a blog for j z dot net

Details are still coming in on this one, but Huffington Post and Politico are reporting that Gasland director Josh Fox has been arrested during a House Science Committee hearing on hydraulic fracturing. The hearing was held to discuss water contamination in Pavilion, Wyoming which the EPA has linked to fracking.

via Gasland Director Josh Fox Arrested While Trying to Film Congressional Fracking Hearing : TreeHugger.

So, while committee member Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) motioned to allow both Fox, and an ABC news crew who was also removed from the meeting to remain and film the proceedings, which are supposed to be open and public, the Republicans in charge (presumably Chairman and WWII Navy veteran Ralph Moody Hall, R-TX) denied his motion, and requested that Capitol police arrest Fox (for whatever reason, the ABC crew was only ejected, and not arrested).  Fox was charged with unlawful entry.  Hmm, unlawful entry to a public meeting – just how is that possible??  Think the Republicans and the petrochemical masters they serve have something to hide?  Could it be any more evident?  Not only are the petrochemical companies fighting to keep the chemical slurry used in ‘fracking’ a secret, but now they apparently wish to have any oversight or even mention of their practices shrouded as well.

The US now sits at #47 on the list of Press Freedoms in Countries around the world, dropping 27 places in 2011.  Hopefully this trend will reverse itself and the US media and citizen journalism will assert their rights and the US will rise on that list in 2012.  But with Republicans like Ralph Hall of Texas arresting people for attempting to document his pandering to the oil companies, one has to wonder which direction the US is headed.

Fox’s documentary, “Gasland” is a remarkable film, where you see folks who live near these hydraulic fracturing sites actually light their running tap water coming out of their kitchen faucet, on fire.  Probably safe to assume that it’s not all that healthy to have flammable water/gas coming out the kitchen faucet.

Unclear which is more surprising, that a Texas Republican would eject a member of the press from a public meeting – or that Texas still has WWII Veterans serving as their congressional representatives.  Mr. Hall – you’ve served your country honorably, you’re pushing 90 years old, maybe it’s time to retire?

The Vatican, along with the University of Arizona, are in collaboration with one of the world’s premier telescopes at the Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) about a dozen miles southwest of Safford Arizona.  MGIO is a division of Steward Observatory, the research arm for the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona.  The facility on top of Mt. Graham consists of three telescopes:

• Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO)
• Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT)
• Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope (SMT)

From the Vatican Observatory website‘s page on “The Galileo Affair” they actually have the gall to claim:

Many theories have been put forth over the years to explain why Galileo came into conflict with the Church. The mystery arises precisely because Galileo actually stood squarely in the long history of the Church’s support of science.

Only an institution so steeped in delusion, myth and newspeak / newthink would make such an outlandish claim of revisionist history.  The Church was Galileo’s ally??  The same church which condemned him for his “vehement suspicion of heresy” and gave him house arrest for the remainder of his life, all for his correct claims on heliocentrism.

Are we to expect that it’s acceptable that the Vatican is the group behind the funding this type of research? With their rather storied history of fact-suppression (and worse) it seems to make little sense to have such an institution doing this type of (or arguably any scientific) research.  The Vatican’s long involvement in certain areas of science is truly troubling – these are the same folks who are largely responsible for the ravages of AIDS in the third world, the genocide of entire native populations, and who feel it is their “righteous calling” to wipe out and eradicate certain cultures and traditions.  The Vatican seems to be no friend of science, and it’s hard to imagine just what they are funding with this type of research.

The end of 2011 brought us the latest in attempted Internet censorship by the corporate masters,with the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.  This handy list of corporations who support SOPA can give one a glimpse of just who and what is pushing this awful bill.  A quick perusal of the list shows many legal firms and law enforcement agencies, along side media conglomerates. Lawyers, cops and CEOs - assuredly a casustic mix.

One of the current top stories on Reddit.com (the ‘frontpage of the internet’ as they refer to themselves) is titled:

GoDaddy’s Response to the Boycott: “Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business.” Reddit, Lets make them feel the impact and move your domains! Spread the word!

GoDaddy issues challenge, geeks accept. Less than 24 hours later, GoDaddy flip-flops.

One redditor summed up GoDaddy’s interesting response in the Internet parlance of ‘too long, didn’t read’ as such: “tl;dr: Come at me bro.” Another replied with the standard, “Challenge Accepted” meme.

GoDaddy even has a dedicated page in its community support forums addressing the topic, with some very tersely worded responses.

While I only operate a few personal domains, I will be moving them elsewhere. The support of SOPA is baffling enough but the response that basically said “We know people are upset, we just don’t care because we are stacking the papers, yo.” is what convinced me.

Competing domain registration firm (and all around GoodGuyGreg) namecheap.com did Internet denizens a solid by promoting an exodus from GoDaddy with a few clever coupon codes – “SOPASucks” is one, another is “BYEBYEGD” – these coupon codes both work to save a bit on any domain transfers to namecheap.

Domain Exodus – December 29, 2011

December 29th has been declared the official domain exodus day, with cynical internet peeps predicting there will be an issue with GoDaddy’s services on that day, in order to prevent such a mass, coordinated movement from occuring.

After the GoDaddy elephant hunt/massacre by GoDaddy’s founder and former CEO Bob Parsons in the spring of 2011 – namecheap and GoElly.com ran similar promotions, aimed at the animal-rights conscious consumer who was offended by Bob Parsons’ elephant slaying.  PETA honored Parsons with its first ever, “Scummiest CEO award” to which Parsons replied, “I understand PETA has an agenda, but I refuse to go along with their extortion-style practice.”  He continued to defend his killing of the “problem elephant” and refuses to even acknowledge other proven non-lethal ways of keeping elephants away from food crops.  The final solution apparently is his only method.

After having already moved about a dozen domains from GoDaddy this week, still more work is left to do – it was embarrassing enough using such an openly misogynistic company.  They offered domain registrations as a loss leader, at times under $2 each, when the market rate was about 10x that amount, so one could argue there was once a financial incentive to use this trashy company – but no more.  Quite the opposite, for supporting SOPA (or even formerly supporting it), as currently written, just may kill the Internet as we have come to know it.

It would be most interesting to see the stats on godaddy’s domain transfer requests for the end of 2011.  Vote with your domains, get outta there. Another post at reddit, titled, “Today I Learned Wikipedia.org is registered at SOPA supporter GoDaddy” challenges not just Wikipedia, but any/all domains registered at godaddy,

Why just wikipedia? Why not contact everyone who’s registered at GoDaddy?

I noticed RedLetterMedia –who just released their Indy 4 review– are also registered at GoDaddy.

Also Blip.tv, WordPress, explosm.net, direct2drive, Penny-Arcade. Why not start emailing them as well?

May this catch fire – off to move more domains!

Update Friday December 23 – Geeks 1, GoDaddy 0

Well, that didn’t take too long! GoDaddy changes it’s tune: “Victory! Boycott forces GoDaddy to drop its support for SOPA”  GoDaddy’s statement is available here.

However, all one needs to do, is visit GoDaddy CEO’s homepage blog, at: BobParsons.ME and ask yourself, “Is this a company I wish to patronize?”  There are plenty of reasons to not use the services of a company such as GoDaddy.  Their flip-flop on SOPA is interesting, for it shows the power of these movements – it also exposes the dickish move they pulled with their smarmy initial rebuff of the movement.  By completely invalidating their statements from less than a day sooner, we can see this company is flailing.

Why go with a host like namecheap?  Well, they have a blatant anti-SOPA position, ‘cuz they understand the internets: Why we are against SOPA and why it is so important to us, read our stance here.  Unlike GoDaddy, who funds a Nascar team with cheerleaders, and who’s founder and former CEO seems like some sort of crazed ego maniac.

A commenter on a GoDaddy forum said it very nicely:

Far too little and much too late. If GoDaddy had cared about the openness of the Internet and the 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States they would have invested their efforts in opposing this wretched legislation from the very beginning, not flip-flopping when it became unpopular or financially disadvantageous. I and all of my MANY domains are moving elsewhere and not one cent of mine will ever find its way back to GoDaddy. I hope I am not alone and that THOUSANDS of freedom-loving people around the world join me.

Well said, you are most definitely not alone.  If you have a problem elephant, call Parsons of GoDaddy – if you need domains registered, consider namecheap.

Chris Langan, one of the world’s smartest people, has a fractal-like uber meta-theory: the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU), and a website to help explain it, CTMU.org.

Some interesting CTMU links:

• Introduction to the CTMU
• Teleologic Evolution
• Mega Foundation’s MegaInternational.org
• Q&A with Chris Langan

As this occupation of Iraq was never actually declared a war – President Obama’s statement is reflecting the fact that the United States’ “Authorization to use military force” in Iraq has expired, and the US is now simply strategically occupying it with its massive “embassy” in central Baghdad (the world’s largest), and its ghost town remote bases.  Of the over 500 camps the US military has created, built, or occupied in Iraq, only four remain, or less than 1 percent (0.79%).

Obama took office with 150,00 troops in country and as many (or perhaps more) contractors, now his administration claims less than 10,000 troops remain.  ”After near 9 years, our ‘war’ in Iraq ends this month.  Today I’m proud to welcome, Prime Minister Maliki, the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant, and democratic Iraq.”

Smoke and mirrors

Much of this rests on semantics, and just what one counts as a “troop” – foreign invaders, occupiers, trainers, or contractors may all be not counted as a “troop”, yet to someone living in Iraq, their country remains invaded and occupied.  The US will attempt to say that only a few thousand “troops” remain in Iraq, yet the “embassy” in central Baghdad has a staff of over 16,000 – as Bill O’Reilly says, “Ya can’t explain that!”  It is not easy to locate a current count of “contractors” in Iraq – there are reports from 2009 which state there were over 100,000 contractors in country, in 2007 contractors were said to outnumber troops.  Of course the word “contractor” was not even mentioned in Obama’s speech today, and both the unspoken privatized war and occupation in Iraq, and the sectarian civil war continue.  Clever linguistic gymnastics are played by the government with their chosen words, when they are calling military trainers “embassy staff” to get around calling them “troops” – more smoke and mirrors.

Voting for limitless Gulag powers

On December 1st, 2011, the United States Senate, which colloquially has been referred by the American media as the “world’s greatest deliberative body” was just a few votes away from approving a new controversial amendment to the Defense authorization bill which would have allowed the government to lock up anyone it accused of being “a terrorist” for an unlimited amount of time (until the war on terror is over), without charge.  Essentially bringing the “justice” system of Gitmo to the shores of the US for American citizens.

The following 41 senators voted in favor of this amendment: (via senate.gov)

Grouped By Vote Position, with non-Republican votes in bold.

The above 41 Senators should give one a sense of just how far removed this body is from American values and the spirit under which this country was founded.  These folks essentially were in favor of returning to the feudal system of the past, with the authorities able to secret away any of its citizens – forever.

The history of this chamber of the Congress is storied at best – only added to the constitution in order to appease the slave states who knew they needed a more top-sided control over their populations.  When legislation can be stalled by a Senator from anywhere, a recipe for stagnation and obstruction seems to be created.  The equal power of all Senators dilutes the power of those states which have large populations, effectively making states with smaller populations more powerful than more populous ones, with the all too common result of preventing progressive policies from launching.  The entire premise of the Senate is against “majority rule” – for it takes a super-majority of 3/5′s (there’s that infamous slave ratio ingrained in the institution) in order to get any legislative movement from this body.  In a nearly evenly divided Senate, or in any Senate in which one ruling party or body does not control the critical amount of 60 members, a Senate which deadlocks on nearly all issues is the result.  The Senate of 2011 (the 112^th congress) consists of 51 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 47 Republicans – effectively creating a stalemate factory.

New low with victory claimed in climate “debate”

In early December of 2011, the COP17/CMP7 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Durban South Africa.  During the conference, Republican US Senator from Oklahoma James Inhofe had the audacity to proclaim that he was the lone voice in Washington DC still talking about the “myth of man-made climate change.”  Perhaps there’s a silver lining of truth in his statement, and maybe he actually is the last fool to believe man made climate change, known now as  anthropogenic global warming aka AGW, is a myth, tho that’s doubtful.  He declared victory in the Global climate change debate – his side, the conservative side of ignorance and denial, sent a clear message to the UN, in what may likely become an historic milestone quote of cluelessness:

Tossing out any remote possibility of a U.N. global warming treaty is one of the most important things we can do for the economy.

This victory is especially important today, as families in America and around the world continue to face tough economic times.

Of course Inhofe is a Republican who’s top donors are all energy companies, and of course he is backing hydrofracking and exploiting Canada’s tar sands.  By this man’s twisted logic, we’re saving ourselves and our economy by destroying that very being which sustains us.  Well, the Republicans have never really been accused of being trend-spotters, and their true religion seems to be externalization and cost externality.  Privatize profits, and socialize costs & risk.  Like children who do not have the ability to realize they must clean up after themselves, the climate deniers seem to exist on an entirely unlimited, infinite Earth – one which will happily accept any amount of pollutants we forcefully extract, burn and then re-inject into its atmosphere.  This irresponsible fallacy of limitlessness and unconnectedness may be the undoing of our species.

The new rhetoric from the scientific community is most interesting – just who and what is truly “radical” – that the executives of these oil companies go to work every day actively working on changing the chemistry of our atmosphere – profits for them, while poisoning our planet – now that is radical.

See any issues with this? Their plan to acquire it all, seems to be rather effective.

FORBES: KOCH BROTHERS NOW WORTH $50 BILLION | Forbes estimates that Tea Party petrochemical scions Charles and David Koch have a fortune of $25 billion each, making them the fourth richest Americans, behind only Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Larry Ellison. Their combined wealth of $50 billion is exceeded only by the Microsoft founder’s $59 billion fortune. Buoyed by aggressive speculative trading on volatile energy markets, the Koch brothers accumulated $15 billion in wealth since March 2010, a 43 percent increase.

via Forbes: Koch Brothers Now Worth $50 Billion | ThinkProgress.

Related Koch brothers info: ever the masters of externalism, it should be no surprise that according to this NRDC report on toilet paper ”green-ness” the Koch Brothers’ toilet papers (Georgia Pacific brands: Angel Soft, Quilted Northern, Soft ‘n Gentle amongst others) are among the least environmentally friendly brands of tissue.