Tag: Science

I originally posted this here at the Great Orange Satan. I stated then and I will state now that my rights are not for sale. Now, Philip Gourevitch seeks to sell my right to know what is being done in my name down the river in the New York Times. I will repost here and then add a rebuttal to Mr. Gourevitch down below.

Crazed & Confused thinks that Obama was right not to release the torture photos. But he ignores the basic problems with Obama’s rationale — transparency is essential to a functioning democracy. It was the clear intent of the Founding Fathers that the government follow a policy of transparency — in fact, the Constitution requires that Congress publish a journal of its proceedings. If we do not have maximum transparency in our government, then how will we know if we are still a functioning democracy? How will we know if our elected officials are following the Constitution? This is the very sort of thing that Obama ran on. I suggest that he do what he was elected to do and provide more transparency in government by releasing these pictures.  

What a world!

How does one even begin to comment?

Not to diminish the achievement of President Elect Barack Obama, it does seem in some ways a dirty joke on African American aspirations that we would finally elect an African American just at THE moment in history when the country is about to tank, and tank hard.  Welcome to the presidency African America.  Here’s the big, reeking pile of dung we’ve turned the country into for you.  Good fuckin’ luck with that!

We wait and watch, with baited breath President Obama’s decisions about who will serve in senior positions in the Administration.  

When it comes to the critical issues of climate change and the creation of a clean energy future, some appointments have created great elation, fostering hope for Change toward something better.

Euphoria has, more than once, shifted to confusion with appointees whose devotion to and experience for creating a sensible path forward remain (generously speaking) open to question.

That confusion (dismay even) can shift quickly, as it did today.

Yesterday, we had news of three absolutely stunningly impressive appointments when it comes to the arenas of science, global warming, and energy.  

Today is a day for great elation and Hope.  Let us hope that tomorrow provides reason for more elation.

MSNBC has been examining the impact of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, and a recent article explores how the LHC has become an international magnet for brain power. The international “brain drain” is no longer flowing toward the United States in the field of particle physics, but rather the bright minds are being attracted to Europe. Or, more simply put – thus begins American “brain drain”.

The buzz of activity at CERN’s Swiss campus dramatically illustrates a changing of the guard on the frontier of physics, with Europe taking over from the United States. For the past 14 years, Europeans have taken the lead role in building and financing the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, which was started up on Wednesday. The U.S. federal government kicked in $531 million for construction.

The data just keep pouring in (quite literally,) on ice-melting around the world.

Most people have focused their attention on Arctic sea-ice melt, but the heating of the water and the air that is driving the breakup of Arctic ice shelves is also taking down all of the regions ice sheets as well. Similarly, increased melt rates have been noted in Greenland and Antarctica, while mountain glaciers are also losing mass at unprecedented rates.  See chart below:

There can be no doubt that we are now past the tipping point for ice melt worldwide.

At 2:28 pm local time a major M 7.9 earthquake struck China near the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province.   9000 people are feared dead according to Chinese news reports , but USGS  analysis shows that 200,000 people were exposed to violent to extreme shaking that could cause heavy damage in well built structures and very heavy damage in vulnerable structures.

Rescuers are searching  for victims.

By FishOutofWater

Moreover, close to a million people lived where strong shaking could cause heavy damage in vulnerable structures. This USGS analysis suggests that early news reports many be underestimating the extent of this disaster.

The city of Chengdu, in the Sichuan basin with about 5 million inhabitants, 55 miles east of the rupture, was spared from heavy damage because the earthquake rupture propagated from the southeast to the northwest sparing the cities in the basin. However, towns near the fault rupture well to the northeast of the epicenter were hit hard even though they were as far from the epicenter as Chengdu. In an earthquake like this the distance from the epicenter may be a misleading indicator of potential damage.

NPR reporters were visiting Chengdu when the quake hit

A Horrific Scene at a Middle School in Dujiangyan

We are just leaving the horrific scene at the Juyuan Middle School outside the city of Dujiangyan. Hundreds of parents are still standing in the rain as the army works to find children trapped in the rubble. One parent told us she could hear her son calling. A scene of utter desperation. Back a couple hundred feet was an area where rescuers — peoples armed police — were bringing bodies that had been retrieved. Families were rushing over to see whether the child was theirs. Under tents are families burning incense and candles and paper money next to the shrouded bodies of their loved ones. A terrible, terrible scene.

— Andrea Hsu

For those that may have family or friends in or near Chengdu, from a comment on an NPR blog:

Chengdu:

Please check with Consulate General of American in Chengdu.

Phone: (28) 8558-3992

Fax: (28) 8554-6229

Emergency: 1370-800-1422

Email: [email protected]

Emergencies

The ACS Unit provides emergency assistance to American citizens in distress: when an American is destitute, arrested, separated from minor children, or sick. In an emergency, the Consulate Duty Officer can be reached at any time by calling 1370-800-1422.

Dial 01186 before you dial those numbers if you dial from USA.

The Democratic candidates for president felt compelled to attend a public forum on religion. The two biggest controversies about Barack Obama involved religion. Because Obama has been falsely accused of being a member of a religion that is disgustingly demonized in this country he is nearly required to talk publicly about being a member of a more accepted religion. Because her husband offended the delicate sensibilities of some sexually repressed middle Americans, Hillary Clinton has to talk publicly about her own religious beliefs. In the third century of this nation’s existence, the constitutionally enshrined concept of separation of church and state is, in practice if not in fact, an anachronism. Does anyone else have a problem with all of this?

Jimmy Carter was openly religious and attempted to pursue a foreign policy based on respect for human rights. George W. Bush is openly religious and pursues a foreign policy based on vicious violence against those who are not compliant to his rapacious imperialistic greed. Why would anyone believe that a politician’s public blather about religion necessarily has anything to do with what that politician truly thinks or believes or would do with political office? All American politicians now feel required to tout their personal relationship with the divine. None have the courage to simply state that religion is intensely personal, and nobody’s else’s business. None have the courage to remind people of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution:

…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

To demand that politicians explain their religious beliefs is literally in violation of the Constitution. And yet, here we are, with one candidate who claims to have the experience to be ready to lead on day one, and another who claims to champion hope and change, and with neither able to stand up against the disgusting political expectation that they engage in public displays of religious demagoguery. What the hell does talk about religion have to do with the way people will run the country? Nothing. Of course. And this is to in no way disparage religion itself or those who are religious. It’s just that religion and politics should not mix. Neither is good for the other. And nothing any person says about their personal religious beliefs can be presumptively taken at face value. And yet, two nights ago, the two Democratic presidential candidates were in public, on national television, discussing their religious beliefs.

What makes this even worse is that there has never been a night when two presidential candidates were in public, on national television, discussing their beliefs about science. To anyone not overly cynical, it would be astonishing: in an ostensibly rational nation, among ostensibly rational people, religion takes precedence over science. Despite the fact that so many of the problems that actually will decide humanity’s future and fate have to do with science. From global warming and climate change, to biomedical research, to whether or not our education system trains our children to be ready to compete and help our nation compete in an increasingly technologically competitive world, there are few broad political themes as important as a candidate’s understanding of and relationship with science, and few that receive less attention both from the candidates and from the corporate media.