Sean McBride › Comments

I was dreading this, knowing it was coming sooner or later, it degrades your search precision - sofarsoShawn

Of course.. - Symon Muchina Thuo

Carbon in the atmosphere, even in very small numbers, effects the natural cooling system of the earth. The Greenhouse Effect if you will. While the Earth has it's own cycle of cooling and heating, the question is what effect are we having on accelerating this cycle and how long until conditions become such that we can not support the current population. Here are the 4 major things we as humans do to increase the carbon levels. - Johnny Worthington

Pitlord, I would love for that to happen... except existing private enterprises like Big Oil have some say politically in the research and develop of such technologies. A lot of private research and develop these days are funded by government tax breaks and grants. If Mr Oil doesn't want to loose money, he can lean on Mr Politician to cut funding. The difference is, it's a lot easier for a politician to say no if the public (and world) mood backs his position. - Johnny Worthington

The scary thing is that there are actually people who are ignorant or stupid enough to buy into Al Gore's lies. - pitlord from Bookmarklet

You mean like our former Vice President who thinks he's living 1984 and in charge of running the Ministry of Truth? - pitlord

"When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about. If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent. But if we don’t prepare, and climate change turns out to be real, life on this planet could become a living hell. And that’s why I’m for doing the Cheney-thing on climate — preparing for 1 percent." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Yeah, about the only thing he's been associated with that I approve of is, well, Matt Taibbi's epic takedown of him. - Andrew C

"Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the 'scientific fascism' ends." Good for him. I will definitely consider moving to Wisconsin. - pitlord from Bookmarklet

"Scientific fascism" = science that Sensenbrenner doesn't vaguely understand. - Sean McBride

Posted via email from Sean McBride's Posterous - Sean McBride from Posterous

"The acid rain controversy of the 1980s was in many respects a dress rehearsal for today’s fight over climate change. Then as now, right-wing ideologues denied the science. Then as now, industry groups claimed that any attempt to limit emissions would inflict grievous economic harm. But in 1990 the United States went ahead anyway with a cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide. And guess what. It worked, delivering a sharp reduction in pollution at lower-than-predicted cost. Curbing greenhouse gases will be a much bigger and more complex task — but we’re likely to be surprised at how easy it is once we get started." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Welcome to the new national Casino don't forget your players reward card. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/ - Eric Logan

"Picking up where Bible expert Bart Ehrman's New York Times bestseller Misquoting Jesus left off, Jesus, Interrupted addresses the larger issue of what the New Testament actually teaches—and it's not what most people think. Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed: * The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was and how salvation works * The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later * Jesus, Paul, Matthew, and John all represented fundamentally different religions * Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus, and the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologians These are not idiosyncratic perspectives of just one modern scholar. As Ehrman skillfully demonstrates, they have been the standard and widespread views of critical scholars across a full spectrum of denominations and traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things?" - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

I like the other Ehrman books I have read. Actually, established Christian doctrines like the common understanding of divinity and the trinity doctrine being an invention of later theologians is told everyday as a part of Jehovah's Witnesses door to door theocratic ministry. - Eric Logan

Had I not devoted my entire career of over half-a-century to the study and forecasting of meteorological and climate events I would have likely been concerned over the possibility of humans causing serious global climate degradation. - Steve from Bookmarklet

There has been no attempt to hide the agenda this is about environmental and social reform, climate change is just the current rallying cry. ===> The most profound danger to world peace in the coming years will stem not from the irrational acts of states or individuals but from the legitimate demands of the world's dispossessed. Of these poor and disenfranchised, the majority live a... more... - Eric Logan

"The scientists and engineers who worked at the laboratory constitute an extraordinary Who’s Who in the computing world. Dr. McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence in the 1950s. Before coming to SAIL he developed the LISP programming language and invented the time-sharing approach to computers. Mr. Earnest designed the first spell-checker and is rightly described as the father of social networking and blogging for his contribution of the finger command that made it possible to tell where the laboratory’s computer users were and what they were doing." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Most people don't know how much these guys (and many more) have done for modern society - Fulaan, inna Hebel

"That's the likeliest consequence of the current awful choices the West has with respect to Iran's nuclear weapon capacity. In a diplomatic war-game at Harvard, various experienced officials tried to game out future negotiations, sanctions and alliances. Iran's revolutionary guard junta, which now runs almost all the country's key institutions, wins every time. Broad sanctions won't work; specific sanctions bring Russia and China again to Iran's defense; and in the end, the US comes to the obvious conclusion that, absent launching a war we can neither afford nor accomplish, the best strategy is containment of an Iran with nuclear latency or even a few nuclear bombs. This is certainly no riskier a strategy with respect to America's vital interests than letting Pakistan have a nuke. But it leaves an obvious problem: Israel." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Given Israels couple hundred A-Bombs hard to fault Iran for wanting a couple.. just for balance but if anybody roughs up Iran China spank and I'm sure that plays big in DC if not in Israel - WarLord

"The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 (January–October) is currently estimated at 0.44°C ± 0.11°C (0.79°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961–1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year. The decade of the 2000s (2000–2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990–1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980–1989)." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"Inhofe apparently either hadn’t read the WMO report or was intentionally vague in his wording so as not to state the organization’s conclusion. But Inhofe also was wrong about The Guardian. The UK newspaper joined with 56 other newspapers in 45 countries to run the same front-page editorial yesterday, urging action on climate change. Two of the three citations Inhofe used to validate... more... - Sean McBride

"An article in its Internet-distributed pamphlet "The Jewish Voice" includes a call to "execute targeted operations against the evildoers, invade Civil Administration offices and ransack them, as well as operate violently [sic] against the Palestinians, deepen the refusal to serve in the army and not recognize Israeli courts." The article was written by Rabbi Yosef Elitzur of the "Od Yosef Hai" yeshiva in Yitzhar." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Interesting, that word "evildoers" --also used by George W. Bush and his fellow Christian Zionist ideologues. - Sean McBride

"EU nations agreed on Tuesday that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state, assuaging Israeli anger over earlier mention of east Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. Jerusalem should provide "the future capital of the two states," as part of a negotiated settlement, European Union foreign ministers agreed in a text released after talks in Brussels." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

We are at a time when many news enterprises are shutting down or scaling back. No doubt you will hear some tell you that journalism is in dire shape, and the triumph of digital is to blame. My message is just the opposite. The future of journalism is more promising than ever—limited only by editors and producers unwilling to fight for their readers and viewers, or government using its heavy hand either to overregulate or subsidize us. From the beginning, newspapers have prospered for one reason: the trust that comes from representing their readers' interests and giving them the news that's important to them. That means covering the communities where they live, exposing government or business corruption, and standing up to the rich and powerful. Technology now allows us to do this on a much greater scale. That means we have the means to reach billions of people who until now have had no honest or independent sources of the information they need to rise in society, hold their... more... - Eric Logan from Bookmarklet

I find Rupert Murdoch's media properties to be appalling, but oddly enough I agree with him in this respect: intellectual property rights matter greatly, and generators of intellectual property (including high-quality news and investigative journalism) need to be paid for their efforts. High-quality news and investigative journalism are not free -- far from it. - Sean McBride

"As Vanity Fair contributor and historian Niall Ferguson loves to point out, the tremendous political influence of bankers in capitalist democracies is no new development. But the pervasive connections of Goldman Sachs in the United States government—along with the widespread belief that Goldman got particularly and shamefully favorable treatment in the bailout at the expense of taxpayers—has caused many to look closer at the reach of Goldman's tentacles. Building on work by The Huffington Post, the London Times, and other sleuths, Vanity Fair compiled a list of high-ranking officials in governments across the globe who have significant links to the bank, as well as current Goldman personnel who have held noteworthy positions in politics. Even vigilant Goldman watchdogs may spot a few unfamiliar names on the list." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

The chart is to small for me to read on my screen. - Eric Logan

Eric -- I downloaded the image to my drive and then read it with my local image viewer using the zoom function -- well worth the effort. (I am converting the data in the image to simple semantic assertions.) - Sean McBride

"The only reason the climate change denial industry is working so hard to promote the false idea that there’s a “debate” going on in the scientific community is to cast doubt and spread confusion among the public. No scientific theory is ever considered to be “100% certain.” But suppose you were about to take a flight, and a mechanic told you that there was a 95%+ chance that the airplane would crash. Would you just get on the plane anyway? That’s exactly the situation we’re in with human-caused global warming. The scientific consensus is overwhelming, and it’s supported by mountains of data from multiple sources, all of it in agreement. Does it make sense to say that because we don’t have absolute certainty, we should just sit back and do nothing — and let the problem get worse and worse until it’s too late to do anything about it?" - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"I am very pleased to be able to announce that Microsoft Semantic Engine, a group that I founded and led up through the current PDC 2009, has finally been made visible to the general public. The blog linked above called it the "hidden gem" of PDC 2009. That was very kind of him. In the two years that we have been building this technology, our goals have remained the same: to make semantically-enhanced search, discovery, and organization autonomic, scale invariant, and immediately useable by anyone used to search engines." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

Posted via email from Sean McBride's Posterous - Sean McBride from Posterous

"Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

Pahlin and her wacky tea bagging conspiracy theorists will be the only thing that saves the Democratic Majority. Unemployment is structural and long lasting. And with the Dems too busy playing deficit hawk to notice by rights they should be punished but the two party system is rapidly devolving into Democrats Vs Blue Dogs... - WarLord

Something else for them to tax. When will people realize how dangerous this administration is? - Spencer from Bookmarklet

Spencer -- are there any dangerous pollutants created by human activity that you think should be regulated by federal, state or local governments? - Sean McBride

"Something just doesn’t add up about the stated logic of sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, says Jamal Dajani, who has a theory about the president’s real reason for escalating the war." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

We didn't go into Pakistan (when it was obvious they were the only M.E. country to openly support the Taliban) because too many of our manufacturing jobs were being sent there. Now we got Iran surrounded. Hooray for war! - Jackye Chan

"In the next 10 years, the way people interact with computers will wildly change. Hand gestures will be as common as the click of a keyboard, and an assortment of documents will be selected not with a mouse, but with a scan of the eye. "Today, most people's interaction is through a screen -- whether they touch it, type it, point or click, it's still just graphical user interface," says Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"The National Academy of Sciences, the US Global Change Research Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have all come to the same conclusion: “that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use and the loss of carbon-sink capacity in heavily timbered forests are increasing temperatures and making oceans more acidic.” David Koch’s Koch Industries derives much of its profit from its oil refineries, one of the major emitters of carbon dioxide, and from its George-Pacific timber subsidiary, one of the largest contributors to the loss of carbon-sink capacity. So while it’s clear Koch’s bottom line is in conflict with the addressing the world’s climate crisis, it should also be clear that he is no champion of science — no matter how many halls he buys at the Smithsonian." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

And that is happening now as well, the health care bill as an example. Much more government regulation and control and of course the counter reaction is as predictable: socialism, bad! In my estimation the tipping point is nearing really fast (or it may have already passed) before the big corporations start imploding, and thereby completely destroying the US economy. China and India are ready to take over. - Rene Wirtz

"The United States will launch a new effort to track down Osama bin Laden who is believed to be hiding in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border, a senior US official said on Sunday. Intelligence reports suggest the Al-Qaeda chief "is somewhere inside north Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border," said national security adviser James Jones. Asked if President Barack Obama's administration planned a fresh attempt to go after Al-Qaeda's leader, Jones said: "I think so."" - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

"I THINK SO"?!?!?!? You need to think about that?!?!? - Steven Perez

It seems to be difficult to keep infusing energy and life into this story. Skeptical minds might even begin to wonder if the government itself has known for a long time that OBL wasn't behind 9/11. (The FBI apparently never believed that he was.) - Sean McBride

"The new project, launched with an initial $5 million grant and a five-year timetable, is called the Mind Machine Project, or MMP, a loosely bound collaboration of about two dozen professors, researchers, students and postdocs. According to Neil Gershenfeld, one of the leaders of MMP and director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, one of the project's goals is to create intelligent machines -- "whatever that means."" - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"The project is "revisiting fundamental assumptions" in all of the areas encompassed by the field of AI, including the nature of the mind and of memory, and how intelligence can be manifested in physical form, says Gershenfeld, professor of media arts and sciences. "Essentially, we want to rewind to 30 years ago and revisit some ideas that had gotten frozen," he says, adding that the new group hopes to correct "fundamental mistakes" made in AI research over the years." - Sean McBride

"And the third focus of the new research has to do with what they describe as "body": "Computer science and physical science diverged decades ago," Gershenfeld says. Computers are programmed by writing a sequence of lines of code, but "the mind doesn't work that way. In the mind, everything happens everywhere all the time." A new approach to programming, called RALA (short for... more... - Sean McBride

"Obama slipped past a real doozy Tuesday night when he said the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden. It just ain't so. They tried three times to open negotiations for this, but Bush refused each time. He wanted to bomb people so bad it hurt." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

hmmm - Mona Nomura

More accurately, by August of 2001, those behind the Bush admin had come to the conclusion that the Taliban-led government would not be an obedient surrogate to the directions of G8 energy co's, and would not be unseated easily by the Massoud-led, western-friendly forces in the north. Not without US troops on the ground. So, it really didn't matter if Bin Laden even existed - the... more... - Cole Jolley

"Inching over the treacherous surface of the Rathong glacier, almost 5,000 metres (16,400ft) high in the eastern Himalayas, Dr Shresth Tayal stooped to inspect a 7m steel rod he buried vertically in the ice six months ago. After a decade studying Himalayan glaciers, he had expected to find at least half the rod exposed — an alarming enough indication of how fast the Rathong is melting — but even he was surprised by what he found last week. “Six metres in six months,” he cried, breathing hard in the thin mountain air as The Times and the rest of his team stepped gingerly between hidden crevasses and gushing rivulets of freshly melted ice. “It’s pathetic,” he said. “The glacier is dying.”" - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"India's own skeptical environment industry" A State-of-Art Review of Glacial Studies, Glacial Retreat and Climate Change - V.K.Raina, Ex. Deputy Director General, Geological Survey of India http://moef.nic.in/downloa... - Eric Logan

Sorry folks -- catching up on Sean's feed. - Mona Nomura

"If you closed your eyes during much of the President’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night and just listened to the words, you easily could have concluded that George W. Bush was still in the Oval Office." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

It's still the same problem... just with no new answers... Cause there isn't any... - Johnny Worthington

"Now there is a new approach that may adapt well to textbook pages: two-screen e-book readers with a traditional e-paper display on one screen and a liquid-crystal display on the other to render graphics like science animations in color. The dual screens are linked by a central processor so that, for example, a link on the e-paper display can open on the color screen. A two-screen device called the eDGe will be released by enTourage Systems in February for $490, said Doug Atkinson, vice president of marketing and business development for the company, based in McLean, Va." - Sean McBride from Bookmarklet

"Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., said that the enTourage device was part of the next generation of e-readers, which would be hybrids. “They won’t just be a netbook or a tablet or an e-reader,” Ms. Epps said, “but a combination that will bend the categories consumers expect from electronics.”" - Sean McBride