Friday - only just another day to me

Friday June 25, 2009

. . . . .Today in rock and roll history, The Beatles released A Hard Day's Night in 1964, and in 1971, the Fillmore East in New York City closed after it's final show, preserved forever as The Allman Brothers Live At The Fillmore East.

. . . .And in 1963, President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin and, in front of the Berlin Wall, proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner".

. . . .H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which in it's final form was H.R. 2998 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212. The version that passed was nothing like either the Progressives or the extreme Right media have been portraying it, more on that later in the column. Now it moves on to the Senate.

. . . .The news of the day? Of course, Michael Jackson's death. Yes, he was a transcendent entertainer and a pop culture icon. Yes, he did have a troubled mind and a twisted soul, that can't be left out of the equation either. What is being left out of the equation is fact that Farrah Fawcett died yesterday too. Or that Ed McMahon died this week too. What troubles me the most, is that last week, a young woman named Neda was shot in the face in Tehran in a square while parking her car to attend a rally in support of the protestors of the tyrannical Khameini-Ahmadenijad regime. What troubles me is the number of Iranians who have worn green in support of overthrowing this government, of exposing it's rigged elections who have been killed, hacked to death, shot. What troubles me is knowing the eventually Mir Mousavi and his wife will be killed. What troubles me is that President Obama and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel stood shoulder to shoulder today in the East Wing of the White House and declared to Ahmadenijad that "The violence perpetrated against them [the protestors] is outrageous, we see it and we condemn it." and scoffed at Ahmadenijad's demand that Obama "stop interfering", and the headlines tonight are about Michael Jackson's autopsy. What troubles me is the transparent hypocrisy. Michael Jackson went from child superstar, to the King of Pop, to a very troubled man, whose every breath and word were scutinized, to an object of derision, to somehow, overnight, someone whose death was earthshaking. What troubles me is the short attention span theater of the American public's mind. What troubles me is this. If we truly believe that we are all related, all interconnected as a family of humanity, why is one person's death, someone whose ticket was punched and it was his time, not his call; why is his death any more important than the death yesterday afternoon of a protestor in Iran, a child dying of hunger in an American city who lacked the strenth to fight off an illness and couldn't afford health care or a victim of genocide or AIDS in Africa? If we admire John Kennedy so much for that one reminder, his statement that he was a Berliner too, an expression of solidarity, then why can't we remember what that means.

. . . .Maybe I'm a hypocrite, maybe I'll feel the same way when Bruce dies, or Bob Dylan, or Bono. I hope not, I hope I'll mourn their passing, be thankful for the gifts they gave us while they were here, and hope I learned enough from the words, poetry and song they give us to know that they would want me to mourn that child's or that person's death just as much as theirs.

. . . .Essentially, in the end, Michael Jackson's death, helps the Mullahs, the Cleric and the High Council as the world turns it's attention away from Tehran to spectate at a new tragedy.

. . . .I knew it! Even Republican Representative Michelle Bachmann of Anoka, Minnesota can be too weird even for fringe folks. I re-watched the clip of Bachmann on Glenn Beck's show in which she proclaimed that the census will be used by the Obama Adminstration to "put us all in internment camps". Even Glenn Beck, Dr. Doom himself, the master of Fear in the afternoon with his own version of Shock Theater had had enough of her. You can see him in his facial expression and his very firm cutting her off. Man, the day that Glenn Beck finds someone too whacked out for even him . . .???

. . . .Personally I'm good with her refusing to fill out her census form, and I hope she urges her entire district not to. That way, her district won't exist anymore, and be absorbed into a neighboring district, she'll be out of a job and have to spend her days in Anoka, which won't receive any State or Federal services anymore, since no people will be counted to live there. Then they'll have to put up with her insane rants on a street corner somewhere Anoka. I'm good with that.

. . . . .The traitor Limbaugh today on his show - "Obama is more African in his roots than American". Obama is an "African colonial"
- I remind you, he is the sitting President of the United States of America, elected through due Constitutional process. Before you decide to debate with me, look up the legal definitions of the words treason, traitor and sedition. Rush Limbaugh is a traitor, guilty of treason and sedition.

. . . .Do I believe that the bill that passed the House today is the answer, as in The Answer to global climate change? No, I don't. In order to get it to pass, the authors, Waxman and Markey, reduced the goals for carbon emissions and threw some big, big favors to the big agribusiness and coal industries. Do I believe in the fairytale of clean coal technology? Absolutely not, the very process of burning coal to convert it to energy, inherently, by it's chemistry, cannot and is not a clean process. Do I think that cap-and-trade is an answer? Not in any way. Making polluting emissions a tradable commodity I personally think is insane. All one has to do is look at oil, which is a tradable commodity and the way it gets manipulated for the profit of the speculators and to the misery of the consumer to have the answer to that. Why do I think it's landmark legislation? Simple, Washington, the Beltway, Congress, the Senate, the House and the White House are, with this vote, finally admitting that something is wrong, drastically wrong and we need to do something.
Still don't believe in global climate change? I'm a numbers guy, someone who believes that the Universe and the Earth itself are run by the numbers, by the laws of Physics, of Thermodynamics, by Mathematics itself, and here's the situation, right here in the United States, from a report issued by the interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program required on a regular basis by Congress and just recently compiled and released:
In the Northeast, winters have increased in average temperature by 4 degrees since 1970, and in the near future, even warmer winters, a maple syrup industry that is forced to Canada, and extreme heat and very polluted air in the summer in the densely packed urban areas up there.
In the Southeast, spring rainfall is down 30% since 1970, and they can look forward to even more extreme heat, drought and stronger hurricanes.
In the Midwest, ice cover on the Great Lakes is increasingly thinner and thinner during the winter and average winter temperatures have risen 7 degrees since 1970. In the near future, Great Lakes water levels will drop by 2 feet, and increased drought, insects and migrating plant species will continue to impinge on farming ability.
In the Great Plains, water levels have already dropped by more than 150 feet in some places. The far North of the Great Plains can expect rainfall levels to increase by more than 40%, leading to devastating flooding, while the Southern Great Plains can expect a 40% decrease, adding to the drought.
In the Southwest, Droughts, fires and rainfall off by as much as 40%, while in the Pacific Northwest, snowpack is down by as much as 60%, and soon the last 40% of snowpack in the Cascades will be gone.
By the way, I've kept it simple, and does any of this sound like the truth? As in the weather patterns this year? It's not theory, it's happening, just watch the news.
Notice how much of this involves water? Water will be a more precious commodity than oil soon. If we don't get some handle on water reclamation technology, and desalinization processes, it's going to be a disaster. A human being can only live 3 days without water.
600 U.S. neighborhoods have air that could cause cancer.
So, do I think the Waxman-Markey bill is the answer? Absolutely not, but it's finally a public admission by the members of Government that there's a problem, and we need to act.

. . . By the way, guess who's changed his tune on climate change? None other than Newt himself.
Check it here.

. . . .Continuing the series I started yesterday from KurzweilAI.net on the Singularity and the evolution of humanity:

The first half of the twenty-first century will be characterized by three overlapping revolutions—in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. These will usher in the beginning of this period of tremendous change I refer to as the Singularity. We are in the early stages of the genetics revolution today. By understanding the information processes underlying life, we are learning to reprogram our biology to achieve the virtual elimination of disease, dramatic expansion of human potential, and radical life extension. However, Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute points out that no matter how successfully we fine-tune our DNA-based biology, biology will never be able to match what we will be able to engineer once we fully understand life’s principles of operation. In other words, we will always be “second-class robots.”

The nanotechnology revolution will enable us to redesign and rebuild—molecule by molecule—our bodies and brains and the world with which we interact, going far beyond the limitations of biology.

But the most powerful impending revolution is the robotic revolution. By robotic, I am not referring exclusively—or even primarily—to humanoid-looking droids that take up physical space, but rather to artificial intelligence in all its variations.

Following, I have laid out the principal components underlying each of these coming technological revolutions. While each new wave of progress will solve the problems from earlier transformations, each will also introduce new perils, but each, operating both separately and in concert, underpins the Singularity.

The Genetic Revolution

Genetic and molecular science will extend biology and correct its obvious flaws (such as our vulnerability to disease). By the year 2020, the full effects of the genetic revolution will be felt across society. We are rapidly gaining the knowledge and the tools to drastically extend the usability of the “house” each of us calls his body and brain.

Nanomedicine researcher Robert Freitas estimates that eliminating 50% of medically preventable conditions would extend human life expectancy 150 years. If we were able to prevent 90% of naturally occurring medical problems, we’d live to be more than 1,000 years old.

We can see the beginnings of this awesome medical revolution today. The field of genetic biotechnology is fueled by the growing arsenal of tools. Drug discovery was once a matter of finding substrates (chemicals) that produced some beneficial result without excessive side effects, a research method similar to early humans’ seeking out rocks and other natural implements that could be used for helpful purposes. Today we are discovering the precise biochemical pathways that underlie both disease and aging processes. We are able to design drugs to carry out precise missions at the molecular level. With recently developed gene technologies, we’re on the verge of being able to control how genes express themselves. Gene expression is the process by which cellular components (specifically RNA and the ribosomes) produce proteins according to a precise genetic blueprint. While every human cell contains a complete DNA sample, and thus the full complement of the body’s genes, a specific cell, such as a skin cell or a pancreatic islet cell, gets its characteristics from only the fraction of genetic information relevant to that particular cell type.

Gene expression is controlled by peptides (molecules made up of sequences of up to 100 amino acids) and short RNA strands. We are now beginning to learn how these processes work. Many new therapies currently in development and testing are based on manipulating peptides either to turn off the expression of disease-causing genes or to turn on desirable genes that may otherwise not be expressed in a particular type of cell. A new technique called RNA interference is able to destroy the messenger RNA expressing a gene and thereby effectively turn that gene off.

Accelerating progress in biotechnology will enable us to reprogram our genes and metabolic processes to propel the fields of genomics (influencing genes), proteomics (understanding and influencing the role of proteins), gene therapy (suppressing gene expression as well as adding new genetic information), rational drug design (formulating drugs that target precise changes in disease and aging processes), as well as the therapeutic cloning of rejuvenated cells, tissues, and organs.

. . . .Now, as to the Smart Grid, the series that I've been putting up here for a couple of months now. Upgrading the outdated, antiquated, inefficient national electrical grid is vital. It's the cheapest, fastest, smartest thing we can do to (1) improve the grid's efficiency. Realize that on average, 50% of the power needed at your house, for a light bulb, for a computer, for a television, for anything, is lost in the grid from the point of generation to it's point of delivery at your house, and in some areas of the country, the grid's so bad, it's a 96% loss. (2) it will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Consider the incredible transfer of wealth that occurs everyday in this country as we use gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and hydrocarbon based products all dependent on foreign oil. The wealth is getting transferred to countries that are not allies of ours, and wouldn't care one bit if we fell, yet we pay them for that privilege, gladly, without thinking.
- Cisco Systems, the absolute architects of smart networks has been diving into this (you didn't think they'd let General Electric have all of it, did you?) and they're of the belief that once the grid is upgraded with smart meters and computer interfaces in homes into a smart grid, it could be 1,000 times bigger than the Internet. Personally, as someone who has worked and lived in the grid his entire life, I don't believe that hype, it'll be big, but not that big. However, the work they're doing on the home interface devices will be invaluable.

Home use of the Smart Grid represents and enormous opportunity for Cisco and other companies, who may develop devices that attach to home appliances to connect to the Smart Grid. Hatar noted:

"Our expectation is that this network will be 100 or 1,000 times larger than the Internet. If you think about it, some homes have Internet access, but some don't. Everyone has electricity access--all of those homes could potentially be connected."

Clearly, the Smart Grid will not dwarf the Internet in that way. I can't blame her for her enthusiasm about the technology -- I share it as well. But 1,000 times larger than the Internet? Don't expect that to happen.

. . . Outta here

. . . Got your back

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell them that you love them. This rodeo is a one-way ticket, and no one gets out alive. We don't get to dictate the terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched, no one does. So, it's not about yesterday, or tomorrow, it's not about regret or guilt, it's not about should've or could've, it's about right frakkin' here and now. Go change your world, change yourself and it will change the world I promise.

The Desolation Angel