tell me about it

Fuel for Fossils

""""Climate scientists armed with new data from deep in the ocean and far into space have found that Earth is absorbing much more heat than it is giving off, a conclusion they say validates projections of global warming.

Lead scientist James Hansen, a prominent NASA climatologist, described the findings on the planet's out-of-balance energy exchange as a "smoking gun" that should dispel doubts about forecasts of climate change."""""

So who's going to explain this to the President? The same guy or gal who gets to explain to him that coal is a fossil fuel?

Experts: New Data Show Global Warming

When the First Amendment No Longer Applies-

One of the advantages of not making any money from this blog is the freedom to not have to comment on every damn thing that happens, like Bush's idiotic press conference---as if Bush giving an idiotic press conference could be NEWS--or even Tony Blair's current unpleasantness.

But freedom is as freedom does, and apparently, it ain't doing much in the big world.

Here's this innocuous story about Apple Computers in a snit over a book on its CEO Steve Jobs, the Aged Boy Genuis (Second Class), to the extent of not only pulling that book off the shelves of its retail stories (gee, they have retail stores?) but all the books by that publisher. ALL of them. Including those computers for dummies books.

So are the dummies revolting? It's hard to tell. Here's the story I read in the SF Chronicle:

Apple yanks book on Jobs / Company bans all of publisher's books because of the one

Apple of course is the company that relaunched itself with TV ads showing them smashing the dictatorship of (presumably) Aged Boy Genius (First Class,) and standing tall for FREEDOM!
That's got to be the lead for this story, right? But possibly no one at the paper was born yet when that commercial ran.

So there's the author quoted in the second graph. Is he OUTRAGED? Is he screaming about freedom and the chilling effect, corporations acting like Orwellian governments and Steve Jobs like a tin dictator? Sure, he's got to be tickled pink, he couldn't buy the publicity he'll get, but...isn't there something else at stake here? Let's hear this clarion call, this defense of the author's right to write...

"I have a lot of admiration for the guy." That's the quote. The author is puzzled because the biography, though unauthorized, is admiring. His feelings are hurt, I guess. Maybe because Steve's feelings are hurt. Can this obsequious-sounding, awfully toady looking relationship be saved?

Well, then the publisher must be up in arms, issuing withering press releases denouncing this abuse of corporate power, this attempt at intimidation and censorship. Dispatching fleets of lawyers, readying their Supreme Court briefs. Surely.

The publisher acknowledged getting "a call" from Apple objecting to the book. So did they tell them, tough harddrive buddy, this is America, nobody gets to tell us what to print? Not exactly. They offered to "consider changes."

But having deballed their author, they weren't silly enough to give in to Apple's sole demand, which was to not publish the book. They couldn't pay for this publicity, etc. Still, when it came to this act of ridding the Apple shelves of ALL their books, they stepped up with this bold pronouncement: "We think it's an unfortunate situation."

It takes another ten paragraphs of the story before the author allows that this might be "chilling." In between, Apple is criticized not for being a corporate bully but for a stupid public relations move (by a "branding expert"), and a professor of marketing, who allows that while corporations should defend themselves, they "have to be careful not to appear too heavy-handed."

Yes, that's sound advice. It's okay to be heavy-handed, as long as you don't appear to be, too much.

Perhaps it's time for the Dash brothers to send over a book proposal to the publisher (who doesn't deserve to be named). We'll call it FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOMS FOR DUMMIES.

They won't even have to publish it. They just have to read it.

remember me? I remember you...

The Nuclear Option

While Democrats and Republicans argue over who first referred to the nullification of the Senate filibuster rule as "the nuclear option" (it was Republicans, of course, who now deny it, even though they're on videotape claiming credit for it, and of course the media buys their version), practically no one is paying attention to the actual nuclear options that will be discussed at the international conference on the non-proliferation treaty, which begins in New York on May 1.

The news report below says the conference doesn't even have an agenda yet, because, as usual, the Bushcorps are throwing the U.S. weight around to distort an international conference to serve its own political ends. John Bolton, who stepped out of an Eagles song to become the controversial nominee, likely dead in the water now, for UN ambassador, is a prime suspect in the U.S. attempt to subvert the conference.

The Bushies want to talk about Iran, the rest of the world wants to talk about the failure of the U.S. and other western nations to live up to their responsibilities in the treaty. While the U.S. expects all other nations to forgo nuclear weapons, it is doing nothing to reduce its own stockpile (which was the basis for the agreement), and is even planning on adding a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Even in selecting Iran as its target, the Bushies show how clueless and gutless they are. North Korea is a much greater threat, but bluster and bombing won't help there, because Korea has missiles that can hit San Francisco, with or without nukes in the nosecone.

As for news of the conference itself---what a joke! Search Google news for "nuclear proliferation" and see how many U.S. news sources come up. England, India, Canada, Australia, Russia, etc. are well represented. But the U.S. media has more important topics to cover, like the Michael Jackson trial.

Portsmouth Herald World/National News: 'Cascade of nuclear proliferation'

This Could Be A Day to Remember

and the pun is intended: researchers at UC San Diego announced that genetically altered cells injected into the human brain "appear to nourish ailing nuerons and may slow the cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer's disease." Here's the news story:
Quad-City Times Newspaper Online - the Quad-Cities Home Page

and the BBC has more details. The potential for this research is enormous, partly because of the similiarity of Alzheimer's to several other devastating diseases involving neuron function, such as ALS. And of course, it has social and political significance also because of the onrushing baby boomer population, getting into Alzheimer range.

This is apparently not a practical treatment yet except in special cases (at the moment, meaning very rich people who can afford the surgery) but if it does become practical, it's going to shake up the health care system once again, on issues of costs, availability and who gets the treatment. The words "stem cells" haven't been mentioned in these early stories, but if they do appear, yet another dimension will be added to the erupting debate. Keep an eye on this one. It could be big.

UPDATE: Monday's New York Times story takes a more skeptical view. They indicate the research was done for a private gene therapy company, so the results (they imply) are self-serving. And all other gene therapies have failed, even when initial results were promising, as this one. Their report was on the business page.