several distinct aromatics: "chickeny," "meaty," "rancid," and "warmed-over." On the initial day of testing—before the patties had been refrigerated—there was no significant difference in taste between any of the patties. But by the fourth day of testing, the chemically treated patties tasted significantly more reheated than the nontreated ones.

Full article here:

Long Tails and Big Heads

Why Chris Anderson's theory of the digital world might be all wrong.
By Farhad Manjoo
Updated Monday, July 14, 2008, at 7:25 AM ET
From: www.slate.com

Nearly four years ago, first in a widely cited article and later in a best-selling book, Chris Anderson posited that the Internet, with its vast inventories of books, albums, and movies, would liberate the world from blockbuster schlock. Anderson, the editor of Wired, labeled his concept "the Long Tail," after the shape our digital desires leave on a graph: When we buy stuff online, we can reach beyond big hits and into the "tail" of the demand curve, where we're free to indulge our most obscure passions. Anderson argued that serving our niche interests could also make for booming Web businesses. This was the thrill of the Long Tail—it seemed to offer a way for art and commerce to thrive side-by-side.

Now, just in time for The Long Tail's paperback release, the book has fallen under critical scrutiny. Anita Elberse, a marketing professor at the Harvard Business School, recently examined several years' worth of American movie- and music-sales data. The entertainment business has indeed seen its inventory shifting toward a Long Tail curve, Elberse writes in the Harvard Business Review. The shift is slight, however, and Anderson's Long Tail is also "extremely flat."

Full article here:

10 WTF Sites That Will Warp Your Mind

From: http://www.listropolis.com/

"I can’t even begin to explain these sites. They are a little trippy, loaded with Flash, and a whole lot WTF. I feel these sites are hanging out on the outer-most sections of the internet universe, and I’ve done my best to pull them all together for you. You may never look at websites the same again."

Click here:

The Metaphysics and Some Politics of Global Warming

From The Wall Street Journal
July 10, 2008; Page A14
Regarding Bret Stephens's "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis" (Global View, July 1): In 1992, at my 25th Harvard College reunion, we got an accurate forecast of the "ideological convenience" driving global warming alarmism. In a discussion of the Rio Summit on environment and development, one of my classmates effused, "Who would have thought that the environment would bring us world government?" In other words, the advent of world-wide "pollution" controls will lead to world government (which all of us statist Harvard grads eagerly await).

On the other hand, climatologist Patrick Michaels has noted that we merely need to "follow the money" to explain global warming enthusiasm among scientists and academicians: Huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are running down the drain of climate research, and the people raking in the bucks are the same ones spouting the global warming nonsense.

Grant W. Schaumburg Jr.
Boston

Here are the global warming movement's cultic parallels, many of whose characteristics can be found in Walter Martin and Ravi Zacharias's famous 2003 book, "The Kingdom of the Cults":

(1) Leadership by a New Age prophet -- in this case, former Vice President Al Gore.

(2) Assertion of an apocalyptic threat to all mankind.

(3) An absolutist definition of both the threat and the proposed solution(s).

(4) Promise of a salvation from this pending apocalypse.

(5) Devotion to an inspired text which embodies all the answers -- in this case Mr. Gore's pseudo-scientific book "Earth in the Balance" and his new "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary.

(6) A specific list of "truths" which must be embraced and proselytized by all cult members.

(7) An absolute intolerance of any deviation from any of these truths by any cult member.

(8) A strident intolerance of any outside criticism of the cult's definition of the problem or of its proposed solutions.

(9) A "heaven-on-earth" vision of the results of the mission's success or a "hell-on-earth" result if the cultic mission should fail.

(10) An inordinate fear (and an outright rejection of the possibility) of being proven wrong in either the apocalyptic vision or the proposed salvation.

Finally, since this cultic juggernaut has persuaded (brainwashed?) a majority of Americans into at least a temporary mindset of support for its pseudo-religious scam, Mr. Stephens's label of "mass neurosis" seems frighteningly accurate.

Jim Guirard
Alexandria, Va.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is responsible for establishing the hottest years on record, not NASA. Its data set is considered more reliable. And they say that the hottest year on record is 1998, followed by 2006. And the hottest 10 years on record all occurred in the last 15 years.

Richard Levangie
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

Call it religion if you wish, but get it straight. It is the cynics and the intransigent who are "morbid-minded." Those who are willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the entire world are the ones practicing the "life-affirming" brand of religion.

Hugh Siegel
New York

Freud was wrong. Libido does not move the world; fear does. Power-seeking politicians thrive on that notion. They first plant fear and then offer a solution, acquiring power in the process. Global warming hysteria is an example. No scientific basis, but a tool for collectivistic control, or for advancing business interests, or both: Witness Al Gore's companies selling "green" solutions.

Tico Moreno
Sanibel, Fla.

If global warming is religion, does that make Al Gore, with his massive carbon footprint, Elmer Gantry?

Robert Trask
Oakland, Calif.

Mr. Stephens misleads readers when he says that oceans are cooling, but forgets to mention that he's referring to faulty temperature sensors. Scientists identified and corrected this problem last year. The most recent analysis, using millions of measurements from a variety of sensors, shows strong ocean warming over the past several decades.

Climate scientists have been studying and debating global warming for decades. Through that process they have reached a remarkably strong consensus: Human activities are affecting Earth's climate, and the impacts of unchecked global warming could be severe.

Lisa Moore, Ph.D.
Environmental Defense Fund
New York

Whole Article here

The Aussie who's changing the world of whistleblowers

From smh.com.au
Asher Moses
July 8, 2008 - 11:51AM

In the past year and a half, Australian-born Julian Assange and his band of online dissidents have helped swing the Kenyan Presidential election, embarrassed the US Government and sparked international scandal.

His site, Wikileaks, provides a safe haven for whistleblowers to anonymously upload confidential documents and, after 18 months of operation, Assange says no source has ever been exposed and no document - now over 1.2 million and counting - has ever been censored or removed.

Now, the site is expanding its focus from oppressive regimes and shady corporate dealings to religion and even the cult of celebrity.

Recently published documents include an early version of the movie script for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Wesley Snipes's tax bill and documents from the Church of Scientology and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"In every negotiation, in every planning meeting and in every workplace dispute a perception is slowly building that the public interest may have a number of silent advocates in the room," Assange said in an email interview.

In August last year, The Guardian ran a front page report about widespread corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi, including evidence Moi siphoned off billions in government money. The report stated it was based on a document obtained from Wikileaks.

Assange says the revelation changed the result of the Kenyan presidential election, swinging the vote by 10 per cent towards the opposition, which won the election by 1-3 per cent of the vote.

Other previously confidential documents published by Wikileaks include the US Rules of Engagement for Iraq and the primary operations manual for the running of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, which revealed that it was US policy to hide some detainees from the International Red Cross and use dogs to intimidate inmates.

The documents were reported on in the world's most respected papers including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Wikileaks has been referenced 662 times on nytimes.com, 207 times on guardian.co.uk, 86 times on washingtonpost.com and 54 times on speigel.de.

Assange, who grew up in Australia but moved to East Africa two years ago and now splits his time between Kenya and Tanzania, has worked as a security consultant, professional hacker, activist and researcher.

Whole article here:

test some mash up software ...

Connective Writing Changes the Way We Learn

From: http://onlinesapiens.wordpress.com

Connective Writing Is…

1. Writing that is inspired by reading and is therefore a response to an idea or a set of ideas or conversations.
2. Writing that synthesizes those ideas and remixes them in some way to make them our own and is published to potentially wide audiences.
3. Writing that then becomes a part of a larger negotiation of a truth or knowledge that is evolving in the larger network.
4. Writing that is written with the expectation that it too will be taken and remixed by others into their own truths by this continuous process of reading, thinking, writing (and linking), publishing and reading some more.

Original here

“Trapped Between Stories”

From: http://weblogg-ed.com
By: Will Richardson

I’m poking around in “Presence” by Peter Senge (and others), a book about “profound change in people, organizations, and society.” (I can hear the chorus of boos already…why another non-education book to figure out education?) And when I say “poking,” I mean it. As I’m sometimes wont to do, when I got it from Amazon a few days ago, I just kind of broke it open somewhere in the middle and started reading. (I do plan on taking the cover to cover route at some point…)

What I landed on was more or less a conversation between the four authors that took place about four months after 9/11. And a lot of it resonated in terms of this discussion about schools and education. For instance, that this is a time of “epochal change” and that “traditional mind-sets and institutional priorities are under great threat, and they are fighting to preserve themselves.” And that “as the need for reflection and deeper learning grows, the pressures against that need being fulfilled grow too.”

But there was one part that really jumped out. Senge quotes Thomas Berry who says that “the primary problem of the present era is that we are ‘in-between stories.’”

The old story that bound Western culture, the story of reductionist science and redemptive religion, is breaking down. It simply no longer explains the world we are experiencing or the changes that confront us. (217)

And other myths are breaking down as well. The hero myth, that someone is going to ride in and save the day. The economic myth which focuses on short-term self-interest as a way to success. All of these stories and structures are being challenged, and, as Senge puts it, we are “trapped between stories.”

For the whole story here:

Govt urged to address light bulb disposal dangers - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Brigid Glanville

Posted Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:00am AEST
The energy-wasting incandescent light bulb (L) is being phased out. Its more efficient replacement, the compact fluorescent lamp (R), contains mercury and must be disposed of safely.

The energy-wasting incandescent light bulb (L) is being phased out. Its more efficient replacement, the compact fluorescent lamp (R), contains mercury and must be disposed of safely. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

One of Malcolm Turnbull's first major initiatives as federal Environment Minister was the phasing out of the standard incandescent light globe.

Environmentalists welcomed the move to use the more energy efficient, fluorescent globe. It was projected to save up to 800,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

But green groups say the Federal Government has failed to warn households about the dangers of the replacement: the fluorescent light globe.

The globes contain mercury and the ideal disposal is through chemical clean-ups, but the majority are being dumped in landfills.
More here