On Palin

Sarah Palin may have actually earned my respect for the first time.

"In addition to Palin's book deal, she is being offered lucrative speeches and has been approached about talk shows. She is expected to earn millions on the book and other deals once she is out of state government -- after July 26."

full post from MSNBC's First Read

If Sarah Palin realised that she couldn't win the next Republican presidential primary; and

If Palin realised that her next years as Governor would suck beyond sucking because she is such an easy target; and

If Palin realised that she really had not much of a future in actual elected public political office; and

If Palin realised that she could leave her current position as a full-time time target of her political opponents; and

If Palin realised she could make way more money (and have a better life) as a Republican bon vivant/gadfly working the paid speaking circuit and fundraising circuit (see further Bill Clinton Washington post here and Newsweek here)

I will actually have respect for her

If I were unlikely to win the Presidential Nomination but could make millions I'd pull the plug in a second.

So, there you have it. I may have to issue a statement of grudging respect for this decision to stand alongside my overall utter contempt for Sarah Palin.

i suck

haven't posted in forever

now i'm back posting again

Monkey's brain controls robot arm

"Monkeys have been able to control robotic limbs using only their thoughts, scientists report.

The animals were able to feed themselves using prosthetic arms, which were controlled by brain activity.

Small probes, the width of a human hair, were inserted into the monkeys' primary motor cortex - the region of the brain that controls movement."

BBC News - Wednesday, 28 May 2008

The story cited above talks about the scientists using this technology to assist people with paralysis and amputees.

I suggest that people should think about the computer interface aspects of this technology. Those familiar with the cyberpunk genre of science fiction will know immediately the huge implications of such a technology. Others who have not read the books may have seen the movie Johnny Mnemonic

The ability to wire a human brain to a computer control system is the beginning of the next stage of human evolution. I know that there are many who will potentially mock me or dismiss me for pointing to this technology as the harbinger of something really big for humanity...

But it is.

Feel free to read articles discussing the work of UK defense department think tanks, The University of Florida News, Professors with implants, University of California researchers developing the "Artificial Hippocampus".

I will leave the last word to Bill Joy (William Nelson Joy (born Feb 8, 1954), commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vaughan Pratt, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003. - wikipedia)

"Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor ofThe Java Language Specification. His work on theJini pervasive computing technology was featured inWired 6.08."

"From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

Ray and I were both speakers at George Gilder's Telecosm conference, and I encountered him by chance in the bar of the hotel after both our sessions were over. I was sitting with John Searle, a Berkeley philosopher who studies consciousness. While we were talking, Ray approached and a conversation began, the subject of which haunts me to this day.

I had missed Ray's talk and the subsequent panel that Ray and John had been on, and they now picked right up where they'd left off, with Ray saying that the rate of improvement of technology was going to accelerate and that we were going to become robots or fuse with robots or something like that, and John countering that this couldn't happen, because the robots couldn't be conscious."

"Perhaps it is always hard to see the bigger impact while you are in the vortex of a change. Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists; we have long been driven by the overarching desire to know that is the nature of science's quest, not stopping to notice that the progress to newer and more powerful technologies can take on a life of its own." - Bill Joy, Wired Magazine

Global Warming: Arctic map "will have to be redrawn"

"Scientists in the Arctic have just carried out the first research on a huge iceberg the size of Manhattan."

"For 3,000 years, this colossal block of ice was securely fixed to the coast as part of the Ayles Ice Shelf - but now it is drifting free."

"Climate scientists predict that the Arctic will continue to warm - so the expectation is that the five remaining ice shelves here could also break away. The effect already is that the map of the Arctic will have to be redrawn."

"with the current rate of warming, those ice shelves are likely never to be reconstituted."

"according to Dr Copland, the fact that such thick ice could split apart in less than an hour - as it did back in August 2005 - illustrates a more alarming point.

"This shows how climate change can trigger very sudden changes even on a massive scale - when the ice shelf broke away, the rupture registered with the force of a small earthquake," he said."

BBC: Science team lands on Ice Island

Chemicals used on car seats 'toxic' to children, study warns

"A new study suggests that "toxic" chemicals used in the materials to make car seats can put children in danger of developing health problems if ingested or inhaled.

The study, released Wednesday by the Michigan-based environmental group Ecology Center, provides analysis of more than 60 different car seat models for chemicals including bromine, chlorine and lead.

"These chemicals can be associated with developmental disorders, learning impairment, liver disease, cancer, as well as other allergic type diseases," said Jeff Gearhart, lead author of the report."

CBC Story

You know, every time I hear some right winger yipping about how we don't need government regulation and oversight, or hear them say things like "occupational health and safety and other red tape gets in the way of business" (a quote from Brad Wall, leader of the right wing Saskatchewan Party) it makes me mad. I remember one guy I used to know saying "...business would never do anything that would hurt their customers - it would be bad for business. It would drive their customers away. And if they did they would be out of business - that's the discipline of the market."

So what was it that stopped the tobacco industry? The fact that it's bad for business to kill your customers? The above example of toxic chemicals in children's carseats is another example of the profit motive overriding common sense and basic safety. I remember how long the office furniture and carpet industries tried to deny the effects of formaldahyde and other chemicals leaching from their products in offices.

The news article does say that the manufacturer Graco is taking the study seriously and is examing the report and its methodology. Kudos to them if their effort is more than a whitewash or denial attmpt. As for other manufacturers:

"The company Britax, whose Marathon Platinum seat was found to have the highest levels of chemicals in the convertible car seat category, did not return calls."

On a side note: I wonder when corporations will be held to the same standards of accountability, availablity, and transparency of government? You always hear about business leaders beaking on the subject of accountable government, how about accountable business?

TILMA and North American Integration

I want to refer people over to Larry Hubich's blog. Larry has a piece from Lou Dobbs that shows how the intention of the integration of North America is proceeding. As Lou Dobbs says this is "not some wild conspiracy theory."

CNN- Lou Dobbs Outs Those Involved in N. American Union

Canada has the resources, the US has the industry, and Mexico has cheap labour and an untapped market ready to buy stuff. From a big industry standpoint - what could be better?

When you see the lists of people involved and you see who is pushing things like North American Free Trade and TILMA - you will see it is the same players. Canada can be absorbed - is being absorbed. Understand that. Make a choice. Don't just ignore it.

Either take action against that absorbtion, or make a conscious choice to allow it to happen.

I am not in favour of becoming like the U.S. I will be taking action against integration.

South Pacific to stop bottom-trawling

"A quarter of the world's oceans will be protected from fishing boats which drag heavy nets across the sea floor, South Pacific nations have agreed.

The landmark deal will restrict bottom-trawling, which experts say destroys coral reefs and stirs up clouds of sediment that suffocate marine life."

"Last November, leading scientists warned there would be no sea fish left in 50 years if current practices continued. "

BBC Story

I have never understood why anyone would allow, or frankly, would even engage in the practice of bottom-trawling. The very idea is appalling. I have been upset about bottom dragging since i was a small child.

The fishers take a heavy net and steel plates and they drag it all along the ocean floor with nets above. These nets and lines are up to a mile wide. Think about if that were on surface land. They are dragging and scouring a mile wide swath. This is not just harvesting off the top, this digs in the mud/ocean floor. If you dragged a forest a a depth of 6 inches to 1 foot, what would happen to that forest? Ocean bottom is as rich in life as a forest.

I am so happy that at least this has stopped. Hopefully this is the first step in a rapid shutdown of the entire practice.