Nations within Nations. Is it true?

Which of the 11 American nations do you live in?

Red states and blue states? Flyover country and the coasts? How simplistic. Colin Woodard, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and author of several books, says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.

“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.” [...]

See the whole article for a larger map, embedded links, and descriptions of each of the individual "nations" on the map.

This reminds me a lot of a similar map I blogged about in 2007. The older map broke up areas into even smaller areas. So which is better? Have things changed much? Or is it just a matter of perspective?
     

Are their different "flavors" of capitalism and socialism? What should we choose?

Is the pope stirring the pot for the communists?

In Fiery Speeches, Francis Excoriates Global Capitalism

[...] Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism — even as he called for a global movement against a “new colonialism” rooted in an inequitable economic order.

The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution.

[...]

Francis has defined the economic challenge of this era as the failure of global capitalism to create fairness, equity and dignified livelihoods for the poor — a social and religious agenda that coincides with a resurgence of the leftist thinking marginalized in the days of John Paul II. Francis’ increasingly sharp critique comes as much of humanity has never been so wealthy or well fed — yet rising inequality and repeated financial crises have unsettled voters, policy makers and economists.

Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and, most notably, Greece. But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the left.

[...]

Even as he meets regularly with heads of state, Francis has often said that change must come from the grass roots, whether from poor people or the community organizers who work with them. To Francis, the poor have earned knowledge that is useful and redeeming, even as a “throwaway culture” tosses them aside. He sees them as being at the front edge of economic and environmental crises around the world.

In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide productive economies for the poor. “How different this is than the situation that results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!” he said on Wednesday night.

It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, “Laudato Si’,” released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and straying dangerously beyond religion — while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush.

“I wish Francis would focus on positives, on how a free-market economy guided by an ethical framework, and the rule of law, can be a part of the solution for the poor — rather than just jumping from the reality of people’s misery to the analysis that a market economy is the problem,” said the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which advocates free-market economics.

Francis’ sharpest critics have accused him of being a Marxist or a Latin American communist, even as he opposed communism during his time in Argentina. His tour last week of Latin America began in Ecuador and Bolivia, two countries with far-left governments. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who wore a Che Guevara patch on his jacket during Francis’ speech, claimed the pope as a kindred spirit — even as Francis seemed startled when Mr. Morales gave him a wooden crucifix shaped like a hammer and sickle as a gift.

[...]

The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” that rising wealth inequality is a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.

Mr. Piketty roiled the debate among mainstream economists, yet Francis’ critique is more unnerving to some because he is not reframing inequality and poverty around a new economic theory but instead defining it in moral terms. “Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy,” he said on Wednesday. “It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment.”

Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist, said he believed Francis was making a nuanced point about capitalism, embodied by his coinage of a “social mortgage” on accumulated wealth — a debt to the society that made its accumulation possible. Mr. Hanauer said that economic elites should embrace the need for change both for moral and pragmatic reasons.

“I’m a believer in capitalism but it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that we have,” said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government policies like a higher minimum wage.

Yet what remains unclear is whether Francis has a clear vision for a systemic alternative to the status quo that he and others criticize. “All these critiques point toward the incoherence of the simple idea of free market economics, but they don’t prescribe a remedy,” said Mr. Johnson, of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Francis acknowledged as much, conceding on Wednesday that he had no new “recipe” to quickly change the world. Instead, he spoke about a “process of change” undertaken at the grass-roots level. [...]

This pope has a strong history of being an advocate for the poor. I get it, and don't think anything is wrong with that. It's just that he seems out of touch with the modern world and how it works. He has spend so much time working with the poor, that it's all he sees; with out a more balanced understanding of the larger whole, and no clear plan for change... what is he doing?

Stirring up revolution against people who create wealth, calling for the redistribution of wealth, without any sort of plan as to how that should be done... how is that any different from the Communism of the past, that has wrought so much death and destruction? And when will the Vatican put it's money where it's mouth is, and return all the gold and priceless treasures they've ripped off from around the world?

Instead of cursing the darkness, why not light a candle? Why not focus on the more positive aspects of capitalism and how it can be used to lift people out of poverty, be used wisely and compassionately, steer the conversation in more constructive ways, rather than just painting all capitalists with a tar-brush and stirring the pot for communist revolutionaries? I think perhaps this pope, however well-meaning, doesn't have the broader perspective or the brain-power to be able to do that.

Here at home, we have Bernie Sanders and followers, wanting us to drink his flavor of Kool-Aid:

How Bernie Sanders plans to win, and change Washington

[...] In an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, Sanders said that the president ran "one of the great campaigns in the history of the United States of America" in 2008, but he also made a mistake by trying to negotiate fair compromises with Republicans and their leadership in Congress.

"The truth is Republicans never wanted to negotiate, all they wanted to do is obstruct," Sanders said. "What I have said throughout this campaign is electing Bernie Sanders as president is not enough. Not going to do it. We need a mass grassroots movement that looks the Republicans in the eye and says, 'If you don't vote to demand that your wealthy people start paying their fair share of taxes, if you don't vote for jobs, raising the minimum wage and expanding Social Security, we know what's going on, we're involved, we're organized, you are outta here if you don't do the right thing.'"

He plans to build that grassroots coalition by bringing more people into the political process and focusing heavily on poverty and income inequality.

"I'm going to be going around the country not only to blue states...but to red states, conservative states. We're going to go to Alabama, we're going to go to Mississippi," Sanders said. "I think the message that we have is resonating. People are going to get involved in the political process, we're going to drive turnout up and when we do that we win." [...]

He sounds like he's the one that doesn't want to negotiate anything. I'm always amazed when Democrats become outraged that the Republicans don't just roll over and play dead. As if it's a crime to disagree with them.

I agree with one of the comments below the article; we don't need any ONE group of people telling us all what to do and how to live.

Also in the comments, someone holds up Denmark and Germany as examples of socialism that "works"; should we, could we not follow them as examples of the way civilized people should live?

That's the progressive dream. It's tempting to say yes. If it works, why not?

Those particular countries have been very careful to maintain a balance between wealth re-distribution and fostering the conditions for the creation of wealth. And perhaps that IS the civilized thing to do. I just have doubts that the pope or Bernie really understand that balance. It's easy to advocate the redistribution of wealth. But if the people who create wealth no longer have the motivation to do so, the redistributed funds dry up, and when there are no more, then everyone ends up poorer.

Most of the nations around the world have overspent more than they have created. Until they demonstrate that they understand the balance between spending and wealth creation, I would not encourage their redistribution efforts. It will only end badly. Such stupidity CAN only end badly.

I've posted previously about the likely future of world economics and the needed flexibility of the new economic reality of the global economy in the Brave New World we are becoming. A good deal of "workable" socialism or socialist ideas may be built into it. If it works, then so be it. Perhaps it will be true progress. It's just that, where will it lead us, unless we are VERY careful?

Every communist I've ever known (and I've known quite a few) has told me that socialism is not an end goal in itself; it's merely a stepping-stone to communism. Socialism gets people used to the idea that the government has the right to redistribute wealth and control people's lives for "the greater good". Once the people become dependent on the government for their needs, then democracy and capitalism and be abolished as "unnecessary", and the government can own and run everything. Which is essentially, one group of people telling everyone else what to do and how to live.

But, people could get "stuck" on socialism that "works"; they get too comfortable, and stop "progressing". The communist's answer to that is to overload the system till it no longer works; destroy the balance, keep spending until the system collapses. Capitalism can then be declared "dead", and replaced with communism. By then the people will be so dependent on the government and so fearful that they will gladly trade freedom for security. And if history is any indication, they will end up with neither.

Communists are fond of saying that "real" communism has never been tried. But that's not true, it has been tried, many times, and every time it's killed a lot of people. That kind of control goes against human nature, and the only way to enforce it is to kill lots of people. If we don't learn that lesson from history, we may be destined to continue repeating it. There may be different "flavors" of capitalism and socialism. But there is only one flavor of communism, and it's always deadly.

Perhaps we are destined for some flavor of socialism to dominate the Brave New Word our future is becoming. I can only say, it's a slippery slope. Perhaps it can be managed, but it would mean being forever vigilant of the dangers. Are we, the human race, up for it? Time will tell.



     

Auroras tonight, and Wednesday?

Looks like it. This was Iowa from the early morning hours today:



Look up! Another solar storm may supercharge auroras Wednesday

While a "severe" solar storm that sparked dazzling auroras around the world on Monday through Tuesday morning is dying down now, skywatchers shouldn't stop looking up quite yet.

Another potentially powerful solar tempest is expected to impact Earth on Wednesday into Thursday, and it could create more amazing auroras for people in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

In particular, the next solar storm is especially well aimed to enhancing aurora activity over North America, according to experts at the National Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colorado.

Monday's solar storm hit the G4 or "severe" level, a relatively rare class of storm that can create bright auroras in relatively low latitudes. Such G4 storms — the rating scale goes up to G5 — can also cause problems with power grids on Earth and harm satellites in space.

And another storm of that severe magnitude is likely on its way to Earth now.

Scientists at the SWPC are anticipating that the solar storm predicted to arrive Wednesday could, yet again, produce beautiful auroras in relatively low latitudes.

At the moment, the SWPC is predicting a G3 or "strong" storm on Wednesday and Thursday, but that was the forecast for Monday, as well. [...]

See the whole article for embedded links, photos, videos and more.

For more technical details, and an Aurora Prediction map, see the NOAA website: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

   

Oregon is for Losers?

This is an unpleasant statistic:



Report: Oregon has worst graduation rate in the U.S.

A comprehensive U.S. report showed that Oregon not only has the worst graduation rates in the nation, but it's holding the country back from achieving its graduation rate goals.

The 2015 Building a Grad Nation report analyzed 2013 graduation rate data from every state in the nation. While the national average reached a record high of 81.4 percent, the four-year graduation rate in Oregon was only 69 percent.

Furthermore, Oregon hadn't improved from the year before, showing stagnation as the last remaining state with graduation rates lower than 70 percent.

"Oregon did not experience significant improvements and became the state with the lowest graduation rate in the nation and the last remaining state with an ACGR [Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate] in the 60s," the report said.

The Grad Nation report shows that overall, much of the country is on track to graduate upwards of 90 percent of seniors by 2020, and many states are already graduating more than 80 percent of students, including neighboring California. Washington State had a 76.4 percent graduation rate. [...]

Even California is doing better. What gives?
     

An Embryonic New Turkey?

Not the bird, but the country. They recently had an election. Before the election, there was this:

Why Turkey's election doesn't matter

[...] The focus is not the usual one on "Who will form the next government?" Analysts agree that the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP), in power since 2002, will win again. But will it have to sign up a junior partner? Will it win sufficient seats to change the constitution and fulfill President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plan to turn his position from a largely symbolic one into a fully executive position?

Erdoğan wants powers so wide reaching that he actually compares them to those wielded by absolute Saudi monarchs. Ironically, those powers would be extracted from the prime minister, which position Erdoğan filled for eleven years until last August, when he voluntarily ceded the position to a hand-picked successor, a mild-mannered academic, and moved over to the grander but far less powerful presidency.

Expressed numerically, the question fascinating Turks is whether the AKP will win a one-seat majority (276 seats out of 550) to rule alone, the 3/5s majority (330 seats) enabling it to change the constitution pending a public referendum, or the 2/3s majority (367 seats) required to change it unilaterally.

The main drama concerns a new party, the leftist, Kurdish-oriented Peoples' Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, or HDP): Will it manage to reach the world's highest threshold of 10 percent of the total vote and enter parliament, in this, its first national campaign? If yes, it will could deprive the AKP of its majority 276 seats; if no, the AKP will likely reach that number and maybe even the magic 330.

But where others find high drama, I see near-tedium, and for two reasons. First, the AKP has used ballot-box shenanigans and other dirty tricks in the past; many indications point to its preparing to do so again, especially in Kurdish-majority districts.

Second, since the moment Erdoğan's presidency began nine months ago, he has behaved as though his wished-for constitutional changes had already been effected; he has chaired cabinet meetings, chose AKP candidates, leaned on the judiciary, and deployed a bevy of "czars" to compete with the prime minister's staff. He is lord of all he surveys.

He also blatantly defies the ban on political activities by the president, illegally stumping the country, worshipful governmental media at his disposal, Koran often in hand, urging citizens to vote AKP and thereby enhance his powers as cumhurbaşkan.

As he transforms a flawed democracy and NATO ally into a rogue state, ostrich-like Western governments sentimentally pretend it's still the 1990s, with Ankara a reliable ally, and abet his growing despotism.

Therefore, I conclude, how many seats the AKP wins hardly matters. Erdoğan will barrel, bulldoze, and steamroll his way ahead, ignoring traditional and legal niceties with or without changes to the constitution. Sure, having fully legitimate powers would add a pretty bauble to his résumé, but he's already tyrant and Turkey's course is set.

Being a brilliant domestic operator and also an egomaniac in a tinderbox of a region suggests where Erdoğan's future troubles lie – abroad. Under his leadership, Ankara suffers poor to terrible relations at present with nearly the entire neighborhood, including Moscow, Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Athens, the Republic of Cyprus, and even with the new leader of Turkish Cyprus. [...]

Sounds pretty grim. But is it really that bleak? The election has happened now, and the results are in:

Turkey election: Erdoğan accepts no party has mandate to govern alone

The election result brought forth an embryonic new Turkey, but not the one the president wanted.

It produced what is tantamount to a cultural revolution in Turkish political life. Women will pour into the 550-seat parliament in Ankara in unprecedented numbers, 98 up from 79. Openly gay candidates won seats for the HDP. Most of all, the long-repressed Kurdish minority (one in 5 citizens) will be properly represented in the parliament for the first time with 80 seats.

“This is the first time that feminists in Turkey actively supported a political party,” said feminist activist Mehtap Dogan. “Up until now we have always done politics on our own, away from parliament. But this time we ran a campaign supporting the HDP because we believed in their sincerity when it comes to defending the rights of women, LGBTs and ethnic minorities.”

The HDP is the first party to introduce a quota of 50% female politicians, and all party offices and HDP-run municipalities are chaired by both a man and a woman.

The party’s successful attempt to break out of ethnic identity politics and broaden its appeal well beyond the Kurdish issue owes much to leader Selahattin Demirtas’ magnetism and his message of outreach.

But the mass protest movement born in a central Istanbul park two years ago and which mushroomed into national protests which Erdogan crushed mercilessly also fed in to the HDP’s support.

“During the Gezi [park] protests, many got an idea of what Kurds had to go through for years: the violence, the repression, the unjust arrests. It opened our eyes to the Kurdish suffering,” said Dogan. “At the same time, we saw how the pro-government press tried to turn our legitimate, peaceful protests into acts of terrorism.”

Just as Erdogan branded the protesters two years ago “riff-raff”, “terrorists” and “foreign agents”, in the election campaign he stoked division and malice by repeatedly smearing his HDP opponents as “terrorists, marginals, gays and atheists.”

He asked religiously conservative voters not to cast their ballots for “such people who have nothing to do with Islam.”

The tactic backfired as many religiously conservative Kurds shifted their votes from the AKP to a party that promised to represent everyone’s interests. [...]

Erdoğan may well try to push ahead anyway, but it won't be easy for him, he will have opposition. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
     

Exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states, the “most distinctive” causes?

Death Map: What’s Really Killing Americans

Heart disease and cancer are the most common killers in the United States but a new map sheds more light on exactly what’s killing Americans in each of the 50 states.

Using statistics from 2001 to 2010, the map highlights the “most distinctive” causes of death, rather than what kills the most people. A ‘distinctive’ cause of death is when the rate is higher compared to the national average.

The map is “a somewhat of a colorful and provocative way of starting some conversations and highlighting some unusual things that are going on,” study co-author Francis Boscoe told LiveScience.

The flu was the most distinctive cause of death in Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. In mining states like Kentucky, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, lung diseases caused by inhaling certain dusts were the most distinctive causes of death.

Dying in a plane or boat accident was the most distinctive cause of death in Alaska and Idaho, while sepsis was the most distinctive cause of death in New Jersey. The most distinctive cause of death in New York and Connecticut was inflammatory diseases of pelvic organs.

Possibly the most surprising statistic comes from Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon, where deaths caused by law enforcement officers — not including legal executions — were the most distinctive cause of death in those states, meaning “death by police officer” occurred in those states at a higher rate compared to the national average.

The numbers of “distinctive” deaths vary greatly. For example, 15,000 people in Florida died of HIV, the most distinctive cause of death there. Meanwhile, there were 22 deaths from syphilis, the most distinctive cause of death in Louisiana.

The source of the map is here.

   

Elon Musk makes the Future Happen

Has the future finally arrived? I hope so:

Tesla's Elon Musk Unveils Solar Batteries for Homes and Small Businesses
The system could easily take a home off the power grid, especially with the use of many solar panels, Musk said

From a man who made his name and charted his career with lofty goals and often unexpected financial decisions, the news came with little surprise: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., unveiled a product line of electric batteries late last night in Los Angeles.

Musk introduced the Tesla Powerwall, a wall-mounted lithium-ion electric battery for homes and small businesses, and the Tesla Powerpack, a heftier version of the same core product designed for utility-scale use.

He also announced a new wing of the company, Tesla Energy, which will begin shipping the Powerwall systems to domestic customers in three to four months. Deliveries will trickle out slowly, he said, then accelerate next year when the company begins shipping orders out from its so-called Gigafactory in Nevada.

Yet Musk spoke first about rising emissions and climate change solutions, not cars. He used a slide show of power plants and smoggy skies to introduce the problems. “It sucks, exactly,” he said. “I think we, collectively, should do something about this,” he added, “for us and a lot of other creatures.”

The Powerwall battery charging system, which can be stacked up to nine batteries high and mounted on an inner garage wall or outside, costs $3,000 for a 7-kilowatt-hour system and $3,500 for the 10 kWh option. The entire Powerwall system is roughly 3 feet wide and 4 feet long, and would stick out about 7 inches once mounted. It could easily take a home off the power grid, especially with the use of many solar panels, Musk said.

“Tesla is not just an automotive company, it's an energy innovation company,” the firm said in a statement. “Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation.”

The utility version comes in 100 kWh blocks that can be grouped together. Musk said one utility company is already interested in a 250-gigawatt installation of Powerpack systems alone.

Shifting cities to 'stored sunlight'
“This entire night has been powered by batteries,” he told the audience in the warehouse in Hawthorne, Calif., pointing to gray, blocky Powerpack systems standing on end and powering the facility. “Everything you're experiencing is stored sunlight.”

Musk's solution is as audacious as it is simple. By harnessing energy from the sun—“this handy fusion reactor in the sky,” he called it last night—getting enough renewable energy on the power grid and smoothing out energy generation and use between peak and off-peak hours, the nation and planet can shift away from fossil fuels' dominance as a power source, he told the crowd.

The new batteries, he said, will help speed that transition worldwide. “These is going to be a great solution for people in remote parts of the world,” he said, noting that it allows homeowners to leave the power grid and ditch electric cables.

“It can scale globally,” he added, likening the battery systems' potential in emerging economies to mobile phones that penetrated markets faster than old technology and leapfrogged landline sales.

Tesla, the first American car company to go public since Ford Motor Co., has been a darling stock to many in recent years, climbing from trading in the $30 range in 2012 to above $200 a share for most of the past year.

In a research note about yesterday's announcement from Deutsche Bank AG, which was reported by Bloomberg, the authors struck a bullish tone, writing: “Based on the preliminary work on the economics of stationary storage, we believe that this has the potential to be more significant” than Wall Street analysts expect. The battery system, they wrote, could add up to $100 a share.

Karl Brauer, a senior analyst for Kelley Blue Book, said Tesla's new battery division could be even more successful than its car business. [...]

The German bankers recognize the potential. This is really exciting. I had posted previously about this new type of power grid that such batteries would create. Now it's actually starting to happen.

Hooray!
     

I agree with President Obama...

...about this Nike thing:

As Obama Visits Portland, Trade Deal Divides Liberal Community

As President Barack Obama visited Nike's headquarters in Portland — a city known for lush greenery, constant drizzle and liberal politics — the left-leaning enclave has become ground zero Friday for the debate over the administration's push for a sweeping, multinational trade deal.

The president acknowledged that he's faced hurdles in his quest to garner support for an ambitious trade accord between the United States and 11 South American and Pacific Rim nations, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He told workers at the Nike campus that the people opposing this "typically they're my friends and coming from my own party. On this one, they're like, whooping on me."

Obama insisted the trade push is not political for him, since he's run his last election. He said the trade accord is the right thing to do for working families.

"The only reason I do something is because I think it's good for the economy," Obama said.

Still, in Portland, with its normally laid back vibe, the debate over the trade issue is splitting residents into two camps.

On the one side are companies like Nike, one of the city's largest employers. The company employs 8,500 people in Oregon and 26,000 nationwide. Nike says its economic impact on the state of Oregon is $2.5 billion.

And the company promises to add 10,000 jobs and an additional 40,000 indirect and supply chain service jobs if the trade deal is approved.

"We believe agreements that encourage free and fair trade allow Nike to do what we do best: innovate, expand our businesses and drive economic growth," said Mark Parker, Nike's president and CEO.

On the other side are labor unions that argue that the trade accord would repress worker wages and encourage companies — like Nike — to outsource jobs.

Those differences were on display Friday morning as Nike workers, most wearing Nike shoes, lined up to cheer the president. Meanwhile, about a hundred protesters crowded outside and chanted their outrage.

"Nike represents everything about corporate America that stinks," said Andrew Crosby, as he carried a protest sign.

The pact has even split Oregon's senators, both Democrats.

Sen. Ron Wyden is helping lead the charge to pass "fast-track" authority which would grant Obama and future presidents the right to ask for an up-or-down vote in Congress on trade agreements. Obama and supporters say the president needs this authority to better negotiate with other nations.

Opponents worry that such large trade deals deserve vetting by Congress. Sen. Jeff Merkley has said he is "dubious" about the impact of such broad trade accords. [...]

Wyden is a reasonable Democrat. Merkley is a Moron. Oregon desperately needs the jobs and revenue. The unions here are too powerful, and dragging our state down. I have to agree with president Obama on this one.

     

Underwater volcano active off Oregon coast

A volcano may be erupting off the Oregon coast, scientists say

Three hundred miles off the Pacific Northwest coast, the seafloor has been rumbling.

Over the past five months, there were hundreds of small earthquakes on most days at Axial Seamount.

Then on April 24, there was a spike: nearly 8,000 earthquakes. The seafloor level dropped more than two meters. Temperatures rose.

Scientists believe an underwater volcano is erupting.

An eruption is not a threat to coastal residents, researchers say, because the earthquakes are small, mostly magnitude 1 or 2, and the seafloor movements are relatively gradual, so they won't cause a tsunami.

The volcanic activity has no relationship to the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which scientists watch closely for signs of a much larger and more destructive earthquake.

To Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist, the eruption at Axial Seamount was not a surprise.

He had predicted it would happen this year. He predicted the previous eruption, in 2011, too.

Chadwick hopes the lessons he and his collaborator, Scott Nooner at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, learn from Axial Seamount can eventually be applied to volcanoes on land.

Land volcanoes have thicker crusts and are influenced by large earthquakes and other nearby volcanoes, among other things, so predictions are more difficult, Chadwick said.

"Axial Seamount is a pure example, if you will," he said. "It has relatively simple plumbing."

Chadwick and other scientists watch the signals at Axial Seamount in real-time via a cable laid out on the seafloor. The cable is part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation. [...]

I doubt that it has nothing to do with the Cascadia Subduction Zone, since it is practically right on top of it. I presume they mean to say, that the volcano isn't signaling an imminent earthquake. As far as they can tell.

Read the whole thing for embedded links, photos and more.

     

"The Clintons are counting on America to digest their ethical lapses the way a python swallows a goat" Will we?

Hillary’s Cynical Song of Self

Recently I wrote a column about Hillary Clinton’s method of lying: bald deceit sold to liberals with a wink-and-nod as the price of advancing a progressive agenda in this bigoted country of ours. Several readers wrote me to object that the mendacity I ascribed to Mrs. Clinton applied equally to Republicans.

Maybe. But what was striking about these critics is that none of them bothered to rebut the point that Mrs. Clinton is a habitual liar who treats truthfulness in politics the way a calorie-counting diner might treat hollandaise sauce on steak: to be kept strictly on the side or dribbled on in measured doses. Her lying has become as much a given in the liberal mind as Bill Clinton’s womanizing: He does his thing, she does hers.

Get over it.

All of which means that Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid is an exercise in—and a referendum on—cynicism, partly hers but mainly ours. Democrats who nominate Mrs. Clinton will transform their party into the party of cynics; an America that elects Mrs. Clinton as its president will do so as a nation of cynics. Is that how we see, or what we want for, ourselves?

This is what the 2016 election is about. You know already that if Mrs. Clinton runs for president as an Elizabeth Warren-style populist she won’t mean a word of it, any more than she would mean it if she ran as a ’90s-style New Democrat or a ’70s-style social reformer. The real Hillary, we are asked to believe, is large and contains multitudes.

In other words, she’s singing a Song of Herself. She will say, do, and be pretty much anything to get elected. And the rest of us are supposed to fall in line because we prefer our politics to be transactional not principled, our politicians to be opportunists not idealists, and our national creed to be “do what you gotta do” not “upon this rock.” This is what might be called the Clinton Bargain: You can always count on their self-interest trumping other considerations, so you never have to fear that they can’t be bought.

The only question is who is doing the buying.

In recent days we’ve begun to learn some of their names: [...]

Hillary doesn't have to appear perfect to win; she only has to appear to be less-bad than any Republican candidate she runs against. And with the media on her side, she just might pull it off.

The article goes on to postulate the reasons why. And one or two why-nots. The author thinks Hillary can be beat. Ida know. I won't hold my breath. Read the whole thing, and see what you think.


Also see: Clinton's email spin-control, and the questions that nobody is asking

     

Bird-flu in the USA

U.S. Bird Flu Outbreak Hits Millions of Iowa Egg-Laying Hens

Many of the 3.8 million egg-laying hens in an Iowa flock probably have bird flu as the biggest single outbreak of the virus reported in the U.S. added to concerns that turkey and egg supplies will be hampered by the disease.

“Despite best efforts, we now confirm many of our birds are testing positive” for avian influenza, closely held Sonstegard Foods Co. said in a statement dated April 20. The company said its Sunrise Farms unit close to Harris, Iowa, in Osceola County has 3.8 million hens.

The U.S. in February 1 had 362.1 million egg-laying hens, and Iowa with about 59.6 million is the state with the most, the latest government data on March 23 showed. Commercial turkey flocks with more than 2 million birds in eight states have been reported with the virus by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
“A lot of poultry meat and eggs won’t make it to market,” John Glisson, a vice president of research at the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, said during a panel discussion Tuesday at a National Chicken Council conference in Cambridge, Maryland. The U.S. and Canada are “implementing plans that have been set up for years” to fight disease, he said.

Hormel Foods Corp., the owner of Jennie-O turkeys, said Monday that annual profit may be eroded because the virus is hampering production. The company’s shares headed for the biggest decline in six weeks.

[...]

Before Monday, avian flu was found primarily in commercial turkey flocks, particularly in Minnesota, the largest U.S. producer.
The virus was first confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in the central U.S. last month after an outbreak began in wild birds and backyard flocks in the western U.S. in late 2014.

The disease has been found in some states that fall along a Mississippi River migratory route for waterfowl. China has halted all U.S. poultry imports since January, and other nations have imposed bans. Birds in flocks detected with the virus don’t enter the food system, according to the USDA.

“It’s not a food safety issue, it’s not a human-health concern, but we certainly are worried for this particular flock owner” in Iowa, Randy Olson, the executive director of the state’s egg council and poultry association, said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “We’re worried about the spread of this disease, and we’re encouraging all flock owners whether they have hundreds of birds or just a few in their backyards to practice very strict biosecurity." [...]

Here is some info about backyard chicken biosecurity:

Avian influenza basics for urban and backyard poultry owners

[...] Biosecurity steps to protect your flock

In order to help flock owners to keep their birds healthy by preventing disease, biosecurity is a must! Introductions of HPAI come from waterfowl (ducks and geese) and gulls that come to Minnesota. Once poultry are infected, they can spread the disease to new flocks. Now is a great time to review your biosecurity. The USDA provides the following tips on preventing AI in your poultry:

Keep your distance (separating your poultry from disease introduction). Some examples are:

Restrict access from wildlife and wild birds to your birds by use of enclosed shelter and fencing of the outdoor areas. Use of smaller mesh hardware cloth which allows exclusion of wild birds while still allowing outdoor exposure.
Caretakers should not have contact with other poultry or birds prior to contact with their own birds. Restrict access to your poultry if your visitors have birds of their own.
Keep different species of poultry and age groups separated due to differences in susceptibility.
Look at your own setting, what can you do to prevent your birds from contact with other birds that could introduce HPAI?

Keep it clean (cleaning and disinfecting). Some examples are:

Keep feeders and waterers clean and out of reach of wild birds. Clean up feed spills.
Change feeding practices if wild birds continue to be present.
Use dedicated or clean clothing and foot wear when working with poultry
Clean and then disinfect equipment that comes in contact with your birds such as shovels and rakes.
Conduct frequent cleaning and disinfecting of housing areas and equipment to limit contact of birds with their waste.
Evaluate your practices. Is it clean or is there room for improvement?

Don't haul disease home. Some examples are:

Introduction of new birds or returning birds to the flock after exhibition. Keep them separated for at least 30 days.
Returning dirty crates or other equipment back to the property without cleaning and disinfecting. This includes the tires on the vehicles and trailers.
Take a look and be critical. Is that site where you have set up a quarantine really separated well enough to keep your flock safe? Where do you clean crates? Can the runoff get to your birds?

Don't borrow disease from your neighbors

Don't share equipment or reuse materials like egg cartons from neighbors and bird owners, you could be borrowing disease.
Do you have what you need to separate yourself from your friends and neighbors? Now is the time to get the equipment and supplies you need to make that possible. [...]

Basically, no free range chickens. And what is a back-yard chicken, if not free-range?


More Bird-Flu headlines HERE.
     

Do we live in the "Post-Truth Era?"

It's a good question. The first article explains why the shooting of Walter Scott was a crime, and the wealth of evidence that supports that assertion:

The North Charleston shooting is not another Ferguson

[...] When I was a cop in Baltimore and I heard of some situation that got ugly, my first reaction was usually, "Thank God I wasn't there." Because nobody knows how they'll react. For that reason, most police officers are quite reluctant to criticize others forced to make split-second life-and-death decisions. Yet every police officer I've spoken to says that Scott's death was horrible and that Slager committed a crime.

In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled that police may not shoot at unarmed fleeing suspects, even felons. In line with that decision, shooting without an immediate threat is against the law in every state, and it's against department policy in every jurisdiction. It's also a violation of the most basic human right: life. Any innocent death is a tragedy, but it's worse at the hands of police. It's not too much to ask our civil servants not to murder us.

During his attempt to catch Scott, Slager fired his Taser. When that failed, Slager could have chased Scott or let him run away. But instead, Slager drew his gun and shot. This is why cops see this case so differently: The criminal was the police officer. And Slager was arrested and charged with murder. That is the way the criminal justice system is supposed to work. [...]

The article explains in detail the differences in this case, to many of the others that have been in the headlines in recent months. Of course every case has it's own facts, which is why it's so important to acknowledge them.

Contrast the above case with this next one, about a decorated an honored Boston cop shot in the face by a career felon. The felon was then killed in a shootout with other police officers. So who was the victim? You decide:




A Boston Cop Shooting and Our Post-Truth Era

[...] According to several Boston cops at the crime scene, people began calling them pigs, shouting “Ferguson…Ferguson” and “hands up…don’t shoot.” This despite the fact—the fact!—that an outside camera from a store next to where the shootout occurred captured the image of West emerging from the driver’s side of his car to instantly shoot Moynihan, who had not even drawn his weapon.

“This is where we are now,” one of the cops said. “Everyone has their own reality. Their own facts. The truth of the situation doesn’t matter. People want to believe what they think happened. Not what really happened. That’s the recent history of almost every encounter we have lately on the street.”

Sadly, it seems as if there is no longer any real history. Just momentary reactions to events that disappear like sky-writing with items like Twitter, texts, Meerkat, Snapchat, and Instagram. And in this, our snap-of-a-finger, Chernobyl-like culture, with almost daily explosions occurring only to be eclipsed in a single news cycle, email and Facebook can resemble the National Archives.

A majority of Americans are more aware of what happened in Ferguson last summer than with what occurred on a city street in Boston on Friday night or on too many streets and neighborhoods nearly every day. Know more about the life of Robert Durst than that of a parent who is afraid to let a child play outdoors in places where guns are more accessible than text books.

We have more tools at hand, literally, to make life easier and more productive than ever. We have Google, Wikipedia, iPads, iPhones, iTunes, YouTube, Netflix, and 600 cable channels. We can shop, pay bills, order food, and get nearly everything delivered, all of it with the touch of a finger on a device in the palm of our hand.

Yet we have a criminal justice system that seems unable to deal with proven violent career criminals like Angelo West who threaten lives every day. Our jails are crowded with those doing extended time for possession of drugs while those arrested multiple times for possession of handguns are often free to walk streets like time bombs eager to explode.

We are at the point where the immediacy of the moment crowds out any thought of reflection. Everyone has a smart phone and everything is recorded. One event spills into another. Conclusions come quickly at the near total expense of consideration of what just actually happened. Reality is self defined as the mob, any mob, writes its own history, never to be contradicted by the quiet statement of truth. [...]

The facts DO matter. Instant gratification of social media be damned.

There has always been people who jump to conclusions and make shallow assessments without looking more deeply. That's nothing new. What is new is that such people have access to social media, where they can instantly amplify their misguided opinions to the world. Ironically, that same technology can also make the facts of the situation be known more quickly, for anyone who cares to bother about the facts. In our technological world of instant gratification, people are often too willing to be lazy and treat their opinions like facts. People who don't care about the facts muddy the water for everyone, and do more harm than good.

These are just excerpts, please follow the links and read the full articles for the details, the complete picture.

I'm sick of hearing people talk about their unsubstantiated opinions as if they were facts. Our Brave New World is going to have to do better than that. For all of our sakes.

     

Bee Keeping; not something to rush into

I know someone who said they could get honey bees for us. But I have to decide by tomorrow, and then the bees arrive 10 days later. So I had a quick look on-line, to see what we would be letting ourselves in for:

Bee in the know
With experts’ tips, it’s the right time to get ready to house your own hive

Longtime beekeeper Ken Ograin wasn’t always an expert on the subject.

When he first started the backyard hobby nearly two decades ago, Ograin’s hive died. The same thing happened the next year. And the one after that.

That changed when Ograin shifted away from relying primarily on books to learn about beekeeping and instead found a local source for education and mentoring.

Finding a mentor and continuing to learn as you go are two of the biggest keys to success for someone who wants to raise a thriving bee colony, says Ograin, who is a longtime member of the Lane County Beekeepers Association.

“They need to find a mentor,” Ograin advises. “Preferably somebody that’s a backyard beekeeper.”

It’s almost bee season, when packages of bees are available for those setting up or adding hives. With it comes a flurry of education opportunities to help novice and still-learning beekeepers.

“I’ve been doing it 19 years, and I learn new things all the time,” Ograin says. [...]

The rest of the article reveals more details. Clearly not something to rush into, uninformed. Even my friend who offered to pick up the bees for us, suggested we might benefit by planning for it for a year ahead, so we know what to do when the time comes. I think it could be enjoyable, if you are ready for it. It might be better to complete BeeKeeping 101 first.
     

"The Alchemist" and "The Pilgrimage"; are they books for self-abosorbed Yuppies?

I recently read those two books, then came across this article in the New Yorker, about the author, Paulo Coelho. It's long, but an interesting read. There was one part, quoting one of his literary critics from his native Brazil, that I've excerpted below:

The Magus
The astonishing appeal of Paulo Coelho

[...] Mário Maestri, a history professor at the University of Passo Fundo and one of the few Brazilian critics who does not reflexively dismiss Coelho, has written, “In spite of belonging to different genres, Coelho’s narratives and self-help books have the same fundamental effect: of anesthetizing the alienated consciousness through the consoling reaffirmation of conventions and prevailing prejudices. Fascinated by his discoveries, the Coelhist reader explores the familiar, breaks down doors already open, and gets mired in sentimental, tranquilizing, self-centered, conformist, and spellbinding visions of the world that imprisons him. When he finishes a book, he wants another one that will be different but absolutely the same.” Maestri calls the work “yuppie esoteric narrative.” As if to prove the point, this winter Starbucks distributed five million Venti cups printed with a Coelho quote: “Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure. Never forget your Personal Legend. Never forget your dreams. . . .” [...]

Ouch! Sharp criticism, yet one could argue that "He makes that sound like a bad thing". I think much of what Mário said is true. Yet the very things he cites have also made Coelho a best-selling author, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author. Yuppies buy books, so Coelho can laugh all the way to the bank.

Despite his popularity with the demos (or, because of it?), he's a controversial and eccentric figure. I found the interview interesting. He claims, among other things, that his book "The Pilgrimage" is responsible for the revival of interest in the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a journey he himself has made. And looking at the statistics for travelers, what he says may well be true.
     

Both conservatives and liberals aren’t being straight about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Everybody's Lost Their Goddamn Mind Over Religious Freedom

You want to know the weirdest thing about the fight over Indiana’s state-level version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)? It’s totally at odds with the origins of that first federal law.

Indiana’s law is being championed by religious conservatives and opposed by secular liberals. In an intense press conference on Tuesday, embattled Republican Governor Mike Pence declared, “I believe religious liberty is our first freedom.” But the original RFRA was signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton in 1993 after the state of Oregon refused to pay unemployment insurance to a couple of Native Americans who got canned as drug-rehab counselors for using peyote in religious ceremonies. RFRA was passed to remedy such an obvious injustice and its main sponsor in the House was liberal congressman Charles Schumer, who’s expected to become the next Senate Minority Leader and is most famous for trying to ban every goddamned good-time substance known to mankind, from Four Loko to powdered caffeine to “delicious-looking detergent.”

Weirder still: Arch-conservative Jesse Helms, a hardcore Christian who was an unapologetic homophobe, was one of just three senators who voted against the law. Writing for the majority in Employment Division v. Smith, the drug warrior Antonin Scalia thundered that letting religion provide a loophole in such an instance “would open the prospect of constitutionally required exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind.”

[...]

From a libertarian perspective, there’s an easy enough way to resolve the current conflict between demands for religious freedom and equality. It doesn’t fully satisfy either side but it has the virtue of preserving a pluralistic society and minimizing intervention into everyday life.

The starting point should be to focus on discrimination by the government, which was the impetus behind the original federal RFRA—Oregon refused to pay out unemployment based on religiously based drug use. Conservatives typically say they believe in limited government and individual rights and that the government shouldn’t play favorites or accord certain people or classes of people special treatment (this is their argument against affirmative action). If they mean what they say in other contexts, conservatives should be in the forefront of pushing for marriage equality, as the state has no case for treating individuals differently under the law.

For their part, liberals should recognize the limits to and wisdom of injecting state power into every possible relationship in the country. As wrong and stupid as I think it is for a particular individual or business to discriminate against a customer or neighbor based on sexual orientation (or race, gender, and class for that matter), that should be the business’s decision, especially if the business is only one service provider among many.

Nobody should be forced to do something they don’t want to do, whether it’s bake cakes for gay weddings or decorate cakes with anti-gay slurs. To me, whether a person’s or a business’s decision is based in religion is immaterial.

Whatever you may think of Jack Phillips’s refusal to bake a wedding cake for gay customers, there’s something as or more disturbing about the court ruling against the owner of Lakewood, Colorado’s Masterpiece Cakeshop. Not only was the baker forced to change his store policy, he and his staff were required to attend sensitivity training. That sounds like something out of China during the Cultural Revolution. It doesn’t help that Phillips offered to make the original complainants any sort of item but a wedding cake.

Most Americans don’t agree with Phillips’s beliefs in this case, but such disagreements are one of the prices we pay for living in a free society, in which we seriously recognize and respect that different people have different value systems. It’s worth noting that in the segregated South, very different rules applied. It was common, for instance, that local and state governments and laws actively prevented businesses from treating customers equally. When laws were not openly racist, “citizen’s councils” and terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan enforced a de facto standard against businesses that treated all customers equally. This is not the case today with regards to gays and lesbians.

By the same token, any individuals or businesses that exclude certain sorts of business can’t exactly bitch and moan when people decide to publicize such policies and organize boycotts, as is happening to the entire state of Indiana now.

Supporters of state-level RFRAs should own the fact that, as Apple’s Cook says, such laws absolutely do allow discrimination (more precisely, they allow defendants to use religious beliefs as a defense in certain court proceedings). Indiana Governor Mike Pence now says he hopes to fix the law with more legislation. “The issue here is still is tolerance a two-way street,” he told ABC News over the weekend. Of course it is, and the same right that allows a business to opt out of serving some customers also allows others to respond by taking their business elsewhere. Last year, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed a RFRA-style bill precisely because of possible economic fallout. [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links and more. I think the ideas presented in this article make a lot of sense, but I doubt many supporters on either side of the conflict will embrace them. And the history of this law... so much irony!

     

The "monstrous" spawn of radio crystals?

Everything old is new again:

An Old-School Crystal Radio That Broadcasts High-Tech News

A crystal radio set is almost like magic. Sound appears, seemingly out of nowhere, powered not by cords and batteries, but by the very air around you. “You can’t quite work out how it comes alive,” says Julian Oliver. “But it just does.”

Oliver is an artist and “critical engineer,” who for his most recent project created a modern-day crystal radio with a distinctly modern twist. Instead of broadcasting AM radio waves, the Crystal Line, now on display at The Cutting Room in Nottingham, England, uses a mini computer to crawl the web in search for the latest military and defense news. Stories about brain-controlled fighter jets, artificial intelligence and drones are translated from text to speech, sent to an AM transmitter and broadcast.

[...]

The radio forever changed warfare, and not just in the way information was communicated. Oliver likes to remind people that the crystal radio marked the beginning for so many other technologies. “The moment that an inanimate object can talk back, what do you have?” he asks. “You have networking.”

It’s a nice conceptual loop when you consider how much of the news you hear through the Crystal Line is indebted to the very radio that’s broadcasting it. Drones, encryption technology, GPS and even the nuclear arms race are, in some way, decedents of those primitive radio technologies. “I wanted to cast a lineage from the birth of radio to what became its monstrous grandchildren,” he says. “The future combat systems.”

Are these descendants of radio "monstrous" if they are being used to protect you from people with monstrous intentions? The definition of monstrous might well depend on whether they are aimed at you or away from you.

The full article has embedded links, and a sample broadcast with an artificial voice reading the text. It is kinda creepy. Welcome to the Brave New World.
*

     

A new type of power grid

Why Tesla's battery for your home should terrify utilities
Elon Musk's electricity empire could mean a new type of power grid

[...] The prospect of cheap solar panels combined with powerful batteries has been a source of significant anxiety in the utility sector. In 2013, the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for investor-owned electric companies, issued a report warning that disruption was coming. "One can imagine a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent," the report said, likening the speed of the coming transition to the one from landlines to cellphones 10 years ago. Suddenly regulated monopolies are finding themselves in competition with their own customers.

They haven’t had to deal with this on the residential side yet, primarily because people can sell excess power back to the utilities at fairly high rates — a practice called net metering. But that’s hurting utilities, too, and some have tried to lower the price at which they buy back power, which has been met by furious protests from people leasing panels. If utilities lower the buyback rate too much, however, and batteries get cheap enough, people may just unplug from the grid altogether — or more likely, install systems that let them rely on it only rarely — prompting what those in the industry call "the utility death spiral." It’s quite a bind: by fighting net metering, utilities would help make battery storage more economically viable, driving the transition to a distributed grid.

Manghani believes utilities aren’t doomed, but they may undergo a radical transformation, becoming something closer to service providers and minders of an increasingly distributed grid rather than the centralized power producers they are today. Such a system would require lots of batteries to help balance the load and supply extra power during peak times, which is why GTM estimates the market will grow from $48 million today to about $1 billion in 2018. [...]

Excellent, I say bring it on! And Tesla seems perfectly poised to pounce and make it happen. Read the whole thing for the details that back it up, embedded links and more.
     

Let the government do your voting for you

Oregon: Voter Registration Made Automatic

Seventeen years after Oregon decided to become the first state to hold all elections with mail-in ballots, it took another pioneering step on Monday to broaden participation by automatically registering people to vote. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, signed a bill that puts the burden of registration on the state instead of voters. Under the legislation, every adult citizen in Oregon who has had business with the Department of Motor Vehicles since 2013 but has not registered to vote will receive a ballot in the mail at least 20 days before the next statewide election. The measure is expected to add about 300,000 voters to the rolls. Some other states have considered such legislation, but none have gone as far as Oregon. Minnesota nearly instituted automatic voter registration in 2009 before it was vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who said that “registering to vote should be a voluntary, intentional act.” Similar concerns were raised by Oregon’s minority Republicans.

How Progressive. What comes next, the government actually casts your vote for you? Oh, wait a minute, Oregon already does that.
     

Google's Redesign of it's Headquarters

It looks like a "Future World" theme park:



Google's future campus looks like a sci-fi utopia

Google has revealed eye-popping ideas for a redesign of its California headquarters that symbolize how far the company wants to move beyond its core search business.

Plans submitted Friday to the Mountain View City Council include lightweight block-like structures—not stationary concrete buildings—that can be moved around as the company invests in new product areas. These areas now include self-driving cars, solar-powered drones and robots. Google’s self-driving car team, for instance, has different needs than search engineers, the company said in revealing its plans.

On top of those modular structures would be translucent canopies that can control the climate inside while letting in natural light and air. The canopies would free the spaces from traditional limitations like walls, windows and roofs.

It’s not hard to imagine Google’s future campus serving as a playground for the company’s pursuits outside of search. Plus, it sounds like Google is going for something like a futuristic city for its thousands of employees and local residents. The company is already known for its on-campus perks encouraging employees to maximize their time on campus, but the new plans elevate that concept. [...]

Read the whole thing for more pictures, and embedded links. It's way cool! A very futuristic vision to be sure. Bold and ambitious. It will be interesting to see how the end product turns out, and how much it adheres to this vision.
     

Sunday Funnies 03/15/15

Islamic Holdem'