Wonder where the Wiki went ?

This month almost at the same moment the media stared with awe at the capacity of twitter to cover the Iranian election protests and broadcast their cause worldwide against the wishes of the hard-line government, another story has played out nearby and to a large degree behind the scenes. In the middle of June after seven months of captivity New York Times reporter David Rohde and an a translator Tahir Ludin escaped from their Afghan Taliban kidnappers by scaling down wall and miraculously walking to safety at a checkpoint .The fact that they were kidnapped and held was kept under near total news blackout with the cooperation of most of the media as we know it. With one of their colleagues life at stake a black-out on news regarding the event was seen as a way to keep the situation from escalating and further endangering the reporter and his translator. “Persuading another publication or a broadcaster not to report the kidnapping usually meant just a phone call from one editor to another,”said Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times.

It is amazing yet not unexpected what the New York Times in a life or death situation can accomplish with a phone call. However the next step getting the blackout to extend to Wikipedia has set an interesting precedent in its own way. Think about the fact that with all the Google ,the inner tubes, wiki’s and the tweeters a major news story was still successfully blacked out for over half a year .Separate out the purity of motive for a minute and consider the ability that a small group of people can have over information distribution in the world, even today with the media fractured in thousands of little pieces. .
To a degree this brings down to Earth some of the rhetoric about the power the internet gives to the huddled masses. Google at will can still clamp down information in China and with a call from Bill Keller the New York Times can, in a pinch easily stop and alter Wikipedia entries as it needs. Just as in Iran the U.S. State Dept requested multiple social networking and communication services to keep information flowing, it might have in another situation worked to shut them down.

The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times. In an interview, Mr. Wales said that Wikipedia’s cooperation was not a given.
On Nov. 13, news of the kidnapping was posted and deleted four times within four hours, before an administrator blocked any more changes for three days. On Nov. 16, it was blocked again, for two weeks.
“We didn’t want it to look unusual in some fashion that would draw speculation, so we would protect it for three days, or up to a month, which is pretty normal,” Mr. Wales said. He added, “Weeks would go by before there was a problem.”
On Feb. 10 and 11, two users added the kidnapping information several times to Mr. Rohde’s page, only to see it removed each time, and they attached some heated notes to their additions. “We can do this months,” one said.
When the news broke Saturday, the user from Florida reposted the information, with a note to administrators that said: “Is that enough proof for you [expletives]? I was right. You were WRONG.”

cross posted at Green Mountain Daily

Senator Gregg your name here….

…….and here and here
When President Obama unveiled the ARRA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act logo in March ,as the stimulus funds first entered the food chain he said "These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done. So when you see them on projects that your tax dollars made possible, let it be a reminder that our government — your government — is doing its part to put the economy back on the road of recovery."

The signs show that our tax dollars are at work for us. Many Republican and of course Democratic governors across the country have not been shy about putting up the ARRA signage at highway bridge and paving projects but now with the program rolling along and with the successful completion of some of the earliest projects New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg has decided he doesn't like the signage or the publicity they bring to the recovery projects .He seems to be pulling a full Granite State pennywise routine on this issue after looking so foolish earlier in the year with his back and forth on the Secretary of Commerce job in the Obama administration and newspaper reports of personal profiting from real estate investments at the former Pease Air force base redevelopment.

DOVER NH —

U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg wants to ax the plaques, as in those highway signs alerting motorists to work being done thanks to the federal stimulus package.

He said the signs do nothing except let lawmakers "pat themselves on the back" about passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The New Hampshire Republican said the legislation, which he opposed, has been a "disappointment" and costs in excess of $1 trillion.

Gregg filed legislation this week to prohibit the use of stimulus funds for signs that advertise taxpayer spending.

Senator Gregg does have more than passing knowledge of how to pat ones self on ones own back.

– Gregg earmarked$500,000 in federal money to Plymouth State University for the “Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute.”

– “Gregg Hall” at the University of New Hampshire was dedicated after Gregg secured $266million in federal funds for the university.

– “The Judd Gregg Library” was dedicated after Gregg secured $150,000 for the Nasua Policy Athletic League.

Counters of Doom

A 70 ft. high carbon counter “clock” has been unveiled in New York City .The numbers display in real time measurements of greenhouse gases [Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Nitrous Oxide (N2O)]as compiled by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to Deutsche Bank the clocks creators it is meant to be “.. A simple but powerful way to highlight the growing dangers of global warming” Deutsche Bank is also active in lucrative carbon trading market abroad and has pushed for a similar system in the United States. So publicizing the rate at which the Earth is headed for certain doom may not be entirely without a bit of the profit motive. Maybe it is more real to some if ticked off on a giant clock and monetized somehow. However it will only help if this plays a part in limiting emissions .In that regard the giant sign method of corrective advertising for the good of mankind has a poor record .
Nearby the Deutsche Bank’s carbon clock is another older giant billboard that for twenty years has shown the US national debt.That clock has gone from $2.7 trillion to $11.4 trillion taking it’s biggest leap during the Bush years .All this begs the question;Is the frog capable of making any changes if he knows how fast the frying pan was being heated ?
Find carbon counter updates online at www.know-the-number.com.

The role of the counter is to spark people into thinking about the long-term impacts which aren't as obvious and are difficult to measure in real time.
Furthermore, the impacts of the rising GHG's [greenhouse gasses] are non-linear and the computer models developed to date are scenario based, meaning that impact will have variability depending on a complex set of interactions between the economy and the ecosystem. There are broad level changes that occur, but are not measured in real time, such as sea level rise, or temperature rise Another way to say it is that there are 800 tons of carbon being emitted every second, 2 billion tons a month. so in 5 mins, you can point out that 240,000 tons were emitted.

Ronald Prinn, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, explained the data behind the sign: "The number on the counter is based on global measurements. It shows the total estimated tonnage of greenhouse gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long-term trends driven by human and other activity."

Carbon throughout history
Table: Annual average GHG concentrations in CO2-e increase:

Year..........PPM.......Billion Metric Tons
2004 ---------453-------3,528
2005----------455-------3,549
2006----------458-------3,571
2007----------464-------3,620
2008----------464-------3,620
June ,2009----467-------3,636



Sources : NYTimes
Guardian.uk
Business Insider

"This is a drill. Team 3 calling in … can you hear me?"

Wednesday in Southern Vermont the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency and Vermont officials conducted a drill required to be done every other year to determine readiness for a possible nuclear emergency at Entergy’s aging Vermont Yankee power plant .The task of the radio active plume team in an actual emergency would be to sample air and take radio active samples to determine when ,where and if people would be evacuated.
Below are some key parts from the Times Argusnewspaper article that may provide the feel of this learning exercise.These eight points highlight the communication and logistical problems the emergency team was up against. I am not certain how the official quoted here came to the conclusion that “It was great from our end “.
But remember this was only a test, had it been a real emergency there is no reason to believe it would have gone more smoothly.
• ..they couldn't pull down a strong cell phone signal to relay information back to headquarters ……

• …had to resort to contacting people on their private cell phones at the

• …they resorted to using the phone of an official observer of the drill…

• …They were directed to a road off Route 142, which none of them could find on a map…………

• …discovered faulty digital interface from One Communication of Hartford, Conn………
• … a radio that had been tested repeatedly at their staging area in Dummerston, failed to work………

• ….At Route 5, again there was no radio and no cell phone service.

• …were told them to drive around until they found better reception.

Barbara Farr, Vermont's director of emergency management, said after the daylong exercise that alternative routes of communication were established, using radios and the town's fax machine.
"The good thing is we always have built-in redundancy," she said. "It went great from our end," she said, a view echoed by Entergy

Here is headline from the same paper from the day before
Yankee component leaks again

also posted here Green Mountain Daily

Green suits may increse in popularity

Greenwashing ,the practice of promoting a product as being significantly better for the environment than it may in fact be has been a recognized problem for sometime .The Guardian UK has a regular column dedicated to highlighting greenwash claims that companies may make.Many public interest,and private groups offer ratings for green assessments of companies and products.
The NASDAQ has a green energy index and some major chemical and nuclear power companies are calling themselves “green”. It isn’t of course easy being green but it’s even more difficult to actually tell what really is truly a green product
A recent study by the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice ,pinpoints three areas of consumer goods with the greatest level of greenwashing: children products, cosmetics, and cleaning products. In all three cases, marketers manipulate a consumer’s safety concerns and fears by capitalizing on the supposed health and safety benefits of “green” living. TerraChoice, found 98 per cent of North American products labeled as environmentally friendly are "greenwashed,”.

Now the misrepresentation and perhaps mislabeling has spilled over into the courts according to a law journal online. They note that during the past year an increase in law suits involving greenwashing claims is not seen as a surprise given the number of products claiming green credentials.Everything from cars, detergent cleaners and cell phones are passing as green. One expert says that the Federal Trade Commission is looking at the practice (greenwashing) and is expected to publish this year a "green guide" outlining exactly what constitutes a "green" product. "It's in the public's conscience now, it’s new. It's exciting."
Consumer plaintiffs and environmental groups have caught on, lawyers warn. "This is the beginning of what may be an explosion in these kinds of cases," said patent attorney Eric Lane of the Del Mar, Calif., office of San Diego-based Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps, who runs the Green Patent Blog and tracks greenwashing litigation. "This is a hot area of false advertising."
What is in this stuff,anyway? Public safety groups are filing suits to find out what ingredients are in products and find out if any dangerous chemical are being used despite claims of being green.A voluntary ingredient-disclosure initiative by the cleaning product industry is scheduled to start in January 2010.In the meantime............

Michelle Radecki, general counsel of the Washington-based Soap and Detergent Association, said the activists' right-to-know lawsuit is unfounded and ignores an ongoing initiative by the industry to offer more information than ever before about cleaning products. "We believe that the activists are misinterpreting state law and that their threats are counterproductive," Radecki said in a statement. "The cleaning product industry's ingredient communication initiative goes beyond any law on the books in providing meaningful information

TerraChoice

Complicated Potatoes?

Complicated potato or: “Spud you’re an unprincipled man!”

The all powerful Idaho Potato Commission is proving to be surprisingly thin skinned.They do have a long history of jealously guarding the Idaho potato brand from unauthorized use . A Boise restaurant named The Idaho Fry Company after receiving a cease and desist order is being forced to rethink their restaurant name. The problem began when they fell under the eyes of the Potato Commission .The unauthorized use of “Idaho Potato” is the root of the problem. Here is all the dirt I could dig up on this hot potato issue.................

The Idaho Fry Company, which opened earlier this year, was told by the IPC that the name violated rights held by the commission that prevent any unauthorized use of “Idaho Potato” and any similar construction to potatoes by outside companies or entities.
“The situation is, we have a federal certification mark for Idaho and all potato products,” said Frank Muir, president and chief executive officer of the IPC. “It’s been an ongoing rule since the IPC formed around 70 years ago. In order to keep that mark, we have to show we’re willing to protect it.”
Muir added that french fries fall under that certification mark.
Muir said the IPC offered to license the certification mark to the restaurant for $100 per year, along with an agreement that the restaurant use exclusively Idaho-grown potatoes, but the owners of the establishment refused.

One of the restaurant’s co-owners refuted that claim.“That’s not it at all,” said Blake Lingle, who owns the Fry Company with partner Riley Huddleston. “The only thing they offered was that we had to change the name to ‘The Fry Company Featuring Idaho Potatoes,’ or something like that.”
“We didn’t take it,” Lingle said. “They had a lot of strings attached. Another thing is, the IPC is a tax-supported organization, and we didn’t feel right taking tax payers’ money for a private for-profit venture.”
Though the restaurant’s owners already have been issued a cease and desist order from the state, Muir said the IPC has given Lingle and Huddleston until August to change the name.
“Unless IPC changes their mind, we unfortunately can’t afford to go to court and try this,” Lingle said. “We’re going to have to change the name.”