The Goopocalypse

The road to the future of the Internet, as laid down by Google & Verizon this week

The road to the future of the Internet, as laid down by Google & Verizon this week

Every month you receive an electric bill.  When you get down to it the metric by which you are charged is pretty simple.  X units at $Y-per-unit = your bill.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Use more electricity, you pay more.  Use less electricity, you pay less.

Imagine a world in which your electric bill was subdivided dozens of different ways depending on just what you were powering.  Suppose there was a special tier set up for your television or computer equipment, that “promised” the power would be so much more percent stable and clean than normal power if only you pay 10% more for it.  Imagine a world where you can’t use your electric stove because stoves are placed in a tier that is 50% more than the standard rate, to the point where cooking every day becomes cost-prohibitive.  Tiers for your stove, your microwave, your dishwasher, your electric toothbrush, your alarm clock, your plug-in vehicle, and more.  Your bill becomes increasingly frustrating, and increasingly expensive.

Google & Verizon would like to do this to your Internet.

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…and on the 89th day, the Gulf was wiped clean.

From all this oil to nothing in less than a month?  Might just be too good to be true.

From all this oil to nothing in less than a month? Might just be too good to be true.

Something that may go on to become one of the more regrettable moves that the Obama Administration has made comes out of the absolute rush to bury the negative story that has become the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from the second that the cap of the spill held straight on through this day and beyond.  The trumpeting has been loud and clear:

The White House announced Wednesday that a “vast majority” of the oil in the Gulf has dissipated or been collected, following the plugging of the BP Deepwater Horizon well — but environmental groups are skeptical.

As officials were monitoring a thus-far successful “static kill” of the undersea wellhead, the administration responded, ironically enough, with a leak to The New York Times: a new government analysis claiming that only 26 percent of the estimated 4.9 million-barrel spill still remains intact in the Gulf of Mexico.

The chorus from rational thinkers: Where did the oil go?

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A Meme Jumps the Shark

This will probably be the least substantive thing I ever post in this blog.

The following was the front page of Huffingtonpost.com for a good chunk of the afternoon…

Worst headline. Ever.

Worst headline. Ever.

I get it.

No no, really. I get it.

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California’s Proposition 8 shot down in court; Same-sex marriage on track for Supreme Court date

The long road to equal rights for same-sex couples continues in California.

The long road to equal rights for same-sex couples continues in California.

The forces of discrimination against people merely on the basis of who they choose to love was struck down Wednesday in a 4 – 3 decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.  A state decision with national implications, it now appears very likely that the supporters of the freshly-defeated Proposition 8 will appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court, which is very likely to uphold the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s decision, which then sets the stage for a national showdown over this state law in the U.S. Supreme Court – perhaps even by the end of 2011.

Apparently the defense put forth by the supporters of Proposition 8 was meager at best, and the ‘facts’ brought forth to support keeping marriage as something exclusive to heterosexual couples were laughed out of the court by Judge Vaughn Walker – in a completely professional manner, of course.

What’s important here is that those who would seek to deny rights to someone because of their sexual orientation – and then hide behind happy looking family-supporting banners – are on the run for now as this continues to move through the courts.

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Spare the message, shoot the messenger

If the truth fell in a forest and nobody heard it, did it happen?

If the truth fell in a forest and nobody heard it, did it happen?

The closest thing that we are going to get to the Pentagon Papers incident of our generation, the leaking of over 90,000 documents by whistle-blowing site Wikileaks to three major news organizations around the world, has so far seemed to simultaneously caused a great deal of yawning, and a great deal of questioning of why the nearly decade-long war is allowed to continue with no real end in sight, nor any real final goal that will allow us to finally leave.

The yawning, surprisingly enough, comes from media outlets their selves who trotted out experts over the past week to address the content of the information that was leaked, and the near uniform response was along the lines of this was already known or there was nothing new added here: not addressing just how terrible that truth is, or bothering to repeat that truth one more time louder, just playing things off as this is the new business as normal, and off with life we go.

More depressing still (because the information contained within the leaked documents, “known” or not, is pretty depressing for the future war effort) is that the lead headline to evolve in the days since the leak is not the content of the leak, but how the information was leaked in the first place, and the efforts of the government to track down the source of the link and the leader of the Wikileaks site itself – letting the entire reality spelled out in plain black and white by the leaked documents to continue onward almost completely undisturbed.

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The Truth-as-Reported burns down at the hands of Wikileaks

War for how much longer?

War for how much longer?

This is big.  A “black eye” for how the war is being conducted, and what really is and is not being accomplished in Afghanistan doesn’t begin to come close to the 90,000 documents that Wikileaks has handed off to three major news organizations.  The stories began to run tonight, and this will be an embarrassment to stretch across Presidential administrations.

Where do you even begin?

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

As for defense of the administration, the White House comes out swinging at Wikileaks for releasing the information…

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: “We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us.”

…though they would like you to know that a majority of this happened under the other guy’s watch…

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of “under-resourcing” under Obama’s predecessor, saying: “It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009.”

The forgotten war of the 21st century is about to become a lot less forgotten.  It better, because if this isn’t enough to wake people up to the reality of the failed mission and the idea that troops don’t need to be dying there any longer, nothing will.

In the meantime, cheers to the light of truth, still being shone by those brave enough to do so.

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We, the destroyers so efficient

A tide of solid oil washes ashore in Dalian, China

A tide of solid oil washes ashore in Dalian, China (image from The Big Picture)

The irresistible luxuries of a life comfortable, filled with needs for wants that mere decades ago we never knew we had, continue to lead us down a path of pillaging and environmental destruction.  The pace is slower than water torture in our eyes, but geologically similar to driving full-speed toward a brick wall.  Recent efforts of green movements translate to tapping the breaks, but a glance at the headlines show that the other foot is still slammed on the accelerator, to the floor.

Our latest example comes from China.  The northeastern Chinese port of Dalian is the sight of an unfolding environmental disaster.  Explosions in two pipelines at the port on the night of the 16th triggered a major fire at first, and a spill of oil into the sea after the fact.  The initial details of the story immediately bring back memories of another explosion-leading-to-disaster, that being the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the resulting Gulf of Mexico disaster.  The Dalian spill is a paltry 170 square miles, whereas the Deepwater Horizon disaster is 2,500 square miles on the surface and an untold number of cubic miles when oil at varying ocean depths is taken into account.

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Alex about to make landfall in northeastern Mexico, pushes oil to Gulf shores

Hurricane Alex about to make landfall in northeastern Mexico

Hurricane Alex about to make landfall in northeastern Mexico

Hurricane Alex, a large and quickly intensifying storm, is about to make landfall on the northeastern coast of Mexico near the barrier island town of La Yegua, Tamaulipas.  Winds in Alex have quickly jumped to 100mph sustained in the hours before its landfall, and will be effecting a large amount of real estate.  Hurricane force winds extend out 70 miles from the center, tropical storm force winds 205 miles.  Half a foot to a foot of rain is expected in the storm’s path which is certain to cause life threatening flash floods.  That’s not the only effect, however…

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Leaders of the world check in, freedom to protest checks out

A protesting calling card left in a shattered window in downtown Toronto

A protesting calling card left in a shattered window in downtown Toronto

Saturday was a less than shining moment for the country of Canada and, specifically, the city of Toronto.  Toronto is the site of the current G20 meeting of nations, where leaders of the 20 largest economic engines around the world gather to talk about the economy and how to maintain the comfortable sort of life that capitalism has earned us.  Well that was before the 2008 economic crisis, now the meetings probably more closely resemble real-time disaster planning that may or may not be working.  In any event, Toronto “won” the honor of hosting the summit – a reward I put in quotations because inevitably in seemingly every one of these summits, protesters show up and damage is done to local businesses – not to mention the increased costs of security.  Canada is footing a nearly $1bn (USD) bill for this exercise in economic kumbaya.

Old fashioned dollars-and-cents issues aside with the cost, another cost to seriously consider is – as it is seemingly everywhere that real important people show up to – two things are destined to happen: small groups of very angry protesters will break things, and for the vast majority of peaceful protesters will inevitably suffer an infringement on their freedom of speech – in order to prevent the violence that is going to happen either way.

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Tropical Storm Alex is on the board, expected to stay away from Deepwater Horizon

Visible satellite loop of Tropical Storm Alex, ending at 13:00 June 26 EDT.

Visible satellite loop of Tropical Storm Alex, ending at 13:00 June 26 EDT. (click for motion)

Fueled by light winds aloft and water temperatures in the mid-80′s, Tropical Depression #1 has strengthened to Tropical Storm Alex this morning – at present sporting winds of 45mph.

Warnings are currently up for the entire coastline of Belize, as well as the coast of Mexico up to Cancun.  The system is expected to make landfall later today near the Mexico/Belize border as a tropical storm.

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