Putting aside the recent NSA furor, let’s talk about giving away your privacy.
Look at who I would have had to have given permission to view my browser
activity in order to view a slideshow at Reuters.com.
All posts by Peter Terezakis
BRADBURY
Inspiration for a lifetime
I discovered this address earlier today. I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.
“YOU DON”T HAVE TO BURN BOOKS TO DESTROY A CULTURE.
YOU JUST HAVE TO GET PEOPLE TO STOP READING THEM.”
– Ray Bradbury
San Onofre to close, no thanks to KPBS
“Sempra Energy (SRE), which had a 20 percent stake in San Onofre, expects California regulators to allow it to recover its $519 million investment from ratepayers, the San Diego-based company said in a filing today. The company’s San Diego Gas & Electric Company utility will likely record an after-tax charge of $30 million to $110 million in the second quarter of 2013 related to the plant.” – Bloomberg
As someone who has been involved in the effort to shut San Onofre down for years, this news is good news. Constructed on top of a geological fault line, a couple of hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean and from Route 5, ground-breaking for the nuclear plant began in 1964.
By 1966 the beach had been excavated and concrete poured for the signature “beach ball” containment vessels. The top pop song for 1966 was the Ballad of the Green Berets, cigarette advertising looked like this, and Star Trek debuted on television (the original one, that is).
What isn’t good news is the way that public radio has acted to support the financial interests of a public utility over the safety over a captive population.
Alison St. John, a reporter from KPBS San Diego has been covering this story for several years. Never an advocate for anyone but industry, a recent article of hers refers to, “howls of protest from people.”
“San Onofre: How did it come to this?” – Alison St. John
Between the article title and closing statement it is clear that Alison St. John has little regard for issues of health, safety, or quality of life for the families and our environment which would be affected by a nuclear event from San Onofre:
“The public and political wrangling going on now is likely part of an elaborate chess game, adding leverage to the real negotiations going on behind the scenes.”
Given Ms. St. John’s track record of advocacy for other SDGE/Sempra projects, I am surprised that she didn’t use industry terminology when referencing the public and call us “ratepayers.”
Public radio has become the PR machine for Sempra Energy, SDGE, Sunrise Powerlink, and Granite Construction Company. Alison St. John is one their spokespeople, proving once again that advertising is the second oldest profession.
$elling out Science
At the same time that the United States has been slashing the budgets of NASA and continuing to muzzle federally employed scientists and researchers from publishing climate-related concerns and observations, Canada is now following the Bush-Obama protocol for muzzling science by, “performing research which only has a social or economic gain.”
Phil Plait’s article on this in Slate is in the link below. Meanwhile, I wonder if the recent flooding of Alberta will impact the outlawing of climate science in North Carolina – or the rest of the United States and Canada?
Muzzling science is not going to control public reaction to rising sea levels and rapidly changing climatic changes. Burning dirt and/or fracking are also no longer viable energy options for our civilization, if they ever were.
obelisk or beacon
I was exploring my home town recently and discovered “Cleopatra’s Needle” on the western side of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Turns out that it was already a thousand years old during Cleopatra’s reign.
Having a little experience in rigging objects larger than myself, I was curious how something from Egypt wound up in Central Park. In researching, I came across the following text which resonates with my feelings of unease and concern for the future of the United States:
The opening ceremony was held on February 22, 1881, before more than 10,000 jubilant New Yorkers. William Maxwell Evarts, then U.S. Secretary of State, asked to the crowds, “Who indeed can tell what our nation will do if any perversity is possible of realization; and yet this obelisk may ask us, ‘Can you expect to flourish forever? Can you expect wealth to accumulate and man not decay? Can you think that the soft folds of luxury are to wrap themselves closer and closer around this nation and the pith and vigor of its manhood know no decay? Can it creep over you and yet the nation know no decrepitude?’ These are questions that may be answered in the time of the obelisk but not in ours.“
Citizens in Tennessee complain about water quality and are threatened by a state official with possible charges of terrorism.
Is this to be the new trend for silencing environmental activists, citizens protesting fracking, the proliferation of GMOs, and the continued contamination of our water, earth, and even the air that we breathe?
NYC: Ground-Zero + Climate Change
| As if living with post-9/11 urban paranoia wasn’t enough, a recent map came out showing the evacuation zones for 3 million New York City residents. |
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| Mayor Bloomberg has announced a 19.5 billion dollar program to protect life and property from hurricane storm surges and rising levels of the Atlantic Ocean.I’m a big fan of science fiction, solar power, Cold Fusion, and other fringe-type works of literature and politically charged paradigm disruptors of public utility monopolies across the planet.But Mayor Bloomberg, as anyone who has been out at sea will tell you, you are not holding back an ocean.
If they haven’t already, New York’s financial industries ought to be looking to relocate on higher ground — or maybe move to a state that they could take over like Idaho. Then again, since the New York Stock Exchange was purchased (2012) by the energy-based InterContinentalExchange (ICE), maybe they will move all operations to Atlanta where ICE’s home offices are located. |
Not so hidden agenda behind lack of GMO labeling
Blanket patent for all LENR devices?
Really do not understand how this patent was granted given the decades of prior art.
Inventors: Dan Steinberg (Blacksburg, VA, US)
IPC8 Class: AH05H600FI
USPC Class: 376151
Class name: Induced nuclear reactions: processes, systems, and elements nuclear fusion fusion targets or pellets
Publication date: 2013-02-21
Patent application number: 20130044847
I know why I cannot stay here…
“This is one of the only places in the city where there is no barrier between the path and the river; it is possible to take a careful walk across the rocks and touch the water. ” –Manhattan Waterfront Greenway
Woo.
: – (
Get me back to San Diego and the open spaces of the American Southwest!
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