tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43882418353850889122024-03-13T17:15:06.742-07:00NewsHammeron the frontlines of news, politics and cultureAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-10237249779728082972011-03-15T12:15:00.000-07:002011-03-15T19:23:43.231-07:00Get Ready For The Chernobyl Solution<span style="font-size:130%;"></span><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A_vy4XNcuzA/TX_XL5I-2YI/AAAAAAAABqU/xb2l6TxnD8Y/s1600/FukishimaJapanNuclearPowerPlant_ScreenshotExplosionEdit1_March12_2011.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584418662279731586" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A_vy4XNcuzA/TX_XL5I-2YI/AAAAAAAABqU/xb2l6TxnD8Y/s400/FukishimaJapanNuclearPowerPlant_ScreenshotExplosionEdit1_March12_2011.jpg" /></a><br /><div>Alan Gillis in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/">The Science of Conundrums</a> reports: The shock of Japan's mega earthquake and tsunami has paralyzed not only Japan but the rest of the world. It has been so fantastic and overwhelming, our response has been the Japanese response, a mesmerising flood of emotions staring from the blank faces of the survivors. A wonder far beyond the moment, as though time itself had stopped and entombed them and us.<br /><br />Unstoppable forces suddenly come, suddenly go while unleashing a cascade of events as bewildering as all the destruction. Inevitable consequences wash over those of us still left standing like a tangible fate that won't stop until there's nothing left. What can we do anyway, especially behind a TV or laptop? Yet there are some who can act and have the power to save Japan from a second wave of disaster. But as part of the usual status quo that rarely acts in time, are politicians and scientists going to ignore the obvious or help us this time?<br /><br />The big event still to come is not obscure, not buried in disaster upon disaster. It explodes literally at Fukushima near Tokyo, from a 6 reactor complex, that while we watch, explodes and explodes three times in a row sending out great clouds of dust and smoke and nuclear particle radiation. A 30 km radius evacuation of 180,000 people but radiation now detectable beyond Japan in the adjoining Russian Islands. Many Japanese stay put without other clear and better options. Go where, do what?<br /><br />What do we do? We watch. We talk. Foreigners scramble to fly home. Many remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Low levels of radiation still, but for how long? The best guess of an ultimate disaster brewing is that one of the three most damaged nuclear reactors, Number 2 is breached and Number 2 is likely at risk for an actual full meltdown of its core. </div><div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">American Physicist Michio Kaku Warns Japan<br /></span><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://c.gigcount.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEzMDAyNDIxNzk2NTYmcHQ9MTMwMDI*MjE4MzY4OCZwPTEyNTg*MTEmZD1BQkNOZXdzX1NGUF9Mb2NrZV9FbWJlZCZn/PTImbz1lNTE3MzIwMjA2Yzg*ZjJjYTZkNmJhOTA*ZDdkYjU1OSZvZj*w.gif" /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,124,0" width="344" height="278" id="ABCESNWID"><param name="movie" value="http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all" /><param name="flashvars" value="configUrl=http://abcnews.go.com/video/sfp/embedPlayerConfig&configId=406732&clipId=13138100&showId=13138100&gig_lt=1300242179656&gig_pt=1300242183688&gig_g=2" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed src="http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf" quality="high" allowScriptAccess="always" allowNetworking="all" allowfullscreen="true" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="344" height="278" flashvars="configUrl=http://abcnews.go.com/video/sfp/embedPlayerConfig&configId=406732&clipId=13138100&showId=13138100&gig_lt=1300242179656&gig_pt=1300242183688&gig_g=2" name="ABCESNWID"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />"Sandbag the reactors" or do what the Soviets did to stop Chernobyl. (<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/how-likely-is-full-scale-meltdown-in-japan-13138100">Alternate video link</a>)<br /><br />The worst case now is not like Chernobyl, not a sudden and catastrophic steam explosion of the containment building and its reactor, releasing a enormous cloud of deadly radiation that drifted across Europe into the British Isles. Something more like Three Mile Island so far except there's no safe way to cool down Number 2. Injecting seawater to cool the overheating reactors caused the hydrogen explosions at Fukushima. Physicists knew it could happen and warnings were given, but there was also no choice they said. Something had to be done to prevent the meltdowns.</div><br /><div></div><div>At Fukushima the worst case could be an even greater disaster. </div><div><br />With failures evident and failures spreading, it seems we are waiting for a worst case scenario before we act. Then it could be too big and too late. Not one nuclear meltdown but six. Telling the Japanese who haven't left the Fukushima disaster zone to stay inside their homes and wash and dry their laundry indoors won't work for long. Watching some experts say it's too early to tell and it can't happen here is no help either.</div><div><br />Perhaps the other 10,000 nuclear physicists watching the resumption of experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider today, were too busy to notice what's been happening in Japan.<br /><br />Seriously, why the wall of silence around CERN? The foremost nuclear lab in the world always chatting up its nuclear safety at the LHC every chance it gets, and the great discoveries always over the horizon? CERN has nothing to say to Japan? No CERN plan to save Japan? Not CERN's job? Fiddle while Rome burns?<br /><br />There are pictures and video and commentators telling us what they see, but no real discussion of the events at Fukushima. Details are sketchy they say. Why? Is it the Charlie Sheen effect? No time for the real world? So we should wait? It's an International Emergency that can wait? One more day, one more explosion can change everything. If the Japanese aren't prepared to act now and entomb Fukushima Number 2, they may never be able to contain the meltdown that would also threaten the other 5 already damaged reactors nearby.<br /><br />Besides 3 explosions another had a fire around its heavy water swimming pool spent fuel storage pond. A lot of extremely hot rods close to the reactors, way more fuel waiting for a fire. The 2 of the 6 reactors not in the news, not hit with explosions or fire, also suffered some coolant loss. All this damage in one space that could fit on a big shopping mall parking lot.<br /><br />According to Dr Kaku there is only one solution and that is to bury the reactors now including the most dangerous Number 2 in sand and concrete like Chernobyl. If not Number 2 at least we could see a more dangerous Nuclear Fire and Meltdown. At Chernobyl it seems the reactor was destroyed and its fuel rods were smashed and scattered into something of a deadly hot heap of nuclear material and rubble.<br /><br />At Fukushima Number 2 it would be hotter still. You have concentrated fuel rods still aligned and close to each other, though separated by graphite rods inserted during automatic shutdown to slow down the fission reaction. The extremely hot and probably partially melted rods are all in a tight fitting mass within the jacket of a 6" thick stainless steel vessel that has partially<br />ruptured. When the steel melts away opening a nuclear fire pit how would you get close enough then to use the Chernobyl sarcophagus option? How close can you get to an open nuclear fire? Then if you're still alive try dumping sand on a fire that melts stainless steel.</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iUFppoNF8YA/TX_re-9UWYI/AAAAAAAABqc/y0bCopzc7xg/s1600/Flickr_2273277067_1879aaa517_o_ChernobylSarcophagus_CCPedroMouraPinheiro2008.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 194px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 200px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584440980491491714" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iUFppoNF8YA/TX_re-9UWYI/AAAAAAAABqc/y0bCopzc7xg/s200/Flickr_2273277067_1879aaa517_o_ChernobylSarcophagus_edit2_CCPedroMouraPinheiro2008.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/uk-nuclear-chernobyl-facts-idUSTRE72E69R20110315">Chernobyl RIP 1986</a></span></div><div><br />Many first responders died horribly after extreme radiation exposure at Chernobyl and many others in the disaster zone later of slower cancers. That could be avoided now in Japan. Wait and see from physicists and government could mean six nuclear fires on Tokyo's doorstep. The scientific community which is often in its own catatonic state of theoretical R&D and pension plans needs to wake up to this emergency. After all didn't the physics and engineering branch give us Chernobyl in the first place?<br /><br />Remember the 1950's PR that started the nuclear industry? "Harnessing the Atom" as they called it. And this soon after Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What next? "It can't happen in America" commercials and "tell your Congressman about today's safe nuclear option"?</div><br /><div>Are you watching too Mr President? How about last year's Obama on video? No nukes but go nuclear? Loan guarantees to the nuclear industry for new nuclear plants. What about all the unsecured nuclear waste and the old nuclear plants in the US like the General Electric design used at Fukushima? What guarantees do we have? What guarantees in Japan? And who will pay? Us too?</div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">This Story Starts To Break</span><br /><br />Reuters Video: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=196125642&newsChannel=REMP-Article-ALL-6h">IAEA: Japan nuclear plant damage "worrying"</a><br /><br />Reuters: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-nuclear-chernobyl-idUSTRE72E5MV20110315">Chernobyl clean-up expert slams Japan, IAEA</a><br /><br />Reuters: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quake-timeline-idUSTRE72E2HQ20110315">Timeline: Japan's unfolding nuclear crisis </a><br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-87394315874058734912011-03-04T15:14:00.000-08:002011-03-11T14:21:37.957-08:00Charlie Sheen Behind Arab Domino Effect<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MQ2IDDu1gPI/TXF-IrHYZlI/AAAAAAAABqM/YSHN2QscOyQ/s1600/CharlieSheen_TwoAndAHalfMen_%25C2%25A9GregGayneWarner%2BBros2007.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5580380100766492242" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MQ2IDDu1gPI/TXF-IrHYZlI/AAAAAAAABqM/YSHN2QscOyQ/s400/CharlieSheen_TwoAndAHalfMen_%25C2%25A9GregGayneWarner%2BBros2007.jpg" /></a><div><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">It's not Nancy Kadaffy. It's Mo Kadaffy. <em>Gimme that.</em> What's 7 gram rocks?</span><br /><br /><em>NewsHammer Exclusive</em> This you haven't heard yet from the Invincible Charlie Sheen: It's so hot even a dinosaur couldn't take it with 10 love goddesses kickin' his ass.<br /><br />Sources close to FedEx Tripoli not authorized to speak to the media claim to have made weekly deliveries of Season 7 boxed sets of Two and a Half Men to the same video store in downtown Tripoli before there was a Season 7.<br /><br />In Cairo, in Tunis, in bleds like Mers el Kebir it's the same old wanking story. Same guy in a keffiyeh always picks up the package. Charlie won't talk about it, but says:<br /><br />It's the CIA and so what? You can't blame Two and a Half Men for crazy Arab parties in big ass presidential palaces for <em>f</em>sakes that just happen to bring down the entire Arab thing on CNN. They might giggle if they get it, but any lamebrain can hardly get corrupted by me, if that's what you think happens at my orgies. I work with professionals. I don't need amateurs who don't get it. Why bother a pro with foreplay when you don't need it? A guy's a guy and that's horseshit when you're ready to blow up the fort. For another thing the show is totally boring except for the love god played by me. Did you ever see a nipple on the show that wasn't mine? Mine are beauts fortunately. You won't even see a trickle on the bed. We're clean. Those are American values. We don't corrupt anybody. We just make money. If they're losing it over there and I'm not buying the crack story, it's because they got too much oil and not everybody's being lubed, that's the problem. Right Mo?<br /><br />وقال إنه "إذا أراد الأميركيون أو الغرب غزو ليبيا يجب عليهم أن يعلموا أنها ستكون جهنم وحمام دم أكثر من العراق"<br /><br />Cut and pasted from Twenty Minutes with Gaddafi, maybe or maybe not an actual Charlie Sheen rant. The site was hacked and now there's only <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMtHwztM21I">Twenty Minutes with the President</a>. This one's a copy with Arabic subtitles, so maybe it's genuine, because every other Charlie Sheen in Arabic has been taken down or punched out on Youtube, except this German one which is about as close as you can get to Arabic in the free world <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rETevcrQdzc">where Charlie appears to be a German clone</a>.<br /><br />Though you have to admit that Twenty Minutes with Gaddafi could be a conspiracy as in 9/11 revisited in Twenty Minutes with the President, or in Germany anyway Charlie Sheen has been replaced by a clone. If he's a clone then you can understand the lip syncing problem and if there isn't a German connection, there should be one as his German is pretty good. It gets complicated because there seems to be another clone and this one rants just like Charlie.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HtMSvZ7Mwow" frameborder="0" width="480"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Undetected American Charlie Clone</span><br /><br />Note the poor lip syncing again (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMSvZ7Mwow">Alternate Video Link</a>) but all the other Charlie stuff feels right. Whatever the truth, the rant is genuine and anyone can see Charlie's influence in the Muammar Gaddafi video rant below, maybe thanks to some 7 gram rocks from Charlie's beach house, though the set doesn't even have a beach or any sand and nobody from the show has ever appeared on the beach, not even the babes who you think could play beach volleyball once in a while, but maybe that's too booby Baywatch for Charlie when there's no humping on the beach anyway, not even on TV. Charlie can get that tame stuff on video without the hot sun and sand in his Mai Tai. Holding back for Season 14? We'll never know why Charlie didn't score on the beach, now the show's been cancelled.<br /><br />Though wait. Jon Cryer will no doubt tell us about all we don't want to know about Charlie once he gets on Late Night as the default Charlie Sheen. He's already doing Reception on daytime Ellen. Though Charlie might be back like I scared you all with this BS like Joachim Phoenix, remember, that long running long hair gag about Joachim the Rapper you didn't get for ages? See me and Chaim set this up. We're pals though he's still a no-talent brainless idiot. He goes to my AA meetings for me. Isn't that love? Believe me now?<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ja8DFeVDdRY" frameborder="0" width="480"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Gaddafi Rant</span><br /><br />If that's not Gaddafi, who is it? (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja8DFeVDdRY">Alternate Video Link</a>) The lip sync is also flawed, but 2 international celebrity clones in one day is a bit much. It's easy though for big budget bad ass governments to overdo a good thing, but maybe they're right. More than Two and a Half Men have crashed worldwide and if you do the math the final score is America Wins. Whether or not Charlie or his clone is winning or gets the credit, is debatable, but what Gaddafi says above is exactly what Charlie would say if he were Gaddafi. Nobody could miss that.<br /><br />In the best of all possible conspiracy theories, Two and a Half Men laid the groundwork for Western corruption of top heavy Arab States (check the Arab ratings and 7 days a week of reruns in Dubai) and planted the seed for deep seated erotic capitalism first in the mind and then the body of nation upon nation, as expressed by the love god Charlie himself. Though any hormonally imbalanced adolescent if you asked could tell you, that Charlie didn't discover El Dorado by himself. Even the rest of us know there must be something more to life than Starbucks with your laptop or unfiltered muddy Turkish at rickety cafe tables throughout the Arab world. Sex and capitalism must triumph or why else a world in the first place? Then there are personal relationships and Charlie has had plenty, very hot, very close, plus he's Hollywood Shooting Star Matter and so has kryptonite influence. Even guys get the buddy magic. When Charlie's with Muammar, he's 100% the best 100% the personal BFF. He nails it and nobody gets upset except CBS.<br /><br />Ask Muammar. Did Muammar even think of shooting him? No! Here in another candid buddy to buddy moment is what Charlie apparently also said in Twenty Minutes with Gaddafi:<br /><br />If we misplaced democracy somewhere, who the <em>f</em>cares. Do they know what it is even over here? Some boys tangoing in stuffed paper shirts like mine's better than yours and wait for my soundbite on the news, so <em>f</em>what? Is that what the Arabs want, what we got? They can have it. I'll take what they got, the houris in Paradise except I want it now bro, why not now, what are we waiting for? The end of the world? It can't happen too soon, but we're still waiting. But I'm not waiting and I won't be pissing in your cup to prove it, not anymore. I did 4 in a row. A perfect score. What's that Mo?<br /><br />هل هذا ما والأمريكيون؟<br /><br />I don't know what Americans think. But I know what they'll do to you. Like I was telling Hosni, get respectable. Open a lap dancing bar say in Hamburg, double D girls is about right and go Brrrr Boing Wow BLBLBLBL all night. If you don't then sooner or later the paparazzi will get you like <a href="http://www.tmz.com/videos/?mediaKey=6cfccaf9-7145-4ed1-a0e4-58ec12246572&isShareURL=true">they got my love pussy Kacey Jordan</a>. But they won't get me. I'll lie if I have to.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FvHnchQ3JMs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">If You Haven't ODd Duh The Best Charlie Rant Recap</span><br /><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvHnchQ3JMs">Alternate Video Link</a>)<br /><br />--Alan Gillis </div>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-90474098734970901642010-10-30T17:52:00.000-07:002011-03-11T15:18:40.354-08:00Washington Rally Restores Sanity And/Or Fear<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TMzkOjK8E0I/AAAAAAAABpU/R-hqCZXA0pc/s1600/Flickr_5129337355_4915ba1ed1_o_WashingtonRallySanityFear_edit1_CCcliff1066_2010.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 284px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534048980741919554" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TMzkOjK8E0I/AAAAAAAABpU/R-hqCZXA0pc/s400/Flickr_5129337355_4915ba1ed1_o_WashingtonRallySanityFear_edit1_CCcliff1066_2010.jpg" /></a><em>NewsHammer Exclusive:</em> It wasn't (Jimmy) Stewart Goes to Washington, but the 2010 retread with Jon and his alter-ego, the Caped Crusader For Fear, pal Stephen Colbert. Thanks for trying you guys, but the Capitol boys and girls back of the stage have been in a time warp since way before Capra, about when <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Washington.html">Mark Twain discovered Planet Washington</a> in 1868:<br /><br /><blockquote>I believe the Prince of Darkness could start a branch hell in the District of Columbia (if he has not already done it), and carry it on unimpeached by the Congress of the United States, even though the Constitution were bristling with articles forbidding hells in this country.</blockquote>Anyway the <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/dcrallylive/">Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear 10.30.10</a> was a big success. "10 Million People," said Jon to a packed Washington Mall, to make sure it wasn't under-reported by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9gF93rzcgg">Media told not to go by Media</a> unless in an official reporting capacity, which was stranger than fiction but true. Like don't go to Disney World unless you should be suspected of hitting on Snow White or maybe the Seven Dwarfs. Or being one of those millions of Daily Show/Colbert Report sympathisers where you can be outed by Fox and slammed all week for the stinkin' left wing liberal media mafia everyone knows you are.<br /><br />Was it fun and/or serious? Better than small late box TV and live from sunny (a lucky break) Washington for 3 great hours without commercials. Meaningful? Sure as a bit of Theater of the Absurd, an Anti-Rally for the ghosts of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin who had haunted these same precincts this summer under the Washington Monument on their mission for Restoring Honor. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCQtDkuHGRc">(Alterate video link)<br /></a><br /><br /><object width="400" height="230"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VCQtDkuHGRc?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VCQtDkuHGRc?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="230"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Preshow With Beck And More Beck</span><br /><br />Happily Stewart and Colbert did not turn the Mall into an AA Meeting and didn't swear off or condemn anything, at least not with high sobriety. More subtly than you might think, these guys did manage something of a funeral for the 9/11 Age of Paranoia. Thing is on a low budget you can't dig a hole in Washington deep enough to bury Terror. With more cash, not a chance when there are bomb-proof bunkers everywhere. We saw Colbert climbing out of one under the stage, hiding snce Thursday, afraid yes afraid no one would come.<br /><br />Parachuting in Father Guido Sarducci of the Church of Saturday Night Live was a nice try to blur all religious distinctions as not up to scratch anyway with God, so we can presumably get back to partying like when St. Belushi was alive. Not the big enough moment though. Maybe a million little gold-plated shovels engraved with Bury Fear Alive tossed into the crowd by Sarducci himself might have been more chilling and effective. Other big moments for the Rally were also edited out for the same reason, think small for lack of cash, the No Bailouts For Main Street from Planet Washington conspicuously looming behind the bare bones stage, a thin LCD Jumbotron threatening to blow away.<br /><br />Still Stewart and Colbert got it right, mano a mano in a nicely scripted pillow fight between age old protagonist and antagonist, Sanity Vs Fear. More trashing of historic rallies and inaugurations in general. From the Benediction to The Poem and from Poet Laureate Colbert it did sound authentically bombastic enough to be the real deal, a kind of Shopping List Anthem. Sorry I can't be sure as you don't tend to listen to mere words in bouts of high oratory. Careful Steve, you could send a country, a continent to war.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TMzrQm1rmCI/AAAAAAAABpc/BomKOtzb3c4/s1600/Flickr_5130298388_67335545a8_o_WashingtonRallySanityFear_edit1_CCMarIsSeaY2010.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 162px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534056712667633698" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TMzrQm1rmCI/AAAAAAAABpc/BomKOtzb3c4/s400/Flickr_5130298388_67335545a8_o_WashingtonRallySanityFear_edit1_CCMarIsSeaY2010.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">First Washington Then Maybe Maryland After I Get A Coffee</span><br /><br />Lots of fill-in mini events like Sheryl Crow and the bands and guest stars to add some punch and sparkle. Sam Waterston who should be President. R2D2 and a 7 year old girl who gets a medal from Jon for Sanity while Stephen awards his Medal of Fear to Anderson Cooper's Black Tshirt. When Anderson the Grim Reaper and CNN invade your neck of the woods, you know you've got trouble. Soundbites for quick crowd participation. Mythbusters to open on Can Two Guys Generate Crowd Waves that actually worked over and over again rolling through the Mall. Nice job from Adam and Jaime who didn't have to blow anything up this time in the name of National Security. Tony Bennett to close with a lighter clear-eyed patriotic Say Can You See...<br /><br />Jon Stewart has the last word after slaying Steve's Giant Dummy of Fear, with his Un-named Holland Tunnel Speech like we're all a lot of goofy weird cars with nothing else in common, peacefully driving together down Life's Highway trying to squeeze down to one lane. And it works in the USA! Ipso facto (like ants for instance) we must be doing something right and why doesn't it work for the rest of the world?<br /><br />Which plays back to the Rally's Biggest Moment. Yusuf Cat Stevens in person after disappearing into Islam for ages gets to sing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7wEctHyuc0">Peace Train</a> again. Maybe a serious thoughtful moment for bridge building, but no, Colbert on his own Terror Express won't have any piece of that train. Enter Ozzy Osbourne on a collision course burned out from Hell still, but respectable enough for an afternoon <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlXHBvNFeUQ">Crazy Train</a>. The Battle of the Trains is a comic gamble that shocks the crowd and sort of works by not being funny. When it can't of course resolve into a feel-good theme park ride like Jon's Cars Into The Tunnel, there's only one way to save the day, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ij0sU-p4M">the O'Jays and Love Train</a>.<br /><br />In this bedtime storybook from Jon and Stephen we'll take the Love Train. A bit sticky and sweet like Caramilk but tomorrow it's Halloween and Trick or Treat.<br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3vETTB3g7D0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UsrmN397mHM" frameborder="0" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><object id="msnbc7e481b" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="420" height="245"><param name="_cx" value="11112"><param name="_cy" value="6482"><param name="FlashVars" value=""><param name="Movie" value="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640"><param name="Src" value="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640"><param name="WMode" value="Transparent"><param name="Play" value="-1"><param name="Loop" value="-1"><param name="Quality" value="High"><param name="SAlign" value=""><param name="Menu" value="-1"><param name="Base" value=""><param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="Scale" value="ShowAll"><param name="DeviceFont" value="0"><param name="EmbedMovie" value="0"><param name="BGColor" value=""><param name="SWRemote" value=""><param name="MovieData" value=""><param name="SeamlessTabbing" value="1"><param name="Profile" value="0"><param name="ProfileAddress" value=""><param name="ProfilePort" value="0"><param name="AllowNetworking" value="all"><param name="AllowFullScreen" value="true"><embed name="msnbc7e481b" src="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" width="420" height="245" flashvars="launch=35957206&width=420&height=245" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN-TOP: 5px; WIDTH: 420px; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; COLOR: #999; FONT-SIZE: 11px">Visit msnbc.com for <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; COLOR: #5799db !important; FONT-WEIGHT: normal !important; TEXT-DECORATION: none !important" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/">breaking news</a>, <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; COLOR: #5799db !important; FONT-WEIGHT: normal !important; TEXT-DECORATION: none !important" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032507">world news</a>, and <a style="BORDER-BOTTOM: #999 1px dotted; HEIGHT: 13px; COLOR: #5799db !important; FONT-WEIGHT: normal !important; TEXT-DECORATION: none !important" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032072">news about the economy</a></p><br /><p><span style="font-size:130%;">*****UPDATE Gaddafi Hijacks Jon Stewart Video Link</span></p><p><strong>March 11, 2011 Tripoli</strong></p><p>Forces of Darkness reported (inadvertently) through MSNBC which uses so much video code you never know what's next. See the original Jon Stewart/Glenn Beck Match Of The Century in the sidebar video on your right. </p><p>It only confirms what Stephen Colbert, The Caped Crusader For Fear, was trying to tell us: Stay home and watch TV. It's safer.</p><p>If you need a recap of the Autumn of Our Discontent, well everybody in Washington went home. A lot of people are now taking NetFlix seriously and are watching for Tsunamis from Japan.</p><p>--Alan Gillis</p><p></p>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-65015387883729197192010-06-15T14:34:00.000-07:002010-06-21T09:10:22.892-07:00Markey Kicks BP's Ass, Obama Scores<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBlVVgbtZ-I/AAAAAAAABmU/-xSkfePaCvY/s1600/iP050210PS-0706_BPSpill_ObamaAllenJindal_MarineOneMay2_PeteSouzaWhiteHouseOrg2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBlVVgbtZ-I/AAAAAAAABmU/-xSkfePaCvY/s400/iP050210PS-0706_BPSpill_ObamaAllenJindal_MarineOneMay2_PeteSouzaWhiteHouseOrg2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483507849272059874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> The big showdown yesterday June 15 between Big Oil's Top 5 and Chairman Ed Markey's House Subcommittee had about as much impact as a quart of oil spilled on the floor. Exciting at first, embarrassing and then slippery to talk about, but nobody bothered to clean it up. In the end there wasn't much anyone could do on the spot except blame BP and look forward to nuclear energy, what? Just 2-word bombshells going off now and then carelessly dropped into every Green energy future, oddly by the same people who were going mission critical on dirty dangerous BP oil destroying our way of life.<br /><br />Riveting at first with BP America's Chairman looking stone-cold sober and ready to be lead to the gallows for about the first hour of opening remarks. <a href="http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4026&Itemid=1">Markey as Chairman sliced and diced</a> first, kicking some BP walruses clean out of the Gulf as well as walruses found in 3 other Spill Response Plans just like BP's, all 4 with the same 500 page format and 90% identical even Shell's, all 5 with about the same cover art, but at least Shell with some background in fossils and maybe fossil fuels knew that there haven't been walruses in the Gulf for 3 million years, as Markey lectured the other Chairmen of Big Oil.<br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MIgBfSTq6qw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MIgBfSTq6qw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />The other tipping points scored could have been boiled down to 5 minutes from the 5 hour hearing and have been of course even down to less than 2 minutes by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIgBfSTq6qw">AP video (alternate link)</a> and by other media where just about everybody looks good. Not in the video above, some other essential answers wrung out later from 4 of the 5 Chairmen with Yes or No like admissions that they wouldn't have been ready either for a BP Size Spill. BUT they all said they wouldn't have had a BP Spill anyway if they had been drilling and filling BP's Well according to their own Better Industry Practices. Even so they didn't want to say that much, and Markey had to hit them again with Yes or No to get some answers. Even on the <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/documents/20100614/Hayward.BP.2010.6.14.pdf">14-page letter from Subcommittee members Waxman and Stupak to BP CEO Tony Hayward</a> that rips out the bleeding heart of BP incompetence before the Deepwater Horizon <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100614/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_washington">"nightmare well"</a> explosion and fire, the Big 5 were going to demure. Yes or No? Well, only if the facts were true, so Yes like 5 bad boys down the line.<br /><br />For the first major confrontation between Capitol Hill and the Big 5, covering the BP backend disaster, the current BP hopeless mess and America's safe and maybe Green energy future and maybe without BP, only BP's Lamar McKay looked like he passed the audition for the Movie. Better at emotional depth as the scared shitless corporate martyr, saying nothing while waiting for a miserable end that might go on forever. One after another 30 committee members sharpened their opening remarks on his stony face and frozen dead body. An amazing study, but cut from the news videos.<br /><br />It could have worn him down, but surprisingly he got used to it and thawed with only a few other House Members up to Markey's sharp facts and pointed go for the jugular style. Once the give and take of Q for A started an hour later you had to love the game change flip from Exxon Mobil. With that effortless industry leadership you might expect, the whole deal was cookie-cuttered into a Forbes Magazine spread. Exxon Mobil out in front, McKay had some cover and soon he was able to step out of his catatonic disaster suit into just another one of the guys from Big 5 eyeballing shareholders from another planet, the gentlemen and gentleladies from a House Subcommittee on Planet Washington.<br /><br />It wasn't long before McKay got his clichés in a row. Still waiting for the investigations [elsewhere of course] and the final reports [years away]; and it hasn't been decided yet, escrow funds [BBBejesus]; BP will pay for the spill cleanup [good] and will mitigate its effects [not so good] and ducking and sliding by the storm of leading questions.<br /><br />But McKay had one ace up his sleeve. Though it fell on the floor instead of on the table. Unified Command was responsible for Spill cleanup, so Unified Command was the shield for BP's slow and ineffective post-spill actions. Everybody's working together, BP hasn't held anything back. McKay didn't hammer it home, but he could have. There was still a backup ace, that could have piqued MMS and drawn blood from the Government that so far has approved everything BP wanted. It must have been a tough call with the long knives out. But it seems McKay remembered it was a hearing after all, a public relations exercise, and not a fight to the death in a dangerous fire and brimstone court of law. Why push his luck when the other Big 4 were circling the wagons around him? If they'd been out to burn British Petroleum in the interests of Industry Safety or business as usual, as rumor had it, well then nothing could have saved BP. They weren't, so relax. Oil was still in bed with Gas.<br /><br />To be fair it is a good take on what happened and the shared responsibility for the Spill and cleanup that McKay left instead for the armies of lawyers to come and courts to settle maybe 20 years later. McKay's unspoken inference that everybody's to blame for all the failures and setbacks through Unified Command, notably the US Government including President Obama who took charge of operations through the USCG and his <a href="http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2010may00010.html">National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen way back as of May 1</a>, and the dozen other agencies involved, was lost in the shuffle and spark of brittle questions and watered down answers.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Lowballing Estimates, Who's On First?</span><br /><br />McKay did underline NOAA's 5,000 barrels per day estimate, as though BP did not lowball the estimates. Markey shot back but McKay noted that BP's, if in-house and confidential, original estimate was 1,000 per day up to 14,000, everybody in Government knew that.<br /><br />Nobody told us though or Congress either until Markey went fishing.<br /><br />Though everybody knows BP did say 1,000 barrels a day in public and then disputed NOAA's 5,000 estimate. Then BP tolerated NOAA's estimate while not bothering to analyze its own data, and not releasing video of the leaks until Markey jumped all over BP. Not wanting live feeds either of Top Kill until kicked by Capitol Hill. And still doing nothing on its own. Finally the Government got some hi-res video from BP for analysis of flow after Cut and Cap started, and still nothing more from BP until the Government recently figured out they needed some actual sensors in the Cap to monitor flow that BP was ordered to install finally. Now the Government's Flow Assessment Team is saying up to 60,000 barrels a day. But the same team had earlier also reported numbers that were oddly taken to be the full range of the leak at least in the media, that was in fact its low range of 12-25,000, with no upper range then possible according to Dr Ira Leifer in <span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span>, "<a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/06/bps-big-fix.html">BP's Big Fix</a>".<br /><br />So who has been lowballing the numbers? Why everybody. But why? Easy for BP as huge and deadly eventual fines would be based per gallon of oil spilled. Why everyone else? Confusion, incompetence, stupidity or maybe just bureaucracy and its many insulting brain-numbing states? It has to be on form 1006.<br /><br />Markey hit BP hard anyway on BP lowballing its numbers which had the disastrous effect of a minimal spill response. Everybody should have been prepared for a much bigger spill and they weren't because of BP. And BP wasn't either. Since it was their Spill and they were responsible they should have acted right away to contain a big spill underway with their 500 page plan. That was useless anyway, but anyway it was their Spill.<br /><br />McKay on auto-pilot carelessly repeated BP's misleading smoking-gun soundbite hammered into the media, that the numbers had nothing to do with stopping the Spill as BP was always considering the kill of the Deepwater well as a worst case scenario. And anyway the Government had BP's data and BP's estimate. Which brings us to:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBlUfLctUAI/AAAAAAAABmM/GkHwDIKP1GU/s1600/100528-G-8744K-024_2000x1328_HSE-contract-workers_GrandIsle_BPspill_May28_PatrickKelleyUSCG2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBlUfLctUAI/AAAAAAAABmM/GkHwDIKP1GU/s400/100528-G-8744K-024_2000x1328_HSE-contract-workers_GrandIsle_BPspill_May28_PatrickKelleyUSCG2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5483506915926167554" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Obama BP Inaction Plan</span><br /><br />Is that why Obama has been playing Mr Nice President Guy? First saying it was BP's Spill and BP would clean it up. Then taking over after finding out he had to under law and BP was dragging its heels? Then still playing partners with BP on it until the media screamed and the people too that he wasn't taking the disaster seriously enough, wasn't even angry when everybody else was. So he got angry for awhile, for Larry King Live, and that wore off too by the time he figured he had to do something from the Oval Office. A talk with the American people. No, it wasn't exactly Obama in action, it was Obama politics.<br /><br />These guys at BP who he even avoided talking to, if they weren't going to act decisively had to be given enough time to do it or enough rope to hang themselves. As much as possible he had to get some action from BP, not through confrontation and the courts, but playing along. Playing along because the ass he wanted to kick was technically out of reach, his own ass especially. The Buck Stops With Me came out so late because well he and the US government were co-responsible with BP since May 1st when he formally took over through Admiral Allen to run the Unified Command show. So BP messed up but Obama managed to get BP to pay for the cleanup, disregarding the $75 Million corrorate lifesaver cap law, that limited BP's liability in the Spill. Managed to get BP to start paying some claims from those suffering in financial hell.<br /><br />The other and only straight option was go in guns blazing and sink BP's Corporate Ship. Charge them, lock'em up for the Deepwater Spill in light of their <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/bp-had-other-problems-in-years-leading-to-gulf-spill">reckless record</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-has-been-fined-by-osha-760-times-has-an-awful-track-record-for-safety-2010-6">hundreds of safety violations</a>. Put BP in receivership where it belongs. Send in the Army and clean up the horrendous mess. That would have been the Change We Need, but as a political cat with 9 lives behind a podium, Obama didn't want to risk his Presidency on a gamble with American Oil or these 5 guys who might cut and run further Offshore to any of the many regulation-free Tax Havens abroad or to Dubai like Haliburton did, or try to anyway. So reform the whole rotten industry that's destroying the planet? Extreme, well not if you <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/10/peter_maass_on_crude_world_the">read up on it</a>.<br /><br />Even during the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/15/obama.speech/index.html">Oval Office Address</a> that night, when everybody thought there would finally be some action from the White House, it was more the winter fireside chat, fire out, without the Christmas Tree.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">June 16 Update: Obama Inaction Plan Wins Big: $20 Billion From BP </span><br /><br />If Obama is smart as a politico, is he smart enough to lead the nation? Or did he outsmart America's gut instincts and instead doom the Gulf to save some BP Corporate Paper and billions of lousy bucks? Stop and contain the Spill or get the money? Two long months later too late for anything else, there's only one smart choice left, play along and get the money.<br /><br />Shaking down the BP Empire, the BP Corporate heads marshalled at the White House today to play ball, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/politics/17obama.html">Obama scored an escrow account as promised at a tidy $20 Billion yet</a> for those hurt by the BP Spill. To be run independently from BP and from the Government, the new setup is another chance for Gulf residents denied their money or nickel and dimed by BP. Plus another $100 Million for lost wages for rig crews idled by Obama's expanded 6 month moratorium on deep sea drilling until it's safe. Though BP gets a beak. Not $20 Billion now, but the damage fund topped up from time to time from BP's deep pockets, hopefully deep enough.<br /><br />The new claims procedure is better and doesn't limit anyone or any State's rights to sue BP and the $20 Billion doesn't cap the damages either for BP. It's a win-win for everybody except BP and its shareholders who won't see a dime in dividends for at least a year.<br /><br />Hopefully it will be easier to get claims processed and paid than understanding the White House video (<a href="http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/06/16/sot.browner.bp.claims.cnn">CNN alternate link</a>).<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ep" height="374" width="416"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="movie" value="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2010/06/16/sot.browner.bp.claims.cnn"><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"><embed src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2010/06/16/sot.browner.bp.claims.cnn" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" height="374" width="416"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The White House Tries To Explain How To Get Money</span><br /><br />Obama's other promise last night to capture Up To 90% of the Spill with built-in loads of room for error, is still weeks away. At least some sort of murky future is coming into focus. It could take years to bring back the Gulf and the Gulf way of life, but Obama also said he's getting a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan in motion that he's asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, to develop. And on top of that big plans for a new Greener energy economy.<br /><br />Wow. Good enough for starters. Better than we hoped from yesterday's homily, as long as BP keeps paying the bills. But how long do we have? Dr Leifer who's in charge of the Government's flow assessment said that if the Deepwater well can't be capped, it could spew oil for another 20 or 30 years.<br /><br />Getting it right when it's too late?<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-58721806226342014492010-06-09T13:24:00.000-07:002010-06-12T14:38:57.472-07:00BP's Big Fix<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBAOxyQxXdI/AAAAAAAABlk/zWl1W3iwJUQ/s1600/gulf_TMO_2010151_FalseColorEnhancedEdit1_BPspillDeepwaterHorizon_May31_EarthObservatoryNASA2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBAOxyQxXdI/AAAAAAAABlk/zWl1W3iwJUQ/s400/gulf_TMO_2010151_FalseColorEnhancedEdit1_BPspillDeepwaterHorizon_May31_EarthObservatoryNASA2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480896994978389458" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> If anything is clear 51 days into the BP Spill, the battle for the Gulf is turning into a war on the Gulf States, with surprise, even more oil releasing from BP's latest fix.<br /><br />BP's cloudy crystal ball forecast of 60% to 70% success for the Top Kill, turned out to be a perfect 0% along with its first big idea, cofferdam containment that took 2 weeks to build and a day to fail while the slick spread from manageable to catastrophic. Now the new Top Cap from Cut And Cap that was supposed to capture most of the oil from the leaking BOP a mile under the Gulf, may have increased the escape of oil.<br /><br />If BP says the new Cap or LMRP is working and latest numbers show 15,000 barrels of crude are being recovered daily by the Cap and riser assembly to a surface ship, a huge gain over the earlier 2,000 barrels a day recovery, spill cams don't show the expected improvement. A UC Santa Barbara researcher, Dr Ira Leifer, part of the government's new response team to estimate flow, thinks the release is much worse than before. Dr Leifer told <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/us/08flow.html">The New York Times</a> yesterday:<br /><br /><blockquote>“The well pipe clearly is fluxing way more than it did before. By way more, I don’t mean 20 percent, I mean multiple factors.”<br /></blockquote><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBAQyyyCCtI/AAAAAAAABl0/SXGPIPtJqqc/s1600/lmrp_build_300x458_CapForBOP21inchPipe_NowInstalled_DeepwaterBPspillResponse%C2%A9BPplc2010.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBAQyyyCCtI/AAAAAAAABl0/SXGPIPtJqqc/s400/lmrp_build_300x458_CapForBOP21inchPipe_NowInstalled_DeepwaterBPspillResponse%C2%A9BPplc2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480899211321019090" border="0" /></a>BP had said it expected only a 20% increase in flux or flow when the old damaged riser was cut off from the BOP to install the Cap. But now it seems the mile-long tangle of bent riser pipe that fell down to the sea floor from the destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig but still attached to the Blow Out Preventer, was producing much more back pressure that substantially limited the flow of oil into the Gulf. Now the Cap has to take way more pressure and oil.<br /><br />The problem is the Cap to ship recovery is already working at about maximum 15,000 barrels a day capacity and still more oil seems to be escaping. Within a week BP will employ yet another system to capture 5,000 more barrels a day. A ship connected to a sea floor manifold, lowered earlier to inject 30,000 barrels of mud and some Junk Shot for the failed Top Kill, will be used to recover more oil. BP could be containing a total of 20,000 barrels a day by next week. Admiral Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander, says new estimates bump total capacity even higher, to 28,000 by next week.<br /><br />It might not be enough if Dr Leifer is right. The earlier government maximum spill estimate before Cut and Cap was 25,000 barrels per day. As discussed in NewsHammer, <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/05/bp-top-kill-and-oily-bottom-line.html">BP Top Kill And The Oily Bottom Line</a>, the actual spill could have been 50,000 barrels a day. BP originally said the Deepwater spill was only about 1,000 barrels a day.<br /><br />There's still no accurate assessment, but Dr Leifer's government team is working on it. Their latest high end figure is about 43,000 barrels a day. In any case the government has decided that a quicker turnaround and more capacity should be on site just in case. Due to arrive in a few days, an oil barge on the way from the North Sea is being brought in to transfer oil to the mainland. The big news for extra capacity is the deployment of a new oil/gas burner to be installed on a rig by mid-June. The <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill">EverGreen Burner</a> is designed to vaporize the oil/gas for a smokeless burn and could process another 13,000 barrels a day. If everything goes right, by mid-June BP could capture about 41,000 barrels a day from the leaking Deepwater well. In part, that seems to depend on another better sealing replacement Cap now in the works to maximize oil and gas capture. Knowing BP I'd say that's tempting fate. BP should know by now that BP Science has been shown to have limits.<br /><br />Even so, there are other major holes in the damaged BOP itself and they will continue to leak though at a reduced rate, even if all the flow from the 21 inch cut-off riser is captured by the new improved Cap.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBARnS_mV7I/AAAAAAAABl8/9xqhpSSteVo/s1600/Flickr_4636122181_7edfe06d82_b_GrandIsleBPspillMay21_PatrickKelleyUSCG_CC_DVIDSHUB2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/TBARnS_mV7I/AAAAAAAABl8/9xqhpSSteVo/s400/Flickr_4636122181_7edfe06d82_b_GrandIsleBPspillMay21_PatrickKelleyUSCG_CC_DVIDSHUB2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480900113321056178" border="0" /></a><br />The real solution is the Bottom Kill, when BP drills way down into the well itself and plugs it permanently with mud and cement, hopefully in August. That won't be easy. Not even with a backup relief well also being drilled now.<br /><br />The Top Kill failed because the pressure from the well was so great the heavy drill mud wouldn't stay down. When pumping stopped, the 30,000 barrels of mud shot up and out of the well into the Gulf. Pumping in still more mud was considered, then abandoned by BP. It could have ruptured the well pipe and casing, which was not a standard BP design according to BP's drilling engineer, <a href="http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/hearings_bp_cementing_engineer.html">Mark Hafle, during USCG/MMS Joint Hearings</a> on the BP spill May 28.<br /><br />Try more mud deeper down?<br /><br />It's going to be a long hot sticky summer.<br /><br />In an update June 9, Dr Ira Leifer interviewed by <span style="font-style: italic;">Democracy Now!</span> (<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/9/scientist_bp_well_could_be_leaking">alternate video link and transcript</a>) ballparks his estimate on total oil flow to over 100,000 barrels a day. He goes on to say that earlier government estimates of 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day were only low-end in any case, and there was no upper-end as data was too poor for evaluation. Yet somehow or other those figures were misconstrued and reported by the media as the full range of the spill.<br /><br />Like the other unsubstantiated 5,000 barrels a day that was reported for weeks, all we've been hearing since then are more wrong numbers.<br /><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v2/300/2010/6/9/story/scientist_bp_well_could_be_leaking"></script><br />With just about everything going wrong with the BP Spill, now including the numbers, you begin to wonder if there's a conspiracy theory to cover it? Why didn't BP or Admiral Thad Allen or President Obama or Robert Gibbs at the White House brief the Press that this was clearly the low end, 12-25,000 barrels a day? Is fudging the numbers the only way to minimize the spill? Or is this the best we can do? Win the PR war? Everything is being done, is it? Not exactly.<br /><br />This is what Dr Leifer says about the level of science going on, again worse than you would expect, and what the real potential of the BP Spill could be:<br /><br /><blockquote>"During the event of a spill, typically, as we’re seeing now, the scientists are kept away. We have to stop the spill right away; we don’t have time to let the scientists come in and take a look. We scientists will come in after the fact, much later. There’s government support for a few years, and then it completely dries up. And little bits of research still continue, and new developments are made; however, these tend not to be implemented. . . .<br /><br />"This reservoir is massive, and it could easily flow that kind of oil for the next twenty or thirty years, if it was left to go unattended. So the amount of oil that could end up in the environment if measures are not successful is at what I would call unimaginable. . . ."<br /></blockquote><br />See the US Government's <a href="http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/updated_timeline_jun_8.594723.pdf">Ongoing Response Timeline</a> since the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Fire, April 20, 2010.<br /><br />More news and updates from <a href="http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/">Deepwater Horizon Unified Command</a>.<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-43825137260768540732010-05-24T11:58:00.000-07:002010-06-09T14:54:01.001-07:00BP Top Kill And The Oily Bottom Line<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_wzmDExCxI/AAAAAAAABk0/A_6zFo9eor0/s1600/DeepwaterHorizon_explosion_April21_USCG2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_wzmDExCxI/AAAAAAAABk0/A_6zFo9eor0/s400/DeepwaterHorizon_explosion_April21_USCG2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475307975729023762" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> 34 days and counting at the Deepwater Horizion Blowout. Just a stone's throw from the last major disaster to hit Louisiana, the FEMA/Bush relief effort before and after Hurricane Katrina rolled into New Orleans in 2005.<br /><br />Apart from Obama's rhetoric which always sounds great, the biggest offshore oil spill since <a href="http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/6250">Mexico's IXTOC I</a>, has blown away a big chunk of Obama's credibility, at least a million tons of media inspired paper since Yes We Can.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Obama Strikes Oil</span><br /><br />Not only did the Obama Administration approve without any review, the BP permits for offshore drilling at the Deepwater site, a month before the BP accident <a href="http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2010/US_drilling_moratorium_lifted">Obama called for an end to the 20 year moratorium on offshore drilling</a> in most US coastal waters. Or Blast foreign oil. Fire all torpedoes. Not the environmentally friendly Obama we expected, but the way out of left field way beyond more oil, the new let's go nuclear Obama. What? What happened? No nukes but go nuclear?<br /><br />Time for a rethink. Here's half the answer, through the Wall Street backdoor to the dirty BP Meltdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Do we need the other half, a big bucks nuclear meltdown to stop being stupid about energy?<br /><br />Back to square one: New offshore drilling on hold pending a 30 day review says Obama. Exciting turnaround, but a bit late for Deepwater spewing death in the Gulf. Then let's not get too serious in Washington when there's a slew of new permits to approve anyway, another 30 odd for more offshore drilling. Now granted according to <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span> despite the new emergency moratorium. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24moratorium.html">Not a real moratorium on drilling</a>, just one for Public Relations purposes it seems. Frightening coming from the government, when as Obama said back at his Inauguration "Words mean something." Even old Deepwater-type do your own thing permits to be outlawed still handed out lately like candy thanks to the same loophole in permit regulations that covers exemptions like building outhouses from government scrutiny, that covered BP and Deepwater Horizon.<br /><br />Shows you can't make policy when you don't know the industry in question. Whether it's Oil & Gas or nuclear. Same problem in Congress when lawyers and moneymen (the usual credentials for office) want to improve things or muddle into war. Worst of all, is the lame billions of dollars more of public money to be thrown at a nuclear renaissance because nuclear is the Green Option to energy independence and carbon capping. Wrong again, Mr President. Sorry. Stick to law on this one, like "certain unalienable Rights...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w0cEniPvI/AAAAAAAABk8/HBHaCWrYq6Q/s1600/DeepwaterHorizonWellsite_DiscovererEnterpriseDrillship_TransoceanDevelopmentDrillerDDIIDrillPlatform_May17_%C2%A9BPplc2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w0cEniPvI/AAAAAAAABk8/HBHaCWrYq6Q/s400/DeepwaterHorizonWellsite_DiscovererEnterpriseDrillship_TransoceanDevelopmentDrillerDDIIDrillPlatform_May17_%C2%A9BPplc2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475308903856226034" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">BP or MMS in Deepwater</span><br /><br />Though the old Obama surfaced for awhile and kicked some ass at <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a.qySbXcFGXQ">Mineral Management Service</a> which collects Oil & Gas royalties for DOI (the #2 US revenue source after the IRS) while awarding permits for exploration like it did for Deepwater. Obviously a federal department based on conflict of interest, money or safety, should be split. Obama ready to swing the ax, got a bonus when the Head of deep sea oil exploration, Chris Oynes, rolled out of his MMS office on May 18, a month after Deepwater Horizon blew up. Now a <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100525/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill">followup report on MMS</a> shows just how cozy the relationship to Big Oil was, with freebies and other incentives for some staffers, some resigning, some fired, others up for criminal prosecution.<br /><br />Hope some of the guys at BP's Head Office noticed that for a disaster of this size, fallguys are mandatory. So far there haven't been any pleas of Mea Culpa at BP. No they're all doing their best. Always have, goes without saying. It's all over the <a href="http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=40&contentId=7061813">BP corporate website</a> if nowhere else. No one at BP seems to be remotely responsible for what happened in the best of all possible PR worlds. An "incident" or PR jargon for accident we're investigating. We're on it. We'll clean up every drop of oil. There's that at least. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100524/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill">BP is doing </a><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100524/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill">everything it can (34 days later).</a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />What is BP Doing?</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />"22,000 personnel deployed"</span><br />Says the BP website. Yeah? Where? Whose personnel? BP's? Has everybody in BP London or BP Houston been schlepped over to the wetlands of Louisiana in Wellington boots? Doubt it. Maybe if you count the Coast Guard, NOAA, maybe 800 or so crew on 10 BP ships and platforms at Deepwater now, maybe a thousand BP engineers world-wide on cell phones, but there's still a big shortfall. Well, add thousands of BP made redundant Louisiana fishermen donating their time to lay boom and contain the spill. I guess you've still got to add the Louisiana State Legislature and Congress too, plus a few thousand concerned citizens wringing their hands in the neighborhood. Oh yeah, and just how many rapid response 12 man teams from BP in the Gulf? <a href="http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9033655&contentId=7061997">One fat guy?</a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />"1,100 vessels on site"</span><br />Says the BP website. That explains it, not BP vessels, not 22,000 BP personnel, but BP takes the credit. Terrific PR!<br /><br />If BP has bleached its record clean on its website, past and present, and in soundbites for the media, Obama has been in Make No Mistake mode, knocking BP for lack of transparency and action. It's BP's oil spill and BP will pay. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who might be the cowboy in charge of this BP mess, has his boot on BP's neck he said. But so far government heavy breathing hasn't been effective either on the oil spill or on BP. But Obama is gearing up for more effective invective with a new bipartisan commission to investigate BP. Good luck. Last time the EPA investigated BP in 2006 for negligence on the Alaska North Slope BP pipeline spill, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/20/fmr_epa_investigator_scott_west_us">BP buried the investigation with 62 million pages of documents</a>. Blink, it's no typo. And that was for a small BP spill of 250,000 gallons.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w1JnEZ5bI/AAAAAAAABlE/EvJJXU_Mb8U/s1600/DeepwaterHorizon_OilSpillChemicalTreatment_April26_NOAA2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w1JnEZ5bI/AAAAAAAABlE/EvJJXU_Mb8U/s400/DeepwaterHorizon_OilSpillChemicalTreatment_April26_NOAA2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475309686198232498" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">EPA and BP: Clash of the Titans</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/22/gulf.oil.spill/index.html">According to CNN</a> the other day, the EPA is on BP's case again, this time ordering BP to stop using a toxic dispersant that's been airplane sprayed over the gigantic oil slick, and injected by ship into the undersea plume, about 715,000 gallons so far. BP has disputed the order saying that Corexit is better than what the EPA has approved, yet BP had already purchased an EPA recommended substitute, Sea Brat 4. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of this less toxic dispersant are idling on the mainland in the hot sun, waiting for who knows what as the oil slick moves into the wetlands of Louisiana where it has already fouled 65 miles of shoreline there.<br /><br />The injection by BP of Corexit into the undersea plume of oil, also ordered stopped by EPA, is potentially the more serious problem long term. BP has always minimized the amount of the spill, relying on surface oil slick and sheen to estimate the flow, ignoring the outflow from the ruptured riser and the Blow Out Preventer. That BOP malfunctioned and failed to stop the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform from exploding when a giant bubble of gas ruptured it and caught fire. The BOP a mile down on the seafloor still capping the wellhead still doesn't work. Otherwise it would have been possible to simply shut off the well.<br /><br />Besides BP and the BOP, MMS is also in the loop for blame. It granted BP's drilling permit without any impact or safety study on a very deep well in very deep water, a mile down to the seafloor and drilling another 4 miles down to the oil. That's five miles of rock and water pressure on the BP oil under the seafloor.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w2U66qIqI/AAAAAAAABlM/uqdjNgsU1b0/s1600/DeepwaterHorizonWellheadSchematic_TopKill_05-16-10_1750xvar_%C2%A9BP2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w2U66qIqI/AAAAAAAABlM/uqdjNgsU1b0/s400/DeepwaterHorizonWellheadSchematic_TopKill_05-16-10_1750xvar_%C2%A9BP2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475310980016251554" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=acXvRn3hU5dc&pid=20601087">BP's Top Kill Next</a><br /></span><br />Stopping the leak with mud, cement and junk shot, what BP wants to do as early as May 26, chances are will only plug the BOP. Is that enough to stop an extremely high pressure leak? Probably not. It might reduce the flow. Though BP will try to go down deeper below the BOP and plug the well itself. If the well can't be filled with mud and cement, then a partial BOP cap could blow out of the water. Tremendous oil pressures, 5 miles of rock and water on the oil bed, could pop a few tons of plugged up BOP clean out of its way. Then we could have a much bigger eruption of oil, totally out of control. Deepwater could spew for months and destroy the the entire US Gulf of Mexico coastline.<br /><br />The <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/climateintervention/msg/cabf2f901166f6ae?pli=1">IXTOC I spill of 1979</a> in the Gulf of Mexico ruptured for 9 months before it was finally plugged. And it was a much easier to control 2 mile well in 160 feet of water west of the Yucatan. It wound up fouling Texas beaches 600 miles away.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w3BhJ-JKI/AAAAAAAABlU/RgFc3SGVCB4/s1600/DeepwaterHorizon_448573main_img_feature_1649_4x3-428_OilSlick_April25_NASA-Aqua_MODIS2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w3BhJ-JKI/AAAAAAAABlU/RgFc3SGVCB4/s400/DeepwaterHorizon_448573main_img_feature_1649_4x3-428_OilSlick_April25_NASA-Aqua_MODIS2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475311746195268770" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Underestimating The Deepwater Spill</span><br /><br />Initially BP claimed the spill was 1,000 barrels a day. Outflow based on surface water conditions analyzed by NOAA was revised to 5,000 barrels a day. BP disputed NOAA's figures. But BP said it was also impossible to measure the undersea flow, and the actual flow was irrelevant. Now BP is siphoning off about 2,000 barrels a day from the leaking well to a surface ship--and yet that's only sucked up a modest amount of what is still leaking out furiously. How wrong can you get BP? Try 50,000 barrels a day.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html">Other estimates in the NYT</a> based on analysis of <a href="http://bp.concerts.com/gom/rov_riserkink.htm">video of the leaks</a> have gone as high as 100,000 barrels a day of oil/gas mix leaking, though as the flow seems to be about half gas/ half oil according to BP, the oil volume has been adjusted down to about 50,000 barrels of pure oil escaping into the Gulf per day or maybe twice the oil spill of IXTOC I.<br /><br />So why does the still enormous spill look smaller on the surface water than it should be if we do have 50,000 barrels a day leaking? Enter Corexit. As a dispersant it acts on oil to break it down into small droplets by binding to the oil molecules. But Corexit is itself toxic according to the EPA. The resulting droplets although more easily biodegradable than liquid oil, are even more toxic to marine life breathing it in like fish do. Using Corexit doesn't reduce the amount of oil pollution. It's still there. Diluted oil should be less likely to foul shorelines and birds though it still does as we've seen from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's presentations, fouling 65 miles of shoreline so far while BP and the Feds dither about what to do next. In an emergency you've got to have action as Katrina should have demonstrated. Instead <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-louisiana-governor-bobby-jindal-asks/story?id=10731680">according to Jindal there's a terrible shortfall in equipment needed while some resources available are tied up</a> in approval procedures so committees can sit around calling for studies before they approve anything Jindal wants to do.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Dead Zones Underwater</span><br /><br />If there's some <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/15/oil.spill.dispersants/index.html">surface benefit to dispersants</a>, injected directly into the undersea plume of oil there are other effects. It's happily preventing more oil from reaching surface waters, but at the same time this oil is now trapped under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico where it may persist for a much longer time. Oil under water doesn't biodegrade easily, in the absence of sunlight, mechanical wave action and bacteria. Huge plumes of treated oil from Deepwater have been discovered underwater 20 miles away creating <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/16/gulf-oil-spill-bp">giant dead zones</a>. They too could move into ocean currents while some of the oil may be settling on the seafloor contaminating shellfish.<br /><br />This trapping of oil probably occurs even without dispersant applied, as the BOP leak is a mile underwater, the deepest oil spill yet. As oil/gas mixture rises in extremely cold water, the temperature is so cold and the pressure of water so high, that there is already a tendency for oil to congeal and in the case of gases like methane involved, for the methane and seawater to freeze forming methane ice or hydrates as they're calling them on the news. Hydrates formed in the containment cofferdam over the BOP in BP's first attempt to seal the leak and the cofferdam was abandoned.<br /><br />The EPA did order BP to stop such injections of Corexit. But BP continues to use it underwater and on the surface spill. If the oil spill looks better that way, appearing to be a much smaller spill, all the spilled oil is still there underwater or on the surface except for some natural evaporation of volatiles like gasoline in the oil. By underestimating the flow and stubbornly refusing to measure the actual outflow from the leaks, by using a lot of dispersant, BP may be counting on not only better public relations fallout from a smaller looking spill, but less liability if it comes down to eventual court actions including possible <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_oil_rig_investigation">criminal charges</a> filed by the US government or by other claimants for damages. It's cover your ass time at BP and in Washington.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w3v_pjRsI/AAAAAAAABlc/sCZ8bWjc3PA/s1600/DeepwaterHorizon_454945main_20100517_spill_428-321_May17_NASA-Terra2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S_w3v_pjRsI/AAAAAAAABlc/sCZ8bWjc3PA/s400/DeepwaterHorizon_454945main_20100517_spill_428-321_May17_NASA-Terra2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475312544654771906" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The BOP and BP's Safety Record</span><br /><br />Fixing blame might never happen. Who did what? Besides BP, Transocean the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that was destroyed in the accident, Halliburton which did the cement work on the well and the maker of the failed BOP, Cameron International, are blaming each other. Yet it's clear from the recent <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126785173&ps=rs">House subcommittee investigation of the accident</a> that there were many defects in the BOP, from poor modifications to it to improper maintenance. Its failure has to be the main cause of the explosion and fire that killed 11 workers, and for the continuing disastrous oil spill as well.<br /><br />There's a lot of anger and grief too as the oil washes into wetlands and birds, potentially a greater tragedy in the wings if the oil isn't stopped soon. So far BP has been getting all the heat, partly because of <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_oil_rig_investigation">warnings before the Deepwater Horizon fireball</a> and their <a href="http:/www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/searchresults.relevance?p_text=BP&p_status=CURRENT&p_title=/">US corporate record on maintenance and safety</a>, the worst by far in the entire industry.<br /><br /><br />BP makes more money than 90 Oprahs in a bad year. $19 Billion profit in 2005, $25.59 Billion in 2008 and $13.96 Billion in 2009. It has pursued an aggressive expansion of its business and has never been much impressed with government meddling in its affairs. Being big is good and drowning in money helps. Its PR machine and army of lawyers are up to any environmental challenge as BP has demonstrated twice over the last 5 years.<br /><br />Besides the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/20/fmr_epa_investigator_scott_west_us">2006 Alaskan North Slope BP pipeline spill</a> due to maintenance issues, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/26/60minutes/main2126509.shtml">BP's Texas City refinery explosion and fire of 2005</a> killed 15 people and injured another 180. BP negotiated a settlement with the Bush Justice Department of $20 Million for the first accident, and $50 Million for the second. Chump change, considering the seriousness of the violations that the lead EPA investigator Scott West wanted to pursue for the BP Alaska spill. At that time the EPA was considering damages of $672 Million from BP plus possible felony charges against some BP executives just for the Alaska spill.<br /><br />If that was then and this is now, here's what the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8655683.stm">BBC reported</a> recently on Deepwater:<br /><br /><blockquote>In BP's 2009 exploration plan for the well, the firm suggested an oil spill was unlikely or virtually impossible, AP news agency reports.<br /></blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Breaking News</span><br /><br /><a href="http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/report-bp-had-3-indications-of-trouble-in-hour-before-blast/">CNN reports</a> that 51 minutes before the Deepwater Horizon explosion April 20, there were several warnings of trouble on the rig. Witnesses said there were 3 ruptures of fluid and pressure on the drill pipe "unexpectedly increased".<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/26rig.html">Read The New York Time's account</a> of the Deepwater Horizon's last troubled hours, based on reports from the Congressional Committee investigating.<br /><br /><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-effort-to-seal-well-may-be-delayed.html">In the Los Angeles Times</a>, Kent Wells a senior BP Vice President said that the Top Kill could start Wednesday May 26 or later this week.<br /><br />See the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/25/gulf.oil.spill/index.html">CNN animation</a> of the Top Kill for what to expect if it works.<br /><br />Live BP video of the Top Kill attempt, in some doubt until Capitol Hill pressure was applied, will be available on the <a href="http://www.bp.com/bodycopyarticle.do?categoryId=1&contentId=7052055">BP website</a> and <a href="http://live.cnn.com/">CNN Live</a>.<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-2259718336443637042010-04-06T09:37:00.000-07:002010-04-07T15:37:40.532-07:00LHC X-Files: CERN Achieves 1/400,000 Of 7TeV Potential<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z1wQXAaaI/AAAAAAAABjc/eHmo5Z-2teI/s1600/1003061_33-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CCC_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z1wQXAaaI/AAAAAAAABjc/eHmo5Z-2teI/s400/1003061_33-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CCC_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457507057840187810" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">Waiting For Tom Hanks</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Exclusive No question the Large Hadron Collider scored a brilliant success with its first collisions at 7 TeV. Considering the extreme complexity of the detectors/ reactors this was a breathless performance. Soon after the 1 PM Geneva start, all four massive experiments were delivering data during the 3 hour window.<br /><br />The first particle tracks and jets that were recorded surprised and delighted the physicists at CERN. At 7 TeV something new was going on that hadn't been seen before at any other collider, the signals of a New Physics. Though if you managed to sit through CERN's live webcast all day March 30, (<a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1256279">video highlights: LHC First Physics</a>) at least an interminable 27 km long, you still wouldn't have found out what that New Physics was or what CERN physicists were thinking. The only relevant comment I heard was that some muons were produced, and as they are decay products from heavier particles, some massive particles should have been produced, what CERN hopes for including the massive Higgs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z1_IPYe5I/AAAAAAAABjk/4UTxK4TeFwQ/s1600/1003061_104-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CCC_SteveMeyers_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z1_IPYe5I/AAAAAAAABjk/4UTxK4TeFwQ/s400/1003061_104-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CCC_SteveMeyers_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457507313358764946" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Great To Be Alive<br /></span><br />With everyone so dazed and happy for the collider, by the time the <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1255408">CERN Press Conference</a> started even the mostly 20-something journalists forgot to ask any new or relevant questions. It was one of those great cathartic moments where you're thrilled to have survived the biggest physics experiment ever when it's a hundred meters under your feet.<br /><br />Confusing anyway to get focused on results with a loud echo for the first half-hour and more loud simultaneous French translation overlapping. Good thing CERN A/V wasn't running any important experiments. On camera four spokespersons and "two people waiting in Japan" weren't deterred. Another spokesperson for CERN PR coordinating the spokespersons and reporters while walking around the wireless mic kept tripping over the "two people" on the live video feed. "Two people waiting in Japan" who maybe had a comment? What were "two people" doing in Japan? What "two people"? The not just any "two people" turned out to be Sergio Bertolucci, CERN's Director of Research and Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer, but anyway they were happy enough splitting a bottle of 1991 red collider wine, the year CERN started thinking about the LHC.<br /><br />The only memorable quote of the day came from Dr Bertolucci:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The most exciting thing is we are just mapping the unknown. And so the most striking things will be the unexpected things we might find there."</blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z2YUM6lzI/AAAAAAAABjs/4PunzfuFN9w/s1600/AirCometAzafatasSeDesnudan_Noviembre_MinutoUno_edit1_CalendarPhotoAugustoRobertTheJetSocietydpa2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 273px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z2YUM6lzI/AAAAAAAABjs/4PunzfuFN9w/s400/AirCometAzafatasSeDesnudan_Noviembre_MinutoUno_edit1_CalendarPhotoAugustoRobertTheJetSocietydpa2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457507746066372402" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Fabiola? Wrong Control Room</span><br /><br />Though we've heard variations on this theme from just about everyone. For the "unexpected things" well they're unexpected but at least we should be told just how much time we have before they arrive. CERN knows more or less but CERN won't say in so many words. Not even what the March 30 departure point was or where's the blasted finish line. Is today a sprint or the stage one of the marathon? What stages exactly? 7 TeV doesn't really cover it but it sounds great, another collider record. Get the camera Fabiola!<br /><br />Listening very closely that day some of us were sort of warned. Piecing it together from the friendly banter the LHC was still taking its first "baby" steps. Mama and Papa CERN were very proud. If there was a buzz word through that exhausting day, it was "baby" and double that for "new babies" from our excited Italian hostess, who was doing nearly all the talking for everybody in her webcast from control room to control room while two guys were chatting in a loud French voiceover, like at the back of a church. They had some interesting things to say if you could hear them. Thanks CERN A/V, a division of CERN PR, leaving us hankering for Tom Hanks in the final analysis.<br /><br />Instead of a nice clean start, say 2 minutes of CERN's objectives for the day or a Press Release on that: how many bunches of protons, how many protons per bunch for this first 7 TeV experiment -- a lot of happy and excited people at CERN were telling us over and over again how happy they were for and hours and hours. Sure we're glad they're all happy. But being so very happy about all the ''new babies" the collider was having, our hostess and her physicists forgot what millions of people out there wanted to know. Was she going to bring them coffee?<br /><br />Even 40 Live Status LHC Pages were no help with how many bunches were loaded into the collider that day: The CERN variation on Russian Roulette.<br /><br />Bits of what we needed to know did come out in gurgles. ATLAS was having fewer "babies", only about 30 per second, while CMS was having 100 "babies" per second, and LHCb went from 50 to 60 "new babies", but we never did find out if ALICE got knocked-up down the rabbit hole until we saw the "baby" scan and hers were certainly hairier than any other "new babies", so Wow.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z26vQpxjI/AAAAAAAABj0/wlXG8HA7N8Q/s1600/1003053_30-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_ALICE_Collisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z26vQpxjI/AAAAAAAABj0/wlXG8HA7N8Q/s400/1003053_30-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_ALICE_Collisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457508337445357106" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">ALICE Hairy Baby Scan</span><br /><br />The "babies" were collision events of course, 2 protons making one collision "baby", but the mother of all colliders obviously wasn't making "babies" the way she should. Where were all the other "babies"? Once upon a time CERN was forecasting 1 million collisions per second per experiment. Later on at the mighty ATLAS we got the new ultimate forecast: 40 million "babies" per second in each detector or times 4 making 160 million per second overall.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z73xlpyxI/AAAAAAAABkM/85zGj-cm05Q/s1600/1003062_08-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_BeamsSqueezedForCollisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 224px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z73xlpyxI/AAAAAAAABkM/85zGj-cm05Q/s400/1003062_08-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_BeamsSqueezedForCollisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457513784088840978" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Squeezing More Babies<br /></span><br />Evidently for now something was wrong. Not enough squeezing going on, or a low proton count. Both as it turned out, but you had to beam down via the Internet and watch the naked collider in action. The first clue was March 29, <span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> "<a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/03/cern-fires-collider.html">CERN Fires The Collider</a>" when only 2 bunches per beam made it into the collider round. Then bright and early March 30 there were 2 aborted ramps to get stable beams and with millions of people getting bored CERN tried square one. With the "baby" machine feeling testy, the absolute minimum 1 bunch per beam was knocked in instead of 2 or the nominal 2808 bunches per beam we were told to expect for years and years.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z80icVa5I/AAAAAAAABkU/c16yRASzAl0/s1600/LHCCommisioning_Beam_March30_StatusDuring7TeVCollisions_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 206px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z80icVa5I/AAAAAAAABkU/c16yRASzAl0/s400/LHCCommisioning_Beam_March30_StatusDuring7TeVCollisions_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457514827995245458" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">10 Billion Protons Instead of 561,600 Billion Protons</span><br /><br />Then how many protons? The maximum per bunch is 100 billion according to CERN. Nobody said how many protons before, during or since March 30, but one of the two French guys in the background voiceover did mention "5 milliards de protons" or 5 billion, or 1/20 the nominal number of protons per bunch. So at most there were 10 billion protons that could have collided, or in overall terms the very rock bottom minimum or the lowest possible luminosity next to zero. The maximum intensity would have been 2 x 2808 x 100 billion for a very large number of protons circulating eventually or 561,600 billion. Versus 10 billion protons March 30, meaning the LHC achieved 1/56,160 of its potential in protons. Far less than that when it comes to LHC luminosity or the ultimate shootout at CERN's OK Corral.<br /><br />During the webcast we did catch 2 other related facts. At 10 billion protons in the collider, maximum collisions in any one detector would be 11,000 per second where at CMS with the most "babies" there were 100 per second. ATLAS was aiming for 40 million collisions per second in any detector, but not today.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z3WHZZSeI/AAAAAAAABj8/2LcQnYKQ4iQ/s1600/CERN-MOVIE-2010-076-posterframe-640x360-at-50-percent_LHC_CMS7TeVppCollisions_Mar30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z3WHZZSeI/AAAAAAAABj8/2LcQnYKQ4iQ/s400/CERN-MOVIE-2010-076-posterframe-640x360-at-50-percent_LHC_CMS7TeVppCollisions_Mar30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457508807780944354" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">CMS On Top</span><br /><br />CMS with the best score achieved 100/40,000,000 or 1/400,000 of what it can do at 7 TeV. Or at the per second OK Corral Rehearsal 200 bullets smashed into each other vs 80 million that will smash one of these days.<br /><br />If all goes well late next year we might see maximum luminosity at 7 TeV or 400,000 times more collisions per second. In 2013 the ultimate proton fireball at 14 TeV will be over (no typo) 100 billion times the core temperature of our sun or ~ 10^16 °C.<br /><br />Step 4: "Don't panic." Good advice from an LHC operating manual.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hot enough for ya?</span> will be something to brag about if there's anyone left at CERN.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z-z8eD31I/AAAAAAAABkk/v0ql6bnBRs4/s1600/1003060_01-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_ATLAS_Collisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z-z8eD31I/AAAAAAAABkk/v0ql6bnBRs4/s400/1003060_01-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_ATLAS_Collisions7TeV_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457517016825192274" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">ATLAS Trying For Better Days</span><br /><br />So the big event March 30 was a very small physics experiment, though with some risk to the LHC machine. Because of the way CERN handled it and the media reported it, there's a general sigh of relief. We're still here, the LHC is safe. Nothing more to worry about after the Barnum and Bailey Collider Test.<br /><br />Nothing wrong with going for the smallest possible test at 7 TeV. The smart and prudent way to go, except when you don't disclose the facts clearly and let people imagine they're getting the full Big Bang for their buck. Echoes of "There's one born every minute."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z_nFR6g0I/AAAAAAAABks/_4Cdu0huHNs/s1600/LHCbEventDisplay_7TeVCollisions_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 228px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z_nFR6g0I/AAAAAAAABks/_4Cdu0huHNs/s400/LHCbEventDisplay_7TeVCollisions_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457517895363494722" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHCb: What You Say?</span><br /><br />Belatedly offering <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T1LE20100331">soundbites to the media</a> on increasing collisions to 300 per second and a stab at luminosity, again <span style="font-style: italic;">after</span> the brouhaha of March 30, is more you-knew-all-along sleight of hand through the back door for millions of empty chairs who won't complain. Making <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8582778.stm">lame excuses</a> before the collisions like the LHC would be colliding beams together over the Atlantic, in case of PR failure, was rather embarrassing, though a genuine attempt at some false modesty.<br /><br />Canceling the Tom Hanks Show at the collider was the biggest CERN event. It finally dawned on CERN that the most important physics experiment since Trinity should be treated seriously. The live interactive video/data player for the webcast was first rate and another positive step. But being hustled into CERN's Big Top for a handful of firecrackers like <span style="font-style: italic;">this is it</span>, The Greatest Show on Earth, is another sad comment on how easy it is to fool people.<br /><br />You can make allowances for any live event, that the excitement overtakes the action and the facts. But CERN has had years to get the facts across and a week since March 30 for revisiting unfortunate false impressions. The postmortem CERN Press Release "<a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2010/14/News%20Articles/1246424?ln=en">Yes we did it</a>" makes no corrections.<br /><br />Of course there are no bragging rights if CERN simply stated in advance and during the March 30 demonstration that the 7 TeV test collisions were slated for about 1/400,000 of design efficiency. Then of course nothing of LHC safety would be proved either, except that the LHC is apparently safe to operate at an extremely tiny fraction of its potential. Now that the public is satisfied with safety CERN can go to the LHC maximum. Not right away, as the machine is unreliable. Failures since start-up including this week are common. Luminosity consequently has to be coaxed up in stages or there will be no more "babies"and no more collider.<br /><br />Go slow is commendable to save the collider from another accident. But why not tell us? It was no secret inside CERN, just outside.<br /><br />The biggest safety issue has always been the LHC's New Physics. Now apparent safety (of small numbers) of 7 TeV collisions will be taken as a proof of safety for what is to come.<br /><br />Actual physics results even from March 30 may never be fully known. Dangerous sorts of Collider Objects might have been produced and might have gone undetected during the 3 hour run of March 30 of about 1/2 million proton collisions recorded. What will happen in 2011 in a proton fireball of 40 million collisions per second? <span style="font-style: italic;">When the truth is known, you can fly.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z33ydq6wI/AAAAAAAABkE/g9qLvxz3lww/s1600/LHCCommisioning_PilotPhysicsRun3500GeV_March30First2Weeks_CERN_2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 116px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z33ydq6wI/AAAAAAAABkE/g9qLvxz3lww/s400/LHCCommisioning_PilotPhysicsRun3500GeV_March30First2Weeks_CERN_2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457509386277284610" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />CERN's Smoking Gun<br /></span><br />CERN had already predetermined that First Physics at 7 TeV would be 1 proton bunch per beam, 1 x 1 for the first three days of collisions, then a week of tests on multi-bunches, then a jump to 4 x 4 or 4 bunches per beam colliding for another 2 days. Then a bigger jump to 12 x 12 collisions for 2 more days. Then who knows? Though CERN hasn't been able to achieve these results due to ongoing machine failures.<br /><br />Down the road: "<a href="http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/luminosity/MG_2010_parameters.pdf">BEAM PARAMETERS AND MACHINE PERFORMANCE TO BE REACHED IN 2010</a>"*.<br /><br />What we can expect now is less machine risk as proton bunches are gradually maximized in stages. It will take until the end of this year to reach about 800 bunches per beam out of 2808, another lucky fact blown out of CERN's windy webcast. Luminosity will still continue climbing next year to the maximum.<br /><br />The obscure but essential CERN document (above) "<a href="http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/phases/pilot-physics-run.htm">Pilot physics run at 3.5 TeV</a>"* should have been released to the public before March 30 or summed up in a CERN Press Release. Just a reminder to CERN that Press Releases are for the Press and provide the Press with tools, not more hot air to analyze. This short document would have made CERN's intentions clear on going slow (adding the rationale: the minimizing of machine failures and damage) and that would have pre-empted all the phony suspense of March 30. We could have got some more sleep instead.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Future At 7 TeV</span><br /><br />So we're not much further ahead in knowing what to expect from the LHC. The preliminary data and continuing collisions will give physicists some ideas, but data analysis isn't that easy. It could take months to see some New Physics papers on what happened.<br /><br />Even so physicists will be reluctant to draw conclusions from a few collision events, which is why they want to see 40 million per second.<br /><br />The funny thing is, because of the enormous amount of data these collisions produce, CERN's entire computing power can only record 2,000 events per second. So CERN will filter all data, discarding nearly all of it, hoping their filters will capture only the significant events, whatever they are.<br /><br />For now and since CERN decided to blast us with Collider PR 10 years ago, we're in another prolonged state of suspense. When is the axe going to fall? Certainly it looks like there is a better chance for safety in terms of shutting down before hazardous events arrive, if data analysis can determine the next threshold where New Physics might spin out of control. Though there are no guarantees that we'll have any bumpy warnings. <span style="font-style: italic;">Just ask ALICE when she's 10 feet tall.</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z9oJTPOqI/AAAAAAAABkc/fX10pf0c2dM/s1600/1003061_78-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CC_March30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7z9oJTPOqI/AAAAAAAABkc/fX10pf0c2dM/s400/1003061_78-A4-at-144-dpi_LHC_CC_March30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5457515714599402146" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHC News: Doomsday Postponed<br /></span><br />As to the future, the only real news out of the Press Conference was delivered by Steve Meyers, Director of Accelerators and Technology who talked about some long term goals and difficulties, announcing the next planned shutdown in Autumn 2011. After a year of upgrades to safety systems for another $235 Million (not mentioned) the LHC should be ready to start 14 TeV collisions in 2012, though giant bending magnets will still be difficult to retrain, some 1/3 of about 1,800 (not mentioned) needing 25 to 30 ramps and quenches. The much fabled LHC might have to settle for 13 TeV.<br /><br />*Note to CERN Techies: Put dates on all your documents. If Plan "A" is PR Mystification, your Plan "B" Common Timeline Confusion will mystify everyone else at CERN who needs to sift through a mountain of links to a mountain chain of documents that might save your life.<br /><br />This is Part 7 of a series on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high energies starting March 30, 2010. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 3: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/higgs-discovered-at-large-hadron.html">Higgs Discovered At The Large Hadron Collider / More Delays</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 4: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/scrubbing-cms-data-at-lhc.html">Scrubbing CMS Data At The LHC</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 5: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/03/lhc-lords-of-ring.html">LHC Lords Of The Ring</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 6: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/03/cern-fires-collider.html">CERN Fires The Collider</a><br /><br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-31490866343264483072010-03-29T06:56:00.000-07:002010-03-29T23:36:10.236-07:00CERN Fires The Collider<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F35AIbZjI/AAAAAAAABic/HPoeefTIub4/s1600/0902014_19-A4-at-144-dpi_TomHanksPromoTourLHC_edit1_CERN2009.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 215px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F35AIbZjI/AAAAAAAABic/HPoeefTIub4/s400/0902014_19-A4-at-144-dpi_TomHanksPromoTourLHC_edit1_CERN2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454272444893980210" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Nice Collider. What's it do?</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> The big question today for tomorrow at the Large Hadron Collider is what happened to Tom Hanks? He's the guy CERN asked to push The Button at the last Collider Party back in 2008, the media splash before the 2008 accident. Tom said he wouldn't miss it and since then has been doing some serious hanging around.<br /><br />Last year Tom rolled back in with his <span style="font-style: italic;">Angels and Demons</span> tour at the LHC, trading a honey wagon full of A&D T-shirts for a million dollars of free publicity. The cover story for the secret button rehearsal probably, as there are a lot of buttons at the LHC including "retry" "ignore error" "clear error" and "kill"on the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXjR-Jkrsvg">BadAstronomy Tour</a>.<br /><br />Though the big deal, rumor has it, was Ron Howard bringing along his lucky <span style="font-style: italic;">Happy Days</span> lunch pail to sneak through CERN security, both in and out, in case of an <span style="font-style: italic;">A&D 2</span> where a mad scientist at CERN takes home some serious micro black holes, you guessed it, and drops off his less suspicious by several orders of magnitude <span style="font-style: italic;">Hannah Montana</span> lunch pail at the Vatican.<br /><br />Did CERN run out of anti-matter already? A lot of people will be disappointed, at least if Tom doesn't show up tomorrow. Who else would you trust to push The Button? I'd go with Kevin Spacey for an ambiguous real life touch, the slightly nervous button, the wisp of a smile, the you asked for it Boom so here it is.<br /><br />Or Jim Carrey for some real collider frenzy.<br /><br />In any case, don't worry about tomorrow. CERN isn't, <a href="http://de.news.yahoo.com/2/20100329/tsc-cern-generaldirektor-kein-schwarzes-c2ff8aa.html">CERN has it all figured out</a>. If CERN loses we all lose. End of story. If CERN wins, CERN will be back to try it again at full power later this year, full luminosity as it's called but never explained by CERN on 20 websites promoting the LHC. Call it maximized beams at 2808 proton bunches per beam, the maximum bunches, the max protons, but all that still at tomorrow's half-power 3.5 Trillion Electron Volts times two for 7 TeV collisions. If maximized tomorrow (no way) that's about the momentary focused power of 1400 Nuclear Power Plants.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7GFYwwzizI/AAAAAAAABjM/xkTx224dX64/s1600/LHCDataWide_Status_Meltronix_2BunchesPerBeamStable3500GeV_Mar30_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7GFYwwzizI/AAAAAAAABjM/xkTx224dX64/s400/LHCDataWide_Status_Meltronix_2BunchesPerBeamStable3500GeV_Mar30_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454287284175342386" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">A la carte:</span> Two Proton Potatoes Per Beam</span><br /></div><br />Last December's record 2.36 TeV collisions were also not maximized, a paltry million collisions recorded by CMS. What we'll get tomorrow in terms of luminosity could be small potatoes again. CERN could inject as little as 2 proton bunches per beam out of 2808 as in a test today, March 29, 2010 at 20:40:17 (above image) with bragging rights as all flags turned green. Wow, Stable Beams, 4 bunches through the LHC, Beam 1 about 3000 GeV or 3 TeV and Beam 2 at about 2400 GeV or 2.4 TeV. So tomorrow looks suspiciously like a repeat of today except there will be collisions of a minor order while CERN claims success and safety with as little as 4 bunches. Might be more, though will CERN tell us how many?<br /><br />Recall last time when CERN did not even accelerate protons in September 2008, using just their injection energy of 0.45 TeV per beam, not even colliding beams, yet claiming a great success on the non-accelerating non-colliding LHC and safety of course. Doomsday a bust. Collider a bust days later without beams.<br /><br />Well impossible anyway with no collisions for one thing, and no danger at low power collisions when the Tevatron has been safely colliding (not official however) at 2.1 TeV, not the 1.96 TeV reported by CERN when CERN claimed its 2.36 TeV record this December finally. Go figure.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">March 30, 20110: The Day Something Or Nothing Happened<br /></span><br />So what will happen tomorrow? According to CERN's crystal ball, we will have safe collisions at 7 TeV. Take it away Tom Hanks: <span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, we have no bananas. We have no bananas today.</span> If maximum collision energies were tried at 7 TeV or about 75 times the power of the Tevatron, this could fry the collider and 200 journalists there for the worst thing of all, a PR disaster. If safe at low luminosity CERN won' t advertise that fact as it didn't in December at 2.36 TeV or more recently this month when CERN claimed 3.5 TeV test beams.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F8kIY32SI/AAAAAAAABi0/wEDsvOXpIJs/s1600/lhc1_Status_EmergencyDumps_Failures_Mar21-23_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F8kIY32SI/AAAAAAAABi0/wEDsvOXpIJs/s320/lhc1_Status_EmergencyDumps_Failures_Mar21-23_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454277583891323170" border="0" /></a><br />We could be left to assume (wrongly) that the collisions of tomorrow will be maximum luminosity at 7 TeV. Only a handful of science journalists with some physics will know what luminosity is, some won't ask and none will tell us, as they never have bothered before. It's not their responsibility to question the value of this experiment, just report what CERN says. In the end with 10,000 physicists, CERN must know what it is doing. Though it may be one of those quantum counter-intuitive problems. You think CERN knows but CERN doesn't. Or the answer is under CERN's nose, 27 km of collider built by CERN to find out what CERN doesn't know.<br /><br />What happens tomorrow? If things go wrong, it will be all over <span style="font-style: italic;">eBAY</span> at least:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">CERN And Toyota Deals</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Used collider with some front-end damage, about $8 Billion to fix. Original Toyota Accelerator Warranty transferable. New owner can sue.</span><br /><blockquote></blockquote>The Giddings and Mangano Cosmic Ray Argument is finally being put to some good use. Micro Black Holes safe, Toyota Microchips not so safe. The mania for microchips has gone so far that the latest generation of micro-microchips relies only on a hundred electrons to push gateway data, too small to fight Cosmic Ray battles launched from Space. And by the way, what happens to all the non-radiation-hardened microprocessors and other electronics and equipment CERN forgot to shield or redesign at the LHC when the extreme ionizing including nuclear energie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7GC0ruROpI/AAAAAAAABjE/qln8CZGfmTY/s1600/HappyDaysLunchBox_edit1_1976.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 159px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7GC0ruROpI/AAAAAAAABjE/qln8CZGfmTY/s200/HappyDaysLunchBox_edit1_1976.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454284465323981458" border="0" /></a>s produced by the LHC blast the collider day after day? Your mounting radiation hazards suddenly discovered at the LHC after 10 or 15 years. In comparison <a href="http://news.discovery.com/space/are-cosmic-rays-causing-toyotas-sudden-acceleration-problem.html">Toyota Cosmic Ray bombardment</a> is insignificant except for Toyotas.<br /><br />What happens tomorrow? CERN tells us via the CERN cypher. Closer, closer and when CERN copy becomes a blur, read between the lines. The four major experiments will have webcasts, meaning from their control rooms, as the underground LHC is off limits during hazardous beam events, including the standard radiation events they produce like heavy X-rays for one type of trouble right around the 27 km ring, a consequence just of forced magnetic bending of proton beams.<br /><br />Webcasts from CMS, ATLAS, LHCb, and ALICE, plus from computer central, the LHC CCC, CERN's main control room. Or in other words there will be collisions in all four main detectors/ reactors. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F_KAmrdiI/AAAAAAAABi8/LBTi9ZtKKlE/s1600/lhc1_Status_EmergencyDumps_Failures_Mar24-26_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F_KAmrdiI/AAAAAAAABi8/LBTi9ZtKKlE/s320/lhc1_Status_EmergencyDumps_Failures_Mar24-26_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454280433660032546" border="0" /></a>So why not say so? Is it a secret? A surprise? Will Tom Hanks mysteriously transport from <span style="font-style: italic;">Arcturus</span>, the movie, through the LHC Stargate from <span style="font-style: italic;">Lost</span> to push The Button after all?<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Why bother with this media event? Isn't this a science experiment? Even if there is no accident, no apparent trouble, we will see no results. It will take weeks to analyze computer data. That's all we have. No one can eyeball these experiments that will generate the momentary heat of our Sun magnified X times. No X value from CERN. The low power RHIC collider at Brookhaven produced 4 Trillion C or 7 Trillion F temperatures in a flash of fusing gold ions at a minuscule 0.2 TeV, or way hotter than the core temperature of our Sun or any star.<br /></div><br />No CERN talking heads at the scheduled Press Conference tomorrow will know what happened, not even the CERN computer systems will be able to report on the production of new Collider Objects, like Black Holes or Strangelets, not in real time. If they are produced and if they are detected they might destroy Geneva before we get the computer data.<br /><br />Why bother convincing us again and again it won't happen? Didn't we buy this collider? Didn't we pay $10 Billion? Why try to re-sell us on it? Do we have buyers' remorse? Do we need Collider Therapy? Just having some fun are we? Collider Roulette? Then what's wrong with the LHC? Why the endless sales pitch in the media from CERN? Every week <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361985,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121">The CERN News: Why We Fight The Collider War</a>. Are we losing? What's wrong now?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F4xQ9Aj_I/AAAAAAAABik/dGyNCSGVWNA/s1600/LHC_Status_ALICEcallCCC_Mar28_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F4xQ9Aj_I/AAAAAAAABik/dGyNCSGVWNA/s400/LHC_Status_ALICEcallCCC_Mar28_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454273411482161138" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hey ALICE Call LHC CCC</span></span><br /><br />Plenty if you look at the data to date. The CERN screenshots on this page from LHC systems performance since March 21, 2010 tell the story. Click to read.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F6ac0J_6I/AAAAAAAABis/pKhYWE8OxTE/s1600/LHC_CooldownStatus_Jan11Feb17Mar1Mar28_S12S23CryoIrregularities_CERN2010.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 132px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S7F6ac0J_6I/AAAAAAAABis/pKhYWE8OxTE/s400/LHC_CooldownStatus_Jan11Feb17Mar1Mar28_S12S23CryoIrregularities_CERN2010.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454275218552520610" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />Cryogenics Twilight Zone</span><br /><br />LHC Cooldown Status since January, tells us of recurring cryo glitches in the same Twilight Zones, Sector 1-2 and Sector 2-3, or along 1/4 of the LHC ring of 27 km of wonky machine. Anybody notice? Nothing to worry about, but click on the screenshots to read the graphs and the comments from CERN Control Center on daily machine failures including unscheduled or real Emergency Beam Dumps.<br /><br />Can't say I like the look of these dozens of monitors, at least the public ones on the Internet, that CERN uses too, that don't tell us or CERN of overall machine status. Unless they were on fire, they quietly say nothing you want to know Now. CERN had the same problem with access points where personnel didn't know if there were or weren't any hazards going in (kid you not) not even a Green-Yellow-Red flag system in place before the 2008 accident. Same thing with all these screens. How safe are we? Condition Red? Yellow? Green? How about a bright Status Bar on every screen? Flashing Idiot Lights? Automatic Woopee Cushions for all that collider control room fatigue.<br /><br />How many bunches per beam? Actual luminosity per beam vs maximum? Actual TeV per beam though we have that in fine print. Graph the beams properly. Relying instead on a Fast Beam Current Transformer to graph Intensity on a shifting scale with tiny numbers? Re-jiggle that in your head? Ever heard of human error? Collisions when, where? See LHC3? What is happening NOW? Is this a $3.99 Collider at Target?<br /><br />For some Keys to reading CERN codes on these screenshots of LHC1 pages see <a href="http://www.lhcportal.com/Portal/Info/Page1.htm">LHC Portal</a>. Then <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2010/12/News%20Articles/1248907?ln=en">CERN's own modest attempts</a>. For <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/03/18/atlas-event-display-decoded/">ATLAS decoded</a> and <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/03/16/cms-event-display-decoded/">CMS decoded</a> on SymmetryBreaking. For 20 pages of <a href="http://op-webtools.web.cern.ch/op-webtools/vistar/vistars.php?usr=LHC1">LHC Live Status starting with LHC1</a>. And 19 multi-screen live views starting with <a href="http://meltronx.com/lhcdatawide/index.html">LHCDataWide</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Watch Fire The Collider March 30, 2010 Live From The LHC<br /></span><br />CERN webcasts from 08:30 to 18:15 CEST or Geneva Time or 6 hours earlier in New York or starting at 2:30 AM. Go to this <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/lhc-first-physics/">CERN page for Twitters and Links to Schedules and Live Webcasts.</a><br /><br />If we all make it through tomorrow, CERN has a series of cliffhangers lined up that will spook us maybe for years to come, all the way up to maximum-maximum 1150 TeV lead ion collisions maybe in 2013, after the LHC shuts down again for a year to fix problems not fixed yet for safe 14 TeV proton collisions and the 1150 TeV lead collisions. In September 2008 the LHC was on a roll and almost ready to go all the way CERN kept insisting, at least to 10 TeV until the $40 Million 2008 accident. Now a year and a half later it's another $235 Million to go all the way or maybe not, maybe if there's more money.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Get Stallone. CERN Wants Another <span style="font-style: italic;">Cliffhanger</span></span><br /><br />Altogether we're another 3 years away from the original Stage 1 of the LHC experiment which is currently 4 years behind schedule.<br /><br />Stage 2 is radiation hardening of equipment (neglected for 10 to 15 years) and moving vulnerable power supplies for more civil engineering for lots more money CERN wants (well over $100 Million) to bring the collider back to a Safe Long Term Stage 1. Stage 3 is to upgrade luminosity massively for way more power with 3 new and/or improved pre-accelerators for something over $1 Billion more. At least some old LEP equipment needs to be scrapped in any case, the LINAC and PS and the 6 year old SPS doesn't make the grade either if you replace the LINAC and PS. At least CERN isn't in a big hurry now. Buys us a little more time to freak out before 14 Terra Firma.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Upgrade The New LHC</span><br /><br />The new improved Super LHC? Yeah and what's this one supposed to do?<br /><br />What bank would give you a dollar if you told the manager a story like that?<br /><br />This is Part 6 of a series on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies starting March 30, 2010. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 3: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/higgs-discovered-at-large-hadron.html">Higgs Discovered At The Large Hadron Collider / More Delays</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 4: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/scrubbing-cms-data-at-lhc.html">Scrubbing CMS Data At The LHC</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 5: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/03/lhc-lords-of-ring.html">LHC Lords Of The Ring</a><br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-9354527325101321642010-03-19T08:06:00.000-07:002010-03-19T20:40:51.098-07:00LHC Lords Of The Ring<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6OpNMsGDZI/AAAAAAAABiE/8o1EdkPcatw/s1600-h/Unico_Anello_edit3_CCXander2007.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6OpNMsGDZI/AAAAAAAABiE/8o1EdkPcatw/s400/Unico_Anello_edit3_CCXander2007.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450386018257997202" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> As we're about to push the button for the biggest science experiment conducted by the biggest machine ever built, perhaps we should look at the Large Hadron Collider's significance. Later this month the LHC will be powering collisions at energies never before attempted, three times the record it set this past December.<br /><br />The LHC adventure is all about one giant organization, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, straddling Switzerland and France and the whole field of particle physics. Whatever the LHC does, CERN is behind it. So it seems are all the physicists. No major critics have surfaced from the inner and outer circles of CERN, and that's about 10,000 particle physicists involved with the LHC or half the world's supply of all physicists. The very few dissenters beyond the fringe not duly cowered have been dismissed as "nuts" and "twats". We haven't seen this kind of power and doctrinal solidarity in Europe since the Church of Rome before the Reformation. A rare unanimity in ordinary terms as well, especially when no physicist knows what the LHC will do.<br /><br />The public who pays for the LHC has only been peripherally involved through media campaigns launched by CERN to enhance public support. The CERN guided tour of the LHC routinely makes the rounds of newspapers and television, the Collider Wheel of Fortune. The rest is feel-good opinion pieces from physicists congratulating CERN and some favorable quotes or sound-bites from physicists mixed in with snippets of LHC news updates on its progress to start-up again. It finally did again this February 27 after a lot of collider nuts and bolts were fixed again, and now the media blitz restarts today on an exciting new LHC record, from more <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/19/atom-smasher-sets-trillion-volt-energy-record/">rehash and rewrites</a> of a <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2010/PR05.10E.html">new CERN Press Release</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Beam me up Scotty and fire proton torpedoes</span><br /><br />Today test beams were circulated at 3.5 TeV each, the maximum for this year's proton run. But it was a test and maximized beams are far from a reality. The LHC can produce 2808 bunches of protons in each beam and CERN isn't saying how many they did manage or for how long. Beams for 5 minutes? If they were at least an hour and at full power CERN would have bragged about it. Another <a href="http://user.web.cern.ch/user/news/2010/100319.html">glitch admitted today by CERN's Dire</a><a href="http://user.web.cern.ch/user/news/2010/100319.html">ctor General</a>, that machine protection systems interfered with the ramp up of energies, shows not all is according to CERN's book of numbers. Beams are back to 0.45 TeV again, the injection energy. But the obvious conclusion is CERN means to go to 7 TeV collisions as soon as it can. The first little Big Bang could happen in a few days.<br /><br /><a href="http://op-webtools.web.cern.ch/op-webtools/vistar/vistars.php?usr=LHC1">LHC1 Live Status</a> data (no archive) since Feb 27th (<a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2010/12/News%20Articles/1248907?ln=en">Key To Codes</a>) have shown quite a different view of LHC readiness, not one problem but many glitches in electrical and helium cooling systems requiring fixes. The brief beams of today look like a lucky break, timed nicely for <a href="http://council.web.cern.ch/council/en/Welcome.html">CERN Council</a> in session. Polite applause. More Christians to the lions in another context. Or in our mythology of today: Launching Mt Doom in Geneva.<br /><br />Usually though for months and months and years and years there's been little enough hard news, more boring loose nuts and bolts and more delays. Today's Media Success looks like another one from September 2008, the Big Bang Day Collider Inauguration. Days later CERN presented the bill, a $40 Million accident.<br /><br />Now some real buzz again, or more boom and doom from the LHC. Never mind the worn out media hype promising exciting New Physics, largely an exercise in public relations to justify a $10 Billion machine that costs another $1 Billion a year to operate and still hasn't done anything much in 10 years except get built very slowly. Forget that small elite army of physicists waiting for more bread and butter data coming on line for their life's work and a real shot at Nobel glory. The LHC Machine's well-oiled destiny is upon us.<br /><br />This big deal or what historians might call a Social Contract has arrived also thanks to many governments colluding on our behalf. It is such a big deal it could affect all of us. The LHC's frightening power may or may not destroy itself, Geneva and the world, but why worry if the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCKJi3CKGE">Dr Strangeloves</a> aren't? New States of Matter from a grab-bag of collider objects produced, from micro black holes to strangelets or maybe the totally unexpected can't happen can it? However remote the odds and CERN insists they are ZERO, even for what CERN cannot imagine in physics, the actual risk and consequences are unknown. Right I-1+B-1+M-1, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX4A-iSoDiU">HAL</a>, Hadron Accelerator Large? Anyone for Kubrick's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPKg2c_bRCs">Tycho Magnetic Anomaly</a> and a voyage <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0">To Jupiter and Beyond</a>?<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XH907H1wadE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XH907H1wadE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Flashback To Another Collider</span></div><br />The last time anything like this happened in science, (alternate Youtube video link to: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH907H1wadE">The Trinity Test 1945</a>) the US at war and in secret, launched the Manhattan Project and that changed everything for us. Though then there was a moral authority and purpose behind that nuclear experiment. Most people in the worn-torn world of the 1940s would have supported the Bomb openly had they known of it, to stop the criminally insane and their WWII destroying civilization. A long generation later it seems we're being asked to entrust our future to a group of physicists again and oddly this time by them. Actually a small group of physicists (not 10,000) pushed Einstein to write a letter and raise the A Bomb question to FDR. Don't think they actually wanted one of those. They wanted to stop one they thought the Nazis might be building.<br /><br />Unlike last time, today it isn't at all clear for what benefit and to what end CERN's experiment with history is designed for. CERN doesn't know either which makes it respectable pure research, or a LEP, oops<span style="font-style: italic;"> leap</span> into the unknown. At a time when there is no urgency, no threat, no world war, a group of physicists want a big change in their world (our world too) a little Big Bang, as though a new unknown nuclear physics is a private club matter well within the control of their one-of-a-kind ingeniously complex and unreliable always stuttering collider down the hall.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/l8w3Y-dskeg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/l8w3Y-dskeg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Oppenheimer Remembers</span><br /><br />Just pure research let's say (alternate Youtube link to: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8w3Y-dskeg">in alamogordo, new mexico, on july 16, 1945</a>) and more knowledge as physicists see it, or let's face it more like an ultimate knowledge of the Universe. Here we enter the waters of religion. If the LHC could be described to an outside observer, it might appear nothing like a research lab. What's that dancing girl doing here at CERN?<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6QN4WZkmwI/AAAAAAAABiM/VLTxYceAog4/s1600-h/0502024_01-A4-at-144-dpi_Shiva_LHC_CERNoutreach2005.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 260px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6QN4WZkmwI/AAAAAAAABiM/VLTxYceAog4/s400/0502024_01-A4-at-144-dpi_Shiva_LHC_CERNoutreach2005.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450496710761814786" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><br />Shiva's Chariot Of Fire/ Six Bachelors And Their Bride<br /></span><br />With all the cloistered excitement in and around Geneva and underground, the sheer size and spectacle of it all looks like the start of a new religious experiment or at least the completion of its temple, praised and guarded by an officious and privileged class in their superfluous white ceremonial labcoats: chalk dust a blackboard hazard of the past. If they looked like Orcs we'd stand a chance.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6Om7NMB21I/AAAAAAAABh0/Lu439AWTKdQ/s1600-h/Lodewyk_Toeput_001_TowerOfBabel_1583-1587_edit1_YorckProject2005.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 236px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S6Om7NMB21I/AAAAAAAABh0/Lu439AWTKdQ/s400/Lodewyk_Toeput_001_TowerOfBabel_1583-1587_edit1_YorckProject2005.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450383510131039058" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Another Experiment Gone Wrong<br /></span><br />Perhaps not such a new experiment if there ever was a Tower of Babel. Now something like the Tower's purpose to reach Heaven has been engineered underground out of the building blocks of modern civilization and science including the equivalent momentary power of 14 TeV or 14 Tera or trillion electron volts or translated into real world terms, the energy of 3,400 nuclear power plants CERN estimates privately, converging on a tiny experimental space.<br /><br />The giant now horizontal tower 17 miles around, the LHC Ring of Power dwarfing the people who built it, and applauded on all sides, is now ready for our ultimate experiment into the mysteries of matter and energy. The question is should it still go ahead? Or are questions of history, religion and art just more bunk to be totally erased by the progress of science?<br /><br />At this point only governments could stop the LHC but like the rest of us they too are dazzled by the Machine they built and the $10 Billion poured into it.<br /><br />For those eager to go ahead, even though they could claim it was a collective decision whatever the outcome, it will be remembered that the few who think they know physics are the force behind this gamble with the unknown. These are as it happens the same physicists who also say they don't know what will happen and need the LHC experiment to rescue them and their physics from a maze of theories and speculations that continues to spiral out of control. Purely mental wandering that craves a solution, but strangely along the same lines of any obsession, even a pathologically dangerous one. Call it Collider Fever. Or Big Bang Envy. Any sex therapists wanna tackle this?<br /><br />That only leaves the LHC to destroy itself when the experiment like the Tower of Babel is crushed by its own weight. It is history in the making? Or history repeating itself? With far more than masonry and mortar in its grasp, there's a String theory of chances on the way. 7 TeV collisions soon, this Fall heavy lead ion collisions that will make these protons look like pop guns, and if the LHC goes to full power in about three years at 14 TeV, it could also be the end of science and the quest for power through knowledge. It might also be the end of history.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">An 11th Hour Appeal Launched In Europe</span><br /><br />Two days ago all <a href="http://lhc-concern.info/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/request-to-cern-council-and-member-states-on-lhc-risks_lhc-kritik-et-al_march-17-2010.pdf">CERN Council members and the Science Ministers of 20 CERN Member States were petitioned</a> by a group of LHC critics. A letter outlining the New Physics hazards of the LHC experiment not fully addressed by CERN and its lack of studies on Risk Assessment was presented for consideration, including supporting papers from the science and academic community. CERN has not replied. Updates on the petition at <a href="http://lhc-concern.info/">LHC Kritik</a>.<br /><br />I'd also like to signal a few Comments that I posted on various website articles recently. Thanks especially to Fermilab/SLAC, <span style="font-style: italic;">Symmetry</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">SymmetryBreaking</span> for publishing my critical overview of the Media and CERN in "<a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/03/11/de-mystifying-the-lhc-shutdown/">Demystifying the LHC shutdown</a>". Thanks to <span style="font-style: italic;">New Scientist</span> for publishing Professor Eric E Johnson's article "<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527485.700-cern-on-trial-could-a-lawsuit-shut-the-lhc-down.html">CERN on trial: could a lawsuit shut the LHC down?</a>" and my Comment on the comments posted that were first analyzed by Empirical Observer, the <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/commenting/thread;jsessionid=D08A3FCA2DF781F3C77B359949652B0C?id=mg20527485.700-248">pro and con LHC arguments</a> that you see all the time, that don't pass the test of logic. And a Comment from me on the always invoked Cosmic Ray Argument used by CERN to make all risks disappear, in this case by a French guy who works for CERN ATLAS, thanks to my favorite French newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">Le Figaro</span> "<a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2010/03/10/01011-20100310FILWWW00503-le-lhc-va-sarreter-pendant-un-an.php">Le LHC va s’arrêter pendant un an</a>".<br /><br />At CERN's many info websites you can't post a Comment on anything. Can't even "Ask a physicist" about anything. Send an email and if you're lucky or if you're a little old lady worried about LHC Tsunamis CERN PR will answer.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z7ZucE_olEs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z7ZucE_olEs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ZucE_olEs">Dance on fire</a> until <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHFK1yKfiGo">The End</a></span><br /><br />Sooner or later, right Morrison? Thanks Jim. The End comes first.<br /><br />This is Part 5 of a series on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies this March. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 3: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/higgs-discovered-at-large-hadron.html">Higgs Discovered At The Large Hadron Collider / More Delays</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 4: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/scrubbing-cms-data-at-lhc.html">Scrubbing CMS Data At The LHC</a><br /><br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-90495256870485406132010-02-26T17:08:00.000-08:002010-02-26T18:21:29.990-08:00Scrubbing CMS Data At The LHC<div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S29_T_mWdGI/AAAAAAAABgs/ayrL8mx8-mA/s1600-h/bul-pho-2006-046_TestOfTheCMSSuperconductingMagnet_CERNoutreach2006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 320px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435703256726008930" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S29_T_mWdGI/AAAAAAAABgs/ayrL8mx8-mA/s400/bul-pho-2006-046_TestOfTheCMSSuperconductingMagnet_CERNoutreach2006.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Compact Muon Solenoid</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> Not just any magnet, but the biggest solenoid ever built, with about as much steel as the Eiffel Tower. A machine within a machine, 1 of 4 giant experiments within the immense LHC collider complex. The Compact Muon Solenoid or CMS is also like the other experiments, a reactor and a complex of detectors. The M in CMS refers to 3 Muon detector systems, but it has others as well designed to track the particle zoo release from collisions.<br /><br />Each experiment has its particular focus, but essentially they work the same way. When particle beams are accelerated around the LHC ring to near light speed, the two beams traveling in opposite directions are squeezed together and forced to collide in each detector. In the CMS it's done by a extreme 3.8 Tesla magnetic field. Whatever event is produced is not only monitored and analyzed, but the collision products are contained within the magnetic bottle. So far at low energies up to 2.36 TeV last December in the CMS, there was the usual shower of new particles and some unexpected extras.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Shiny New CMS Goes For A Test Drive</span><br /></div><br /><div> </div>The collider buzz wasn't about results. CERN was all excited about the spectacular performance of what could have been a giant red Ferrari parked outside the Globe. It got its own <a href="http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1002.0621">CERN paper</a> written by pages and pages of physicists who work on CMS, and wow were they ever excited. They were so excited by the fabulous specs, the sheer power of the CMS million liter 2.36 TeV with 10,000 valves, the amazing bells and whistles on the biggest dashboard you ever saw, the va-va-va-vrooom as it turned all the corners <span style="font-style: italic;">impeccably</span>, they forgot to analyze the data.<br /><br />They got some down on a million souvenir DVDs for later but some obvious extra mesons couldn't be ignored blasting out of the extreme exhaust. No sweat, just a bit of smoke. Only 10% to 14% more charged hadrons than expected. Specifically more Kaons and Pions, these quark re-arangements of basic quarks and antiquarks that should more or less decay into muons.<br /><br />Since 2.36 TeV was in Terra Incognita, it might be just one of those things. Not exactly a problem when the two predictive models based on lower power collisions didn't exactly agree either, or not a problem anyway, just more mesons rising a bit steeply at new higher energies and maybe a trend at still higher energies where they could well be a problem when the LHC collides heavy lead ions maybe this Fall. Paraphrased directly from <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8505203.stm">the BBC report</a>.<br /><br />Never mind, the big question is why? Why more mesons? Are these new new mesons produced from fusion energy? From smashing protons into quarks that recombined? Or is something else going on? Come on BBC. Ask the right questions. I know, they're usually better with farm animals and foreign potentates.<br /><br />But is CERN any better with protons? We think we understand why physicists were too excited to analyze the CMS data scientifically. Often there's so much data you have to toss out most of it to make any sense of what is left. There are various sophisticated computer programs for that developed out of the bad old days of nuclear physics when physicists were designing A-Bombs at Los Alamos. Code name: Monte Carlo.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2jpXdPviiI/AAAAAAAABgM/oV12A9pmVAY/s1600-h/Flickr_4138411199_b8740845b3_b_AbandonnedSteelMillDetroit_CCTunnelBug2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 304px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433849539619424802" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2jpXdPviiI/AAAAAAAABgM/oV12A9pmVAY/s400/Flickr_4138411199_b8740845b3_b_AbandonnedSteelMillDetroit_CCTunnelBug2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Original GEANT-Zéro Monte Carlo Generator</span><br /><br />CERN had its old GEANT program and they're still using GEANT-4 that spews out particles in Fortran. GEANT-Zéro really should be in a museum instead of this abandoned ?LEP Hangar? but CERN is very attached to the good old days of particle physics, when Nuclear sounded important. Here a technician wearing a lab coat and latex gloves drops the particles into a mechano-'opper (out of frame, left). The center dial is spun randomly and then physicists go for coffee. When they come back the first batch of Monte Carlo'd particles is ready. If there are still too many mesons or other troublesome particles, the new smaller sample is re-Monte Carlo'd.<br /><br />If there are still <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225761.200-watching-god-play-dice-the-large-hadron-collider.html?page=1">problems with data</a> or the usual disagreements in interpretation of data, there is the Roulette Option for testing algorithms and a weekend bus trip by <span style="font-style: italic;">Car</span> is arranged to a nearby casino like Chamonix. Now of course they are called Collider Conferences and unfortunately some real work must be done. Presentations. Taking notes on the back of envelopes. The piercing question. Gone are the days of gleaming prop planes chartered to Monaco with physicists waving their perpetual sandwiches, talking and too busy to eat.<br /><br />Still we can't be sure exactly what happened to the CMS data. It seems to have gone through both systems and came out without a scratch. Blasted mesons! Troublesome little things getting in the way of serious data like pixel performance. Is that the only answer?<br /><br />Of course there should be New Physics but this is just too soon for that. A few small collisions at low power for CMS calibration. But CERN should remember that New Physics comes mostly from physicists and not the collider. Unexpected results may have unexpected causes. Studies should be done. Trying to elbow the mesons out of the collider and worry about them later when there are more of them interfering with data, sounds rather medieval. Especially when it is possible that some Kaons might form Strangelets and then you'd have a real 5-star collider emergency. More on Strangelets later.<br /><br />But a second event at the CMS should have alerted 2,500 physicists about the extra muons.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Strange Case Of The Misbehaving Magnet</span><br /><br />The other totally unexpected main event at CMS this past December hasn't been advertised at all by CERN.<br /><br />Seems the CMS actually does increase beam power when its <span style="font-style: italic;">On</span>. CERN discovered the effect over the entire 27 km length of beams. From this Steve Meyer's Powerpoint slide shown (below) at the <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contribId=0&resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=76398">December 18, 2009 CERN meeting</a>, we see the ideal "Santa Klaus" proton beam whipping around very near the speed of light.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-AReLxTQI/AAAAAAAABg0/kAan6IfCjww/s1600-h/LHC_CMS-off_Orbits-goldenSantaKlaus_normal_01-12-09_CERN2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 289px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435704312908041474" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-AReLxTQI/AAAAAAAABg0/kAan6IfCjww/s400/LHC_CMS-off_Orbits-goldenSantaKlaus_normal_01-12-09_CERN2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">CMS Off, Santa Ho Ho Ho</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-GC4UDf-I/AAAAAAAABhM/eYGT1BxpQbk/s1600-h/LHC_CMS-SolenoidRampUp_CMS-on_OrbitDifference_30-11-09_CERN2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 277px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435710659293839330" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-GC4UDf-I/AAAAAAAABhM/eYGT1BxpQbk/s400/LHC_CMS-SolenoidRampUp_CMS-on_OrbitDifference_30-11-09_CERN2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">CMS On, What Happened Santa?</span><br /><br />Beam energy changes? And that's at the usual operating power of 3.8 Tesla in the CMS, ring magnets much weaker to handle low energy 1.18 TeV beams at that time. Earth's field is an extremely low 0.000032 Tesla in comparison.<br /><br />What about collisions in the CMS detector/reactor? Will they too be more powerful? Will the extreme magnetic field of CMS sustain a fusion reaction between beams or sustain collider objects produced? Need some physics papers on this, but like a lot of other risk scenarios, lower power colliders are taken as proof of safety. But no collider before the LHC is remotely equivalent.<br /><br />You would think there would be a big buzz at <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=67839">Chamonix, the CERN conference</a> last month, but I couldn't find anything on the CMS boosting beam energy in the many reports presented on the LHC. One of those things no physicist will forget to talk about, at least over coffee. A first in collider physics. Being studied now certainly by CERN, but CERN's not waiting for studies. The unstoppable LHC is being powered up again for new beams. Will CERN be more cautious about running experiments? Yes, there's already been an encouraging change to the beam schedule. The first run will be back to 0.45 TeV injection beams instead of a jump to 3.5 TeV. Though CERN has been powering the ring magnets to handle these higher energies. The LHC could still jump through the 3.5 TeV hoop in a day.<br /><br />But CERN has more to worry about.<br /><br />After all there was another unexplained event in the same Myers' presentation, P24 screenshot of "<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contribId=0&resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=76398"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Food for thought – V blow up of beam 2</span></a>" or the LHC's first beam explosion December 11, 2009. More on that later.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Two Added Trajectory Energies To Destroy The LHC?</span><br /><br />Higher than expected energies as in <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Part 2</a> might be higher still with another Trajectory Energy added to the mix.<br /><br />You have the 3.8 Tesla CMS magnetic bottle to contain the fusion reaction as in other ordinary fusion reactors, but at the LHC beams are forcibly circulated through it. Part of the effect? Beams push their way through the extremely high CMS magnetic field. In a similar way, Richard Shurtleff's added Trajectory Energy for beams through gravity could also be applied to beams through extremely high magnetic fields, I would say.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Proofs Available From CMS?</span><br /><br />The CMS apparent boost to beam energy, looks like a proof of this new added Trajectory Energy through magnetic fields.<br /><br />The 'discarded' extra unexpected muons produced also in CMS suggest collision energies were higher than 2.36 TeV and so produced more muons. This could be a proof of Shurtleff's original Trajectory Energy through gravity and would include the other Trajectory Energy I'm proposing through magnetic fields at CMS.<br /><br />Both energies might be magnified at higher and higher TeV.<br /><br />On Trajectory Energy added by gravity interactions, Shurtleff thinks that at higher and higher TeV energies, ultimately energies of LHC 14 TeV collisions could double to 28 TeV. And that's without considering the other Trajectory Energy.<br /><br />To paraphrase Holmes, when you eliminate the impossible, you are left with the probable and the unknown.<br /><br />It's up to CERN to find out what they are dealing with. They have the physicists and about half the world's supply of them. Powering up the collider blithely to 3.5 TeV and for 7 TeV collisions could have other unexpected results like destruction of the LHC.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">The Elusive Obvious Effect When Gravity Is Considered Weak</span><br /><br />If you force particles through a vacuum pipe at maximum speed near light speed and that's always your constant, with enough RF or microwave energy applied for 3.5 TeV, you have a 3.5 TeV beam. Do the same thing against gravity and you have 3.5 TeV plus you've added extra energy to overcome the gravity or G.<br /><br />But here's the thinking: Gravity is weak and so can be disregarded. Usually left out of equations. Maybe not so weak. Maybe it's a force acting on several dimensions, and only appears to be weak. Physicists are still trying to understand Quantum gravity. LHC beams also work on a Quantum scale. What will happen?<br /><br />Force your beam against an extreme magnetic field M, and you have 3.5 TeV plus G and plus M or 2 added Trajectory Energies in addition to 3.5 TeV. Anyone care for a game of Quantum magnetism?<br /><br />Say if you had water instead of a vacuum in your beam pipe, you would have to overcome the drag by water with more energy W to achieve the same near light speed and energy or particle density of your beam. Here W=G+M. Giddings and Mangano are you listening?<br /><br />Considering CERN has invested in 9,300 superconducting magnets all supercooled at super expense, you think electro-magnetism and extreme fields would be well understood at the LHC. The CMS would be no surprise?<br /><br />Anybody studying the effects of extreme magnetic fields on collisions and their products? Seems magnetic effects like gravity are ignored as unimportant as other small colliders haven't encountered problems. It's Collider Weather. What can you do about it anyway?<br /><br />Could be a similar effect with the other main detectors like ATLAS that also has a similar tremendous but toroidal magnetic field. Also a solenoid, tricky combo. Can somebody check? <span style="font-style: italic;">Hey Steve!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Back To Observed Effects At CMS And The LHC</span><br /><br />CERN should be able to measure the boost noted in December in beam energies achieved by CMS when beams were at 1.18 TeV. OK, so try again then to duplicate and study this before going to higher energies. Why not announce the need to run the LHC again at 1.18 TeV to double check findings? No, nothing. Is CERN still in a hurry to get glamorous 7 TeV collisions? Leaving upstart colliders, like RHIC getting the glory for Quark Soup, in the dust.<br /><br />That's it. Can't think of everything and so we find out by experiment: Saves time to go ahead beams blazing, if the experiment doesn't destroy the LHC.<br /><br />Still it's been the case at the LHC until the accident of 2008, that machine effects don't matter. Physicists tell engineers what they want and that's what they'll get. Not in 2008. And then a hundred committees try to coordinate everything. Fiddly stuff gets scrutinized under a microscope and the big stuff like untested unmonitored busbars or mounting radiation hazards falls through the cracks with a boom.<br /><br />This was a disregard of <span style="font-style: italic;">known</span> hazards at other colliders. Complicated by obsession and ambition. If CERN had been paying serious attention to all these articles in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a> about known hazards, and shortfalls at the LHC due to extreme complexity of the project and the resulting 27 km machine, CERN might have reconsidered their hurry-up mission for New Physics. In the end the LHC experiment was obviously dependent on billions of dollars of hardware working and working safely. It didn't. Now add unknown beams and collisions?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Into The Unknown</span><br /><br />We now come into the realm of the unknown being explored with unknown energies, by a machine maybe or maybe not in control of the unknown. It won't be the control room operators in CCC who will exercise the control, not when events will occur literally a few meters short of light speed. The machine will be in charge.<br /><br />Of course there will be unknown effects and unknown interactions. Physicists have been surprised many times by their own research. But here the scale of research at the giant LHC into New States of Matter called a much friendlier New Physics, is of a vastly different order.<br /><br />Although physicists and engineers can anticipate what might happen based on what they know, the machine is a machine, sometimes reliable, sometimes not. What they don't know, what the machine isn't built for, is what they can't handle. Here's the big thrill element. Can we beat the odds, can we go where no collider has gone before?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Who Decides?</span><br /><br />Should we take a chance? Point that 27 km collider at Geneva? <span style="font-style: italic;">Half power or full power?</span> It's not really CERN's decision. It's not even CERN's collider or CERN's money. Paid for by taxpayers. Owned by taxpayers. There are 2 million of them a stone's throw from ATLAS. No one in Geneva was asked if they wanted this collider in their backyard. Why not put the question to these good people? Let them decide. Isn't that fair?<br /><br />Talk to the people about Spooky Quantum Effects that will come as a complete surprise. Probability zero of course. Tell them CERN has decided on the unknown, that all LHC risks are ZERO. What a relief. Thanks CERN PR.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHC ReReStart In Progress</span><br /><br /><a href="http://op-webtools.web.cern.ch/op-webtools/vistar/vistars.php?usr=LHC1">Watch any of 20 LHC Live Status Pages from this link.</a><br /><br />The LHC is being prepared for injection energies of 0.45 TeV per beam. Once beams are injected into the 27 km ring, then they can be ramped up to higher energies quickly, as high as 3.5 TeV per beam this year and collisions could follow soon at a maximum of 7 TeV in any of the detectors.<br /><br />Another little glitch on LHC1 (click above) "problem on the PCs of the triplet--access needed--No beam before 8 h tomorrow"<br /><br />There really isn't any word from CERN on a schedule, not on their websites or even from <a href="http://twitter.com/CERN">CERN on Twitter</a>. You can see why. But still what is CERN going to do? Jump quickly, go slow, play bunker ping-pong? Spooky.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">From The CERN X Files</span><br /><br />Finally this update from CERN physicist Lucio Rossi, confirming several crucial LHC machine safety issues in the fault-prone superconducting magnet systems that failed in 2008. His review of the 2008 accident is discussed in <span style="font-style: italic;">Nature News</span>, Feb 23, 2010, "<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100223/full/4631008a.html">Did design flaws doom the LHC?</a>":<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Catastrophic failure that caused accelerator shutdown was not a freak accident, says project physicist.</span><br /><br />Rossi's paper appears in IOP, "<a href="http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0953-2048/23/3/034001/">Superconductivity: its role, its success and its setbacks in the Large Hadron Collider of CERN</a>".<br /><br />Rossi concludes in part:<br /><br /><blockquote>"The incident also revealed a lack of adequate risk analysis (maximum MCI) [Maximum Credible Incident] and of understanding all consequences, as well as an incomplete global magnet circuit protection analysis and an inadequate detection of a dangerous situation. . . ."</blockquote><br /><br />You'll find a less academic account of busbar bugaboos in my "<a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/2009/10/lhc-beams-back-to-life.html">LHC Beams Back To Life</a>".<br /><br />Finally, if CERN were infallible they wouldn't need a $10 Billion collider to find out what they don't know. I don't remember Einstein ordering a collider. His research budget was a few logs on the fire, the "lazy dog" according to Hermann Minkowski, one of Einstein's professors.<br /><br />This is Part 4 of a series on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies this March. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part3: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/higgs-discovered-at-large-hadron.html">Higgs Discovered At The Large Hadron Collider / More Delays</a><br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-92205463259739895382010-02-16T15:07:00.001-08:002010-02-19T15:57:19.120-08:00Higgs Discovered At The Large Hadron Collider / More Delays<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S299owdyEvI/AAAAAAAABgk/HTnnLOPIE0o/s1600-h/LHC_CMS_TejinderVirdeeWithPeterHiggs_edit1_CMSoutreach_CERN2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 264px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435701414417535730" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S299owdyEvI/AAAAAAAABgk/HTnnLOPIE0o/s400/LHC_CMS_TejinderVirdeeWithPeterHiggs_edit1_CMSoutreach_CERN2008.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Hawking Partly Wrong</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> Peter Higgs with CERN's Tejinder Virdee and get-this: Under the hood of the giant solenoid CMS 12,500 tonne detector behind them you've got a radiator leaking water like a '72 Chevy. The new and mighty CMS, our favorite experiment, one of 4 beautiful cathedral-size detectors or reactors, but CERN won't call them that, has 272 zones of corrosion. Plus unlike any Chevy anywhere it even leaks its coolant directly into the engine. But that was December, a cold month, about 25 gallons or a 100 liters of water with the CMS plugged in, CMS On, spilling inside. See the candid report in the <span style="font-style: italic;">CMS Times</span>, "<a href="http://cms.web.cern.ch/cms/Media/Publications/CMStimes/2010/01_18/index.html">CMS Winter Shutdown Adventure</a>".<br /><br />Don't worry, none of the 1,000,000 signal channels were affected. CERN didn't really say one way or the other, but not saying exactly anything at CERN always means there are no safety issues. Damage of course was minor. I suppose we are being asked to theorize a quick wipedown by CERN technicians insured a total recovery of all systems, even unaffected systems that might have been at risk. Though how did the technicians get inside? It took them 10.5 days to break in, a bit late for a <span style="font-style: italic;">quick</span> wipedown. Though with a lot of official CERN hot air always present at the LHC, it could have been easily diverted directly into CMS. The blow-dry operation would be the intervention of choice for the "incident", as CERN hot air is considered very hot in comparison to other smaller collider PR.<br /><br />CMS is maybe still down for <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/01/22/this-month-at-the-lhc/">272 corrosion repairs</a> due to other leaks, spotted once technicians got inside for the quick wipedown. A second burst pipe and flooding of the CMS Control Room two years running has been fixed again. <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2010/06/News%20Articles/1237567?ln=en">4,000 fault-prone connectors mistakenly installed</a> in a new giant safety system, to replace an old system that failed in 2008, the nQPS or <span style="font-style: italic;">new</span> Quench Protection System, have been replaced. That's why in part, the collider hasn't been going anywhere over the very long and bumpy "Technical Stop" since December in case you were wondering what happened to $10 Billion and 10,000 physicists trying to hitch a ride on the <a href="http://www.lhc.ac.uk/about-the-lhc/faqs.html">LHC Eurostar</a>.<br /><br />That's the latest from CERN, a fast train as an equivalent to an LHC beam. Not the power of 1700 Nuclear Power Plants, as discussed in "<a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a>". By the way, the <a href="http://twomosquitoes.blogspot.com/">Two Mosquitoes</a> Line, a long-running embarrassment bewildering even for collider kids, was shutdown and deleted from all CERN websites in a surprising retreat from CERN hot air physics. Looks like the CERN-EuroDisney merger is at a "Technical Stop".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-CsQOk7gI/AAAAAAAABhE/DWXcs-lnGhQ/s1600-h/magnet-2001-038_03_LHC_MiniCMSBackup_CERNoutreach2001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 300px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435706972041440770" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2-CsQOk7gI/AAAAAAAABhE/DWXcs-lnGhQ/s400/magnet-2001-038_03_LHC_MiniCMSBackup_CERNoutreach2001.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Leaky CMS/ First Quantum Bench Test</span><br /><br />Results not in.<br /><br />Anyway, why leaks, especially water leaks in a new CMS that cost a fortune to build? The CMS gets very hot when it powers down. At its ordinary field strength of 3.8 Tesla it operates at about 18,000 Amps. It's supposed to power down gradually, but sometimes it can crash, like when there's a power failure. Then it can get hot enough to smoke.<br /><br />During a crashdown test a couple of years ago, you could see a cloud of steam rising in a series of CERN photos which used to be available from CMS. That in itself could have damaged water lines and caused the later big spill and corrosion.<br /><br />Other though unplanned "incidents" might have contributed:<br /><br /><a href="http://cms.web.cern.ch/cms/Media/Publications/CMStimes/2009/08_10/index.html">Monday [August 3, 2009] at 2:19 PM, when a power cut on the CERN general network caused a slow discharge that turned into a fast dump a few seconds later. Investigations are ongoing to understand the switching from the preferred slow discharge to the faster dump which, while being a throughly tested part of the CMS operations, raises the temperature of the coil to 70K, thus requiring three days to cool down again to 4K before current can be injected again.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://home.fnal.gov/%7Ejhirsch/hcal/talks/hirschauer_CMS_AEM_16Nov09.pdf">"5am 9 Nov [2009]: “Glitch” in CMS solenoid cryogenics system caused magnet to ramp down to 2.3T."</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.fnal.gov/directorate/program_planning/all_experimenters_meetings/special_reports/Soha_CMS_12_07_09.pdf">"[as of December 7, 2009] CERN power outage Tuesday night . . . trip of tracker cooling plant. . . . 3 or 4 cases . . . CMS solenoid magnet cryo dry compressors stopped. Field dropped from 3.8 T to 3.5 T. . . . slow current dump of CMS solenoid. Went down to 2.7 T. . . . Down most of today due to another power glitch"</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Mounting Radiation Hazards In Cooling Water</span><br /><br />Not that everything has been going smoothly. A lot of water is used as coolant at the LHC, including for some Septum Magnets that suffered heavy radiation damage and had to be replaced in 2004, "<a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/730549/files/at-2004-009.pdf">SEPTUM MAGNET MNP-23 FOR THE CERN PS EXPERIMENTAL AREA<br />AND ITS FAST INTERLOCK SYSTEM</a>". With the recent revelations about mounting radiation hazards during collider operations, ignored for 10-15 years in ring tunnels according to Steve Meyers Head of Accelerators, in "<a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a>", it looks like some people in CERN Maintenance were well aware of the potential problems. Doesn't anybody at CERN read CERN docs?<br /><br />That also means mounting radiation hazards in many LHC cooling water systems, including the colossal CMS solenoid surprisingly also partly cooled by water, and leaking too. Hope there's a new study and some action on this, before radioactive waste water finds itself in nearby Lake Geneva.<br /><br />The LHC Collimator System where relatively <span style="font-style: italic;">exposed beams</span> are focused is also cooled by water in part, though like in the CMS system it's hard to imagine an idea like this being approved by a CERN Committee of Experts. Here's the full January report from Chamonix, "<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contribId=43&sessionId=8&resId=1&materialId=slides&confId=67839">Summary of the Collimation Upgrade Plans</a>" and the smoking gun slide on P38.<br /><br />Perhaps it's time for a little more foresight.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHC On Target <span style="font-style: italic;">Again</span> For Re-ReStart</span><br /><br />Late January, February, Mid-February, March, February 20th (Official), February 25 (Rumor), After Monday but no firm date (Official, sometime after Monday February 22)<br /><br />Jump to 3.5 TeV, no back to injection energy 0.45 TeV. Slow ramp? Not perfectly clear yet. A good idea I'd say. One of those 3.5 TeV beams will be very hard to handle if the collider has another bad day.<br /><br />Next in <span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span>, more on CMS in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Strange Case Of The Misbehaving Magnet At The LHC</span><br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br />This is Part 3 of a series on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies this March. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-1556241561689213202010-02-12T11:40:00.001-08:002010-02-19T17:35:33.197-08:00Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected<img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 304px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5427116065116880946" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S1D9TqAbgDI/AAAAAAAABd8/oIEWpzGnpmo/s400/shortcuts_image1-SandboxStudioSymmetryMagazine2008.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">While Waiting for the LHC: A Shopping List</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> Recently a CERN outsider though with five star Associate status, black hole and gravity theorist Professor Steve Giddings of UC Santa Barbara, wrote a feel good opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, reminding us again of "<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-giddings5-2010jan05,0,5685598.story">What will the Large Hadron Collider reveal?</a>"<br /><br />Well, just about anything HEP (High Energy Physics, preferred over dangerous sounding nuclear physics) physicists have been dreaming of since Einstein. No closer either to something definite after years of focusing theories into experiments and design of the LHC before construction started in 2000. From anyone else pushing a $10 Billion science lab, you would expect clearly defined objectives. Not from CERN or Giddings.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Fusion and New Non-Elemental States of Matter</span><br /><br />Physicists know that much but they don't want us to worry. Call it a safety argument for funding experimental research only PhDs really understand. Though they don't know either where their research into manipulation of matter and energy is going. Physicists have so many competing theories of New Physics entangled in mind-boggling complexity all we can be sure of is they have trouble sleeping at night. What they're sure of in Classical and Quantum physics they've been trying to reconcile since the 1920s into a Theory of Everything, also gives them no rest. New Physics at the LHC might supply some New Matter glue for ToE at last. That's why physicists are beaming now in the press and at the LHC.<br /><br />To be fair the reason for not spelling things out, besides the complexities and <span style="font-style: italic;">no one really knows</span> what to expect, is the extremely high energy LHC. Unlike the early days of particle physics and low energy colliders that have been atom-smashing, the LHC is designed for a new high energy frontier, the smashing and fusion of ions or hadrons.<br /><br />The mother of all colliders will create new heavy matter states (not elements as in other fusion experiments) and perhaps several different types that don't exist now, but might have existed in the very early Universe. Or other objects that may never have existed, like Strangelets that might transform matter into Strange matter. Or nothing. All theoretical objects expected like the Higgs boson, might be mathematical fiction. Though Standard Model diehards will blame the LHC, knowing all along the LHC was doomed to produce nothing without way higher Planck scale energies. So, give us a <em>biggger</em> collider.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2jqXD1H0NI/AAAAAAAABgU/VQGJG7fjWHo/s1600-h/LHC_CMSexperimentCollisions_0912231_04-A4-at-144-dpi_Public_CERN2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 261px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433850632308510930" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S2jqXD1H0NI/AAAAAAAABgU/VQGJG7fjWHo/s400/LHC_CMSexperimentCollisions_0912231_04-A4-at-144-dpi_Public_CERN2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHC Energies Much Higher Than Expected?</span><br /><br />Extra g-force. It's not an idle joke. Is Newton on the collider check list? CERN might<span style="font-style: italic;"> never</span> need a <em>biggger</em> collider. Collision energies may be much higher in gravity than CERN thinks. At 2 TeV collisions it hasn't been noticed, but what happens at 14 TeV? Collision force could double due to added Trajectory Energy for a fantastic 28 TeV, says Richard Shurtleff in his 2009 paper, "<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.3897v1">Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays from Galactic Supernovae</a>".<br /><br />Physicist LW Jones in his paper of 2004 ,"<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVD-4DW6288-1T&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F01%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=439997fdf7f2c8354c5b2c41f3fb3c18">LHC studies relevant to PeV - EeV cosmic ray physics</a>" correlates 14 TeV collisions at the LHC with much higher energies in space:<br /><br /><blockquote>"At the CERN LHC collider, where p-p collision energies will be equivalent to 100 PeV cosmic ray interactions, the ambiguity of interaction models needed for the interpretation of V.H.E. cosmic ray data is recognized . . . ".</blockquote><br /><br />It also works both ways. Reinterpreting LHC energies may be required. As both scales are describing the same energy, the difference between them is LHC beam energies are working harder against Earth's gravity. Shurtleff also supports the idea of much higher cosmic ray equivalent energy interactions at the LHC. A factor of 10^5 times more than 14 TeV or 140 PeV.<br /><br />The PeV scale is astronomical. That's the quadrillion scale, add 3 more zeros to trillion, the Tera or TeV scale at the LHC. So will the LHC achieve a potentially ambiguous 14 TeV in Earth's gravity? The point in both papers is gravity is a major factor in LHC beams. Could gravity add a Trajectory Energy as Shurtleff suggests, perhaps doubling LHC collision energies from 14 TeV to 28 TeV that could destroy the collider? We'll find out. It's an experiment.<br /><br />Even so, will CERN need extremely high Planck scale energies to make collider objects, without extra dimensions? <span style="font-style: italic;">Not now!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">1/3 Planck Energy Required For Relativistic Micro Black Holes</span><br /><br />There's an important new article in AAAS Science, "<a href="http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2010/122/1">Colliding Particles <span style="font-style: italic;">Can</span> Make Black Holes</a>". A new computer simulation of just two particles colliding, confirms conclusively for the first time that a micro black hole will form and at a total energy well below what has been expected, at only one-third of Planck energy.<br /><br />Researchers Matthew Choptuik of UBC and Frans Pretorius of Princeton used hundreds of computers for the simulation which also confirms Einstein's prediction on how black holes can form from his theory of General Relativity.<br /><br />Their paper will appear in <em>Physical Review Letters</em>. It's a fantastic discovery that is being singled out for attention by no less an authority than Joseph Lykken of Fermilab:<br /><br /><blockquote>"I would have been surprised if it had come out the other way. But it is important to have the people who know how black holes form look at this in detail."</blockquote><br /><br />Can the LHC achieve collisions at 1/3 Planck Energy? No.<br /><br />Planck scale energies are unreachable at any collider. Energies of 1.22 × 10^28 eV (electron Volts) are the boundary between Classical and Quantum physics. One-third of 1.22 × 10^28 eV? No, not even remotely close to 14 TeV. Even lead ion collisions at a phenomenal 1150 TeV are still far too weak. With LW Jones' cosmic ray uplift applied to 1150 TeV we would have collisions at 8221 PeV. Again very far short of 1/3 Planck energy.<br /><br />Particles like protons from space causing Planck scale energy collisions in our atmosphere haven't been observed either, not even at 1/3 Planck energies, though Very High Energy events in the Quintillian Exa scale have been detected or 3 zeros more than Peta, or EeV events of up to <a href="http://auger.colostate.edu/ED/">41.1 EeV at the Pierre Auger Observatory</a> in Argentina. Far far higher than LHC maximum energies.<br /><br />Can the LHC still produce mBH? Maybe.<br /><br />If theoretical extra dimensions exist as in Superstring theory, the LHC will be ready to make a grab bag of collider objects starting at 8 TeV collision energies. Physicists are eager to find out. If staggering cosmic energies are out of reach, the amount of energy available at the LHC is already fantastic without any reconsideration of gravity effects. Even physicists at CERN will tell you.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">A Closer Look at a 7 TeV Proton Beam at the LHC</span><br /><br />In case you're still wondering how to relate to all the energy in one 7 TeV beam, Rutger Schmidt of CERN, during a Powerpoint presentation at a collider conference in 2004 on "<a href="http://www-linux.gsi.de/%7Efranchi/BENSHEIM/TALKS/MON-AFT-A/MON-AFT-A-schimdt.ppt">Accidental beam losses and protection at the LHC</a>" put it this way:<br /><br /><br />"Instantaneous beam power for one beam 3.9 TWatt [Trillion Watts]<br /><br />. . .during 89 microseconds [89 millionths of a second]<br /><br />. . .corresponds to the power of 1700 nuclear power plants"<br /><br /><br />This is not a typo. This is about all the nuclear power plants there are worldwide combined to equal the power of 1 beam at 7 TeV. There are 2 simultaneous beams circulating in opposite directions at the LHC. This is not sustained LHC energy, meaning that 1 beam if hitting a target would only blast it for 89 microseconds. That beam would then be consumed if the target was big enough like a mountain, but the LHC could make another one soon enough.<br /><br />While the beam is traveling a few meters short of the speed of light, it doesn't need a lot of time to deliver the burst even though the beam itself is 27 km (17 miles) long with gaps among the 2808 proton bunches. If you were the target besides being dead, you would have been hit by 2808 × 1.1 × 10^11 protons. Each proton would if you could see it coming at you at near light speed, would not be the usual extremely small invisible ball it is when at rest, but compressed by a factor of ?? (100 times at a low 100 GeV in the 200 GeV collision below from RHIC) into a flattened disk of fire much brighter and hotter than our sun. The difference at LHC energies is hardly comparable. Collisions at 14 TeV are 70 times the energy of RHIC.<br /><br />LHC protons with tremendous energy added to them and transformed into extra mass will also be far heavier. CERN's calculations for <a href="http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc-machine-outreach-faq.htm">a 7 TeV proton</a> gives it a new mass of 7460.52 times the ordinary rest mass.<br /><br />You would be hit by 308,880,000,000,000 heavy proton disks in one beam or about 309 Trillion protons. For 2 beams colliding with each other at the LHC double that to 618 Trillion protons colliding at 14 TeV. Or Schmidt's energy of 1700 × 2 for <span style="font-style: italic;">3400 nuclear power plants </span>focused together for an instant in a TicTac space blowing up? Expanding? Feeding on all the protons? Stabilizing into something unknown? Decaying in a shower of particles?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S28f4DuhdVI/AAAAAAAABgc/lJCXBJrzFSo/s1600-h/Flickr_3173466209_1047708b0f_o_GoldIonCollisions_RHIC-2ndRun_PHENIXDectector_BNL2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 400px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435598323193050450" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S28f4DuhdVI/AAAAAAAABgc/lJCXBJrzFSo/s400/Flickr_3173466209_1047708b0f_o_GoldIonCollisions_RHIC-2ndRun_PHENIXDectector_BNL2009.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />So far in low power colliders the result is a shower of particles, as in the collisions above, pp from a test at 2.36 TeV at CMS at the LHC last December (higher up the page) to AuAu or gold ions colliding at about 1/14 of the CMS test energy or 200 GeV in the RHIC's PHENIX Detector above. Note the RHIC's clearer image of the fusion event and burst of particles.<br /><br />No one knows what will happen at much higher collision energies at the LHC. CERN claims that even these extremely well-aligned and focused collisions between needle-like beams will only yield a modest 600 million head-on full-impact collisions per second. No way of knowing in fact how many of the super-heavy super-charged super-fast protons will actually collide or be captured in the much larger fireball of fusion energy. All 618 Trillion protons will arrive in the same TicTac fusion space within 89 microseconds, contained within an incredibly powerful magnetic field in any of the LHC's 4 giant detectors.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">LHC Magnetic Fields Boosting Beam Energy<br /></span><br />The effect of super high Tesla fields on beams surprised CERN during the recent December tests at the LHC. "<span style="font-weight: bold;">?? CMS solenoid changes the beam energy??</span>" from a screenshot slide in a CERN presentation, "<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contribId=0&resId=2&materialId=slides&confId=76398">Operating the LHC with Beam (on behalf of the LHC team) December 18, 2009</a>". More on that later.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Add Trajectory Energy?<br /></span><br />Or if Shurtleff is right on gravity, double that maximum collision energy CERN already expects to include Trajectory Energy, for 6800 nuclear power plants. CERN wouldn't complain. The LHC is supposed to recreate conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, but on a very very very small scale.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">From the Known to the Unknown</span><br /><br />Of course low power colliders like <a href="http://www.fnal.gov/">Fermilab's Tevatron</a> with its proton-antiproton collisions and CERN's earlier LEP that collided electrons-positrons, produced useful results like new matter point-like particles from fusion energy released. <a href="http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/">Brookhaven's RHIC</a> has been colliding a range of heavy ions especially Gold ions. Some theoretical particles of the Standard Model were confirmed by these colliders.<br /><br />But these old colliders have done about all they can do in producing new particles. New States of Matter attempted are also beyond their reach. The gigantic 27 km LHC is the next logical step over small low power puny colliders.<br /><br />In this brave new world of extremely high energies, the LHC should produce extended heavy objects for the first time. I wish Giddings had said that. Then we could have had our panic attack back in January.<br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br />This is Part 2 of a report on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies this March. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/">The Science of Conundrums</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 1: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/large-hadron-collider-waiting-for.html">Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday</a>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-28060427018734134592010-02-10T09:10:00.001-08:002010-02-19T17:42:52.769-08:00Large Hadron Collider Waiting For Doomsday<div><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px; display: block; height: 244px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5427116230234971042" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/S1D9dRHpm6I/AAAAAAAABeE/GApy8Aln1GY/s400/LHC_FirstAcceleratonProton_Restart_0911199_05-A4-at-144-dpi_edit1_Public_CERN2009.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer Exclusive</span> After a brief and <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR20.09E.html">successful restart</a> this November, the Large Hadron Collider is on standby until March for more fixes and re-commissioning to higher energies. It's an uncharacteristic and surprising move by CERN, four years behind schedule and billions over budget on the $10 Billion collider, but a welcome go-slow approach to machine safety.<br /><br />In September 2008 days after start-up a <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR09.09E.html">$40 Million accident</a> crippled the LHC for over a year. Until the surprise winter break, <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR13.09E.html">CERN's objectives</a> were for 3.5 TeV beams by the end of 2009 instead of the 1.18 TeV beams achieved, though with a bonus of some test collisions at a record 2.36 TeV.<br /><br />Data highlights of <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/lhc-results-0205.html">CMS collisions</a> have just been released in an article on <em>MIT News</em>. The big surprises were high numbers of mesons produced, and those numbers increased faster with collision energies, not predicted by models based on lower energy collisions at other colliders. CMS will publish its formal paper in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal of High Energy Physics</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Why Stop There? 2.36 TeV instead of 7 TeV</span><br /><br />The abrupt end to commissioning in December at higher energies also surprised CERNies on site besides fans of the LHC. It wasn't because of the usual winter shutdown over the holidays. Safety concerns won over speed. Going to higher TeV meant jumping over another threshold in magnet powering, above 2,000 Amps. With so many magnets damaged last time during the 2008 busbar accident, Steve Meyers, CERN's #1 collider guy, decided to go slow again. Anyway the <a href="http://cms.web.cern.ch/cms/Media/Publications/CMStimes/2010/01_18/index.html">leaky CMS experiment</a> and the <a href="http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/01/22/this-month-at-the-lhc/">faulty nQPS</a>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">new</span> Quench Protection System for the thousands of magnets, were also having trouble big time.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">2010-2011 LHC Run 18-24 Months at 3.5 TeV per Beam</span><br /><br />After <a href="http://user.web.cern.ch/user/news/2010/100203.html">a rethink</a> last week at <a href="http://www.chamonix.com/page.php?page=0&r=welcome&ling=en">Chamonix</a>, the collider's favorite ski resort, CERN has decided on going slower still. After current repairs and retrofits that should be completed by mid-February, now pushed ahead to March (don't ask) the LHC will aim for 3.5 TeV beams and 7 TeV collisions or 7 Tera or 7 Trillion Electron Volts, over the next 18 to 24 months, shutting down for lengthy major safety retrofits for possibly a year. Then in 2013 commissioning to 7 TeV per beam and 14 TeV collisions. Alarmingly sensible. Collider safety taking precedence? Congratulations, CERN.<br /><br />Though potentially more dangerous heavy lead ion collisions, are now off the back burner and might start this Fall.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Unforeseen Radiation and $235 Million to $Billions More In Upgrades</span><br /><br />More surprises at Chamonix. The end of January 5 day event, largely a study of safety at 5 TeV per beam, current LHC status of safety upgrades, and future safety upgrades, was more of the usual data avalanche. Here comes the check for the big holiday blowout.<br /><br />Including new amazing <span style="font-style: italic;">unforeseen radiation hazards</span> that will develop as the collider runs (Session 6--Radiation to Electronics) to deficiencies in the pre-accelerators (Session 8) including Electron Cloud trouble, and aging equipment and a need for higher energy injection beams with more bunches per beam or <span style="font-style: italic;">Billions More Dollars</span> in upgrades. Maybe 100 Million Swiss Francs in civil engineering to move huge power supplies away from radiation zones, unknown but substantial costs to shield and/or redesign and replace equipment prone to radiation damage. Maybe at a minimum 1.3 or 1.4 Billion SF to upgrade pre-accelerators, probably much more if aging systems need full replacement. And more major upgrades to ventilation equipment including more ventilation shafts that were alarmingly inadequate for the 6 ton spill of Helium in 2008.<br /><br />Here's the schedule and presentation abstracts including links to CERN docs and slides, "<a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=67839">LHC Performance Workshop - Chamonix 2010</a>". A <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1237577">"Summary of the ....", the webcast</a> of February 5 and now a 2 part video from CERN, covers the main points made at Chamonix. Here's the <a href="http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceOtherViews.py?view=standard&confId=83135">abstract of the video</a>, including links to docs cited and slides shown.<br /><br />An important but informal end comment from the DG, Dr Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the new Director General of CERN since January 2009, didn't make it to video.<br /><br />After Steve Meyers overview of radiation hazards developing and damaging equipment, to answer the big unspoken question hanging in the air, Meyers said:<br /><br /><blockquote>"I think a declaration 10 or 15 years ago that the underground service areas in the LHC were non-radiation areas."</blockquote><br /><br />After Meyer's conclusions, Dr Heuer, sitting in his seat up front summed up his thoughts this way to the CERN audience:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Instead of making decisions every 3 months, I prefer to have enough time to think it over."</blockquote><br /><br />A radical change from last year's we're good to go to 5 TeV per beam and gradual installation of more safety systems over the next 5 years. The estimate back in July for safety after $40 M in repairs was a whopping $235 Million extra in <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1187270">"LHC Status by Steve Meyers..." CERN video</a>, still ignored by the media for safety the collider should have had <em>before</em> the accident of 2008. No CERN press release, that must be it. The new faster CERN schedule on safety upgrades will still mean spending the $235 M, while $1 to $2 Billion more on other upgrades thanks to the Chamonix review is now being considered. Hard to recall the LHC is a <span style="font-style: italic;">new</span> collider.<br /><br />One thing CERN forgot was the $1 Gazillion for <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/2008/09/lhc-not-so-safe.html">Computer Systems Security</a> including <a href="http://www.controlenguk.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=24436">SCADA</a> and <a href="http://www.circleid.com/posts/large_hadron_collider_nessus_and_the_interwebz/">Ethernet-Connected Instrumentation Systems</a>. Why wait for the Trojans to attack?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">All Ahead Slow: New Physics In Sight</span><br /><br />If the LHC Machine is being re-engineered for more safety, it's the same old anything goes as to what the LHC might produce in terms of New Physics. Exciting not to know where physics is going, but hardly something to brag about. An army of the best minds in HEP don't have a clue? We're going to the Moon, but we might wind up on Mars or Venus or maybe we don't have enough thrust to go anywhere?<br /><br />We've all read about it over and over again. Wow, the LHC is on the brink of answering the biggest questions in the Universe. Great. Where can I buy one? Or more realistically the LHC is an experiment with the unknown, with unknown consequences, with little in the way of safety studies and risk assessments.<br /><br />As with design and engineering before the accident, CERN is still relying on its own considerable expertise in what will happen at the LHC with its experiments. It's what CERN doesn't do with all that expertise that raises some red flags on safety like not studying all the risk scenarios and not performing slow and difficult computer modeling of collider objects the LHC might produce and what they would do at the LHC.<br /><br />CERN isn't worried, so why should we be? Well, CERN wasn't worried before the big accident CERN still calls "the incident". Accidents preventable, incidents happen. Now poised to go to extremely high energy collisions of 7 TeV as early as this March and ultimately to 14 TeV, the LHC may create objects like micro black holes that might threaten the planet.<br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br />This is Part 1 of a report on machine safety and potential risks of expected Collider Objects like mBH at the LHC when the collider jumps to very high unknown energies this March. "Doomsday Report: New Physics At The LHC" will appear in <a href="http://bigsciencenews.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Conundrums</span></a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> Part 2: <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2010/02/fantastic-lhc-energies-may-be-higher.html">Fantastic LHC Energies May Be Higher Than Expected</a><br /><br /></div>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-14131289732417426802009-12-31T12:55:00.000-08:002009-12-31T13:38:14.737-08:00Blog This Week: 2009 Lives Again<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0COVHhcJI/AAAAAAAABdc/GzQ5MX-vz00/s1600-h/P121009PS-0616_ObamaNobel_photoPeteSouza_edit1_WhiteHouseOrg2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 268px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 353px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421491971634065554" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0COVHhcJI/AAAAAAAABdc/GzQ5MX-vz00/s400/P121009PS-0616_ObamaNobel_photoPeteSouza_edit1_WhiteHouseOrg2009.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">Every New Year's we look back or look ahead. I tried it myself and I can't say I was particularly thrilled by any defining moments knocking out what's on tap for next year. Things sucked for most of us and the world. On the plus side Obama got elected and won a Nobel Prize for getting elected, so he had a good year, while for the rest of us cheaper Blue-ray players are now an option.<br /></span><br /><a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-this-week-obamas-afghanistan.html"><span style="font-size:180%;">Wars And The Economy</span> </a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0CBmi5OUI/AAAAAAAABdU/XxXdkHxmAB8/s1600-h/4154556191_65fa7ff3_Flickr_AntiWarAfghanistanProtestSanFrancisco_CCSteveRhodes2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421491752973973826" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0CBmi5OUI/AAAAAAAABdU/XxXdkHxmAB8/s400/4154556191_65fa7ff3_Flickr_AntiWarAfghanistanProtestSanFrancisco_CCSteveRhodes2009.jpg" /></a>Next year we could get lucky, but the rules of the game haven't changed enough to make any kind of recovery happen soon. War in Iraq, War in Afghanistan, and more Terror. Any correlation there for our politicians? Don't think they see it yet. And if there's no peace recovery, economic recovery isn't likely either. Any thinkers or tinkerers in Washington see that? When you spend all your money on war and bailing out bankers and banks and Wall Street and Detroit, there's not much left in the pot for Main Street except for potholes. In the meantime all you guys without a paycheck, put on your best torn T-shirt and get into construction before everybody else figures out it's the only real Stimulus we'll get in 2010.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0BsSCk_YI/AAAAAAAABdM/nmdBWjuiosU/s1600-h/3669557494_7877f6dcb6_Flickr_AbusedPig_CCpcqn7_2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 133px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421491386692468098" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0BsSCk_YI/AAAAAAAABdM/nmdBWjuiosU/s200/3669557494_7877f6dcb6_Flickr_AbusedPig_CCpcqn7_2009.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-mexican-swine-flu-two-stage-attack.html">H1N1 Swine Flu</a></span><br /><br />Other big stories weren't good news either. H1N1 Swine Flu did make a two stage attack, as I forecast on NewsHammer months before anyone else did. Now it's over 12,000 dead says the WHO, but the media after going whole hog on the story, are now critical of a massive over-response to a pandemic that missed the boat.<br /><br />Sorry, it's not over yet. Viruses mutate and this one has developed into several strains. Ordinarily those who got their shots based on the initial virus type or who caught an airborne version of it already, will largely be protected from the new strains. Those still at risk will not have had either, and that means most people everywhere. As it looks like a weak pandemic now, the demand for inoculations is way down, with people ignoring or postponing a shot.<br /><br />This is an iffy choice that could backfire. Getting the shot and so playing it safe, is the way to go for most of us. The problem is like with all vaccines, a risk of side-effects. The worst case is autism in young children, still debated as a maybe disease from vaccines, and Guillaume Barré syndrome, a dangerous neurological disease that can leave children and adults permanently damaged. A few cases have been reported among many who have had the new H1N1 vaccine. But over the years other flu shots have been blamed for thousands of cases of this otherwise rare neurological disease. Anyone already very sick or immune compromised, could die of complications.<br /><br />With the heat off for now, it's a good time to talk to your doctor on whether or not to get a shot. It's still possible we could see a million or more dead in countries ill-prepared for another resurgence of H1N1.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0A7wVjP8I/AAAAAAAABdE/slAokJmADtg/s1600-h/3871261515_3f20211458_Flickr_MichaelJacksonHomageMexicoCity_CCPrometeoLucero2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421490553011519426" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0A7wVjP8I/AAAAAAAABdE/slAokJmADtg/s400/3871261515_3f20211458_Flickr_MichaelJacksonHomageMexicoCity_CCPrometeoLucero2009.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/07/michael-jackson-dead-like-elvis.html">Michael Jackson: Dead Like Elvis</a></span><br /><br />The shock of Michael Jackson's death also took our breath away. With a media life of its own, as reported and forecast in NewsHammer, it rivaled and then eclipsed the media hounds hunt for Wacko Jacko, the child molester who never was. A sad comment on them and us, being sucked in for years by bloodthirsty journalism out for a buck. The orgy of how this could have happened, never looked far enough back into how it did happen, just catching the endless parade of weird rumors, alibis and genuine worldwide remorse. Journalists should have fried some of their own for Michael's premature death as well as the standup comics who pulled out their knives nightly for our Caesar of Pop, sorry King of.<br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-and-death-of-newspapers.html"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 133px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421489876653557170" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sz0AUYtPxbI/AAAAAAAABc8/kxaS9Ciu4YY/s200/3406140626_c87c9072d9_Flickr_GoogleplexS%C3%A3oPaulo_CCfore2009.jpg" /><span style="font-size:180%;">Google And The Death Of Newspapers</span> </a><br /><br /><div>Another big story on NewsHammer this year still revving up slowly in the press, that newspapers and magazines are being Googled to death. Bleeding slowly at first I guess they didn't notice. Now hemorrhaging they're talking of fighting back, Murdock & Co. Why here's the answer: We'll charge the freeloading downloading bastards! Wrong again. We'll sell our stuff on Kindle! Sure you will. Who's gonna pay though for dull and boring rubber-necking journalism, especially from Iowa if you're in Colorado?<br /><br />Magazines and newspapers wrecked their future long ago, when they raised prices up and up instead of getting more readers and more from advertisers, and then cut back on journalists and meaningful coverage from City Hall, to city, town and country, while boiling down Culture to gizmos and fashion statements. To relying on the wire services for big stories and forgetting they were the conscience of their town and nation. Now a paper from City X is largely the same paper from City Y and Z. Try selling that. Try selling bloated or useless magazines or cut to the bone crap sheets. It looks like half of all newspapers and magazines today will fail in the next 10 years, only the best surviving and those with a niche somewhere in OpraLand and GossipWorld.<br /><br />This is also Google's fault as I said this year in 2 stories on NewsHammer, but Google, the Gentle Giant of Publishing, crushes every little thing as it goes for a walk to find some more money. Can't see what's going under its footprint even when it bothers to look.<br /><br />Well Google is not some mad post apocalyptic monster out to destroy everything, but still we're getting what's good for Google must be good for everyone else outside of GogglePlex. Shades of the old GM philosophy that killed streetcars, trains and the electric car, with their hands out now for more government money for GM's poor starving brother, GMAC.<br /><br />Why do the Feds listen to these guys in suits? Hey Buddy, can you spare a Billion? Might as well give it to winos or druggies and street people. At least they'd spend it or give it away and provide some real Economic Stimulus.<br /><br />Will Google be taking corporate welfare handouts one of these days? Well, if it's not blushing now as it steamrolls over journalism and publishing, what will stop it? Not that Google is mainly to blame. By dominating web advertising Google only collects all the loose change we click into big bucks for them without writing one word of copy. Come on Google, play fair, Do No Evil. Rewrite the AdSense rules on web ads and who gets what and how, charging advertisers for display ads and not just click-throughs and share all the revenue with your publishers as the real solution. Google could make even more money this way, but we'll save journalism, get more jobs, more people working again like the good old days before these guys made billions putting Google together for fun in a garage on pizza and credit cards.<br /><br />Will they? No, Google won't even answer an email, never mind coming to the rescue of an industry they're nailing into a coffin. Can't you hear 2009 scratching the lid to get out and live again! Hey Google! Write home before your old lady croaks and you're up shit creek.<br /><br />There were other big stories in 2009 like Global Warming, but politicians think it can wait. We're all too busy with the future, Googling for the Apple Tablet and other wonders soon to drive us crazy everyday, worrying about Tiger Woods ever golfing again and Charlie Sheen overdosing on his own persona in Two and a Half Men. How could they do that when they were so cool? This is the world that matters, I keep forgetting. Oh well there's 2010 and parties tonight. Happy New Year!<br /><br />--Alan Gillis </div></div></div></div>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-12118806372685730532009-12-02T08:41:00.000-08:002009-12-03T10:38:58.191-08:00Blog This Week: Obama's Afghanistan<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SxgFkhHFQ2I/AAAAAAAABbc/cd6sGem75y4/s1600-h/2535263113_db21df5eb9_Casino_CCDaveMalkoff2008.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411081077207155554" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SxgFkhHFQ2I/AAAAAAAABbc/cd6sGem75y4/s400/2535263113_db21df5eb9_Casino_CCDaveMalkoff2008.jpg" /></a>Since the big Latino Show on the White House lawn, and some State Dinner party-crashing, the Tiger missing an easy shot around a fire hydrant, I thought there might be some connections to the War in Afghanistan. Yesterday night after 200 assessments of the situation, President Obama gave Afghanistan his best shot.<br /><br />A bit of déjà vu like Bush at Annapolis for starters, dragged into a full blown time warp. Not hearing anything new as in the Bush Standard in how to win the War on Terror, I was fidgeting, half expecting Rumsfeld to take the stage and liven things up a bit.<br /><br /><em>If the war is winnable we've got twin it. When you're down, you raise the stakes</em>--(cell phone rings) <em>Right. And stay the course!</em><br /><br />What about cashing out? Turn the whole thing over to the UN? Where was all that electrifying Obama spin on reality? Not there, not even reflected from his audience, respectful and subdued but missing the old Obama. The Obama recap of the war with no fresh insights, disappointing. No one totally sure what happened with all the self-serving justifications of a gung-ho Bush era or why we're still there 8 years later. Where was Obama's easy Latino beat? Easier to throw a party or crash one. Harder to get things done.<br /><br />OK, if the Taliban ran a hard line Islamic State, like Iran, like Saudi, wasn't that their business? Once upon a time they weren't the bad guys. They were popular in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Started by an idealistic group of Afghan students with the backing of the mujaheddin who fought the Russians, supported then by America. Trying to rebuild a war-torn Afghanistan. Stopped the opium War Lords and banned opium farms. Back then who ever heard of them? Who helped them?<br /><br />Looks like Americans are fighting the wrong war again. Now another 30,000 soldiers to fight the Taliban. Al Qaeda too, but where are they in such a vast inhospitable wilderness of high mountains, snow and desert? Will 30,000 more Americans find them all? If they are still in Afghanistan? The Taliban though are everywhere and the easy target. They're fighting. Opium is back and so are the War Lords. The Taliban are behind it, is the conventional view. Maybe they are or maybe like the Americans and NATO they're turning a blind eye, while fighting for their lives. There's a war on.<br /><br />All the Taliban ever did was provide safe-haven for Al Qaeda. According to the Bush Doctrine those who harbor enemies are enemies. So we get them all! Well just what kind of harboring was that? Like Iraqis harboring Saddam, or like harboring a brother the police are after?<br /><br />Isn't Pakistan doing the same thing? Harboring Al Qaeda and the Taliban? Not officially, but sympathetically and effectively? They're all Muslims after all. Is paying informers, is blood money working? Somewhat.<br /><br />Should America invade Pakistan then? The logical next step. Obama wouldn't do that but what if the war drags on? Past Obama into Palin territory?<br /><br />Obama wants the war over by 2011, a colossal job. He's counting on something else besides fighting, a bit of sanity delivered into the mix of his low key speech at West Point. Work towards co-opting the Taliban, in effect get them on our side. Which translates into buying them off. At this stage you can't get their real support as you've been smashing them for 8 years for what exactly? And destroying house by house what's left of their country. Is this a workable plan? Looks modest and very long term, something for another generation of Afghans and Americans. Wasn't Obama elected for leadership? Then why not take a quick and effective approach? Turn over Afghanistan to the UN? There's a good chance it will work, an honorable American exit, honorable for the Taliban too, the war finally over for everyone. Isn't that the UN's job anyway, to keep the peace?<br /><br />Of course in this war the Taliban will pocket American peace dollars, but what will they do with them? What's Karzai doing with his? Not much progress everyone says. Obama wants more money for the Afghan Army, the Afghan Police. Way more soldiers, way more police. Who's side are they on? Many in it for themselves at least, in a lawless and dangerous land where official corruption and abuse of power is once again a way of life. Of course they need better training. I almost fell off my chair! Are we on the same page, in the same world?<br /><br />By the same token what's happening in Iraq now? Same sort of thing, Obama's Taliban strategy a leaf from lessons learned in Iraq as it happens. Though it seems to be working in Iraq on the surface at least, except Iraqi infrastructure is a war-torn mess, and very high unemployment undermines what forced American Armed Forces stability there is. Just how much goodwill is there left that Americans truly enjoy, indeed in the entire Middle East? Enough for an end to terror and a real peace?<br /><br />Little enough as we'll find out once Americans leave. Or will they? Is yes we can now yes maybe we can? The unpleasant reality is two Arab countries wrecked. Who is to blame? Stability in any case remains a dream. If most Iraqis didn't like Saddam, most now don't like Americans either, their lives still in ruins, everywhere the shadow of more terror around the corner. Terrorists and bombs, but also official corruption and abuse, police you can't trust, police you fear, and more and more crime on the streets in the crossfire of war. In Afghanistan it's worse. There was no corrupt regime to begin with. Just a backward-looking Islamic State, not despotic but legitimate, not initially anti-American, just ultra-conservative, looking to revitalize itself.<br /><br />If Obama follows through on his forced pacification of Afghanistan with some more American troops and dollars to grease the wheels, will it work?<br /><br />Not unless he knows the Arabs better. These are a passionate people from the Middle Ages. They're nurture their grudges and their pain and fight again. Unless they get honorable terms.<br /><br />But Obama's plan is better than trying to kill every last American enemy. For every dead martyr as Bush saw, another dozen martyrs rise. Even during World War II, was it the goal of the Allies to eliminate every last German soldier, every last Japanese soldier to win the war? Or eliminate even those who harbored them, their wives, their children?<br /><br />It might also be useful to find out why a handful of Arab terrorists, largely from Saudi, attacked the US anyway? Even Bin Laden hasn't told us yet.<br /><br />To stop the war shouldn't we find out why everybody is fighting?<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-71076210085510637772009-11-12T09:05:00.000-08:002009-11-13T07:47:08.164-08:00Blog This Week: Lou Dobbs America<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SvxcvyWw-1I/AAAAAAAABas/4OYaMLqgeqw/s1600-h/2755215077_6063fe2307_o_realamericans_edit1_CCfsqm2008.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 177px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403295628978617170" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SvxcvyWw-1I/AAAAAAAABas/4OYaMLqgeqw/s400/2755215077_6063fe2307_o_realamericans_edit1_CCfsqm2008.jpg" /></a>A lot of things come up every week. Though we don't have time for them. Since most of us are media addicts, we also get what's left of our lives second hand from the media. We complain about the programming or say how cool XYZ was on TMZ or did you see last night's game/grope/Gummy Bears? This is where our real life begins after work if we're still working. Don't know how long that will last. We could all be outsourced next week in this economy. So let's get real while there's still time. Have a look back at the week that was.<br /><br />Too much like work? Right. OK, well it was a lousy week. Even Lou Dobbs quit CNN. And he owns a big chunk of it, but I'm guessing here as no one else will investigate CNN. Probably fired himself because ratings were down on <em>Lou Dobbs Tonight</em>. Like Sarah Palin who also quit her day job, I bet Lou will run for President. Trying to fire illegal alien Obama on his show didn't work. Smuggled in from where Lou? Jersey? Daily reruns of what kind of a democracy have we got? And more gosh darnnit illegal aliens picking our lettuce, taking jobs away from Americans!<br /><br />Right about the War on the Middle Class though. Bet Lou knows where all the bodies are buried under Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Years anchoring <em>Moneyline</em> on CNN in another incarnation. And no slouch either. The guy went to Harvard like Obama.<br /><br />Sure Lou knows we've got bodies everywhere, on the CNN foreign news segments. But Lou blustered on as though he might spill the local beans, on and on through the American outsourcing to death, just sickening, the downsizing of America to what? Subsidized by the same idiot Feds who were too busy ignoring Madoff and Co and and and.<br /><br />True enough but it didn't catch fire. The economic crash pre-empted all that talk about what's wrong with America. Time to scramble and fix it before everybody goes under. Bush's answer, spend more money, print more money, bail them out. Then Obama to the rescue. Same thing, bail them out before we all crash. But the causes of the crash are still there and pumping more money into them for life support months later, doesn't look like working in the long run. The economy? Some relief for some, but DOA for the middle class, downsized daily into the largest growth industry, the unemployed. So what if there are some scattershot stock market rallies? Is there anything to cheer about?<br /><br />The middle class is key to any country. They do the work and they pay the taxes. The people with money make more money as they always do. They still get bonuses for that. While we bail them out with a Trillion Dollars. What are they doing for us? Wait, wait and see. Probably nothing.<br /><br />With world governments behind a sinking economy, my money's on feudalism. Meanwhile some idiots might be gritting their teeth if Lou has any smoking guns lying around. He's still got his radio show. Either he gets more political or he fades out.<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-68295156854597926622009-11-09T09:32:00.001-08:002009-11-09T16:26:14.580-08:00NewsHammer Video Channel 1<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SvhSxV1g7jI/AAAAAAAABak/FF2PuNOkHrg/s1600-h/3990795955_30503aa37b_o_SatelliteDishesBerlin_CCjonasclemens2009_edited-2NewsHammerVideoLogo2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 480px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 80px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402158760659578418" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SvhSxV1g7jI/AAAAAAAABak/FF2PuNOkHrg/s400/3990795955_30503aa37b_o_SatelliteDishesBerlin_CCjonasclemens2009_edited-2NewsHammerVideoLogo2009.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/b0OzxvClwoU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param 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href="http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film?utm_source=videoembed">Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'</a><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Q2EPKKVrqI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Q2EPKKVrqI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/dm4GiyyVKQQ&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/dm4GiyyVKQQ&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/pKv6RcXa2UI&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/pKv6RcXa2UI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><embed id="mediumFlashEmbedded" height="280" name="undefined" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" width="300" src="http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxbusiness-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fullPlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf" bgcolor="#000000" quality="high" play="false" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="playerId=videolandingpage&playerTemplateId=fullPlayer&categoryTitle=Madoff Scheme&referralObject=3808095&referralParentPlaylistId=141a2078a370ad202c39ab352816d8efce5a2040&referralPlaylistId=74a906e1ca873ffc5dc1344de9a5c613ae4bdd66" salign="LT" allowscriptaccess="always" menu="false" wmode="false" scale="noscale" scriptaccess="always"></embed>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-39734507811857981802009-09-02T12:39:00.000-07:002009-09-03T07:57:34.709-07:00Internet Culture Wars<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7lXo3CaiI/AAAAAAAABZg/OM2g0QlEpr8/s1600-h/CSISeason8-8_CBS2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7lXo3CaiI/AAAAAAAABZg/OM2g0QlEpr8/s400/CSISeason8-8_CBS2008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376987199394966050" border="0" /></a>What's in the fridge? Whatever happened to TV? A gigantic crime infestation, that's wot, the Brits on top as the best and nasty nancies, gor. The other day I tried to find something to watch besides CSI. After 9 years of shows and spinoffs, I had to forcibly restrict access with sticky yellow and black CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS tape and shut the damn thing off with a latex glove.<br /><br />Maybe we need another another CSI: Burbank. Where CSI Tech Forensics hack into Studio Heads to investigate who murdered Prime Time. It has to be somebody. Somebody bludgeoned Entertainment, threw the body into a vault and started cloning CSI Miami, New York, Vegas, what next?<br /><br />Our relentless pursuit of some kind of life has reached brain-numbing potentials. Are crime and reality TV, disaster movies, what we're all watching? Don't we do anything else? Maybe it all started with the Terminator. After all didn't he take over Hollywood before California? Thanks Arnold but why can't you hold down 2 jobs like the rest of us? Try Fiscal Crisis California. Try USA. Take them out! Make another movie if nothing else works.<br /><br />In the early days of Tech all you had to do was watch your consumption of movies and TV as pure entertainment. And telephone as a tool, not a chatter line, leaving some space for friends and hobbies. The Internet has changed all that. Anyone connected now can have it all streamed through a PC or iPhone, virtual friends and demons included, like an updated Roman Polanski: No mirrors but we've got screens. Fasten your seatbelt or restraining device and scream, still optional, for your daily Virtual Life Transmission.<br /><br />It should ring some alarm bells like 1984. It doesn't yet because we are our own Virtual Managers and that conveniently drains whatever spare time we might have to think a way out of a Virtual Life into a real one. But who has any time left? Not only do we spend it working on learning this and that dumbass software, but to make it work or work better and do things for us we don't need, we wind up debugging it and Windows too. Is this fair or sensible? Everyday we're working for Microsoft or some other conglomerate for free yet and there's no painless MS Anxiety Manager App to download and get us through, unless you pay for Hindi .ddl Support or join a Support Group like Microsoft AA, online of course. <span style="font-style: italic;">Help! Auto Update keeps tyin to install KB967715 a thousand times!!!</span><br /><br />There goes the time for hobbies and friends unless you're a gamer too and you've got your own Sims family and friends where you want them. Then OK, who needs a real life, when you have absolute control.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7lKZGMzYI/AAAAAAAABZY/Hvko-NrsZpI/s1600-h/CSISeason8-1_CBS2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7lKZGMzYI/AAAAAAAABZY/Hvko-NrsZpI/s320/CSISeason8-1_CBS2008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376986971825294722" border="0" /></a>If you're still happy with all that, there's one thing you've probably overlooked. You could be totally alone and alienated. A Web basket case. Welcome to the underlying reality nobody talks about. But you've got options. There's crime TV or gaming to vent unverbalized frustration, that or reality TV if you need to borrow somebody else's reality for awhile. Or if you're a guy, fantasy porno from a thousand willing webcam girls to upgrade your libido. Easier, cheaper and more secure than a 2 Dollar Whore.<br /><br />Maybe that's where Sarah Palin has an edge. Why else is she everywhere? The simple soccer mom gal who hires someone else to update her Facebook and Twitter friends, avoiding the nerdy dirty for the happy days of '50's push button dreams. <span style="font-style: italic;">A dishwasher I can handle.</span> If you ever catch her lugging a laptop around, you'll know it's the end.<br /><br />Is this the direction we're taking? Sarah Palin and the end of time? Done deal so far. Not easily uninstallable. With Retro out, what would you reinstall? We've already lost a lot of hardware that we're emulating with fancy software or smaller hardware. Not the same thing going out with friends to the movies and your own home theater setup. Small screen, big screen, your place--your kids--your distractions, lights out--darkness--mystery--magic. Gone.<br /><br />The big hardware, the theaters are vanishing. With no time to go out, so are real restaurants, real places to hang out, real places to go to meet people and friends. A loner's game at home. With no society, no social skills, more paranoia going out to shop, as we're still shopping but with more antisocial elements like ourselves, the other shoppers.<br /><br />It's happening at break (your) neck speed. $3.40 for a Starbucks? WiFi extra? At the office it's all computer time and what computers want if you've still got a job. Some big business boxes and towers don't allow talk. Keystrokes only. And they count them. Send an email or text the guy in the next cubicle for perfect company productivity. Dead people work better.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7k-LVEyvI/AAAAAAAABZQ/3m9TeYyV0kI/s1600-h/CSIBestOf_CBS2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sp7k-LVEyvI/AAAAAAAABZQ/3m9TeYyV0kI/s320/CSIBestOf_CBS2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376986761971157746" border="0" /></a>What can we do? Buy life insurance, sounds good at least. Become a hacker, a terrorist, a billionaire like Madoff. Fake it so you've got a private identity somewhere. Don't put it on <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html">Facebook</a> unless it's funny or absolutely dumb or you might fall through the giant cracks of comedy into the abyss of a humorless legal system compromised by open-ended conspiracy theories from the KB20010911 Auto Update: Resolves and restores default insecurity codes, and allows temporary implementation of suspect codec bushwacking through a modified firewall algorithm before deletion, overwriting, and final stripping of all bushwacking files in Recycle Bin Bypass serving a modified Cheneydump.<br /><br />Anyone seen a Hot Fix for this one?<br /><br />Of course the real hackers and terrorists and stars of popular crime are busy subverting everything because we won't do it ourselves in a fair and nice way. They think we've abandoned civilization and them, except in TV shows and movies where we love'em or hate'em. For criminals with philosophy or religion, it's hard to argue against their baseline assumptions if you're rational and humanistic: Society is sick and dickheads did it.<br /><br />When real criminals absolutely believe themselves they go in for revenge. And we go after them like Thought Police and nothing changes except we feel better because we're doing something about crime or terrorists like talking about it, or feeling worse like we're becoming the suspects for some real pain, or at least watching some actors doing something that's more real than being chained to a PC, unless we stick out our necks and go into law enforcement or the army.<br /><br />With enough commitment, but it's too late already, we could have avoided the Fiscal Crisis at least. If the War on Terror wasn't preempted by sanity and Obama, we'd all be fully employed and secure. Plastic please! Homeland Security Check. Civilian and/or Democrat? Terrorist? Maxxed out? Swipe here.<br /><br />Anyway we got here by ourselves and we're going to a future breakdown we've seen in dozens of disaster movies, Obama or not. The real failure of civilization goes beyond politics and the economy. It's a loss of soul and culture.<br /><br />Is that it? Can't we just walk out of this show and find something better? No, not yet. A direction has been set by MS and Google Technocrats and us following them. It's a totalitarian history repeating itself. A civilization arises, overextends itself and dwindles into power-groping and decadence or falls into vinyl gear absurdity only to crash and burn. Remember <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Wars</span>?<br /><br />2012: The only way out. Galactic Alignment? Mayan Cycle? Mountain of Fire? Global Warming? Nothing on TV, already the reality. But try <a href="http://www.level26.com/">Level 26</a>.<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-81095555840698094782009-07-15T10:34:00.000-07:002009-07-24T20:36:23.244-07:00H1N1 Swine Flu: Gearing Up For The Worst<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SmpqlMYqGsI/AAAAAAAABYI/0zM7tpwbM5Q/s1600-h/VaccinesResearchLab_edit1_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362215493550348994" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SmpqlMYqGsI/AAAAAAAABYI/0zM7tpwbM5Q/s400/VaccinesResearchLab_edit1_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-size:130%;"><em>NewsHammer Exclusive</em></span><br /><br />It's taken a while to get an overview of the global impact of the deadly <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/index.html">H1N1 Swine Flu</a> outbreak in Mexico back in April. It doesn't look good. The World Health Organization reports <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090721/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu_2">over 700 dead worldwide</a>, a dramatic doubling of fatalities this month. 116 countries have laboratory <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_06/en/index.html">confirmed cases of H1N1 as of July 6, 2009</a>. The <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_surveillance_20090710/en/index.html">WHO's latest summary</a>, July 16, 2009 (included in a change on its H1N1 reporting guidelines):<br /><br /><blockquote>The 2009 influenza pandemic has spread internationally with unprecedented speed. In past pandemics, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks.<br /></blockquote>The WHO also notes that the continued spread of the pandemic to all countries is inevitable.<br /><br />The last time an influenza pandemic moved something near as fast, was the H1N1 Spanish Influenza of 1918 that killed 50 to 100 Million. As reported first in <em><a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-mexican-swine-flu-two-stage-attack.html">NewsHammer</a></em>, there are other similarities between the Spanish Flu and the current pandemic, officially declared finally on June 11, 2009 by the WHO, too late to contain it.<br /><br />Recently a trickle of patient data has become available as well as the first major study of this new or novel Influenza A (H1N1). Although they are different, the current H1N1 does behave in a similar manner to Spanish Influenza H1N1. If similarities hold then this first outbreak could mutate into a later more virulent second stage attack like Spanish Flu did.<br /><br /><div><div><div><p><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/nature08260.pdf">The UW-Madison Study published in <em>Nature</em></a> July 13, 2009 confirms that people born before 1920 who were exposed to H1N1 then, carry protective antibodies to the current N1H1. Clearly both pandemic influenzas are similar in effect. </p><p><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Smppsp1whDI/AAAAAAAABYA/PslRs6WQARI/s1600-h/H1N1VaccineInjectableForClinicalStudy_edit2_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 310px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362214522204488754" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Smppsp1whDI/AAAAAAAABYA/PslRs6WQARI/s320/H1N1VaccineInjectableForClinicalStudy_edit2_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg" /></a>Even though there are common seasonal H1N1 influenzas circulating now, those who've become ill with them won't have any immunity to today's pandemic H1N1. The new H1N1 also replicates more efficiently than seasonal influenzas, and so people get sick faster. Some are overwhelmed by the virus's virulence, needing hospital care while some die because the new H1N1 penetrates deeper, spreading from the nose into the lungs, unlike seasonal head cold influenzas, and causing lung damage, leading in some cases to pneumonia, organ failures and death. It's also highly contagious, way more than seasonal flus. It takes the same route though, into the nose as you breathe in contaminated droplets of water from sneezes and coughs from people already infected. But it also can pass from a contaminated hand if you touch your nose, hence the frequent need for hand washing.</p><p>The Study also notes that "sustained person-to-person transmission might result in the emergence of more pathogenic variants, as observed with the 1918 pandemic virus". That point was also made in <em>NewsHammer</em> back in May, <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-mexican-swine-flu-two-stage-attack.html">"H1N1 Mexican Swine Flu: A Two Stage Attack And The New Spanish Influenza?"</a>.</p><p>We have to be prepared for a killer pandemic that might mutate like the Spanish Influenza. And we're going that route with mass vaccinations on the way. A shot of a weakened H1N1 will produce protective antibodies that will neutralize the real H1N1 virus. We'll be protected in a similar way as those who recovered from the Spanish Influenza and are immune to today's threat. Mass vaccinations are our best hope to stop the current pandemic.<br /><br />On the positive side, the vast majority of current infections are mild, requiring no hospitalization. Mild cases may now number a million or more in the U.S. As of last week U.S. fatalities numbered 263, up from 170 as of July 6th. </p><div>Since lab testing is costly and time consuming, and a general picture has emerged, the WHO has also changed its requirements for reporting H1N1, so now we won't be getting a country by country breakdown. Instead the WHO will concentrate on new cases of H1N1 in new countries and any atypical cases. It looks like we won't know the overall numbers or what the odds are in catching H1N1 or the odds of recovering from H1N1. Not that we'd ever know except if we had massive testing of all cases of influenza, certainly impracticable.<br /><br />There's still the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control that's doing global monitoring. As of July 20, 2009 we have as many as <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090721/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu_2">140,000 confirmed cases</a> according to the ECDC.<br /><br />The best and last global guideline we have from the WHO is 94,512 confirmed cases, 429 dead as of July 6, 2009. Or about a 0.45% chance of dying if you have been diagnosed with H1N1. Those hospitalized for H1N1 have a much higher 5% chance of dying. If the U.S. trend continues with infections estimated at a million now, 263 dead out of 40,617 confirmed cases, and ultimately hitting 30% to 50% of the population as one of the leading vaccine producers, Novartis AG expects, we might see a lot more deaths within a year if there's no vaccine available. In the U.S. based on the above statistics it could be as high as 22,092 to 36,820 dead.<br /><br />The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine_flu">CDC made its own estimates</a> last month but only released them today, July 24th to <em>AP</em>. Up to 40% of Americans could get H1N1 within 2 years. Deaths could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand. Again if there's no effective vaccine. But how did the CDC arrive at such high numbers? During the Spanish Influenza doctors and nurses were dying, hospitals were always packed. Many of the sick couldn't get any help. Economies, infrastructure crashed.<br /><br />If the current virus mutates dangerously it could be mean a worldwide collapse. More virulent or less virulent strains of H1N1 will change the odds. In the Northern Hemisphere we haven't entered the seasonal flu season yet but when we do researchers expect that we'll see a resortment of its genetic material when it combines with other flu viruses circulating. This is the mechanism by which H1N1 evolved in the first place. The odd thing is we have not only deadly H1N1 but a great number of cases of mild H1N1 flu spreading wildly as though we're in the winter flu season now.<br /><br />That's why there is a rush to get a new vaccine out that prevents or mitigates the consequences of H1N1 infection. The U.S. has already ordered $289 Million of vaccine from Novartis back in May and has placed further orders totaling $979 Million, plus with other manufacturers to inoculate the entire U.S. population. Vaccine trials in the U.S. should start soon and if all goes well the U.S. will have 160 Million doses available in October. In the U.S. and elsewhere health professionals will be first in line for immunization.<br /><br />The last influenza pandemic in 1968, an avian flu, killed about 700,000 people worldwide. The 1957 flu pandemic killed about 70,000 Americans. And we still have a serious threat developing of another bird flu pandemic, <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2009_07_01/en/index.html">the recent H5N1</a>, still spreading and killing people: 262 dead as of July 1, 2009.<br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090716/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_vaccine_fight">Plans for a massive vaccination campaign</a> in many countries show that governments are expecting a worst case scenario. Some are also stockpiling the two major flu antivirals, Tamiflu and Relenza, that are used in serious flus and have been beneficial in cases of H1N1. Though lately 5 cases of H1N1 have been shown to be <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090722/ap_on_he_me/cn_canada_swine_flu">resistant to Tamiflu</a>, with more being reported, a new worry that suggests H1N1 can rapidly mutate, and might become generally resistant. The problem is that Tamiflu is widely used to treat any severe flu and some people have been taking it as a preventative. A man in Quebec took it that way, but at less than the recommended dosage and caught H1N1 from his son. Seems the virus became Tamiflu resistant in his own body. Some parents are sending their kids to camp with Tamiflu in their backpacks as insurance, but wide spread and unnecessary use as we've had with antibiotics is just going to speed up Tamiflu resistance in H1N1. There are very few antivirals as it is. If a vaccine that works isn't out in time, we will be in big trouble.<br /><br />No results yet on any vaccines at a clinical trial stage. But 2 different H1N1 vaccines are being tested.</div><div><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SmppS8ztLkI/AAAAAAAABX4/nwuCUhCviyo/s1600-h/CellStorageAmpoulesForSingleDoseVaccine_edit1_HeinerElsner_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 258px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362214080619556418" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SmppS8ztLkI/AAAAAAAABX4/nwuCUhCviyo/s320/CellStorageAmpoulesForSingleDoseVaccine_edit1_HeinerElsner_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg" /></a>Novartis AG developed <a href="http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=101147">the first H1N1 vaccine back in June</a>, in a new type of mammalian cell culture. Clinical trials started in July according to the <a href="http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/swine-flu/">Novartis AG website</a>. This type of vaccine hasn't been tested widely, about 3500 people treated for other diseases. It promises to be much quicker to produce than chicken egg embryo incubation. Gearing up for extreme mass production of an effective vaccine might be a lot slower than anticipated. H1N1 isn't easily produced in chicken eggs, the standard medium, as it yields a third to a half of what other influenzas produce. Then too, researchers are saying that two shots of vaccine will probably be needed per person, spaced apart, for effective immunity.<br /><br />Although Australia has been hit hard with H1N1, 14,703 confirmed cases and 41 deaths as of July 22, 2009, there's some good news. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20090722/hl_hsn/worlds1stswinefluvaccinetrialsstartinaustralia">The first Australian clinical trials of an H1N1 vaccine</a> are underway. Results will be available in another 6 weeks.<br /><br />Trials started July 20, 2009, but one of the biotech companies involved, Vaxine, isn't promising any miracles.</div><div><br />Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky told BBC News that there "is no guarantee any of these vaccines will work. Swine flu is a very peculiar beast, it's a very different virus that we're dealing with. But we are hopeful."<br /><br />What is striking and disconcerting are the contrary comments from researchers and labs that an H1N1 vaccine is not difficult to make or produce, as there's plenty of experience gained from seasonal flu vaccines and that results should be in line with expectations, that like seasonal flu vaccines, an H1N1 will work. So much so that in Britain, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/swine-flu-in-britain-the-guessing-game-1752302.html">according to <em>The Independent</em></a>, "high risks groups such as children are likely to receive the vaccine before the final clinical trial results are in."</div><br /><div>The <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine_flu_vaccine">U.S. Food and Drug Administration thinks it could be fast-tracked</a>, as reported by <em>AP</em>, "because it's brewed exactly the same as regular winter flu vaccine, merely using the new swine influenza virus, part of the common H1N1 influenza family, as the chief ingredient. Companies just have to take the normal steps required for each year's regular winter flu vaccine, such as proving the inoculations are manufactured appropriately."</div><br /><div>We'll find out who's right soon enough. Though if there isn't some certainty provided by solid clinical studies, vast quantities of vaccines might be made with little or no value, possibly including dangerous side effects. <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_vaccine_20090713/en/index.html">The WHO at least isn't perfectly sanguine</a> about the mass vaccinations coming. </div><div></div><div><blockquote><p>Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies. </p><p><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Smpo_IizfNI/AAAAAAAABXw/PSX_hy6s8oo/s1600-h/EggsForVaccineProduction_edit1_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 302px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5362213740172508370" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Smpo_IizfNI/AAAAAAAABXw/PSX_hy6s8oo/s320/EggsForVaccineProduction_edit1_%C2%A9NovartisAG2009.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.who.int/immunization/sage/3.MPK-SAGE_7_July.pdf">Currently 850-900 Million doses of vaccine have been ordered</a> by governments, on a one dose per person basis, says the WHO, or full coverage for wealthy countries. Most have options or are considering options for 2 doses per person, doubling the demand to 1.8 Billion doses. But orders are from higher income countries for their needs.<br /><br /></p></blockquote></div><div>Can we make it that fast with few major vaccine companies, that much vaccine, when we haven't even got to the stage of finding a vaccine formula that we know works?</div><br /><div>Russia and China and other middle income countries would produce an additional 10% for their needs, according to their capability, not even close to anticipated needs of their 3.114 billion people. </div><br /><div>Low income countries of about 2.662 billion people without local vaccine production would have no vaccine.</div><br /><div><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090716/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_vaccine_fight">Expect an international fight over swine flu vaccine.</a> </div><br /><div>A bad case of the flu is now an alarm bell for people everywhere as it might be the new H1N1. Who's at risk? According to the WHO, the short answer is everybody. <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/about_disease/en/index.html">WHO Guidelines: What can I do?</a> </div><br /><div>--Alan Gillis</div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;">Other References</span></div><br /><p><em>Nature</em>, <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/pdf/nature08260.pdf">"In vitro and in vivo characterization of new swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses"</a>, July 13, 2009 U-W Madison</p><p><em>Nature News</em>, <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090713/full/news.2009.680.html">"Swine flu shares some features with 1918 pandemic"</a>, July 13, 2009</p><p><em>U Wisconsin School of Medicine</em>, <a href="http://www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/news/uw-madison-study-h1n1-more-dangerous-than-suspected/1220">"UW-Madison Study: H1N1 More Dangerous Than Suspected"</a>, July 13, 2009</p><p><em>NewsHammer</em>, <a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/05/h1n1-mexican-swine-flu-two-stage-attack.html">"H1N1 Mexican Swine Flu: A Two Stage Attack And The New Spanish Influenza?"</a>, May 22, 2009</p><p></p></div></div></div>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-51667107258667760512009-07-06T06:50:00.000-07:002010-08-23T13:18:52.660-07:00Michael Jackson: Dead Like Elvis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK8Gd62eyI/AAAAAAAABWo/aCGqvgeTolI/s1600-h/3666627206_e8334740af_o_MichaelJacksonTributeOslo_CCOlastuen2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 229px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355549726193646370" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK8Gd62eyI/AAAAAAAABWo/aCGqvgeTolI/s320/3666627206_e8334740af_o_MichaelJacksonTributeOslo_CCOlastuen2009.jpg" /></a>The media storm around Michael Jackson is less about him and more about the media monster that makes and breaks our pop icons. We still don't know how or why he died. All we have is a lot of confusion from a lot of insane coverage.<br /><br />Armies of journalists swoop down on him again. Drugs and death, the new postmortem, not quite as sensational as ruining him and his reputation with unsubstantiated charges of extreme moral depravity, the boy-man-god a pedophile, but drugs and death a suitable followup and a glorious media fire for the final end of a fallen star.<br /><br />Questions, a lot of questions and conflicting and misleading answers and more doubt and misery. A lot of really great friends who weren't there for him. A lot of questions nobody asks. Journalists paid to ask them, but they don't.<br /><br />Police slow to see that a simple death of the King of Pop doesn't make sense. Joe Jackson apparently,<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"> always say apparently when covering M</span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">ichael</span>, Michael's father ordering 2 moving vans to remove Michael's effects from the scene of his death, a rented mansion belonging to the Nation of Islam, rented at 3 or 4 times the going market rate for $100,000 a month. Janet, Michael's sister, dropping by the same day, but what was taken away from a possible crime scene two days after Michael dies? Does she know, does Joe estranged from Michael to boot, have any authority to mess things up for the inevitable police investigation?<br /><br />Then a belated appearance by LA police confiscating 2 large bags of drugs after the moving vans have been long gone.<br /><br />Then later still, the DEA shuffles in after nobody knows what happened at Michael's mansion before, during and after Michael's death, what was removed, what might have been planted later.<br /><br />A lot of Diprivan found by the DEA, missed by the LAPD, unlabeled, IV anesthesia used only to knockout a patient for an operation, but what was it doing there? Michael couldn't sleep without it sometimes?<br /><br />What <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK70qqqhTI/AAAAAAAABWg/u2UQecdeJ3s/s1600-h/3689586605_cb4f030f97_b_MichaelJacksonTributeWarsaw_edit1_CCndemi2009.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; WIDTH: 256px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355549420377769266" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK70qqqhTI/AAAAAAAABWg/u2UQecdeJ3s/s320/3689586605_cb4f030f97_b_MichaelJacksonTributeWarsaw_edit1_CCndemi2009.jpg" /></a>doctor would prescribe it for insomnia when a small overdose is easily fatal, when ordinary doses are also sometimes fatal? It happens under ideal conditions in hospital operating rooms with an anaesthesiologist present monitoring vital signs.<br /><br />Some very close to Michael say he wasn't a druggie, abhorred and never used recreational drugs and only took prescription drugs like anyone else would. Started with Pepsi, the hair on fire commercial, later a broken leg, broken vertebrae, performance injuries, then the painful cosmetic surgery and possibly skin cancer. And beat up badly twice for months by the media on unsubstantiated child molestation charges that would depress anyone. More and more people close to him thought he had a prescription drug problem. If he did, no one seems to have actually caught him doing drugs. One of his former bodyguards, <span id="intelliTXT">Matt Fiddes</span>, says he and Uri Geller often confiscated <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529818,00.html">drugs and needles lying around</a>. And Michael was in rehab once though what for exactly? The same people who say he was addicted to prescription drugs like the TV journalist <a href="http://www.theinsider.com/news/2312114_Diane_Dimond_on_Michael_Jackson">Diane Dimond</a> who broke the pedophilia allegations, say he also had a big drinking problem back then.<br /><br />The more you repeat a story, the more people believe it, true or not, as the media and psychologists must know. If that's hard to swallow since we think we're not so easily fooled, remember when disinformation and propaganda were a daily routine made famous by Lenin who invented the formula: Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.<br /><br />Even easier to smear anybody if you use unnamed sources. According to a close, but unnamed member of the Jackson family Michael took <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/26/jackson-family-demerol-shot-caused-death/">daily s</a><a href="http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/26/jackson-family-demerol-shot-caused-death/">hots of the super-painkiller Demerol and had a shot an hour before he died.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090706/en_celeb_eo/132716">Anyone see needle tracks on Michael's arms? An unnamed Jackson family source did.</a> Noted on the autopsy? No info released yet. An unnamed source commenting on the body, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529226,00.html?mrp=">"surprised at how healthy Jackson was."</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK7i6XovMI/AAAAAAAABWY/L6LFPANqxtE/s1600-h/3669540847_4694da1de1_b_MichaelJacksonTributeHollywood_edit1_CClobraumeister2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 330px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355549115355282626" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK7i6XovMI/AAAAAAAABWY/L6LFPANqxtE/s400/3669540847_4694da1de1_b_MichaelJacksonTributeHollywood_edit1_CClobraumeister2009.jpg" /></a>Unnamed sources always seem to be very sure of themselves. Some very close to Michael say he lived on prescription drugs. Look how thin he was, how little he ate. Then one of the people he knew best, <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6591237.ece">Grace Rwaramba</a> from Rwanda on staff as an assistant and promoted to nanny his kids was reported as saying by <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Times Online</span> that she often had to pump his stomach when he mixed his drugs. On a news video later she denied she ever said that she did, didn't know how to pump a stomach either. Then she went further in print, saying <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mallika-chopra/statement-by-grace-rwaram_b_223471.html">she never even spoke to <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Times Online</span></a>. Her full rebuttal to the long and juicy <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Times Online</span> article was published in The Huffington Post.<br /><br />The two autopsies and the lab tests will finally tell us something about the cause of death when they're released in a month or so. For now, who and what can you believe?<br /><br />Could Michael have been saved? The AEG concert promoter for Michael's comeback series in London, <a href="http://www.accesshollywood.com/inside-michael-jacksons-this-is-it-rehearsal_video_1132159?__source=omg">Randy Phillips and the tour's director, Kenny Ortega</a>, both said he was in great shape the night before he died. The AEG <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">This Is It</span> video of Michael's rehearsal at the LA Staples Center 2 nights before he died [also at the above link] confirms he wasn't on a doped-up downer going into London. If he could have been saved, the only one who could have done it on the spot was his cardiologist, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090628/ap_on_en_mu/us_michael_jackson">Dr Conrad Murray</a>, who tried to resuscitate Michael when he found him collapsed in bed that catastrophic day in LA's Holmby Hills, still alive.<br /><br />But Murray the cardiologist failed at CPR, and there was some delay in calling an ambulance. How long was that? <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-drugs-doctor-missing">40 minutes until the ambulance arrived says The Guardian</a>. Murray couldn't find a phone, but he had his own cell phone, but he didn't call because he didn't know the address where he himself was living, doctor in residence at Michael's Holmby Hills Estate, that any goofball at 911 would be able to track down by a street name or 5 blocks from you know where. Stupid shit if you're Michael Jackson's doctor and you're doing CPR on Michael's too soft a bed for CPR when Michael should be on the floor as the 911 Operator reminded him on the phone when Michael's security guy finally called 911. Stupid shit when you're supposed to be a cardiologist and you're not Board certified, letting that lapse last year, when you don't pay your debts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors who were after you because your heart clinic was flatlining, like Michael who died under your care.<br /><br />If CPR doesn't work it's a bloody emergency and you get help. Murray said he never gave drugs like Demerol to Michael, but if Michael took an accidental overdose himself of something or other, CPR isn't going to help. You pump his stomach, you get him to a hospital for life support, a heart-lung machine, maybe a total blood transfusion when you suspect poisoning by unknown drugs, but when the ambulance came the paramedics still did CPR for another 45 minutes, though the nearest hospital was 6 minutes away. Stupid shit, but shit happens when you're stupid.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK7VaTuLtI/AAAAAAAABWQ/DzfUVQW4gBs/s1600-h/3681401964_faeb2caa69_b_MichaelJacksonTributeMoscow_CCKolinZ2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355548883410628306" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK7VaTuLtI/AAAAAAAABWQ/DzfUVQW4gBs/s400/3681401964_faeb2caa69_b_MichaelJacksonTributeMoscow_CCKolinZ2009.jpg" /></a>The LAPD tow away Murray's BMW that same day, oddly not really his anyway. Great. Smart. Could be full of AMA Journals. Why not check the mansion first before 2 vans clear out a mountain of potential evidence in broad daylight with news cameras rolling?<br /><br />The first sensible thing Murray does is he gets a lawyer. Then he talks to the LAPD for 3 hours. No one says what happened, just that he was cooperative. Not a suspect. Yeah, great.<br /><br />A little later <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20090706/en_celeb_eo/132716">Dr Deepak Chopra</a> talks to Larry King on CNN. He says Michael asked him for Oxycontin, another major painkiller back in 2005 and Deepak refused. Deepak warned Michael about getting hooked on prescription pain meds, but Michael didn't want to talk about it, didn't return his calls later. Deepak talked around the problem with Michael so he could stay in touch with him. Said to Larry that there were plenty of enablers in LA, doctors who liked to hang around celebrities and prescribe whatever narcotics they wanted. No shortage either of plastic surgeons I'd add, who turned Michael into a freak.<br /><br />With all the bullshit flying, was Deepak right about Michael? If Michael had his own enablers would he bother Deepak about an easily obtainable prescription drug? With a lot on his mind, with things going badly since the embarrassing Bashir documentary and new allegations suddenly surfacing, Michael then was in over his head in the biggest fight of his life. $18 Million in legal fees for the child molestation case that consumed the nation and Michael too. <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Not guilty on all counts.</span> Maybe all Michael wanted was a little help from a friend he was staying with to numb his pain? Michael was a child after all, as everyone who knew him well always said.<br /><br />But then there's another screaming media report I saw on TV a few days ago, but oddly not archived on the corporate website, that said Michael was spending $48,000 a month on prescriptions and owed his pharmacy $100,000 when he died. But if true why isn't this big story plastered everywhere? Hope somebody at the DEA has been watching the megaTV investigation for leads. Can't be sure of that either after the LAPD apparently missed the televised Big Joe Jackson Moving Day.<br /><br />If that's really $48,000 a month for Michael's drugs that's way more than 2 bags full collected by the LAPD. Enough to stuff an SUV every month and even so, how much can a single human being consume? 20 tabs of Demerol per day would turn you into a cataleptic couch potato for less than $1200 a month.<br /><br />What's known? What's proven? Nothing really. Dead like Elvis.<br /><br />Michael was married for awhile to Elvis' daughter Lisa Marie Presley. She said Michael told her years ago he was worried he'd end up dead like Elvis. <a href="http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=42291868&blogId=497035326">"He Knew" she wrote on <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">MySpace</span></a> the day after Michael died. A premonition, a guess, or fate? More questions, no answers.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK655DLG4I/AAAAAAAABWI/orZ2-pkXqiI/s1600-h/3663998208_2b3189422e_b_MichaelJacksonTributeHollywood_edit1_CCpixelparfait2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5355548410626382722" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SlK655DLG4I/AAAAAAAABWI/orZ2-pkXqiI/s400/3663998208_2b3189422e_b_MichaelJacksonTributeHollywood_edit1_CCpixelparfait2009.jpg" /></a>Michael Jackson's public funeral/ceremonial is set for tomorrow Tuesday 10AM Los Angeles time at the Staples Center. 1.6 million people applied for 20,000 free tickets, but all the major U.S. TV networks are covering it. If you're abroad and don't have access, you should be able to catch it on the Internet, on <a href="http://www.eonline.com/">E! Online</a> and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=3">CNN Live</a>.<br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Michael Jackson Videos</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5354890&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=5354890&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="225" width="400"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/5354890">Moonwalkers</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/wvs">Sam Javanrouh</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>. Toronto, the night after Michael's death.</p><p><br /></p><br /><object width="400" height="260"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OdcytuKhVQo&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OdcytuKhVQo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="260" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />From AEG, a hot promo video in advance of the London shows on the casting and rehearsals for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdcytuKhVQo"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">This Is It</span> [alternate link]</a> at the LA Staples Center.<br /><br /><object width="400" height="260"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BWSpkzArgVQ&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BWSpkzArgVQ&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="260" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br />From AEG, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWSpkzArgVQ">a last look at Michael [alternate link]</a> from the LA Staples Center rehearsal 2 nights before he died.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">*****UPDATE July 10, 2009</span><br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8143756.stm"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">BBC: Jackson foul play 'not ruled out'</span></a><br /><br />The head of Los Angeles police has refused to rule out murder in the investigation into the death of singer Michael Jackson, two weeks ago. . . .<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">*****UPDATE June 25, 2010 One Year Later</span><br /><br /><object width="380" height="225"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7069344&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1"><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=7069344&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="225" width="380"></embed></object><p><span style="font-size:180%;">LaToya 2009 Tribute to June 25, 2010</span></p><p>A day in the life of the <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100623/en_nm/us_jackson">Michael Jackson Legend</a> lights a fire on TV with a dozen tribute shows and interviews starting 8AM Friday. NYC Radio kicks in right through the weekend with live shows from the Apollo Friday afternoon with the Rev Al Sharpton's Tribute on <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.wbls.com/">WBLS 107.5 FM (listen live)</a>, then at 9PM "Throwback Comes to Harlem" on WRKS 98.7 FM (no Internet live feed, but watch their <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.987kissfm.com/index.aspx">MJ videos on KISS FM TV</a>).<br /><br />Try <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.mtv.com/">MTV</a> in between for "Michael Jackson Top 10 Video Countdown" 5-6:30PM, and "Michael Jackson's Influence" 6:30PM. Here's the full <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2010/06/24/2010-06-24_michaels_fans_hit_the_jaxpot_lotsa_tributes_to_1year_anny.html">Jackson Friday TV/Radio schedule</a>.<br /><br /><a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_jackson_cemetery">In Los Angeles</a> fans will be making a quiet pilgrimage to nearby Forest Lawn cemetery, though the mausoleum will be open only for family and their guests.<br /><br /><a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6114160-journalist-flood-michael-jacksons-childhood-home">In Gary Indiana</a>, Michael's mother Katherine will dedicate a monument to her son outside the old family home where the Jackson Five started out. A candelight vigil follows with the song "We are the World".<br /><br /></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sk6gu8RmGsI/AAAAAAAABWA/vl2R2Hhaf6M/s1600-h/15324332_MichaelJacksonStaplesCenterRehearsal_viaSkyNews_%C2%A9AEG2009.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: pointer" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354393735304452802" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Sk6gu8RmGsI/AAAAAAAABWA/vl2R2Hhaf6M/s400/15324332_MichaelJacksonStaplesCenterRehearsal_viaSkyNews_%C2%A9AEG2009.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Michael Jackson: A Second Life</span><br /><br />From the patchy, inconsistent and conflicting media reports on the death of Michael Jackson, that were better at knocking him down while destroying his reputation in a similar frenzy not so long ago, what do you get? Enough confusion to spin out his tragic death for million$ more. Sorry Michael. A year later and "<a style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)" href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/24/michael-jackson-what-s-left-behind.html">What's Left Behind</a>" we're nowhere near the truth. But the legend lives on.<br /><br /><a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Michael-Jackson-Rehearsal-Footage-Two-Days-Before-Death/Video/200907115328330?lpos=video_Article_Related_Content_Region_3&lid=VIDEO_15328330_Michael_Jackson%3A_Rehearsal_Footage_Two_Days_Before_Death"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">See Jackson perform in this clean no yakyak video 2 nights before his death at the Staples Center LA rehearsal.</span></a><br /><br />Since then Jackson videos on Youtube and even official promos of the Staples rehearsals have been taken down by the moneymen. Buy the CD, see the movie, get the the DVD. But Jackson fans keep uploading new stuff like this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECKL2YqD-gE"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">Jackson concert mix</span></a> (sorry deleted) but <a style="COLOR: rgb(51,102,255)" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofoNnRraKg">watch this one</a>.<br /><br />On the official <a href="http://www.michaeljackson.com/us/videos"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">This Is It movie site</span></a>, there's a nice surprise. Watch a clean stack of Tributes and oldie Jackson videos like They Don't Care About Us, Thriller, Beat It and more.<br /><br /><object width="380" height="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-IkRsyLjqD4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-IkRsyLjqD4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="300" width="380"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><a href="http://www.michaeljackson.com/us/news/preview-beat-it-demo-michael-jacksons-it-album-available-1026"><span style="COLOR: rgb(51,51,255)">On michaeljackson.com</span> </a>there's another bonus. Listen to some great audio demos on this link that starts up with a fabulous a cappella Beat It and then click for more tracks from the new This Is It CD. Finally everybody's right. The London show would have been impossible to beat.</span><br /><br />--Alan Gillis/ <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">NewsHammer</span>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-26388088666894581382009-05-22T12:43:00.001-07:002009-05-23T12:03:17.337-07:00H1N1 Mexican Swine Flu: A Two Stage Attack And The New Spanish Influenza?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Shco5sD7ugI/AAAAAAAABRo/ZshJKf-9Cfg/s1600-h/Flu_und_legende_color_c_3D-model-influenza-virus_edit1_HerstellungEtAl_CC2005.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 248px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/Shco5sD7ugI/AAAAAAAABRo/ZshJKf-9Cfg/s400/Flu_und_legende_color_c_3D-model-influenza-virus_edit1_HerstellungEtAl_CC2005.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338780854816324098" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" ><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">NewsHammer</span> Exclusive</span><br /><br />Although the initial breakout of the new deadly swine flu was hit with a quick response to try to limit its spread from Mexico, it has escaped into the general population in the U.S. in milder forms. Many other countries are reporting cases and now there are thousands of confirmed infections.<br /><br />H1N1 is spreading fast and is on the way to being a global pandemic, though the U.N.'s World Health Organization doesn't want to panic people prematurely with its highest level alert 6. For one thing the H5N1 bird flu outbreak of 2006 never materialized into the global threat that many anticipated with governments ordering tons of antivirals and protective masks while scientists were trying to rush through a new vaccine. It's still an ongoing threat with 11 avian flu H5N1 outbreaks last year.<br /><br />Now researchers are saying the H5N1 though extremely deadly doesn't propagate well as the human nose is too cold for it to enter the respiratory system. Nevertheless H5N1 has spread widely in a milder form and might evolve still into a more infectious type by recombining with other influenza viruses, even with the new H1N1.<br /><br />But the fear that H1N1 will become a plague is now thought to be unlikely as nearly all cases outside of Mexico have been mild, with few deaths reported. Perhaps the WHO is basing their strategy on this fact, that this strain will accommodate itself to the human population by becoming less virulent which is generally the case in epidemics that fizzle out. It has to do with a survival mechanism: the virus or bacteria to be successful needs to spread quickly by not killing its hosts, as if viruses and bacteria have this sort of intelligence to dilute themselves into less of a threat for their maximum survival.<br /><br />But in many pandemics initial virulence has been sustained for years, wiping out populations wholesale like the old plagues of Europe, the Black Death and others. The most recent was the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, which also was a swine flu and alarmingly an H1N1 type like today's swine flu, but the Spanish Influenza killed millions worldwide, some estimates going as high as a 100 million deaths.<br /><br />The Spanish Influenza did follow this model towards less virulence and disappeared into the morass of other milder <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">influenzas</span>. At that point its survival today can't be measured easily as you'd have to test a lot of people with common flu symptoms to see if it's in the general population. It is the ultimate source of the alarming new variant we've seen in Mexico and possibly not transmitted via pigs but from human to human perhaps exclusively.<br /><br />The Spanish H1N1 has evolved into the Mexican H1N1, through admixtures of genes from other <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">flus</span>. Scientists and the media haven't broadcast the connection as the new H1N1 isn't the old Spanish H1N1. This could panic more people as some would assume they could expect another deadly pandemic like the Spanish Flu of 1917-1918. Though it is a possibility. The new H1N1 could be as devastating. In the last decade the Spanish H1N1 has been genetically sequenced from some poor samples taken from victims who died during the pandemic, partially preserved in their frozen bodies buried in the arctic. Some other samples were also discovered in the US Army medical collections in Washington, which also helped the sequencing projects. Scientists now have been able to compare them as the new virus has been under intense and rapid scrutiny since the Mexican outbreak.<br /><br />To complicate matters the new H1NI is a mystery in itself, as no swine in Mexico have so far been reported as animal hosts of this influenza. So where did it come from? And how? Now the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are saying that a mild precursor of the new H1N1 did infect some Americans as far back as September 2008. So it's not clear if the March outbreak in Mexico of its most deadly form is ultimately from Mexico. No pigs in Mexico involved so far.<br /><br />Though somewhere along the line there has to be an animal host, scientists presume, and like the earlier Spanish Flu, it was pigs. No pigs in the US have been confirmed as the source of the American infections either though researchers are saying there is evidence of a precursor in American pigs though lacking the full compliment of genes. N1H1 is a swine flu but the swine can't be found. Yet the panic about swine as a source of infection has started, with the Egyptian government ordering the killing of all swine in Egypt, some 300,000 and other countries banning imports of pigs and pork.<br /><br />Consumption of pork properly cooked has never been linked to influenza transmission to humans. This has prompted the WHO to rename the influenza as H1N1, rather than the misunderstood and media spread swine flu.<br /><br />Recently the first pigs infected were found in Canada, with a swine herd in Alberta diagnosed with the current H1N1, though cases of humans infected there haven't come to light.<br /><br />If all of this is a cause of major concern, the oddest thing of all is the cautious approach of the WHO and other government agencies that fight infectious diseases to the link to the Spanish Influenza. Probably to limit a panic. But is that wise? It's not only that the two viruses are similar, it's that there is no guarantee that the new H1N1 will melt away into a less virulent strain as many hope. The most unsettling thing is the Spanish Influenza according to an excellent history on the subject* by Gina <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Kolata</span>, wasn't a sudden and spectacular disease that swept Europe at the end of WWI out of nowhere.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/ShcoipwbsDI/AAAAAAAABRg/4eJU-15N7HE/s1600-h/H1N1_influenza_virus_HiRes_CDC2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 272px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/ShcoipwbsDI/AAAAAAAABRg/4eJU-15N7HE/s320/H1N1_influenza_virus_HiRes_CDC2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338780459060670514" border="0" /></a>It had a precursor that was floating around Europe in a milder form though of the bad flu type that didn't raise any alarm as the war was going on. What appears to have happened is the Spanish Influenza used human hosts to develop its virulence before bursting forth and slaughtering more people than the war did. That's accepted science in disease outbreaks, that infectious diseases evolve from milder strains.<br /><br />Is this what's happening now? Is this virus on a two stage attack plan? The milder and earlier cases of H1N1 in the U.S. would seem to confirm it. The later Mexico fatalities might be traceable to the U.S. outbreak. Tourists nowadays are the big vectors for new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">influenzas</span> and other infectious diseases. American tourists with mild cases of H1N1 might have brought it into Mexico where it evolved into it's deadly form. Though this would be hard to prove even if this etiology is being studied anywhere by government agencies.<br /><br />What if the milder forms are still recombining with other influenza viruses in these people infected, as some researchers expect, for a new outbreak like the Spanish Influenza? Are changes to the virus being monitored? To some extent, but it's extremely difficult to see if any of these current mild infections now affecting perhaps a hundred thousand people in the U.S. alone are mutating. Virus and virus subtypes are extremely difficult to detect with precision if you bother looking. Studying an evolution of H1N1 from mild to virulent must be an over-riding concern, but there's hardly time and the resources when you have the real McCoy to worry about. Oddly too, so far the virus shows remarkable consistency in samples studied. Viruses are extremely tiny and it's difficult even if you have a good sample of a suspected altered virus to find it under an electron microscope, unless you laboriously culture it first to concentrate it for study.<br /><br />The major focus of research has been to sequence the new swine flu genome and in this way compare it to other strains. The idea is to understand how it formed and how it works, and then counter it with a vaccine. Today, a science paper on the new H1N1 was released, providing a complete picture of what is known. A team of 59 researchers collaborated on the project led by the CDC and the University of Cambridge.<br /><br />What they found was bits of genetic material from various swine and other <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">flus</span> combined. The new strain of H1N1 goes back to the first isolate of swine flu discovered back in 1930, an H1N! that was a close relative of H1N1 Spanish Influenza of 1917-1918 which was also a swine flu. Ultimately the new strain derives from the original H1N1, but it has new features from other flu viruses. <a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/05/first-detailed.html">Here's the recap from <span style="font-style: italic;">Science</span></a>, the highly respected publication of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">AAAS</span>:<br /><br /><blockquote>The paper explains that this novel H1N1 has two genes from an avian virus that entered Eurasian swine in 1979, three from the old-fashioned H1N1 in North American swine, two genes from the triple <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">reassortants</span> in North American swine, and the final one from humans transmitted to us from birds in 1968.</blockquote>Just how all this happened is rather a mystery. Did it form in humans or swine or in some other host? We still don't know. Also strangely, the researchers note:<br /><br /><blockquote>Many of the molecular markers predicted to be associated with adaptation to a human host or to the generation of a pandemic virus, such as in 1918 H1N1 or highly pathogenic H5N1, have not been identified in the 2009 H1N1 viruses characterized here.</blockquote>So the new H1N1 is not identical to Spanish Influenza H1N1, but its potential is similar enough through its rapid spread and its virulence, as we've seen worldwide, to be a major threat. It could mutate, now that it is widespread in the human population, into a more virulent form with a great many people infected worldwide and new infections still soaring. In the Spanish Influenza pandemic in just two years about one in five died out of an estimated 500 million who were infected. The rock bottom estimate was half that or 50 million dead, 250 million infected. It's important to know just how similar the original H1N1 is to today's H1N1, not only in structure but in mechanisms of infection and propagation. With all the research findings we now have, it's possible to find out.<br /><br />Oddly again, the researchers who studied the 76 isolates of the new swine flu, from victims in Mexico and the U.S. have found that so far there is a remarkable consistency or just one major form of the virus. This is good news for producing a vaccine more simply and more quickly. But it raises another question. If there is such a consistency in the virus both in lethal and non lethal cases, why does it kill some and not others? Do some people have a partial immunity due to previous swine flu exposures or swine flu vaccines commonly used in the U.S. but not in Mexico?<br /><br />In any case the advice on current swine flu vaccines is they are ineffective in providing immunity to the new virus.<br /><br />The spread of the virus is so rapid, we might see new lethal outbreaks perhaps where we don't expect them. There's the wait and see approach in pandemics to gauge how they are evolving. We don't have a vaccine yet and mass quarantines and restrictions on travel would be extremely disruptive, maybe unnecessary, maybe spreading more panic. When other people get more seriously ill who have been in contact with mild cases, then the alarm bells will ring out everywhere. <br /><br />A deadly outbreak as in Mexico might arise again but from contact with carriers of the milder type who didn't have obvious symptoms or had ordinary flu symptoms, but still due to the new virus. So the deadly H1N1 could surface in a population that hasn't been detected as harboring the less virulent virus as its hard to spot with so many ordinary <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">influenzas</span> around. In any case it takes only one virulent case to start a chain reaction. The deadly virus might jump out without any warning anywhere as it did in Mexico. We wait and see.<br /><br />What happens next is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">anyone's</span> guess. No doubt the correlations with Spanish Influenza are known to researchers and agencies, though the more recent discovery of an incubation period in the old Spanish Influenza in Europe isn't generally known.<br /><br />One way of checking Spanish Influenza easily enough with Mexican is to see what age groups are infected and who dies. In the Spanish Influenza it was generally healthy adults aged 20-40 who died en mass. Are epidemiologists studying who's getting the Mexican variety? Obviously, but why not tell us publicly if there is or isn't a correlation? Why aren't reporters too asking the right questions? Problem always is few know enough about a topic to cover it really well.<br /><br />It seems in order not to spread panic the WHO is not publicizing any connections to the Spanish Influenza plague, in the same way as they have downplayed the severity of the current pandemic. The WHO isn't sure where it will go. It went overboard justifiably in its dire warnings on H5N1 that never panned out. Embarrassing to be wrong, but they might have been right. Now the WHO seems to be more cautious in predicting risk. The new policy might backfire though as the Mexican government has just lifted restrictions that went into place to limit exposure to this swine flu, now with new deadly cases not spreading as quickly, the Mexico epidemic isn't as alarming.<br /><br />A full scale alarm from the WHO might have stopped this quick return to business as usual in Mexico, with the tourist industry a leading pressure factor. If the WHO and Mexico are wrong, we're in trouble. Does politics and business play a role?<br /><br />It looks that way. The WHO is no doubt planning for the worst and has assembled a consortium of pharmaceutical giants to tackle a new vaccine and mass production of it, just in case.<br /><br />But there's been some fudging anyway by government agencies on the earlier bird flu H5N1 threat, with the claim that this was a new virus not previously seen. It wasn't. H5N1 surfaced in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Hong</span> Kong <span style="font-style: italic;">3 years earlier</span> in 2003 and it was extremely deadly. If you had it then chances were about 100% you'd die, but it wound up only killing a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Hong</span> Kong resident and 3 people in Vietnam. But even now it seems no one cites the work of <span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Keiji</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Fukuda</span> of the CDC who confirmed the first case of H5N1 avian influenza in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Hong</span> Kong in 1997, nine years before Bush's official announcement.</span>**<br /><br />George W Bush made the first public statement on the antecedents of H5N1 well into the big scare of a new influenza plague, which wasn't new. Doesn't make any sense either that Bush would make the announcement. I'd followed the story and couldn't figure out why the WHO or the CDC didn't tell us about the earlier cases of H5N1. Then Bush told us. Had it been made public before the big bird flu scare, it might have dampened enthusiasm for the medical mega reaction and stockpiling of drugs and masks. Politics of preparedness? Here was a threat that surfaced back in 1997 that never went anywhere, probably because 1.5 million chickens were slaughtered in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Hong</span> Kong to stop the epidemic, but a lot of money was spent on it after it the first U.N. alarm in late 2005, the virus proving as deadly but with remarkably few deaths ensuing considering the U.N. outcry of millions potentially dying. Kill rate of those infected is still alarming, from 17% to 100% depending where you get it. But why keep it quiet when on the other hand killing 1.5 million chickens is a big alarm in itself? Because nothing was done since the first outbreak from 1997 to 2005?<br /><br />It's an odd fudge factor maybe with no correlation to the big spending that followed. Now what we have is another fudge factor at the WHO: <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't cry wolf</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">again</span> 2005, <span style="font-style: italic;">and again</span> 1976-- remember President Ford marshaling America for swine flu then, <span style="font-style: italic;">if you're not sure.</span> And cross your fingers.<br /><br />--Alan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Gillis</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Sources</span><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/05/first-detailed.html">First Detailed Report of New Virus's Promiscuous Past, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">AAAS</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Science</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/swine-flu/">Latest H1N1 Swine Flu News, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">AAAS</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Science</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1">Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Wikipedia</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_outbreak">2009 swine flu outbreak, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Wikipedia</span></a><br /><br />*Book: <span style="font-style: italic;">Flu; The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It</span>, by Gina <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Kolata</span> 1999, Touchstone<br /><br />**Book: <span style="font-style: italic;">Secret Agents: the menace of emerging infections</span>, by Madeline <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Drexler</span> 2002, Penguin Books, p174 ff on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Keiji</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Fukuda's</span> discovery of H5N1 in 1997Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-37167914943525905062009-05-13T10:37:00.000-07:002009-05-13T20:53:26.025-07:00G20 London Fallout: The Trillion Dollar Buck Passes To The IMF<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsLGkv9-DI/AAAAAAAABRI/F-s4J4-rcFM/s1600-h/3407195008_7d4c6109d4_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsLGkv9-DI/AAAAAAAABRI/F-s4J4-rcFM/s400/3407195008_7d4c6109d4_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335370391122475058" border="0" /></a>With the one day G20 London Summit over, 40 days later the world is still teetering over the brink of an economic collapse. <a href="http://www.rgemonitor.com/us-monitor/256304/why_the_g-20_summit_in_london_april_2_mattered">What exactly was accomplished</a> apart from a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/G20-COMMUNIQUE.html">7 page communiqué</a> of intentions that cost Britain up to £50 Million for security and staging the event, isn't clear yet.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsK2OY-lRI/AAAAAAAABRA/GLam4EkNNG8/s1600-h/Snapfire1_PartyPosterG-20MeltdownOrg2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsK2OY-lRI/AAAAAAAABRA/GLam4EkNNG8/s320/Snapfire1_PartyPosterG-20MeltdownOrg2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335370110242559250" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Overall we got 20 world leaders together to set a new course for the global economy, but it looks like much the same thing we had before the economic meltdown. Don't forget these same people also charted the meltdown through ignoring the consequences of unfettered capitalism and globalization they and their governments were pursuing. And they didn't see it coming. Basically if global capitalism is dying of a lack of capital and frozen credit, the G20 will infuse it with more capital or more money and credit, a Trillion Dollars worth.<br /><br />It makes sense. What else are you going to do? World Government? More socialism? A global attack on poverty?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKq57ULQI/AAAAAAAABQ4/vfiyoar5LZI/s1600-h/3405376292_8772c4efa1_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 243px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKq57ULQI/AAAAAAAABQ4/vfiyoar5LZI/s400/3405376292_8772c4efa1_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369915770875138" border="0" /></a>If the G20 cure works, it still might cause complications about as severe as the disease, when capitalism bloats up with a staggering new inflation. No one at the G20 except the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/world/europe/30merkel.html">German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose country went through one of the worst inflations ever</a> before the Weimar Republic fell to the Nazis, seems to be worried. I suppose we'll get to that collapse later if it happens.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKi284FKI/AAAAAAAABQw/LU8ALQimyI0/s1600-h/3404569851_42b6b8901e_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKi284FKI/AAAAAAAABQw/LU8ALQimyI0/s320/3404569851_42b6b8901e_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369777533162658" border="0" /></a><br />Seems also no one except Merkel is interested either in how the meltdown happened. She figures we need to know before we can act. But these are desperate times, so the G20 is acting in a hurry, more or less stoking the engines of commerce even if they might be broken. Hope they're right.<br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7979484.stm"><span style="font-style: italic;">BBC News</span> April 2, 2009</a> <span style="font-style: italic;">But in an even more radical step, the G20 leaders appear to have agreed to increase another type of IMF funds, the quotas owned by individual countries, by an additional $250bn. This would be done by creating more of its own currency, the SDR or special drawing right . . . </span><br /><p></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKZ3BMgJI/AAAAAAAABQo/RiomKliDsFc/s1600-h/3404570639_223d49a5dd_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 229px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKZ3BMgJI/AAAAAAAABQo/RiomKliDsFc/s320/3404570639_223d49a5dd_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369622932455570" border="0" /></a>Although the G20 are still gambling that capitalism will work again, they have agreed to regulate global markets and financial institutions more than they have, indeed going further and turning the International Monetary Fund into a bigger force for stability giving it the authority to print its own international money or Special Drawing Rights. Perhaps the G20 will turn the IMF into<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKQBmTmLI/AAAAAAAABQg/E8XuBPvD_ds/s1600-h/3404564697_4e25475ae6_o_G20LondonApril1__Room18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKQBmTmLI/AAAAAAAABQg/E8XuBPvD_ds/s320/3404564697_4e25475ae6_o_G20LondonApril1__Room18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369453973772466" border="0" /></a>the most powerful watchdog and regulator of the global economy.<br /><br /><a href="http://euobserver.com/9/27908">If anybody is the clear winner at the G20 London Summit it is the new IMF.</a> The G20 have awarded it more money and power, largely outsourcing their own problems and what they want done about them to the IMF. It makes sense. It might work. Somebody's got to fix the meltdown and insure it doesn't happen again. But the IMF's record on the meltdown isn't exactly prescient: The watchdog that failed to bark in the night.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKJ6kIkNI/AAAAAAAABQY/6DkpljJMAy0/s1600-h/3406015670_b22e9502aa_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 201px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKJ6kIkNI/AAAAAAAABQY/6DkpljJMAy0/s320/3406015670_b22e9502aa_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369349006397650" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5255TC20090306"></a></p><blockquote><p><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5255TC20090306">WASHINGTON April 6, 2009 (Reuters)</a> - <span style="font-style: italic;">The IMF gave itself a scathing review for its mistakes in spotting the roots of the global crisis and acknowledged it fell short in its job as the world's global financial overseer.</span></p><span style="font-style: italic;" id="midArticle_1"></span> <p style="font-style: italic;">In a series of papers that look at the initial lessons from the crisis, the IMF said a patchwork of uncoordinated oversight and ineffective messaging failed to spot and call attention to the risk that a global credit boom could burst spectacularly, triggering the worst global slump in decades. . . .</p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKCh2xyYI/AAAAAAAABQQ/jUTaZyJ_5-c/s1600-h/3410740276_c5e4fd1c0c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 290px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsKCh2xyYI/AAAAAAAABQQ/jUTaZyJ_5-c/s400/3410740276_c5e4fd1c0c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335369222114625922" border="0" /></a>Desperate times: Reward an organization that failed to do its job? Now you guys can print your own money. Now you guys fix the economy. That was easy. That should help. Why didn't AIG think of this?<br /><br />But while we're rehashing what happened in London, we should look back at why tens of thousands of protesters descended and what made the news then. You'd have to call it a lack of confidence in governments and institutions, especially in capitalism itself. Why bailout capitalism and globalization in the first place? Why do 20 guys hide behind a security wall millions of pounds thick? What are the leaders of the free world afraid of?</p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsJfJ8X_CI/AAAAAAAABQI/GEcoahrg0NU/s1600-h/3405377088_880386be3c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 202px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsJfJ8X_CI/AAAAAAAABQI/GEcoahrg0NU/s320/3405377088_880386be3c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335368614400228386" border="0" /></a>I doubt if the G20 bothered to ask. For somewhere between £19 to £50 Million you would expect something more than a photo op. In the news April 1st there was more interest in the conficker worm than why all the protests in London. Why the big coalition of<br />activists, Put People First, and that other coalition of police and military that locked down The City?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsJWEOQ-II/AAAAAAAABQA/vl4MTTsps5o/s1600-h/3407198542_0417be739c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 219px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsJWEOQ-II/AAAAAAAABQA/vl4MTTsps5o/s320/3407198542_0417be739c_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335368458245830786" border="0" /></a>Besides some windows smashed and some protesters roughed up, the big flap was about the Queen's new iPod, what do you give a queen anyway? And Michelle Obama hugging the Queen. Thanks to video it was clear the Queen started the hug herself, what a relief.<br /><br />The protesters outside? A few soundbites and more pictures of the crowds on TV. With all the hundreds of reporters present, nearly all of them safely locked up with the G20 at the Excel Centre, why bother going out to find out?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIvaWNQCI/AAAAAAAABP4/uWxrAfkmaTk/s1600-h/3407659547_f1699247e1_b_G20LondonApril1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIvaWNQCI/AAAAAAAABP4/uWxrAfkmaTk/s320/3407659547_f1699247e1_b_G20LondonApril1_CCtheimpressionist10%40CoUK2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335367794169823266" border="0" /></a>The only thing I saw that really explained why it was all happening, was a CTV News Net interview with Carrie Reichardt. No video but she was in the crush of police and protesters on her cell phone talking live. Not a flake or an anarchist, not a streetperson or a publicity junkie, a visual artist from England who knew why she was there and why we were fascinated by what we saw.<br /><br />Carrie Reichardt reminded us of history. When people en mass take to the streets they do have legitimate grievances. Recall Civil Rights Marches in the U.S.? Recall earlier protests in London when the British Empire condoned slavery in their colonies? Mass protests are important and have changed government policies and when ignored have changed governments themselves. Protest was for justice. Without justice there's revolution.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIjxwosgI/AAAAAAAABPw/2s9P0s5l3S4/s1600-h/3404566175_98d389ea31_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 257px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIjxwosgI/AAAAAAAABPw/2s9P0s5l3S4/s320/3404566175_98d389ea31_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335367594296259074" border="0" /></a><br />What was even more gripping was her first-hand report of the rough and nasty tactics used by security forces to deal with peaceful demonstrators.<br /><br />With the Excel Center at the end of Canary Wharf sealed off behind a giant police buffer zone, the rest of the security forces were deployed for crowd control. It was a military type operation, with the crowds broken up into smaller units boxed in by the police. Once in, you couldn't get out of your box. Every so often, she said, for no apparent reason, the police would charge the protesters and crush them together tighter which was bringing on a panic. Getting desperate, the protesters would fall to their knees crying to stop the police assault. <a href="http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip156706#clip156706">Here's what Carrie said in London April 1st.</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIPUxgQyI/AAAAAAAABPg/AsjVaLgwEg8/s1600-h/3405374292_98ff860017_b_G20LondonApril1_DanielHamburyNewsteamCCLondonSummit2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 176px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIPUxgQyI/AAAAAAAABPg/AsjVaLgwEg8/s320/3405374292_98ff860017_b_G20LondonApril1_DanielHamburyNewsteamCCLondonSummit2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335367242917888802" border="0" /></a>Some people were hurt and some others assaulted by police armed with nightsticks, some video and pictures on the Internet sparking a bigger row for an investigation into police brutality.<br /><br />It's a sad comment on democracy when people with rights of free speech and assembly, rights some once fought and died for, are being harassed for demonstrating peacefully. Hope the economic meltdown doesn't lead us down the road to tyranny. Is the G20 listening?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIBmx5XnI/AAAAAAAABPY/3uRV9o3cm-A/s1600-h/3404872579_763c384a9f_o_G20LondonApril1Dinner10DSt_RichardLewisNewsteam_CCLondonSummit2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsIBmx5XnI/AAAAAAAABPY/3uRV9o3cm-A/s400/3404872579_763c384a9f_o_G20LondonApril1Dinner10DSt_RichardLewisNewsteam_CCLondonSummit2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335367007233203826" border="0" /></a>If the G20 wants to earn our respect they should face the people, instead of meeting behind closed doors for secret deliberations. This kind of practical expedient to get the job done at a conference, a conference with no outside participation, isn't worth it. A press release, a few speeches over dinner, that's all we get. Not even an apology, sorry we blew it, people of the world. What's the matter with talking freely before the public? What's wrong with more dialog?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHvcAy9zI/AAAAAAAABPQ/xxJV2DzSgOY/s1600-h/3406098049_a6925df1d4_o_G2OLondonBloggers_CCLondonSummit2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHvcAy9zI/AAAAAAAABPQ/xxJV2DzSgOY/s320/3406098049_a6925df1d4_o_G2OLondonBloggers_CCLondonSummit2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335366695105263410" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:180%;">PR And The Press</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.londonsummit.gov.uk/en">London Summit 2009 Official Website</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.g-20meltdown.org/">G-20MeltdownOrg Official Website</a><br /><br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/G20-COMMUNIQUE.html">WSJ Decoding the G20 Communique<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/">Telegraph UK Splash Page</a><br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7980394.stm">BBC News G20 Highlights</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5066183/G20-Summit-Timeline-of-main-events.html">Telegraph UK G20 Summit Timeline</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5255TC20090306">Reuters IMF Admits Faults</a><br /><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHeVkfjRI/AAAAAAAABPI/e73yqmDVKhg/s1600-h/3406078079_960a8718b3_b_G20LondonApril2_FRANTZESCO-KANGARIS_NewsteamCCLondonSummit2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHeVkfjRI/AAAAAAAABPI/e73yqmDVKhg/s320/3406078079_960a8718b3_b_G20LondonApril2_FRANTZESCO-KANGARIS_NewsteamCCLondonSummit2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335366401318161682" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5166436/G20-protests-Further-claims-of-police-brutality.html">Telegraph UK Police Brutality</a><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><a href="http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/protesters-11644-bank-clash.html">AP Protesters/Police Clash Bank of England<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/g20-protest-explosives-plot-arrests">Guardian UK G20 Plot Foiled</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5023042/G20-to-be-most-expensive-police-operation-in-British-history.html">Telegraph UK G20 Costs £50 Million</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHMFtZeKI/AAAAAAAABPA/sQ56XqosDeM/s1600-h/3404564459_08a8167c29_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsHMFtZeKI/AAAAAAAABPA/sQ56XqosDeM/s320/3404564459_08a8167c29_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335366087822899362" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/30/international/i081109D28.DTL&feed=rss.business">AP 40,00 Police At Summit</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.detnews.com/article/20090330/BIZ/903300383/1020/rss09">AP Thousands March In Europe</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5065553/G20-summit-security-operation-launched.html">Telegraph UK Bankers Ditch Suits</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/washington/29global.html?_r=1">NYT Obama Will Face A Defiant World</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsG8n2umuI/AAAAAAAABO4/f05KTs-Ix9o/s1600-h/3405204515_6d2419d6dc_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsG8n2umuI/AAAAAAAABO4/f05KTs-Ix9o/s320/3405204515_6d2419d6dc_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335365822110931682" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-woobam0403,0,4240047.story">Newsday Obama: Summit Turning Point</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5027767/Academics-and-ex-model-lead-demonstration-against-G20-summit.html">Telegraph UK Playboy Playmate vs G20</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5066498/G20-protests-chanting-demonstraters-march-to-Londons-Hyde-Park-ahead-of-talks.html">Telegraph UK 15,000 Protest Early</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/29/g20-protests-london">Guardian UK No, it was 35,000</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGpdogmCI/AAAAAAAABOw/lu1dDgY9h3k/s1600-h/3404562935_ed88432fb7_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 210px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGpdogmCI/AAAAAAAABOw/lu1dDgY9h3k/s320/3404562935_ed88432fb7_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335365492949424162" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5066026/G20-summit-the-groups-behind-the-protests.html">Telegraph UK Put People First Coalition</a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br />G20 News Video</span><br /><br /><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7233812">ABC News Bloody Protests Storm London</a><br /><br /><a href="http://video.telegraph.co.uk/services/player/bcpid3134520001?bclid=18121221001&bctid=18390510001">Telegraph UK G20 Protesters Complain</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGfx9FBMI/AAAAAAAABOo/SVeoE4LPzhI/s1600-h/3406018260_3daa22ea9b_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 258px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGfx9FBMI/AAAAAAAABOo/SVeoE4LPzhI/s400/3406018260_3daa22ea9b_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335365326605714626" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGWmUwPWI/AAAAAAAABOg/RXc9ITxA2-Q/s1600-h/3406017160_9c8de283d2_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGWmUwPWI/AAAAAAAABOg/RXc9ITxA2-Q/s320/3406017160_9c8de283d2_o_G20LondonApril1_edit1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335365168864968034" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/apr/02/g20-announcement">Guardian UK Brown Announces $1 Trillion</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/07/g20-police-assault-video">Guardian UK Police Assault Leads To Death</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/g20">Guardian UK Baton Charges</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Official UK Gov Videos</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh8rnib_ixE">Inside The Leaders' Lounge</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOPH6IC9gik">Press Conference: Obama pt1</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E61xvR4FE-A">Press Conference: Obama pt4</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGNmw7arI/AAAAAAAABOY/9hHbybJWTbE/s1600-h/3405205863_dc1787874c_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGNmw7arI/AAAAAAAABOY/9hHbybJWTbE/s320/3405205863_dc1787874c_o_G20LondonApril1_CCRoom18342009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335365014364318386" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C57170C1D2BC68B4&page=1">All 33 Press Conference Videos</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">G20 Slideshows</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/londonsummit/show/">Official Photostream on Flickr</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/mar/28/g20-protest-london-put-people-first?picture=345195717">Guardian UK G20 Protest</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGAPNoFzI/AAAAAAAABOQ/AARMBlW-v8Y/s1600-h/carriecloseup_CarrieReichardt_edit1_BBC-SaturdayLive2007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 182px; height: 160px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgsGAPNoFzI/AAAAAAAABOQ/AARMBlW-v8Y/s320/carriecloseup_CarrieReichardt_edit1_BBC-SaturdayLive2007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335364784703936306" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">CTV Newsnet:<br /><span style="font-size:180%;">Carrie Reichardt,<br />G20 activist</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">An activist protesting the summit in London says most protesters are being peaceful but have been surrounded by riot police on the street. She says a few times they were charged by the officers, prompting many to drop to their knees and throw their hands up.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip156706#clip156706">Watch her London April 1, 2009 Interview</a><br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><p></p>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-42615365215037539332009-05-08T05:38:00.000-07:002009-05-08T11:43:06.467-07:00Google And The Death Of Newspapers: Auto Reply<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgRu0mLhhYI/AAAAAAAABN4/1YCR2FnRVrM/s1600-h/inside_newseum_editorsweblog-org2008.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 220px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgRu0mLhhYI/AAAAAAAABN4/1YCR2FnRVrM/s400/inside_newseum_editorsweblog-org2008.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333509708594644354" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">The future of Newspapers? The Newseum</span><br /><br />After writing the March 13th 2009 <span style="font-style: italic;">NewsHammer</span> story, "<a href="http://newshammer.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-and-death-of-newspapers.html">Google And The Death Of Newspapers</a>", I sent Google an email.<span style="font-style: italic;"> How about doing something to help, like change AdSense?</span> No reply.<br /><br />Another thing, the funny thing about email. With snail mail you usually get a reply.<br /><br />With Google itself concerned about the fate of newspapers, with <a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090408/google_newspaper_090408/20090408?hub=SciTech">Eric Schmidt, Google's Chief Exec delivering a speech</a> in San Diego April 8th 2009 to the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention, I thought there would be some interest in changing Google AdSense to help papers and magazines survive.<br /><br />The email went out to the Manager of AdSense April 9, 2009 [auto reply same day, ref #423012072] also asking AdSense that my email be CC'd to Eric Schmidt.<br /><br />The way AdSense works now is Google only pays for click-throughs on their <span style="font-style: italic;">Ads by Google</span> and no matter how many people see these ads on websites, the publishers, the news and magazine sites, the bloggers and their blogs, wind up hosting millions of Google ads for nickels and dimes. Since Google is Number One by far as ad content provider right across the web, nearly all websites are operating at a loss including big publishers. OK, not all Google's fault.<br /><br />The print publishers have seen their online readership go up and their print sales go down. That's the dilemma and Google's not doing anything about it. Nearly all print publishers have so far been subsidizing their online editions, but as their print editions suffer, they cut staff and cut back on their websites, falling into a spiral that ultimately leads to bankruptcy and more and more often the death of both print and online editions.<br /><br />With Google AdSense dominating advertising, there's little competition. Google advertisers enjoy a free ride with millions of free website billboards everywhere, so how can other ad content providers beat the Google system? Most don't. They follow Google's lead and still have trouble staying alive. A few speciality ad brokers offer better deals to some publishers who corner a market like travel sites, but there's still not a lot of return.<br /><br />What's Google's answer? No answer. Google is the new Space Age Teflon of web publishing. No criticism can stick. The future of newspapers for Google? Maybe [pic bottom left] a fashion statement.<br /><br /><object width="364" height="280"><param name="movie" value="http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="FlashVars" value="playerType=embedded&type=id&value=50071413"><embed src="http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="playerType=embedded&type=id&value=50071413" width="364" height="280"></embed></object><br /><br />As publishers have been finding out it's a little late to fight back. Only a few have been able to charge online readers for exclusive stories like the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wall Street Journal</span>. Others are thinking about charging like <a href="http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/141563/murdoch-looking-to-charge-for-newspaper-websites/">Murdoch's chain of newspapers</a> and some big players think that <a href="http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50071413.html?tag=inside">Amazon's new larger format Kindle DX [CNET Video above]</a> might be a way to get people to buy online newspapers like <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span>, that too makes little money online even though it offers cheap subscriptions that include exclusive articles.<br /><br />Will Amazon's Kindle save the publishers? Not likely as publishers will be competing with their own print editions for readership. Even if Kindle editions are cheaper, people like the print editions better if they have to pay. We already have such a big electronic culture that print is also the last refuge for those who like to read happily wherever and whenever without toting around another expensive gadget they have to babysit.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Tim</span><span style="font-style: italic;">es</span> has figured this out and will only offer Kindle editions outside of their print distribution zone. So it should attract some new readers to <span style="font-style: italic;">NYT</span> and its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/04/AR2009050400756.html?wprss=rss_business"><span style="font-style: italic;">Boston Globe</span> in on the Kindle deal, but near death</a> if it doesn't work. If Kindle lights a fire, local newspaper publishers without a national presence are still out of luck. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/16/pi.closes/index.html?section=cnn_latest">The <span style="font-style: italic;">Seattle Post-Intelligencer</span> has folded </a>already but hopes to make it on its own online with a staff of 25, down from 165.<br /><br />There's more of a chance with Kindle for textbook publishers who are faced with very high costs they pass on to students and academics. Portability makes sense here as a pound of Kindle can deliver a ton of textbooks you don't have to cart around campus. Maybe lower prices like with other online books will make the big difference, but if they aren't cheap enough, people will still buy the print editions and students the used copies they can find. Some textbook publishers have signed up with Kindle.<br /><br />But that doesn't solve the financial mess for newspapers and magazines. Will Google come to their rescue or just watch them fail and blame market forces that Google more or less controls?<br /><br />What about it Google? Send me an email Eric and I'll publish it here.<br /><br />And for the record I'm not the only one blaming Google for the failure of the industry and all the job losses including journalists being hung out to dry.<br /><br />"<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10235359-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5">Execs reveal why newspapers don't block Google</a>" on CNET News May 7th 2009:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgRyJrGfidI/AAAAAAAABOA/aU2D7lZVZfw/s1600-h/2161131404_44008b232e_o_NewspaperGirls_CClennon818_2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 294px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SgRyJrGfidI/AAAAAAAABOA/aU2D7lZVZfw/s320/2161131404_44008b232e_o_NewspaperGirls_CClennon818_2008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333513369227856338" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">To hear the poob</span><span style="font-size:130%;">ahs of traditional media tell it, Google is to print media what global warming is to the polar c</span><span style="font-size:130%;">aps. At many once-stalwart print publications, profits are melting away. . . . </span><br /><br />It's quite another Google marketing strategy. You clip content from newspapers and other sites and then sell associated ads without sharing revenue with the content providers. Even the biggest publishers are squawking like Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes.com. He claims Google "makes roughly $60 million a year directing folks" to Forbes.com.<br /><br />But publishers aren't so far taking any action. They need Google's links back to their sites, though claiming too that when Google posts a blurb, many readers don't bother with the full articles on their sites, satisfied with a few nuts and bolts delivered by Google.<br /><br />Link to this Google: "The entire web publishing industry is helpless in the face of the Google juggernaut."<br /><br />Not long ago before the catastrophic Google on the wall, the industry financed one of the great new museums of the world, to itself, the <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-news-mausoleum-11322">Newseum in Washington DC</a>. Hope it doesn't turn out to be the ironic but on deadline $450M News Mausoleum.<br /><br />--Alan Gillis<br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-50519199703832389402009-04-29T10:13:00.001-07:002009-04-29T13:36:38.301-07:00Obama's First 100 Days<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SfiK2PPCkyI/AAAAAAAABNA/ewnZTinLuy0/s1600-h/americas21_April19_WhiteHouseGov_PeteSouza2009.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SfiK2PPCkyI/AAAAAAAABNA/ewnZTinLuy0/s400/americas21_April19_WhiteHouseGov_PeteSouza2009.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330162823400166178" border="0" /></a>Like everybody else I've been dazzled by the New President. Nothing like the old Bush, cooler even than Clinton in his best suit. I'm still charmed. Obama wow! Here's a guy who knows how to talk.<br /><br />On the eve of his first hundred days I wonder if there's anything more to him than saying all the right things, at least to Democrats and European lefties and doggone it the G20 to boot. A huge accomplishment right there that eclipses the standard notion of American Literacy, doing great on a Spelling Bee or making a dumb feelgood movie about it.<br /><br />I'd give him another 100 days to deliver on what he says so well, but some Americans don't feel that's a good idea I was mildly surprised to find out on a long train ride through the still glacial forests of North Ontario. In the Via Rail dining car the steward sat me down with a table full of Americans doing the continental tour east of BC.<br /><br />It wasn't long before the small talk turned to Obama. <span style="font-style: italic;">What do Americans back home think of Obama?</span> It's hardly scientific posing the big question to 3 Floridans on vacation who just might be representative of some other Floridans or Southerners or Americans at large or Americans in general. But they looked mainstream middle-aged, so it was worth a try. Is Obama as popular as he was at the Inauguration?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">More popular outside the country.</span> One hit, one miss. I didn't have to ask if they were Republicans, nor would you if you wanted to be polite and get at how they honestly felt, politics aside. Still I was a bit puzzled that the tone had changed at our table from yes we can to no we shouldn't have done it.<br /><br />The odd thing was though if they didn't like Obama much, point after point, except for a few points, I kept hearing that Obama was doing more or less what Bush had done. Though they were for Bush they weren't for Obama.<br /><br />Whatever Obama said, Obama like Bush was still pushing for a victory in Iraq with Bush's main man Gates. Leaving 50,000 soldiers behind after the pullout to make sure, is hardly the pre-election promise of our troops are going home. But that was a pretty good way out my friends agreed.<br /><br />After the war and why hit Iraq in the first place, we digested the economy. <span style="font-style: italic;">If Bush started the bailouts</span> -- I said, and they jumped in with -- <span style="font-style: italic;">what did Obama do except throw more money out the window? Bush didn't start the bailouts either, but his hands were tied by the Democrats who controlled the House and pushed for the bailouts.</span> Which measure Bush could have vetoed I forgot to say.<br /><br />But we were ready to admit to no easy answers on what to do and plenty of risks whatever was done to save the economy. Still for them it came down to Obama as the wrong man for the job. In America it always boils down to Republicans vs Democrats. So can you have a free debate? Not exactly, as R&D runs as deep as two religions at war over Sunday dinner.<br /><br />Even if the bailouts worked which the table thought unlikely, the only safe money was in T-Bills or under your mattress. Not even bonds were a good bet. The bottom of the market was coming when commercial property prices were bound to be hit hard and printing that extra two trillion dollars was probably going to mean runaway inflation like Zimbabwe. And that was going to make the next generation, though I demurred here, hard-nosed and conservative. More like desperate I thought if worst came to worst, maybe a neo-feudalism emerging from an economic collapse like some Hollywood version of a grimy broken-down future. But I wanted to hear what they had to say.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Like it or not you have to pay the bills</span>, they said. And we all agreed that leaving that problem for later while spending madly now, Obama was asking for trouble he wouldn't have to face after he left Washington.<br /><br />All hypothetical like a possible economic recovery. But with the Bush record in, with Bush presiding over the biggest combination decline in American fortunes and prestige ever, I had to wince at the fair shake he was still getting from my new friends. <span style="font-style: italic;">Wasn't Bush running two miserable wars, usually enough to fix any economy, and wasn't he minding the store when it went bankrupt?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Clinton started it!</span> Was I hearing things? Hillary? The <span style="font-style: italic;">other</span> Clinton who did a nice job on the economy? <span style="font-style: italic;">With Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. That's when the bad loans started to people who couldn't pay.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can't say I remember that?</span> With Clinton pursued 24 hour a day by media bloodhounds over his sex life? With impeachment proceedings in Congress going on straight out of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Merchant of Venice</span>? Who was watching anything else, who would know what Clinton did with Freddie and Fannie if anything? That's America for you. You can believe just about anything happening and find something to back it up. Bill Clinton did it! Hillary shredded the Double F Memo! First Lewinski's dress, then toxic assets as government welfare. Maybe somebody <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> check this?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Then Obama's tax relief</span>, they said, <span style="font-style: italic;">more handouts from Obama for people who don't make enough?</span> If they wanted to work more they could get more money. <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Sure they should make more</span>, I said,<span style="font-style: italic;"> but how? And what's wrong with a bit of welfare they need that sounds Republican?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It's not America. Every country has their way. Why can't we stick to ours? We're not Europe. We're not Canada.</span><br /><br />I thought about that later. The big difference was share the wealth vs everybody makes their own in America. But with one in ten Americans on food stamps it wasn't working anymore. But I got the drift in time to add:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When capitalism fails, isn't it time to think a bit about socialism? Bailing out the banks, Wall Street and Detroit, isn't that socialism? Isn't Obama a socialist in the Canadian mode as the Washington Times called him before the election? Is that so bad? Isn't that why he was elected? To share the wealth even if he didn't cross that rhetorical line and promise it exactly, though promising just about anything else he just might be able to do?</span><br /><br />That's stumbling block number one. In America it's OK to be a capitalist or a failed capitalist, but not a socialist. Deep down inside the conservative streak in the USA, you can't be a socialist. Obama has got to fail like Rush Limbaugh wants him to. Not strictly on economics, as that will hurt everyone, but on his politics. Obama's been going after Bush. That's stub your big toe for some Republicans.<br /><br />Publishing the Torture Memos. Obama flips the nice guy Obama wild card for the jackpot. Bush loses, Republicans and Americans lose or that's how these people from Florida took it. America didn't do anything wrong and Obama's going after Bush for doing a good job he had to do that was tough and dangerous and dirty.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">We were up against people who killed all those Americans at the World Trade Center, who cut off people's heads. They weren't fighting a war. We weren't fighting a war. The Geneva Conventions don't apply.</span><br /><br />Simple explanations are hard to beat. If you disagree all you can do is get long winded or say hey you're wrong. I made a stab at it. <span style="font-style: italic;">Yeah, but. Then you get atrocities on both sides</span>, was about all I could manage. Here's what I thought while while they were talking about what the terrorists were doing and how we had to as tough on them:<br /><br />That's what Bush thought. Certainly Al Qaeda didn't follow Geneva Conventions. Aggressors often don't in any conflict, but that's no reason to fight terror with terror or start a war with Rumsfeld's Shock and Awe against an Iraq that never fired a bullet at the USA.<br /><br />What's America anyway if not a champion of justice and liberty? Do you throw that away to fight a dirty war? When the battleground is far from home and you have overwhelming firepower, how do you look in the history books when you torture and humiliate suspects you make prisoners in Abu Graib, in CIA Secret Prisons, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?<br /><br />You lose that war morally. No one can trust you again, not your friends either. The rule of law is fundamental to a democracy. It's no wonder that Obama does want to do the right thing and insists on it. He values America. Words do mean something. The American Constitution means something. America means something.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Before the wars and the bailouts, when America spends 40% of the federal budget on the military, other countries and other people worry</span>, was about all I managed to say. <span style="font-style: italic;">And then with all that firepower you still play down and dirty. No way to get respect from the world or your enemies.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Where did you get 40%? I guess that includes the Coast Guard and the National Guard? We also spend a lot on foreign aid. Or maybe we should do what that comedian George Carlin said and close all our bases and bring home all that money. Would that be better? Might be better for us? </span><span style="font-style: italic;">But he was joking.</span><br /><br />We had a laugh about that. After all we were having a friendly holiday dinner on a train through the snowy woods of a late spring far from the reality of power politics. Though there was a more serious coda of sorts, back in the shambles of the economy.<br /><br />I mentioned Haliburton's move from Houston to Dubai, where this push for globalization by governments and business literally led to exporting jobs and whole industries to freewheeling unregulated poorer countries where it's also cheaper to do business.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">That started the home-grown recession</span>, I said. First Nixon's visit to China slowly cooked up to a boil on Wall Street, fueled further with tax incentives by the Bush Administration into an outsourcing adventure of more empire building.<br /><br />Instead of a stronger America there was a new and powerful China, a new middle class over there with corresponding higher prices for the local poor and fewer and losier jobs at home. You think that governments could see it coming? That globalization wasn't good for everybody. Good for corporations though.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Wait a minute</span>, said my friends. <span style="font-style: italic;">Was that why Haliburton-KBR went to Dubai? Cheney's Haliburton. Donald Trump might have a laugh at that. Sometime ago he said something like whatever happens the smart people like me can move on with their money.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">So why did Haliburton move? I asked.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Let's say they wanted to avoid legal trouble.</span><br /><br />Then I remembered all those no-bid cost-plus contracts in Iraq, with $10 Billion missing, as Al Franken the former comedian used to joke about. What if Obama looks into that?<br /><br />Can't say any of us were laughing, but we smiled and called it a night.<br /><br />Hope the new Senator Franken by-a-hair of Minnesota remembers to remind him. With Obama taking on just about everything, he might have Haliburton for breakfast.<br /><br />--Alan GillisAlan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4388241835385088912.post-33316767215580326472009-03-13T09:56:00.000-07:002009-03-13T16:37:24.292-07:00Google And The Death of Newspapers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SbrhpS609wI/AAAAAAAABK0/XOeWZNIFF3c/s1600-h/120042982_23246cf6ac_oNewspaperBoxesAtlanticCity_edit2_CCiirraa2006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 127px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iUP5mII57Lo/SbrhpS609wI/AAAAAAAABK0/XOeWZNIFF3c/s400/120042982_23246cf6ac_oNewspaperBoxesAtlanticCity_edit2_CCiirraa2006.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312806810006386434" border="0" /></a><br />The other day <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1"><span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span></a> ran a big story on the demise of newspapers across America. Most towns used to have at least two competing papers and now the trend is down to one or maybe none. The recent disappearance of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Rocky Mountain News</span> in Denver is a painful reminder of how even an excellent daily through no apparent fault of its own can die. Easy to blame this on the recession, fewer advertisers, fewer copies sold, less money.<br /><br />Though there are other factors that are endangering not only newspapers but journalism. If the Internet has had a powerful effect with many people dropping their newspaper habit for free online editions and newsreaders pumping out headlines on their desktops, one of the key problems has been in the industry itself, the massive expansion of newspaper syndicates buying up their competition and expanding ownership like a drugstore chain, then homogenizing their acquisitions to make them fit in with their chain mentality, from reformatting them to look alike, to cutting back on local and national reporting for cheaper wire service copy they paste in.<br /><br />Even so the syndicates got away with it and went even further, sometimes buying up a town's two or more papers and then merging staffs and centralizing operations in one building, producing two or more lackluster versions of the same paper, with reduced costs and fewer reporters and support staff to pay, ergo more money to make.<br /><br />The end of this newspaper acquisitions bubble has arrived. Because of the high costs of buying up otherwise successful and profitable papers some chains and their papers are faced with a debt load that is leading them into the red. The Tribune Company chain has already gone into bankrupcy as well as other major holding companies, leaving the future of many papers in doubt. A number of large papers are up for sale. All rather reminiscent of Detroit's long march in buying up all its smaller competitors and having cornered the market, <span style="font-style: italic;">why worry about what people want? We give them what we want.</span> Though many bought-up papers were good and would have been financially sound on their own if they hadn't been acquired.<br /><br />If Japan came to the rescue of the American car buyers with better and cheaper cars, still the Big Three weren't impressed.<br /><br />But Japan is hardly going to drop a compact bombshell into the American newspaper market. We're on our own and it doesn't look good.<br /><br />Even the biggest and most successful chains and papers are cutting back drastically, laying off more and more reporters and staff like the McClatchy chain recently, perhaps the best of the lot, run by newspapermen and women, not just by accountants. Other chains have cut staff even more brutally in an effort to stay alive. Other papers are simply going out of business, axed by chains as so much dead wood. Some Independents are folding too, no longer able to make it on their own with dwindling revenue and some even without a debt load.<br /><br />Times are remarkably tough. Even big sucessful papers like <span style="font-style: italic;">The Los Angeles Times</span> have cut back their newsroom staffs to half of what they were a few years ago. It's the slow death of what has been called the Fourth Estate, the major force protecting society, the First Estate being us, to counter the power of the other two Estates, now largely beaten by the Press, the Church and the Nobles, except now we have Big Money instead of the nobility practising Feudalism. Without any critical oversight, new Estates like big government and big business run roughshod over the public interest. Would Watergate have broken without some serious and powerful journalism? Would Bush Administration failures have been tackled without some heavy-hitters in the media? Though the fear factor was great enough to silence or muzzle many papers and TV News outlets. We'll probably hear a lot more when journalists screw up their courage to write some history books on the Age of Terror in America.<br /><br />Some progressive Darwinian capitalists will say that other news organizations will rise to take up the slack as newspapers fail. There's TV journalism and more news on the Internet. Yeah but there are still fewer journalists working and the local 6 0'clock news usually is about as important as the big fire on Maple Street or the car crash in a feeder lane into town. What goes on in City Hall or at the big plant in town, unless some shooter goes in, isn't going to make any airtime.<br /><br />Still we've got the big network news and CNN, but they don't cover what these disappearing papers do, your local news, nor do they go after the big news stories like newspaper journalists do. It's the soundbite, the talking heads, the usual bull delivered by PR people that happens so fast, TV journalists let it pass without comment or follow-up questions or follow-up stories. No time for all of that. No time to think and write. Ad lib it and move on to the next story. Though the Big Networks still have their in depth coverage here and there and some dedicated newsmagazines like CBS <span style="font-style: italic;">60 Minutes</span> that do excellent work. A drop in the bucket of airtime though. The promise of CNN as a dedicated news channel hasn't come through either. It's more towards American info-entertainment than hard hitting news or world news. You get bludgeoned with stories too, out of proportion to their value, like hours and hours daily for 2 years of OJ Simpson.<br /><br />The Internet is nowhere near to picking up the slack either. When these newspapers fail, so do their online editions like the <a href="http://www.rockymountainnews.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Rocky Mountain News</span></a>. As <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span> says no one has been able to figure out how to keep a digital edition going with the poor revenues it generates. People don't like to pay user fees as they already are burning money with Internet connections and paper and ink costs. The hassle factor of having to live on less and work harder for those still above water is another even bigger handicap. Internet News apart from a few success stories like <span style="font-style: italic;">The Huffington Post</span>, follows the newspaper failures, fewer and fewer news sources and fewer journalists.<br /><br />Bloggers generally haven't taken up the call either for serious journalism. Opinionizing the news is fine and we certainly need more insightful commentary, much more than an Editorial page covering one or two hot issues. In fact we hope journalists who are out of work will take up blogging, but you can't really expect many to do that when they need to pay bills and don't have an organization to back them up, whether it's support staff like newsroom colleagues they can count on for input and research and editing or friendly advice or coffee handy or most of all when you're blogging, a webmaster who handles all the glitches in software and an art department that pastes it all together and the sales people who find the money. Then how can you operate not having the credentials to call up Mr Big on some story or other and a legal department to back up your story when it gets threatened by Mr Big's lawyers?<br /><br />Bloggers don't have the resources and then most don't have a feeling for journalism or the ethics involved. Being small scale pundits who cross thresholds of boredom and libel, they're generally immune and so keep on badgering or going on pointless rants thinking they're doing great. But ultra-tabloid reporting goes nowhere when you don't have facts to go on. Finally you can't believe the writing which usually isn't good anyway. A BA in English might be a good idea like journalists usually have or at least have something to contribute. Though if you scan the Net with a passion you can find a lot of good work buried under all the chatter, like <a href="http://www.2blowhards.com/"><span style="font-style: italic;">2 Blowhards</span></a>.<br /><br />As a blogger and journalist, I do think there are ways out of this mess. Thing is people don't like making changes until it's about too late, like Detroit.<br /><br />The big chains should sell off some of their papers instead of cutting staff further. If it's not a sellers' market, well a lot of papers have dedicated staff who would if they could buy out their owners as a collective. Why is this kind of socialism still a dirty word in America, when Obama has already made it acceptable with government bailouts on Wall Street and in Detroit?<br /><br />As for me I love a good newspaper, but I don't like wading through a mountain of newsprint to get to a story buried in ads and flyers. I don't like the smudgy ink and the acid smell which gets worse as they yellow. I don't like all the destruction of trees and waste of paper. Smaller dailies still in business could maybe publish fewer editions, say thrice weekly or less. Spend more time researching and writing local and national stories. Maybe analyzing the news would be the big seller, instead of rewrites of press releases or the same wire service copy published everywhere.<br /><br />More investigative journalism, more aggressive action on important stories. Sounds like the economics wouldn't work, but they could if given the chance. Some people like me would pay more for a glossy paper that wasn't boring and a futile waste of a Saturday afternoon, usually the best newspaper day of the week.<br /><br />But if some papers do change not only their style but substance, most look like failing because they or their owners won't change. The chance of purely online papers making a success of themselves is still dicey too. For this you've got to blame the major ad content providers like Google AdSense, that allows their ad clients massive free exposure on other peoples' websites, only charging them for click-throughs and only paying a percentage of that to the content providers, the bloggers, magazines and papers online.<br /><br />Google puts up a $20 million prize for the first private company landing on the moon, but freezes out the people who make the Internet work. Are you listening Google? We love you but what about the people going out of business and the people who put you in business?Alan Gillishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00891733244573571562noreply@blogger.com0