Despite All Your Rage, You're Still Just a Rat in a Cage

Here's a funny and emerging meme - the modern video game as Skinner Box.  It's silly and more than a little creepy at the same time.  First, this whip-smart piece on Cracked, and now the latest Game|Life podcast.

Mash the button, get your sugar pellet.  Don't get electrocuted.  Rinse, repeat.  This is what government, corporations, and the entertainment industry thinks of you - a brainless lab rat with a credit card.  You're being bred and conditioned into an existence as a machine, straight out of Huxley and Orwell.  You should be concerned about this.  You are not a lab rat.  Stop behaving like one.

Today is SOPA Blackout Day!

As I'm sure you already know, today is the day for the mass online protest against the SOPA bill working its way through Congress.  This legislation, the creation of the MPAA, would give government and private industry the power to censor, block, or shut down any website suspected of "piracy" or "copyright infringement."  Since the internet is based on sharing and connectivity of media, this pretty much makes the World Wide Web itself a suspect.

This is a disastrous piece of legislation, propped up by dinosaur industries and the authoritarian-minded politicians in their pockets.  This is a profound threat to our liberties and our way of life.  It's very simple.  If SOPA passes, sites like The Ghibli Blog can be shut down.  Hell, Youtube, Facebook, Reddit and Twitter can be shut down.  SOPA could also be used as a tool of political suppression.  People who criticize the government, or the ruling political party, could be shut down. Websites that embarrass politicians could be shut down.  Do no doubt that these scenarios could happen.  Expect it.

Call your members of Congress and demand that they stop this reckless assault on our rights.  SOPA does nothing to stop online "piracy," and you know it.  It will only be used by the powerful to beat down their rivals and their critics.

Call the Congressional Switchboard now -- (202) 224-3121.  Then call again.  Keep the pressure up!

"Justifiable Homicide"

South Dakota Republicans have a bill in the South Dakota legislature which would classify killing abortion doctors as "justifiable homicide."  This would roughly have the effect of making it legal to shoot doctors.

Personally, I think this civilization is doomed, anyway (lalala, no such thing as global warming), so at least I'll have some quality entertainment as the crazies drive us over the cliff.  A couple more shootings and mass killings is just what this country needs right now.

The Putting Six-Year-Olds Back to Work in the Coal Mines Act of 2011

This is why I love Republicans so much.  Missouri state Senator Jane Cunningham has introduced a bill in her state which would eliminate child labor laws.  Smithers, get those children back to the coal mines where they belong!

I'd just like to take this moment to thank the nation's voters, especially the "undecided" voters, for putting the Republicans back in charge of everything.  This was really well thought out.

Revolution Number Nine

Bye Bye, Mubarak!  Don't let the door hit you on the way out.  And take The Dark Lord Saruman while yer at it.  Let there be no more tyrants and corrupt client states in our world.

A great day for Egypt and the Mideast.  The revolution in Tunisia sent a shockwave across the entire region, but that's nothing compared to this.  How many people in other Mideast nations will feel empowered to stand up for their rights?  Who's next?  Sudan?  Jordan?  Algeria?  Yemen?  Bahrain?  Dare I dream...Saudi Arabia and Iran?  As an American, I would gladly pay six dollars for a gallon of gas if it meant these people had freedom and democracy.  Let's hope for the best.

What is the Atomic Weight of Bolognium?

Uh...is it, "Delicious"?

California public schools are inviting BP to help craft their envonmental cirrciculum.  Joy.  It's amazing to see the scale of the public relations control by BP since the Gulf Coast oil disaster.  They really are working overtime to dazzle the peasants and keep the politicians in their pocket.  I probably shouldn't be surprised by any of this.  It's still unacceptable, and one more example of the deep-seated corruption in the American political system.

We really don't have time for this, kids.  The candle is burning and time is short.  We need to get off the oil now.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not "whenever," but now.

“Less Ice Covers the Arctic Today Than at Any Time in Recent Geologic History”

Yet another scientific study on global warming and the disappearing Arctic that will be ignored and assaulted by stupid and greedy bastards.  The melting of the polar ice caps - once the domain of science-fiction dystopias - will become a reality very soon.  Such a scenario was seen as, literally, the end of the world.  But now?  Silence.

Humanity continues to ride for glory in suicide machines.  Your grandchildren will die for your stupidity.

China Surpasses US in Renewable Energy Market

This is what complete domination by the fossil fuels industry will do to a nation.  The United States is falling behind China in the energy race of the 21st Century.  Moving to a post-carbon fuel future is not only essential for our survival, it's smart business.

German Military Study Warns of Peak Oil Crisis

Climate Progress delivers the goods, as always.  Shouldn't we be doing something about peak oil?  Is civilization really going to do absolutely nothing?  Really?  This is absolute madness.

Sometimes I wonder if the suits in charge are greedy bastards or just painfully incompetent.  Humanity is facing catastrophe on several fronts at once, and all as a result of our consumption of oil, gas and coal.  What part of "get off the fossil fuels" isn't getting through?  Is the money from these corporate behemoths that tempting?  Are you willing to sacrifice your grandchildren on the altar of $2 gas?

Look to Russia, children.  Look to Pakistan.  When crop failures become common, when food and water become scarce, when the economies of the world are crippled by dwindling resources, then you will understand.  But it will be too late.  Your children will die for your selfish delusions and your greed.  And they will know in their bones that you were warned for generations...and consciously chose to do nothing.

“Time is Running Out For Ourselves and Future Generations”

So says Philippe Cousteau, grandson of famed Jacques Cousteau.  We need to stop this endless pollution and burning of fossil fuels and tackle global warming.  Time is running out.  What part of this isn't getting through?!

It's Not Like Russia is Known For Being Cold

Have a look at Moscow's weather forecast for the next week - over 100F from here to the horizon.

Let's see how long Russia's leaders continue to deny reality.  Maybe they can pretend that the Soviet Union is still alive and that global warming is really a vast Communist conspiracy.  It works for the Americans.

Global Warming is Still a Hoax

Obviously, this is all a vast conspiracy by scientists to...um, well...hmm...Communism?

•According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months and the warmest April, May and June on record.

•A "staggering" new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.

•Nine nations so far have set their all-time temperature records this year, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May — a hair under 130 degrees.

Meanwhile, China is stampeding through their Industrial Revolution at a stunning rate.  Global demand for oil and coal continues to rise.  Americans cling to any deluded fantasy that comes along...Soviet Communism, One-World Government, Raising Taxes.  There is no political will to even consider reducing our endless consumption of fossil fuels.

I honestly don't know what it would take to bring public opinion around.  Even the devestation of the Gulf of Mexicoby millions of gallons of oil has changed nothing.  The last politician who even tried to address our energy addiction was Jimmy Carter - and he was practically tarred and feathered.  You want your throwaway plastics, your gas-guzzling cars, your televisions, and your red meat.  And you'll believe any bullshit fantasy in order to maintain this life.  And meanwhile, the planet burns.

Your children and grandchildren are going to die because of your selfishness and greed.  Just wait until the Greenland ice shelf collapses.  Just wait until the Arctic ice has gone.  Just wait until crops fail and you can't grow food.  Just wait until the drinking water runs out.  You've known the consequences for over a hundred years, and you just don't care.  Cheerfully, you hurl your children into the abyss.

Headlines That Make Me Feel Better

"Gulf Water Explodes in Lab Test."

Oh, this is going to be good.  The water is so covered in oil and gas and chemical dispersants that it's now explosive.

2010 Already the Hottest Year on Record, According to NASA

These graphs come from NASA, and were posted on the always-wonderful Climate Progress site.  The temperature record for 2010 has already been broken over a month ago, but it bears repeating as the summer heats up.  This year is already the hottest on record, and it follows the hottest decade on record...which follows the hottest decade before that...and so on and so on.

I believe climate change is the moral issue of our time.  This is the question of what world we will leave for our children and grandchildren.  We've known about the ill effects of pollution and fossil fuels for generations.  The time to act was yesterday, last month, last year, thirty years ago.  Denial and inaction is cowardly and criminal; even worse, a mistake.  The fate of the human civilization hangs in the balance.

Glacier Loses Ice Chunk Equal to One-Eighth of Manhattan

Oh, joy. A glacier on Greenland lost a 2.7 square mile chunk of ice - in a single day.  I especially like that final paragraph in the article (my emphasis in bold):

This is part of a recent trend which scientists say started around the beginning of this decade. Between 1850 and 1964, the glacier's ice front had retreated at about 0.3 kilometers a year. It then stayed that way until 2001 when the decrease began to accelerate at about 3 km/yr. (For more on the Jakobshavn Glacier Calving Front, click here.)


Thomas Wagner, cryospheric program scientist at NASA noted that while there have been ice breakouts of this magnitude from Jakonbshavn and other glaciers before, he described this event as "unusual because it occurs on the heels of a warm winter that saw no sea ice form in the surrounding bay." "While the exact relationship between these events is being determined, it lends credence to the theory that warming of the oceans is responsible for the ice loss observed throughout Greenland and Antarctica," he said.

In February, NASA scientists reported that west Greenland's glaciers were melting 100 times faster at their end points beneath the ocean than at their surfaces. The likely explanation behind the undersea melting: warmer ocean waters.

Remember back in January, when it was cold and snowing for a week, and everybody decided that proved that global warming was a big hoax?  Sigh...good times.  Sadly, denial continues to be the rule of the day, and people can't even be bothered to acknowledge the problem exists.  Your grandchild will not have this luxury.

The Problem is You

The biggest taboo for any American politician is to demand responsibility from the people themselves.  This is a nation of five-year-old crybabies.  They see their Presidents as all-powerful Daddies who are expected to magically solve everything, instantly and without any sacrifice.  "Daddy!  Gulf bwoke!  Fix it!!"

The last elected leader in this country who demanded responsible, grownup behavior from the crybabies was Jimmy Carter.  He told you to stop consuming oil, stop worshipping materialism, and put on a sweater.  And for that, he was practically tarred and feathered.

The crybabies want all their problems solved, but God help you if you ask them to take responsibility for it.  Whaah!! Whaah!!  I want my toy!!

You wanna do something about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  You wanna save the arctic ice and stop global warming?  Then stop consuming, stop wasting, stop polluting.  Give up your cars.  Give up your a/c units.  Give up your big-screen tv's.  Give up your red meat.

Fat chance on that.  The crybabies won't budge an inch, which means nothing will change, absolutely nothing.  And your children and grandchildren will suffer and die as a result.

Michelangelo and God's Brain

Now this is just about the coolest thing ever.  20 years ago, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association which argued that Michelangelo's depiction of God in the Sistine Chapel - "The Creation of Adam" - was actually the human brain.  Was this, in fact, true?  Was the form of the brain subversively concealed?

Now another discovery has been made, by Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo in the May 2010 issue of the scientific journal Neurosurgery.  They argue that the image of God in another panel, "The Separation of Light from Darkness", conceals an anatomically perfect rendition of the human brain and brain stem:

Art critics and historians have long puzzled over the odd anatomical irregularities in Michelangelo’s depiction of God’s neck in this panel, and by the discordant lighting in the region. The figures in the fresco are illuminated diagonally from the lower left, but God’s neck, highlighted as if in a spotlight, is illuminated straight-on and slightly from the right. How does one reconcile such clumsiness by the world’s master of human anatomy and skilled portrayer of light with bungling the image of God above the altar? Suk and Tamargo propose that the hideous goiter-disfigured neck of God is not a mistake, but rather a hidden message. They argue that nowhere else in any of the other figures did Michelangelo foul up his anatomically correct rendering of the human neck.  They show that if one superimposes a detail of God’s odd lumpy neck in the Separation of Light and Darkness on a photograph of the human brain as seen from below, the lines of God’s neck trace precisely the features of the human brain.

Michelangelo was one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance, a master of anatomy and light.  What subversive message was he trying to impart?  What was his secret agenda?  Remember that study of human anatomy was forbidden by the Catholic Church at this time; there was also the matter of Copernicus' assertion that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the Protestant Reformation was in full swing.  And Michaelangelo himself had an increasingly rocky relationship with the Church as he grew older.

It's exciting to think that, 500 years later, we may finally be unravelling Michelangelo's great subversive mystery.  And it will no doubt fuel debate over God and the brain - the mystics and the atheists will both see their beliefs confirmed in these paintings.

Four "Exxon Valdez" a Week

So, how is that "drill, baby, drill" mantra working out?

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate, perhaps up to 150,000 barrels -- or more than 6 million gallons per day -- based on government data showing daily production at another deepwater Gulf well.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill was 11 million gallons total. The Gulf spill could end up dumping the equivalent of 4 Exxon Valdez spills per week.

Arizona's Long Decline into Madness

Just so we understand perfectly, this has nothing whatsoever with "protecting borders" or "immigration. It's racism and white supremacy, pure and simple. The floodgates have been opened, and we're going to face more and more of this ugliness as the election year rolls on.

It's one of the great American ironies that the Republican Party - an abolitionist party headed by Abraham Lincoln - became controlled by southern racists...the Confederacy, essentially. But this was the price of Nixon's Southern Strategy. It was Nixon who allowed this cancer into his party, and now it has overwhelmed its host.

Arizona Legislature Bans Ethnic-Studies Programs

Just a week after signing the country's toughest immigration bill into law, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer now must decide whether to endorse another bill passed by her state legislature — one that outlaws ethnic-studies programs in public schools.

The bill forbids Arizona schools from using any curriculum that promotes "the overthrow of the United States government" or "resentment toward a race or class of people." It also disallows any curriculum that's "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" or that seeks to "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

Arizona's superintendent for public instruction, Tom Horne, has said he's backing the measure because ethnic-studies programs encourage "ethnic chauvinism"; he's also suggested that such programs could breed secessionist sentiment among Hispanic students.

Arizona Grades Teachers on Fluency

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. But some school principals and administrators say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.

The teacher controversy comes amid an increasingly tense debate over immigration. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer this month signed the nation's toughest law to crack down on illegal immigrants. Critics charge that the broader political climate has emboldened state education officials to target immigrant teachers at a time when a budget crisis has forced layoffs.

Hottest March and Hottest Jan-Feb-Mar on Record

Meanwhile, here on Planet Reality, the world continues to burn because of our addictions to fossil fuels and reckless consumption:

It was the hottest March in both satellite records (UAH and RSS), and tied for the hottest March on record in the NASA dataset. It was the hottest (or tied for hottest) January through March in all three records.


The record temperatures we’re seeing now are especially impressive because we’ve been in “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.” It now appears to be over. It’s just hard to stop the march of anthropogenic global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.

What is it going to take to wake people up?  What is it going to take to force our politicians to take the necessary steps to avoid apocalyptic catastrophe?  Nobody seems particularly motivated to act.  For the politicians, there's too much money pouring in from fossil fuel industries.  The citizens are no better, stubbornly clinging on to their toys, their gadgets, their deeply destructive lifestyles.

Changing your light bulbs isn't going to make any difference.  Bringing your own bag to the grocery store won't do a damned thing.  The problem is very simple - you consume too much.  Your lifestyle cannot merely be tinkered and nudged at the edges.  Your lifestyle is the problem.

And do you know the most frustrating part of it all?  We've known about this for over a century.  The first research paper addressing global climate change, and the burning of fossil fuels, was published in the 1890's.  Frank Capra made movie reels about global warming in the 1950's; you can watch it on Youtube.  But humanity has continued to flop on the seamy side.  Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death!