Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Robert Redford: The Red Rock Wilderness Act: Our Chance to Be Present at the Creation

Sing me up! Hope you sign up too.

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EDGE

SPECIAL 300TH EDITION OF EDGE

Darwin In Chile

Alvaro Fischer, Daniel C. Dennett, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Helena Cronin, Nicholas Humhrey, Ian McEwan

Santiago — Punta Arenas — Puerto Williams — The Beagle Channel — Tierra del Fuego — The Extreme South

EdgeVideo

Richard Dawkins:

There Is Grandeur In This View Of Life

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Adobe UI Gripes

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Robert Reich: Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 While Everyone Else is Cutting Back

So how can the Dow be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they're worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save.

Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when every business and Wall Street executive I come across tells me government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and its supposed "takeover" of health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance? Their anguished cries of "socialism" are almost drowning out all their cheering over the surging Dow.

The explanation is simple. The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government's advance into the market. Consumer debt is way down from its peak in 2006; government debt is way up. Consumer spending is down, government spending is up. Why have new housing starts begun? Because the Fed is buying up Fannie and Freddie's paper, and government-owned Fannie and Freddie are now just about the only mortgage games remaining in play.

Why are health care stocks booming? Because the government is about to expand coverage to tens of millions more Americans, and the White House has assured Big Pharma and health insurers that their profits will soar. Why are auto sales up? Because the cash-for-clunkers program has been subsidizing new car sales. Why is the financial sector surging? Because the Fed is keeping interest rates near zero, and the rest of the government is still guaranteeing any bank too big to fail will be bailed out. Why are federal contractors doing so well? Because the stimulus has kicked in.

In other words, the Dow is up despite the biggest consumer retreat from the market since the Great Depression because of the very thing so many executives are complaining about, which is government's expansion. And regardless of what you call it -- Keynesianism, socialism, or just pragmatism -- it's doing wonders for business, especially big business and Wall Street. Consumer spending is falling back to 60 to 65 percent of the economy, as government spending expands to fill the gap.

The problem is, our newly expanded government isn't doing much for average working Americans who continue to lose their jobs and whose belts continue to tighten, and who are getting almost nothing out of the rising Dow because they own few if any shares of stock. Despite the happy Dow and notwithstanding the upbeat corporate earnings, most corporations are still shedding workers and slashing payrolls. And the big banks still aren't lending to Main Street.

Trickle-down economics didn't work when the supply-siders were in charge. And it's not working now, at a time when -- despite all their cries of "socialism" -- big business and Wall Street are more politically potent than ever.


Cross-posted from Robert Reich's Blog.

power makes rules, money = power or people = power

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World's Fastest Rolling Stoppie by Kane Friessen

Nuts and Awesome!

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Who Will Harness The Rage?

e decimated, seven million jobs have been lost. Hard-won feelings of financial security now seem like a distant memory. The economy is turning around, they say, but where are the jobs? And what about all the money that's been lost?

Meanwhile, not only have the bankers and Wall Street financiers who caused this mess avoided accountability, they've actually been rewarded -- the biggest among them being told that no matter what they do, they can buy their way out of trouble with a seemingly endless supply of taxpayer dollars.

This summer, we've seen one possible pathway for the nation's angry populism -- one that exhibits many of the worst behaviors of disgruntled Americans throughout history. The birthers, deathers, town hallers and tea-baggers are paranoid and irrational and more than a little racist. They're also being cynically used by corporate-funded demagogues who are lining their own pockets as well as those of their masters. As Tom Edsall reported for the Huffington Post this week, this is all giving the GOP high hopes for 2010.

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Algorithm Generates a Virtual Rome in 3D from 150,000 Flickr Users' Photos | Popular Science

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tea Party Protesters Protest D.C. Metro Service - Washington Wire - WSJ

Brody Mullins reports on money and politics.

Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady called for a government investigation into whether the government-run subway system adequately prepared for this weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

Seriously.

The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.

“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”

A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.” Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. “METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,” he wrote on Twitter.

Brady says in his letter to Metro that overcrowding forced an 80-year-old woman and elderly veterans in wheelchairs to pay for cabs. He concludes that it “appears that Metro added no additional capacity to its regular weekend schedule.”

The Tea party people annoy me, so the one time they take public transit it is not as good as they want it, gee boo hoo. maybe if there was more stimulus money for infrastructure maybe there would have been more train cars...

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Ducati Hypermotard 796: smaller and cheaper for 2010 - Hell For Leather

We have a winner folks... this is the next bike in my collection.

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

3340028215_0370283ff5.jpg 500×375 pixels

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Op-Ed Contributor - A One-Way Ticket to Mars

Tempe, Ariz.

NOW that the hype surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings has come and gone, we are faced with the grim reality that if we want to send humans back to the Moon the investment is likely to run in excess of $150 billion. The cost to get to Mars could easily be two to four times that, if it is possible at all.

This is the issue being wrestled with by a NASA panel, convened this year and led by Norman Augustine, a former chief executive of Lockheed Martin, that will in the coming weeks present President Obama with options for the near-term future of human spaceflight. It is quickly becoming clear that going to the Moon or Mars in the next decade or two will be impossible without a much bigger budget than has so far been allocated. Is it worth it?

The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.

There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?

While the idea of sending astronauts aloft never to return is jarring upon first hearing, the rationale for one-way trips into space has both historical and practical roots. Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip, usually because the places they were leaving were pretty intolerable anyway. Give us a century or two and we may turn the whole planet into a place from which many people might be happy to depart.

Moreover, one of the reasons that is sometimes given for sending humans into space is that we need to move beyond Earth if we are to improve our species’ chances of survival should something terrible happen back home. This requires people to leave, and stay away.

There are more immediate and pragmatic reasons to consider one-way human space exploration missions.

First, money. Much of the cost of a voyage to Mars will be spent on coming home again. If the fuel for the return is carried on the ship, this greatly increases the mass of the ship, which in turn requires even more fuel.

The president of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, has offered one possible solution: two ships, sent separately. The first would be sent unmanned and, once there, combine onboard hydrogen with carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere to generate the fuel for the return trip; the second would take the astronauts there, and then be left behind. But once arrival is decoupled from return, one should ask whether the return trip is really necessary.

Surely if the point of sending astronauts is to be able to carry out scientific experiments that robots cannot do (something I am highly skeptical of and one of the reasons I don’t believe we should use science to attempt to justify human space exploration), then the longer they spend on the planet the more experiments they can do.

Moreover, if the radiation problems cannot be adequately resolved then the longevity of astronauts signing up for a Mars round trip would be severely compromised in any case. As cruel as it may sound, the astronauts would probably best use their remaining time living and working on Mars rather than dying at home.

If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand. The lure of space travel remains intoxicating for a generation brought up on “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”

We might want to restrict the voyage to older astronauts, whose longevity is limited in any case. Here again, I have found a significant fraction of scientists older than 65 who would be willing to live out their remaining years on the red planet or elsewhere. With older scientists, there would be additional health complications, to be sure, but the necessary medical personnel and equipment would still probably be cheaper than designing a return mission.

Delivering food and supplies to these new pioneers — along with the tools to grow and build whatever they need, for however long they live on the red planet — is likewise more reasonable and may be less expensive than designing a ticket home. Certainly, as in the Zubrin proposal, unmanned spacecraft could provide the crucial supply lines.

The largest stumbling block to a consideration of one-way missions is probably political. NASA and Congress are unlikely to do something that could be perceived as signing the death warrants of astronauts.

Nevertheless, human space travel is so expensive and so dangerous that we are going to need novel, even extreme solutions if we really want to expand the range of human civilization beyond our own planet. To boldly go where no one has gone before does not require coming home again.

Lawrence M. Krauss, the director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, is the author of “The Physics of ‘Star Trek.’”

Recommend More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on September 1, 2009, on page A29 of the New York edition.

Yep I'm still on this idea.

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One-Way Mission to Mars: US Soldiers Will Go | Universe Today

I would go tomorrow if this was an option, I think if the question was asked they would get quite a few respondents.

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Sunday, September 6, 2009

InciWeb the Incident Information System: Station Fire

Perimeter of the Station Fire

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The fire crossed the west fork of the San Gabriel River and is burning toward the existing containment line.

Road closures have changed, please see below. The Air Branch has advised that Chilao has been too smokey to get much work done from the air today. Winds are lighter then expected and the air tankers are now laying in retardant on the contingency line along the Rincon truck trail. The fire is warming up as expected entering the peak burn period. Helicopters and Air Tankers are making drops on various parts of the fire. There will not be any helitorch operations today. Ground crews may still commence the planned burn out east of Mt Wilson if conditions allow in the evening. Firefighters have completed a line in front of the head of yesterdays slopover at Sulfer Springs and hope to have it lined by morning.

The Station Fire remained very active on the southeastern flank in the San Gabriel Wilderness last night. Fire crews saved 23 recreational cabins near Three Points, east of Chilao early this morning. Fire crews successfully contained a 5-acre spot fire north of Sulpher Springs Campground.

If you have Google Earth, you can access today's Station Fire perimeter at CA-ANF-E5VL Station 9-5-2009 0625.kml For a live view of the fire from Mt. Wilson, Mt. Wilson Camera

Steep and rugged terrain combined with continued warm seasonal temperatures to challenge firefighters on the eastern perimeter of the fire yesterday. Even as crews mopped up and reinforced existing line, they dealt with spotting northeast of Chilao, and significant runs north of Cogswell Dam.

Crews planned on strengthening line and reducing fuel in the Chilao area today. Those plans changed when fire spotted over a dozer line east of Alder Saddle and west of Winston Ridge. As of 5:00 p.m. yesterday the fire remained west of the pushing east from the saddle. The most active fire for the day burned in this area, generating smoke columns for many miles in all directions. As part of a predetermined contingency plan, the incident command opted to dispatch fire and law resources to the community of Juniper Hills. No evacuation were ordered, but it is requested that all residents,especially animal owners, prepare themselves for any possibility in the future.

The area north of Cogswell Dam also generated significant fire during the afternoon hours. Heated southern and western aspects created intensified fire behavior, with significant upslope runs through heavy fuels. Hotshot crews, inserted with the intent to directly attack the fire, pulled back to safety with the increase in activity.

The northern, western and Foothill fire lines southeast to Altadena continued to hold without incident. The total estimate of line built to date is 55 miles, with approximately 45 miles left to construct. The completion of a section of line in the Pacoima Canyon is expected by tomorrow. Firefighters maintained good containment around Mt. Wilson area.

The tactical priority of the incident for the night shift was to control and mop up the slopover in the Chilao area.

Little change in the overall weather is expected today as a trough of low pressure remains off the coast. Temperatures in the lower elevations 84 - 94 and temperature n the mountains 74 - 83 degrees. Current weather

It has been determined that the cause of the Station Fire is arson and is now a homicide investigation If you have any information or questions please contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department at 323-573-2387.

The Station Fire, named because of its proximity to a nearby USFS Ranger Station has burned over 242 square miles of land within the Angeles National Forest and near surrounding foothill communities of La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Acton, Soledad Canyon, Pasadena, Glendale and Sierra Madre. The goal of the Incident Management Team is to keep the fire west of Highway 39 and Angeles Crest Highway, east of Interstate 5, south of Highway 14, Pearblossom Highway, and Highway 138, and north of the foothill communities and the Angeles National Forest Boundary. The fire is moving into areas of the forest with no recorded fire history.The Station Fire is now the 10th largest fire in California since 1932.

The Angeles National Forest call center is being staffed 24 hrs a day. For additional information, please call 626-821-6700.

Closures:

Glendale: Dukmejian Wilderness Park

Angeles National Forest: An area closure of the southern portion of the Angeles National Forest is in effect until it is determined that it is safe to reopen forest areas. For additional information on the closure, go to www.fs.fed.us/r5/angeles/.

Open to Residents Only:

  • Little Tujunga Canyon Rd and Live Oak Campground
  • Aliso Canyon Rd at Y8
  • Aliso Canyon Rd at Angeles Forest Hwy
  • Little Tujunga Canyon Rd a of a mile north of the Wildlife Way Station

Road Closures:

*Aliso Canyon Rd at Angeles Forest Hwy

*Big Tujunga Rd at Angeles Forest Hwy

Big Rock Creek Rd closed at Big Pines Rd

Highway 39 between San Gabriel Canyon Road and East Fork Rd

Soledad Canyon Rd at Indian Canyon Trail Head

Angeles Crest Hwy between Big Pines Hwy and mile marker 26.7 north of Altadena

Big Pines Hwy at SR-2

Cheney Trail at Angeles National Forest gate (Loma Alta)

Evacuation Shelters: Located at Golden Valley High School and Verdugo High School.

Pet Evacuation Centers: Located at Pasadena Humane Society, Baldwin Park Animal Shelter, LA County Agoura Hills Animal Shelter.

Large Animal Evacuation Center:

Antelope Valley Fairgrounds is boarding large animals. Pierce College can only board horses, donkeys and mules.

Flight Restrictions: Temporary flight restrictions are in place over the Station Fire.

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