Thursday, March 16, 2006

Wired series on climate change - Part I Wired: "The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that unchecked growth in fossil fuel use throughout the next half-century will produce a global climate catastrophe. "To get a handle on the crisis -- and our options -- Wired News spoke with the authors of three new, comprehensive books on global climate change. "Kicking off this series is Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum and biologist at the University of Adelaide. His new book, The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth (Grove Atlantic) is one of the best and most readable popular books on the subject. "Next week, meet environmentalist Lester R. Brown, who in January published the second edition of his acclaimed 2003 planetary prescription, Plan B. The series wraps up the following week with Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 7:34:57 AM

Plan B? Mike Littwin weighs in on the morning after pill in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News. He writes, "I think I finally get it. It isn't just gay sex they don't like. It's all sex. "It's not just teen sex. It's adult sex. It's sex outside of marriage, inside of marriage, outside the house, inside the house, under the covers, over the covers, 4 feet over the covers. "It's sex leading to bestiality. And, yes, it's sex without involving even a single act of cross-species necking. "How else do you explain the loud objections to the latest version of the emergency-contraception bill making its way through the legislature? "Some will tell you it's about abortion. Certainly all the fighting sounds very much like another battle in the abortion wars. "It's not - any more than gun control is about banning water pistols. "Plan B, the emergency contraception pill in question, is, in fact, a birth control pill. It's a heavy dose of the same kind of birth control pills millions of women take daily. "It is not an abortion pill. "It is not the RU-486 pill. "It's the morning-after pill, the second- chance pill, the pill you take after sex that can prevent an unintended pregnancy - and, ironically, the need to make a choice about abortion. "It's called Plan B, because it assumes your Plan A didn't work. It's the pill you take when the condom broke, or when you were drunk, or when you didn't plan at all. "Or when you were raped or when you were a victim of incest. "The faster a woman gets the pill, which can work for as long as 72 hours after sex, the more likely it is to prevent a pregnancy. That's why the bill, which has passed the House, allows pharmacists to prescribe the two-dose medicine. It can be difficult, after all, to find a doctor at 2 a.m. "Is it safe? Advocates say it's safer than aspirin. The Colorado Medical Society favors the bill. The Colorado Pharmacists Society favors the bill. The Colorado Gynecological and Obstetrical Society favors the bill." Category: 2008 Presidential Election 7:18:15 AM

Internet neutrality Qwest CEO, Richard Notebart, comes down on the wrong side of Internet Neutrality in this article from Computer Business Review Online. From the article, "The concern of virtually all the major web companies is that net neutrality regulation is required to stop operators from charging for faster content delivery or favoring certain content over others, which they argue would have chilling business effect... "But Notebaert yesterday pledged that in the absence of neutrality regulation, Qwest would not block services or access, and there would be no degradation of quality for non-prioritized content. "'I don't think we ought to be blocking anything and we're not going to be blocking anything with our company,' he said, which elicited scattered applause by fewer than a dozen people. "Existing legislation is no way an impediment to the way people utilize the internet, he said. 'It does not mean that your company cannot reach commercial agreements to provide you with the services that enhance your commercial position,' he said. "After all, customers have always been able to pay for enhanced services, such as faster broadband, he said. "INotebaert likened the ability for operators like Qwest to sell enhanced content services as a clothier offering free expedited delivery of sweaters during the holiday season in order to win customer business. 'The provider is willing to pay the difference, how can that be a problem in the commercial space?' "In other words, content providers should also be allowed to pay for enhanced online delivery service as a competitive advantage over its peers who don't want to sell that service, he said. 'That's what it's all about. Everybody is trying to get a little bit of differentiation.'" Of course the argument is fallacious. He describes an Internet that serves only business interests. There are many using the Internet that are not trying to monetize it. For example, the millions of weblogs that do not run advertising, nor are their publishers employed to write. We technologists are extremely wary of the government and the telcos doing the right thing and keeping a pledge not to block access. Most of us remember the slap on the hand that Microsoft received from the DOJ after they were found guilty of abusing their monopoly. Over and over again the argument against the action hinged on the statement, "The government should not pick the winners." That applies to Notebart's company as well. Category: 2008 Presidential Election 6:36:28 AM

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