And so it begins

Thursday/Friday April's End - May's Beginning

. . . .Playlist is nothing but instrumentals written for guitar, some of the best guitarists around, legends all, and absolutely no Satriani or Eric Johnson; strictly lead guitarists for bands, who know how to work within a band concept. Of course, the three greatest; Duane, Stevie Ray and Jimi, now gone from us, reserved for last, you'll have to listen to it all the way through to get to them.

. . . . .Absolute movie heaven! X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens today, in 1 week it's Star Trek, and in two weeks Terminator:Salvation. I sincerely hope that all 3 movies are as good as their trailers, I get really tweaky when I watch those trailers. Being my age, and having read the X-Men comics since they were first published, I was very skeptical when the movies first came out, Wolverine is an iconic character for the Marvel brand, and I thought it would be well nigh impossible to get him right on film, but Hugh Jackman has done an incredible job in bringing a fictional character to life and giving him breath. Christian Bale's intensity brought to the screen revived the Batman franchise, let's hope he can do the same for the Terminator franchise.

. . . . .Which leads me to muse, who do you want, when the chips are really, really down, having your back? Butch and Sundance? Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday? or my choice, Woodrow Call and Gus McRae?

. . . . .Oh yeah, and by the way, Happy May Day or Beltane to everyone. As for me, I'm really wishing I could be celebrating it in the old ways, for those of you who know what they are. If you don't, don't ask, you don't want to know.

. . . . . .I left the post from the start of the week up for a while, I wanted to make sure that the points got made that I felt needed to be made. What's happened now, in the intervening 3 days has only reinforced some of what I was trying to say about chaos; that is, it's not really chaos, or disorder at all, even seemingly random jumps or leaps can be seen to be part of an overall pattern, and if you can see the patterns, the way the nodal points are coming together, then you can see the pressure points, and see what, how or where the nudges need to take place.

. . . . . Bear in mind, all any of us can do is nudge, but remember that we can't completely predict the outcome, nor does any one of us have the control over that outcome. All we can do is be prepared for those "random" jumps or leaps.

. . . .BTW, that new Dylan really is that damn good, incredible sounding. It's amazing to me that someone can stay so productive and creative, but that just may be the secret to longevity, keeping the brain active, both the creative side and the logical side, who knows?

. . . . . I stumbled across Jurassic Park the other day on the TV, and remembered that it was one of the few movies to get it right, but also remembered that most people were so entranced with the CGI dinosaurs that they didn't pay attention to the dialogue, which was vital, and lifted straight from the book.

. . . . . Michael Crichton made no secret of the fact that the theme of his book was really, randomness, in nature. That nature cannot be controlled. The supposed secret of the island was that only male dinosaurs had been cloned, so there could be no breeding. But frog DNA was used to "fill in the gaps", and to biologists at least, it's a known fact that in single sex populations, frogs have been known to make a spontaneous, entirely natural sex change to ensure continuity and prevent extinction, therefore the fatal mistake by the scientists who created the park, the assumption that somehow they could entirely control nature, and ignore the probabilities in a chaotic system of jumps or leaps that were in the possibility range.

. . . . .Same for any virus. A virus, or a population of viruses wants to live. They replicate, they consume their host, and they will do anything to survive; evolve, mutate, combine with other types of virus to create a new type. Anything, anything at all to survive. Sound familiar?
. . . .And, reiterating a point, it's not "swine flu", it's a genetic mutant, a tripartite combination of swine flu, avian flu and human flu, which is continuing to mutate as it evolves, therefore, it's proper name; H1N1.

. . . .NPR has been doing a really good series all week this week on the grid. Improving the efficiency of our power grid, making it smart, upgrading it, is probably the biggest bang for the buck we can get on improving our efficiency in improving energy usage, lowering our emissions, and putting more money back in people's wallets that doesn't or shouldn't have to be spent on electricity bills.
The series titled Power Hungry: Reinventing the U.S. Electric Grid is factual, and gives the research behind why we have to do it, and what can reasonably be accomplished to get it done.
To start, before I start publishing the 10 part series, click the link here for a great interactive map that gives a complete, total picture of the current U.S. Power grid. It's actually quite fascinating, and gives a very good picture of the current, fragmented, fractured state of the grid.
- Part 1: An Aged Electric Grid Looks to A Brighter Future

The nation's electricity grid is facing some huge challenges — it's outdated and unprepared for increasing demand and a future that includes more renewable sources of energy. In a weeklong series, NPR is examining the state of the nation's electricity infrastructure.
The economic stimulus bill passed in February includes $11 billion to upgrade the country's power grid, but that's just a down payment on a massive undertaking. That's because when it comes to electricity, not much has changed since Thomas Edison fired up the first commercial power grid in lower Manhattan on Sept. 4, 1882. The fundamentals he pioneered are still the basis for an electricity grid in the U.S. that is almost 100 percent reliable. But in recent years, that grid has started showing weakness.
On Aug. 14, 2003, a lot of people in the northeastern U.S. learned that they couldn't take reliable electricity service for granted anymore. A utility in Ohio failed to trim a few trees, causing a surprise outage that rolled across the region. Eventually, it left 50 million people without power for about a day. The risk of blackouts still exists in just about every region of the country.
"At this point, I think we are most vulnerable in our inability to quickly build transmission lines where we have congestion," says Arshad Mansoor, a vice president at the Electric Power Research Institute. Mansoor's group predicts that without big changes, the grid will become increasingly unreliable within just a few years.
He says the vulnerabilities are most evident in parts of the country with a lot of people, like New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C., and other areas of the Northeast, as well as West Coast cities like Los Angeles and San Diego.
Not Ready For The Future
The existing grid also is not ready for a future that includes more wind and solar power. That's because keeping a grid running is a delicate balancing act — to avoid outages, the amount of power you put in must equal the amount taken out.
So the electricity you're using right now was created just a few seconds ago — most likely at a coal or gas-fired plant that an operator can ramp up or down to meet demand. But renewable energy sources, like wind or solar power, don't work like that.
"On [some] days, you would be lucky to predict wind at 10 percent accuracy," Mansoor says. With difficult-to-predict demand on one side and difficult-to-predict production on the other, it could be almost impossible to manage the grid manually in the future. That's where something called the smart grid comes in.
Digitizing The Grid
In its most basic form, the smart grid adds a computer cable to the electrical wire. With data points all along the system, computers can then manage the grid much faster and more efficiently than humans could.
Boulder, Colo., is set to become the first U.S. city with a smart grid. The local utility, Xcel Energy, has upgraded much of its network in the city and is in the process of installing new meters that also will give customers and the utility a lot more information about how and when energy is used.
Eventually, Boulder customers will be able to log onto a Web site at work and change settings for appliances and their heating system. And the utility will be able to tap into electricity stored in customers' plug-in electric hybrid cars during peak demand times.
The smart grid "is like taking us from the rotary dial phone to the iPhone overnight," says Sandy Simon, director of utility innovations and SmartGridCity at Xcel Energy.
Not only that, but it's expensive — more than $100 million just in this city of 100,000 people. Imagine every home, business, utility pole and substation in the country, and you start to get a sense of how much this undertaking will cost.

. . . . .OK, back over to the facts on the H1N1 virus:
. . . . .I've heard a number of people say that it's not at pandemic proportions yet, that the numbers of deaths are small, and localized. That's not the issue. The issue is that CDC and WHO use epidemiologists who are mathematically trained these days in, guess what, chaos theory. Their job is to try and get a handle not just on one possible model, but all the models, and go for the ones (multiple) that have the highest probability of occurring. That's why your local hospital is gearing up for it, why most hospitals right now in cities and large to medium size towns are setting up wings to be prepared for it. We live in a society in which the shocks we receive in the news now are too large, too significant, we're inundated with them. I don't mind the hospitals and municipal, state and federal governments going through the exercises. I expect that this strain of it will be a "non-event" within a couple of weeks, but it will be it's third or fourth pass around the world, as it continues to mutate and evolve that will get serious. Same as bacteria developed into MRSA and antibiotic resistant strains, soon a flu bug, like this one, will go through enough mathematical mutation permutations to become completely resistant and a super-virus. This particular one we're seeing now may be, in the future, known as it's grandfather or great-grandfather.

. . . .The other half of that, for me, is that we've lived with a previous administration who believed that no information, half-truths and innuendo were the best way to keep the citizenry informed so that we always lived in a shadowy world of partially formed fears and boogie men in the closets. I'd much rather have the facts, all the facts, and be able to make an informed decision based on those facts. It's not hysteria or panic when the light of day is shone upon it.

. . . . .Synchronicity time, this same attitude does apply to the torture memos, and any investigations. Same statement as above, we lived with an administration who did their work in the shadows, just outside the range of sight, sound and comprehension, and as a result, as a society we contracted a virus, that of turning our heads or not believing that it could happen, or justifying what we did. Just around the corner to the light of day folks, our rock and roll preacher has been trying to tell us that for about, oh . . . 30 years now.
. . . .I'll not even touch the ethical portion of torture today, or get into that moral quagmire as to whether or not it saved human lives by condoning it and practicing it. My opinions in that area are known. From the more practical standpoint, that of being someone who likes to have a plan when going into battle, and who has some loyalty to the people who stand behind me, in the long run, the practice of torture made our American servicemen and women fundamentally unsafer. For generations, our enemies and opponents in battle knew that if they flew a white flag of surrender, they would be treated humanely and this made them more prone to give up a fight, and less prone to keep on fighting. Now, what incentive is there for an enemy combatant to surrender? As a soldier, I know that I would rather keep firing and face the possibility of a quick death, as opposed to a slow death by torture while in captivity. That willingness to show humane treatment to our enemy's soldiers saved countless soldier's lives on the battlefield, as opposing forces surrendered. Now, in the long run, that practice will cost more lives in battle, as the jihadists will be less prone to surrendering to the Americans.
. . . . And as for the practical application of torture, when you have to waterboard someone over 200 times in a month to extract even questionable information, it isn't that he's tough, it's the technique just don't work dummies. And I'd be suspect of any information extracted anyhow, since oxygen deprivation to the brain alone at that point would make any information suspect.

. . . .What I've written for the last few weeks, what I've been trying to say, has, at least in this situation, sadly enough, been verified. On Thursday night, the story broke in Washington State newspapers that a data mining firm had attempted to warn the CDC 18 days before the outbreak that there was a possible flu pandemic coming. A company called Veratect, based in Kirkland, Washington data mines by combing 10 of thousands of web sites daily for nuggets of information, for data that is beginning to shape into nodal points, pressure points that, at least for the purposes of what Veratect looks for, points that are given to a team of 35 analysts to run the mathematical models, put some human intuition behind that and then indicate looming medical problems or social unrest. The company has offered it's services for free to the CDC and WHO since January; services they normally charge for, and an e-mail trail indicates that they were attempting to warn CDC at least 18 days before April 26th that this particular flu outbreak was coming.

. . . . .Tough way to find out that applying true, pure mathematical chaos theory really works, tough way to find out that nodal points, those points that actually change the course of human history do exist, and can be seen and can be forecast, can be predicted.

. . . .Stop and think for a moment, the numbers back on Sunday, just last Sunday, 68 cases, and localized to not just one country, Mexico, but centered in Mexico City. In 4 days, it's spread across national borders, and new cases are cropping up by the minute, it's multiplying exponentially, by Thursday night, the WHO now reports 11 countries reporting 287 cases. with thousands more suspected. The U.S. is rapidly catching up to Mexico's caseload, of those nearly 300 cases worldwide, 100 are here in the U.S. in 11 states, again in only 4 days. You can track the cases of H1N1 (it's official name) here in the U.S., state by state at this CDC site here at the jump. It's not this first wave that has them concerned, but the second wave that will circle the globe, so that's why the WHO raised the alert level to a 5.

. . . . If you want to track the course of the flu, Google is trying a new interactive flu tracker and map, you can find it at the jump here.

. . . .From The Daily Beast, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on why the Adminstration is having the right reaction to the threat of this outbreak:

While a rationale for medical, public-health, and hospital grants might seem obvious, broader Homeland Security grant programs also became critical components of our nation’s pandemic preparedness posture. That marked an important shift. It is initially logical—though ultimately misguided—to think of a pandemic as simply a public-health or medical event.

Make no mistake: A pandemic would assuredly have significant health consequences. However, it would just as certainly create myriad other consequences: economic, diplomatic, and matters of national security among them. It would present complex policy questions and operational issues that cross all levels of government, such as border-security issues, maintaining the orderly flow of people and commerce, and the resiliency of our critical infrastructures. This wouldn't be “a health crisis,” but rather a national crisis with many types of consequences—health consequences among them.

To maximize opportunities for joint planning and operations coordination, these efforts should ideally begin as soon as a potential threat is identified and not simply once an incident has occurred. For this reason, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was quite correct in asserting a leadership role last weekend when it became apparent that the current strain of swine flu could potentially lead to a human pandemic. It's now codified in law that the secretary of Homeland Security serves as the president’s "principal federal official," coordinating the activities of multiple departments, agencies, and organizations during large-scale incidents.

The current outbreak of swine flu presents many unanswered questions. Why does the virulence in the Mexican strain appear to be different from that we’ve seen thus far in the United States? If the virus continues to spread, how will we balance effective public-health measures (e.g., social distancing or the cancellation of public gatherings) without restricting individual liberties? How will we cope with a surge in the need for medical and health-care capacity? Who will be in charge in each community? What should we tell citizens to do? The list goes on.

While we don't know if the current strain of swine flu will result in a large-scale pandemic, we do know that pandemics are a fact of life. We do know that they occur periodically as a matter of nature. And we do know that the current strain has demonstrated the ability to sustain human-to-human transmission with lethal virulence in at least one part of the world. In terms of avoiding pandemics, history is not on our side. Implementing the lessons learned from past pandemics prepare us to answer Mother Nature’s dreaded but inevitable call.

. . . .Remember that it is not true "swine flu", we are far too quick to label in this society, it's a genetic mixture of avian, human and swine flu, for which there has been no vaccine developed.

. . . .And just to set the record straight, yes it was the Republican representatives in the House who stripped funding for flu prevention and vaccines from this year's budget. Look it up.

. . . .The disgusting part of this is the way that the Right-wing media is using the issue to turn a possible pandemic into politics. Representative Steve Israel of New York's 2nd Congressional District has issued an open letter to people to try and alert them to these pandering disgusting tactics:

The last thing our country needs is radio hosts spreading dangerous misinformation about the flu outbreak. But that's exactly what we're getting thanks to people like Michael Savage, Jay Severin and Neal Boortz. These right-wing demagogues are targeting America's immigrant community and trying to turn a possible pandemic into politics.
This is simply deplorable and seriously dangerous.
A few days ago on his show, Michael Savage said, "Make no mistake about it: Illegal aliens are the carriers of the new strain of human-swine avian flu from Mexico." That is nothing more than fear-mongering and race-baiting in search of ratings. This is exactly the type of rhetoric that fuels discrimination and violence, and those violent acts are why last night the House voted to pass the Hate Crimes Bill. Apparently that wasn't enough of a signal to these guys that they've lost and tolerance and unity have won, but we'll keep fighting.
We can't afford to make this serious health emergency into a conservative radio circus. Americans need to stay calm and informed by listening to their doctors and our public health officials. And I'm asking Michael Savage, Jay Severin, Neal Boortz, and anyone who would repeat their arguments to stop now. Stop spreading these lies and work with us to keep Americans healthy and safe.

. . . .Bonnie Fuller of Fuller Media goes further and is calling out these commentators who are taking advantage of a horrendous situation to spread racism, hatred and exclusion:

Responsible members of the Republican party need to speak out IMMEDIATELY against the conservative commentators in their own ranks using swine flu as an excuse to spew out racist hatred.
Radio, TV and newspaper personalities have jumped on the illness as a platform to attack "illegal aliens" for being responsible for carrying the disease across the Mexican border and infecting innocent Americans.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such claims, talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, radio and Fox TV personality Glenn Beck, and columnist Michelle Malkin are spreading them faster than the contagion.
"Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it," blares Michael Savage.
"I've blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration," writes Michelle Malkin.
"What happens if there's a rash of deaths in Mexico... and if you're a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn't you flood this border?" announces Glenn Beck.
These loud mouths are also trying to convince their audiences that Islamic terrorists have somehow been able to do what has eluded scientists elsewhere in the world — concoct a deadly new flu virus — and then introduce it into the Mexican population.
"What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans....then spread a rumor there there are construction jobs here, and there they come," blathers Boortz.
Savage — "make no mistake about it" — believes that radical Islamic countries planted the virus in Mexico knowing that humans make the "perfect mules for bringing the strain into America."
OK, you ignoramuses: what you're saying is idiotic and racist on so many levels, it has to be called out.
#1. Why would we believe that Islamic countries or terrorist groups would have virologists capable of creating a new bio-terrorist flu? Didn't we fall for the Weapons of Mass Destruction line already, and start a war over it?
#2. If terror groups were capable of planting it among Mexicans — why wouldn't they be just as capable as planting it among Americans? If they couldn't get into the country, they'd just need to get a few of their own infected people to hang out in a foreign airport with flights going to the US.
#3. Since most of the Mexicans who are sick are in Mexico City, hundreds of miles from the US border, how exactly would they just pick up and "rush it?"
Furthermore, the first American cases of swine flu have turned up in New York City students who recently returned from a trip to Cancun, Mexico — they brought it with them. They're the human mules! American tourists returning from Mexico are at this point virtually all the other culprits spreading the new flu!
The fact that this new flu is just an excuse to spread racism becomes even more disgustingly apparent when Michael Savage blares to his audience that he will protect himself by having "no contact anywhere with illegal aliens and that starts with the restaurants." He calls people who dine out "morons who eat in restaurants with illegals all over the kitchen."
You could substitute the word "vermin" for "illegals" and he sounds frighteningly reminiscent of the Nazis talking about the Jews.
It's time for Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, to speak out against this virulent strain of looniness. Immigrants aren't responsible for infecting Americans with swine flu — but racist commentators like these are spreading a far more destructive disease: hate!

. . . And of course, my favorite right-wing nutjob, Representative Michelle Bachman, of Anoka, Minnesota had to chime in with her own theories, implying that somehow President Obama is reponsible in some nefarious way for this outbreak, and in so doing, completely getting her history wrong, but then, with her, what's new!

. . . .And Media Matters has put together an entertaining little mashup of these idiots, compelling viewing if you don't have even the barest, passing understanding of epidemiology or disease vectors and want to continue to help them continue to spread of the worst of the human condition viruses of all - racism, stupidity and hatred.

. . . .And speaking of stupidity and hatred, and in this case, add vacuity to the list; Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, the one who looked the fool and then opened her mouth and proved it to the whole world with her "opinions" on same-sex marriage. (Thank God beauty contests are so low on the totem pole for viewers right now. Hell, The Miss Hooters competition on Fox Sports Net outdraws Miss USA!) Now, on top of a paid advertisement for her thinly disguised rant of hatred for gay marriage, comes today's news. By the way, we all know that beauty pageant contestants are representative of all women right? That every woman looks like that, and strives to be that vacuous, empty, self-serving and egotistical, right? Well, anyhow, the news breaks today that the Miss California pageant paid for her breast implants before the national competition. That's right folks, not only is she a walking, talking empty vessel for ignorance, stupidity and hatred, she COULDN'T EVEN BUY HER OWN FUCKING TITS!

. . . .Arlen Specter's defection back on Wednesday, the seating of Al Franken, and the announcement this morning of Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court (with the further possibility this year of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg retiring) means that the basic fabric and complexion of American politics will be reshaped during this Administration and this seating of Congress for at least 3 decades to come. Combine this with the brewing civil war within the Republican Party, with one side being led by Newt Gringrich and Michael Steele opposing the extreme Limbaugh/Hannity "tea party" crowd and the distinct possibility for our generation is that we may yet see the "Camelot" that we envisioned when Kennedy was elected, that was taken away so tragically so soon, completely redirecting the country for the last 40 years, in our lifetimes yet.

. . . .We are so quick to label here in this society. Labels are convenient, and in my case, I get labeled a liberal all the time. I'm not, in fact, after the last 8 years and the assault by the Right Wing extremist media, the labels words "liberal" and "conservative" have absolutely no meaning anymore, and are thrown around constantly as epithets or labels. I'm a populist, a progressive, and I don't believe that our government, the representatives of this Republic have worked for the people for a very long time, it's just that especially during the previous 8 years of the Bush Imperium, that arrogance and elitism was epitomized by the residents of the White House and their Republican counterparts in the Senate. This week's recommended book read is The Uprising by David Sirota. It's a look at what's happening in America right now, and the resurgence of populism, as people at both ends of the political spectrum realize that our elected representatives don't represent us anymore, and what they're doing about it, both Left and Right, both "liberal" and "conservative", both Democrat and Republican.

. . . .From Ryan Grim, over in The Huffington Post, straight from their own mouths, why the bloc of Democratic Senators absolutely screwed homeowners this week in the floor vote that went after banks and mortgage lenders to provide relief for those homeowners that are having problems making their mortgage paymets.

. . . .Over in the American Prospect, this one by Terence Samuel - Specter's Epilogue

The dramatic party-switch by Pennsylvania bulldog Sen. Arlen Specter can be read as a final denouement in the slow, steady collapse of the Republican Party. Though the decline was triggered by the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush, it was the decision by congressional Republicans to so fully and uncritically embrace the Bush agenda and the president's arrogance that cost the GOP so dearly.

. . . .Stuart Rothenberg in Real Clear Politics - Specter switch could send ripples far and wide in both parties
. . . .Kimberly Strasser in The Wall Street Journal - The GOP After Specter
. . . .As expected, within a few hours of the President crashing Gibb's press conference this morning to announce Souter's retirement, Politico picked up the story, and as expected, the Repubs are expecting to put up a floor fight over the new Justice, expect a Court war.
. . . . .But it might not be quite the floor fight that the extreme Right is hoping for, on CNN this afternoon, Senator Orrin Hatch, the Repub from Utah, already said that he isn't going to get into an extended floor fight.
. . . . .I work quite often in New Orleans, and my work life is based overall in Louisiana, so I've gotten an inside look at a legendary political system here. Right now, and it's not a joke, porn star Stormy Daniels, a Baton Rouge native is setting up for a run against embattled Louisiana Senator David Vitter. I say, go for it! At least she's honest about what she does for a living (which I have no problem with), and it would be really, really hard to dig up any hidden skeletons in her closet.

. . . .Which takes me back to the column at the start of the week, all you have to do is be able to see the nodal points, the information flows, the critical decision matrices and it becomes apparent that "Yes, We Can". Change is always painful, but in the end, we can have what we need, it we are only willing to believe and have faith. The key component to faith is belief, even when it looks like that belief is unfounded, and hanging in long enough.

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments, this rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one gets out alive, so it's not about yesterday or today, it's about right here, right now, make a difference, change your life and in so doing, just like the man said, change the world.

The Desolation Angel