Al Gore's Oct 29 We Campaign Webcast

I RSVPed to the webcast : http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/gorepowervote .

Here are some of the questions I submitted. ( I hope they get asked ).

- Do you think that developing China and India, as they are entering booms that America has experienced decades back, emitting a great share of the world's carbon, should be held to the same standards as the US today, or should they be allowed the same number of decades as the U.S. to stabilize its emissions as must soon start to?

- How should America react to OPEC cutting down on oil production when prices started to fall?

- Some estimates say that a hundred square miles of solar panels in high sun intensity areas such as Arizona could offset most of America's home and business energy needs when technology reduces energy lost during transportation. How do you foresee America's Big Coal and Big Oil giants letting go of their Helm?

- Both of the Presidential candidates have agreed to support off shore drilling. Obama does however argue that this is a transitional compromise that needs to be attached to a decision that adds more dependence on renewables. Do you think this is a wise compromise?

This American Life Explaining Wall Street crumblings in narrative form

If you don't know Chicago Public Radio's This American Life and you want to learn about our American economy, then hey, this podcast episode is a one a two a one to three for you!

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263

I got to learn about Credit Default Swaps and Netting and Commercial Paper and how it affects you ( um excuse me I mean 'me', heh. well you too, okay ).

My own 2 cents on a comparison of 'money' in our economies with the Internets and their linking inklings
So one thing I learned from this podcast is that because Credit Default Swaps weren't regulated ( I can't cite the law, but they referred to 1998 or 2000 legislation ), financiers were NOT required to hold reserves on them. So several hedgies ( affectionately speaking ) formed a non-transparent chain ( its members could only see one lender deep along this chain ), in which each bough Credit Default Swaps from one and sold off the risk to another. So the This American Life people made it sound dramatic, but talk about transfer of fluff and making money off of thin air!

Okay, now here's the comparison to the 'world wide web': So the gosh darn truth is that not all content on the 'net' is original. Many many blogs and even newspapers basically link off to sources and write their 2 cents about it, without really adding what they think ( yes I do that too sometimes but I try not to ). There are even some websites which are created purely to add page rank to target websites. ( Yes, when a search engine crawls/trawls the web, those sites with more 'in-links' pointing to them have 'relatively' higher Page Rank scores, hence google bombs

And there was this really complex plagiarism reported on On The Media, where Jody Rosen, a music critic at slate.com 's work was almost completely copied by a newspaper in Texas that had been copying for a while. Listen to a snippet if ye likes:



So on to my point! Isn't news aggregation so similar to the transfer of money between our banking institutions ? It's all fluff. Real estate deals re-packaging homes for other buyers to make a quick coupl'a thou? Fluff dunk. So, Goldman Sachs is supposed to become a 'non-financial' bank now right? So, yea, what exactly happens to all the asset shufflers ( selling things they don't own ) ( pardon the half-reference to Fight Club's 'buying things we don't need' but it applies t00 ). We need to get back to an economy based on stuff. And interestingly enough 'stuff' is actually a word which doesn't mean anything, contradicting the meaning here. So, we need an economy that 's based on manufactured goods, real services and advice and arts and crafts.

Gambling? Yep that's fluff too.

Strange how this Google CSRF story wasn't picked up earlier

Here's the link: http://digg.com/security/Google_CSRF_exploit.

I didn't search Digg enough I guess; maybe someone had dugg this before. The only thing anywhere close to this was from Google owns the world! Worth1k, amazing! @news-world.us.

Here's an example of what's in that 'second' link:



Check out the story at digg for more.

My message to ABC on Behalf of wecansolveit.org

When you finish reading what I wrote, please help pressure ABC to air ads other than for Big Oil, go to http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/ABC .

So if you saw recent Belmont University-hosted Presidential Debate recently and if you saw it on ABC, CBS or CNN, you would see commercials for Chevron, Exxon and those lobbying for Coal. Well, wecansolveit.org tried to push for a green energy ad to ABC, but it wouldn't budge.

Even though the ad isn't exceptionally great ( read next paragraph ), day time television needs to give opponents of Big Oil and Big Coal a chance. Otherwise, they really do people a disservice. Yes, unfortunately many people get educated by the TV these days and those ads make up some part of what people "know". That's sad, I know.



Well, I think the ad is only 30 seconds, sure, and it doesn't do enough of a service to showcase green energy. I don't think Wind and Solar by themselves are enough by themselves ( especially since Wind => coastal and the further energy is transported, the more if it is lost ) . Though, solar technology has gotten cheaper recently. Check out powerfilmsolar.com . One of their resellers, Jameco.com, offers their paper-thin and roll-able material for roughly around $100/ square foot. ( Of course you need to spend money on collecting and connecting the energy to your home's grid ). What's the power output you ask? ( if you have an 550 sq ft roof and live in NY, then I think you can get around 4 Peak Sun Hours a day and about 7kWh of energy on an average day. These people say the average home needs 8900 kWh a year, so this roof contraption can give you maybe 25-28% of your power needs? I'm using Jameco's $100/sq foot @3W panels in the numbers by the way. So yea, spend $ 55K on panels plus. And solar4power.com says even 25% of power can be lost through transfer/storage, so hmm, that 25-28% I gave may turn out to be 19% instead )

Here's what I sent ABC by the way:

To Whom it May Concern @ABC

You agree to air the Debate for as serious position as the Office of the President of the United States, where the issues surrounding how America will fulfill its Energy needs are discussed. Both Candidates plan to support Alternative Energy sources, but YOU, ABC, have decided to block the Alliance for Climate Protection's Repower America ad and instead gave BIG OIL the Spotlight.

You don't deserve to showcase another debate unless you support this ad.
-Michal