Benjamins

Benjamins rule politics, but we already knew that, a sad reality egregiously amplified thanks to Citizens United, the supreme's ruling codifying the fact America's now an oligarchy with bought and paid for politicians whose mendacity knows no end. 

One of the most embarrassing aspects of U.S. politics is politicians who deny that money has any impact on what they do. For instance, Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s notoriously fracking-friendly former governor, got $1.7 million from oil and gas companies but assured voters that “The contributions don’t affect my decisions.” If you’re trying to get people to vote for you, you can’t tell them that what they want doesn’t matter.

This pose is also popular with a certain prominent breed of pundits, who love to tell us “Don’t Follow the Money” (New York Times columnist David Brooks), or “Money does not buy elections” (Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner on public radio’s Marketplace), or “Money won’t buy you votes” (Yale Law School professor Peter H. Schuck in the Los Angeles Times).

Meanwhile, 85 percent of Americans say we need to either “completely rebuild” or make “fundamental changes” to the campaign finance system. Just 13 percent think “only minor changes are necessary,” less than the 18 percent of Americans who believe they’ve been in the presence of a ghost.

Addendum:

• “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.” — Mark Hanna, William McKinley’s 1896 presidential campaign manager and later senator from Ohio, in 1895.

Any questions?

Remembering Cecil in a good way

Yours truly won't talk about the wanton killing of Cecil the Lion by a unconscious moron but rather about how his kind, and other endangered species, can be saved if we change how we do business on planet earth. To that end, this Saturday, August 1st, a powerful wake up call telling us to do just that will take place via the Empire State building where ... 

The callous murder of Zimbabwe’s beloved Cecil, the lion, has cast the plight of endangered species across the internet.

But this Saturday night, that plight will be cast offline in a new way as well, as digital projection mapper Travis Threlkel and filmmaker/photographer Louie Psihoyos collaborate to project massive images of the world’s most majestic endangered animals onto the face of New York City’s Empire State Building.

“We’re going to try to create something beautiful, not bum people out,” says Threlkel, adding that “hopefully, this is one big domino. If we can tip it, it would be great.”

To yours truly, the Snow Leopard is one prime reason why biodiversity must be maintained, not only for preserving animals as magnificent as these big cats are but also for our survival as everything's connected and we are, as my wife is won't to say, only as strong as our weakest link.

Acceleration 2 Step

The title & subtitle plus blurb says it all regarding GW.

The Wettest Rainforest in the United States Has Gone Up in Flames

When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn.

The wettest rainforest in the continental United States had gone up in flames and the smoke was so thick, so blanketing, that you could see it miles away. Deep in Washington’s Olympic National Park, the aptly named Paradise Fire, undaunted by the dampness of it all, was eating the forest alive and destroying an ecological Eden. In this season of drought across the West, there have been far bigger blazes but none quite so symbolic or offering quite such grim news. It isn’t the size of the fire (though it is the largest in the park’s history), nor its intensity. It’s something else entirely -- the fact that it shouldn’t have been burning at all. When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn.

Read the piece in its entirety. Disquieting to say the least.

Eye Candy/NASA style :)

4K video rocks, here's some eye candy courtesy NASA. :)

Here's another. 

Time waster to the max if you ask me. :)

Risk Assessment

BRT talks copiously about the inevitable costs in doing anything as the 1st law of thermodynamics rules no matter what endeavor man or nature undertakes. With this in mind, the Global Challenges Foundation takes the cost variable and applies it with skill to the 12 risks threatening society as we move further into the 21st century. To whit:

The idea that we face a number of global risks threatening the very basis of our civilisation at the beginning of the 21st century is well accepted in the scientific community, and is studied at a number of leading universities. But there is still no coordinated approach to address this group of risks and turn them into opportunities.

The 12 global risks that threaten human civilisation are:

Current risks

1. Extreme Climate Change
2. Nuclear War
3. Ecological Catastrophe
4. Global Pandemic
5. Global System Collapse

Exogenic risks

1. Major Asteroid Impact
2. Supervolcano (Yellowstone)

Emerging risks

1. Synthetic Biology
2. Nanotechnology
3. Artificial Intelligence
4. Uncertain Risks
5. Global policy risk
6. Future Bad Global Governance

Click here to download the PDF to learn why addressing these issue now is paramount to our survival.

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace is a treasure. Coming to bloom in early summer, the action doesn't start until its fragrance becomes just right to attract wasps, bumble bees, honey bees and green flies, not to mention ants of all varieties and butterflies of many persuasions.

Factoid: Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods.

Not bad for a wild carrot that plays well with tomatoes and lettuce and provides a banquet for insects both small and large as seen by an alpha wasp helping itself to a midday snack of nectar. :) Enjoy.

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. 

360 & Then Some

Insane says it all. Not a plug but Immersive's pretty stellar tech without question.

Here's yet another.

Mother Nature's Way :)

Yours truly is a natural path. No prescription drugs, a relatively decent diet, (not perfect by any stretch of the imagination) and true distaste for the dysfunctional healthcare system in America where symptoms are treated and not the cause, are prime drivers in my dealing with health issues that, to date, thank god, are pretty damn minor in the grand scheme of things. In support of my "wonderful" approach to health, here is a treasure trove of useful info regarding the natural way to deal with day to day maladies courtesy Pioneer Settler, a terrific site filled with common sense advice on preventative health practices that work without issue. 

Read the article. You will NOT be disappointed. :)

Flyover & Than Some - Pluto Style :)

NASA's New Horizons rules. :)

Pluto's hazy skies, courtesy NW's nightside shot of our 9th planet. :)

Beyond Control

BRT has talked about secrecy and control and its connect to tech quite often as the subject matter is fascinating, something akin to a moth attracted to a flame, dangerous yet not if one keeps proper distance from the source of the attraction. To that end, 9/11 has given rise to an America we don't know, a Hidden world, growing beyond control.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

• Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
• An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
• In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.
• Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

"No one knows, do one?" - Fats Waller

Frontline - Top Secret America