Asteroids, Tsunamis, and Drills, Drills, Drills.

By this time most people are aware that the first ever Emergency Alert System Nationwide Test  scheduled for November 9, 2011. Coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, this test is occurring at the same time Asteroid 2005 YU55 will be passing between the moon and the earth. Fortunately, the asteroid is not supposed to make contact with either the earth or moon.

However, I found the following comment posted by a former NASA employee quite interesting.

In addition, the United Nations has scheduled a massive tsunami drill (below),  not to mention, over 200 agencies are involved - including the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, TSA, National Guard, members of the health care community, and local police and first responders for a total of 8,000 people - in a drill that will simulate a devastating nuclear bomb being detonated in the heart of the capital city of Arizona.

Exercise Pacific Wave 11

PacWave11 will be held on 9-10 November 2011 as a multi-scenario exercise that will allow all PTWS countries to exercise using a destructive local or regional tsunami scenario. PacWave 11 will also be used to introduce new tsunami advisory products of the PTWC that were proposed by the PTWS Enhanced Tsunami Warning Products Task Team and approved by ICG/PTWS-XXIV. IOC Circular Letter 2390 was issued on 13 May 2011 announcing the exercise and requesting PTWS Countries to nominate a PacWave11 focal point. IOC Manual and Guides 58 on How to Plan, Conduct, and Evaluate Tsunami Exercises was issued in July 2011. The PacWave11 Exercise Manual (IOC TS 97) was published in August 2011. UNESCO will issue a press release on 1 November 2011.

Links:

A Pacific Wide Tsunami Warning and Communication Exercise 9-10 November 2011 Exercise Manual

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As the Revolving Door Spins.

Not even months ago, Republican, Meredith Attwell Baker, a top telecommunications regulator from the FCC voted to approve the merger of Comcast and NBC, creating the very company that she’ll be lobbying for later this summer, as senior vice president of government affairs for NBCUniversal. That's right. This "public servant"  is cashing in on her vote.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV company, bought a controlling interest in NBCUniversal after the FCC and the Justice Department approved the deal with conditions following a year-long review. The FCC's vote was 4-1.

Of course, this type of behavior is nothing new coming from an agency that conducts much of its business off the record and away from public view.  Plenty of FCC commissioners have gone on to work for multinational media conglomerates, propped up with inside knowledge of the regulatory and lobbying industry. However, what's more surprising is just how blatant this move was.

The Obama administration’s ethics rules will prevent Baker from lobbying the FCC directly for the next two years, but she is free to lobby Congress whenever she wants to start ensuring Comcast can continue to monopolize the market in order to keep Americans paying ever increasing amounts for  telecommunication services. Craig Aaron, head of the public interest group Free Press, called the move an example of "business as usual in Washington — where the complete capture of government by industry barely raises any eyebrows." 

According to one former Comcast employee:

"Right after Comcast finalized that deal to buy NBC they let over 1000 employees go and I was one of them...nice way to say thank you for over 11 years of hard work to be kicked to the curb and we were told we were NOT allowed to say anything negative about Comcast either or they would come after us.

What is required of  Comcast?  Well, in lieu of more than 80 million Americans still going without broadband Internet service at home, Comcast has stepped up to the plate to substantially increase broadband adoption in low-income homes throughout Comcast’s service area.   

"In households in Comcast’s service areas with annual incomes below $20,000, broadband adoption rates are at approximately 40 percent. More than a quarter of those homes include students who are eligible for free lunches under the National School Lunch Program (“NSLP”), a commonly accepted indicator of need. (Qualifying homes have annual incomes of less than 130 percent of the poverty level.)"

In the end, the revolving door between the official entities that are supposed to regulate the various industries and the lobbying companies continue to spin on behalf of industry, and gratuitous tax giveaways to the wealthiest go on without interruption.  Meanwhile the erosion of the support structure for American citizens carries on, as those with all the authority to effect policy go unchecked.



Links:

FCC Looks to Revise Ex Parte Rules - How Much Public Disclosure is Necesary When Lobbying the FCC?

FCC Proposes Changes to Ex Parte Lobbying Rules

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Fake Net Neutrality & Keeping the Illusion of Democracy Alive and Well.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is bringing new, "industry-written" "net neutrality" rules, that he's kept secret until the last possible moment, to a five-member panel, tomorrow, for a vote.  Are we supposed to believe that these rules - supposedly aimed at preventing the nation’s cable and Internet service providers from interfering with the empowering, open-to-innovation, leveling-the-playing-field nature of the internet - are real?   

Are we supposed to believe that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's "compromise", kept from the knowledge of any but the privileged isn't just another pretense to freedom of expression and freedom of thought? Pretense to "democracy"?

Well, since the nation's cable and telecommunications companies are pleased by the new rules, and they are signaling their support for Genachowski’s compromise deal,  the answers to the aforementioned questions should be fairly clear.

Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota, called this issue "the most important free speech issue of our time", and, along with many other public interest and free speech groups, "slammed the rules as woefully inadquate to protect the public from the privations of an industry keen on turning the internet into a cyber-version of cable TV, with tiers and premium packages affordable by the wealthy."

This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.

The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.

That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.

Once again, the government is intervening in ways that redistribute income, wealth, and opportunity upward. However, once that starts to become apparent, their actions will be cleverly disguised as the natural working of the free market, therefore, in our best interest.

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Founding Fathers Sanction Open Source Society

No, the Founding Fathers have not come back to life - although if they did, they wouldn't last long after witnessing what's left of the Constitution - however, their writings and example send a clear message on the topic of "open access".

Some proprietary companies claim and will continue to claim that open source or open access is communist or anti-American. The Founding Fathers would have claimed the opposite, as they had definite opinions on the free flow of information and remained very skeptical about copyright laws. They would cringe at the idea of extending copyright as we do today, as it creates monopolies and offers no public benefit. Consider the greatest inventor of all time, Benjamin Franklin, who never patented a thing he invented.

Almost 240 years ago, a good friend of Ben Franklin, Joseph Priestly, illustrates this point further. Primarily famous for figuring out that plants create "good air" therefore replacing the air animals consume, Priestly proved to be revolutionary in more fields than one - in particular, science, religion, and politics - and far more influential than he was given credit.

According to Steven Johnson, author of "The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America" Priestly is "the missing philosophical link between our founding fathers." Priestly greatly influenced the Founding Fathers including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, who Priestley wrote to after his discovery of "good air" and with whom he had a collaborative and intellectual relationship.

"That the vegetable creation should restore the air which is spoiled by the animal part of it, looks like a rational system." -- Ben Franklin responding to Priestly

Years later, after Priestly accepted a job as a minister, he moved into a temporary residence adjacent to a brewery, to await the house he was supposed to move. While there, he noticed a haze coming off the brewing beer and upon further investigation, discovered carbonation, hence his discovery of soda water. He immediately published the recipe for his new invention without thought to profit, as Steve Johnson writes, "The idea of proprietary secrets, of withholding information for personal gain, was unimaginable in that group." Of course, years later, in 1783, Johann Schweppe patented the process, which continues to provide "personal gain" through today.

Ben Franklin said the following regarding the subject of open access after he invented the Franklin stove:

I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. -- Ben Franklin

The idea behind the Founding Father's thinking was that the free flow of ideas and information foster the growth of original thought, and as Ben Franklin said, attract the attention of genius who can improve upon and solve problems half understood.

Fast forward to the last Presidential campaign. Obama used open source software and McCain used proprietary software. With proprietary, society gets the soda water, and with open source or open access, society gets soda water and the recipe for the soda water. President-elect Obama's tech agenda seems to support the latter. His choice of Julius Genachowski to chair the FCC is at the very least, an improvement. So, even though the first stab at a Broadband Bill is disappointing, it appears that net neutrality, open source and a more level playing field just might have a chance.

"We can’t allow a system of gatekeepers to get built into the network. The Internet shouldn’t be harnessed for the profit of a few, rather than the good of the many; value should come from the quality of information, not the control of access to it." -- Damian Kulash Jr. lead singer of OK Go

Some Open Source links:

Open sustainability camp

Open source car

Open source comes to medical instruments.

Software industry vs. software society

Open Democracy - aims to build the open source model for news analysis and opinion

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