This really would be a good time for a dose of self-righteous indignation. Obama is surely skirting on thin ice by failing to criticize adequately those corporations who are putting profit ahead of the public good.
Robert Reich (BP et al: The Importance of Presidential Indignation and Explanation):
Digital Domain - World’s Largest Social Network - The Open Web - NYTimes.com:
"But the online world outside of Facebook is already a very open and connected place, thank you very much. Densely interlinked Web pages, blogs, news articles and Tweets are all visible to anyone and everyone. Instead of contributing to this interconnected, open Web world, the growing popularity of Facebook is draining it of attention, energy and posts that are in public view."
Trying to do my part here by not posting this to Facebook!
Calculations of Gulf Spill Volume Are Questioned - NYTimes.com:
"Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom"
Things don't seem to be improving on the Gulf with this oil spill.
http://www.pacinst.org/climate/climate_statement.pdf:
"We also call for an end to McCarthy- like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option."
This certainly gets to the essentials of the matter. It really does no end of harm in the long run attempting to keep punishing the bearers of bad news. Indeed new opportunities are provided for those societies that can manage to keep their eyes open to the nature of reality via resilient government policies aware of new scientific discoveries of all sorts.
Be sure to read the rest of this very interesting statement.
Op-Ed Columnist - Sex and Drugs and the Spill - NYTimes.com:
"Yet antigovernment ideology remains all too prevalent, despite the havoc it has wrought. In fact, it has been making a comeback with the rise of the Tea Party movement. If there’s any silver lining to the disaster in the gulf, it is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the government can do."
Krugman gets it right as usual. Just part of an excellent column.
We appear to have a hung parliament - Charlie's Diary:
"The Tories are committed to making cuts in public spending. As Mervyn King at the Bank of England said a month ago, 'whoever wins this election will be out of power for a generation,' due to the savagery of the necessary cuts. "
This is an interesting remark by Charles Stross as an added comment to his piece on the results of the British Election. I will be interesting to watch as this plays out.
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Someone else was saying that this is a teachable moment - maybe.
Gulf Oil Spill: A Symbol Of What Fossil Fuels Do To The Earth Every Day, Say Environmentalists:
"McKibben is the founder of the global grassroots climate-change Web site 350.org and his latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet is about adjusting to a changed world.
'Our problem is not primarily that there's a stuck valve in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. That's a terrible problem,' McKibben told HuffPost. 'The bigger problem is that there's a stuck economy based on fossil fuels that the president hasn't really done anything major yet to fix.... The problem is that the whole system is dirty from beginning to end.'"
Of course it's now possibly "Too big to fail"!
Facebook is Dying - Social is Not (by @baekdal) #opinion:
"Facebook is really big, it has a ton of features. But, it is also turning into the worst case of complexity overload the web has seen in years. There are so many inconsistencies that it is hard to believe - or even to keep track of."
This is a particularly interesting piece in which the author (a geologist as it happens) suggest that there really ought to be stronger regulations for these increasingly risky drilling operations.
This looks good. Since I use version 2 of the product I'm going to be most interested in this upgrade. I can already see that the rich text editor, in particular, will be handy.
It’s the twentieth anniversary of the famous “pale blue dot” photo – Earth as seen from Voyager 1 while on the edge of our solar system (approximately 3,762,136,324 miles from home). Sagan’s words are always worth remembering:
BBC News - Uganda's highest ice cap splits on Mt Margherita:
"The ice cap on Uganda's highest peak has split because of global warming, Uganda's Wildlife Authority (UWA) says."
for those who remember their environmental history, the catastrophe in the gulf has a strangely old-fashioned feel, reminiscent of the events that led to the first Earth Day, four decades ago.
I'm not sure that I agree with the "changed overnight" statement, but it's still a pretty severe crisis.
