May 2007

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Center for International Earth Science Information Network (Monday, 5/14/07)
Somebody who apparently misunderstood the issues recently remarked that humanity was in danger of damaging the Sun. No, so far as we know, there is nothing that human beings can do at this point that will in anyway influence the Sun. Even if, as some have suggested, we were able to send our nuclear waste into the Sun, our star would not be much affected. However, the recent efforts to send "Scotty" and Gordon Cooper's ashes into outer space should make us think several times before trying to send radioactive waste on a rocket aimed away from Earth.

Also, no matter what humans do, the Earth will continue to exist for a very long time. The question is whether or not the living part of the Earth, including humanity itself, will continue to exist much longer. Given what we know about the history of life on the planet, the odds seem to be that humanity eventually will become extinct, and that the best we can hope for is that about 1 in 100 million of us or so will become fossils--unless we are able to use our intelligence to prolong our existence on Earth or elsewhere, that is, rather than simply destroying our home, and, in the process, ourselves.

Some people actually say that they don't believe in science, which seems to be a clear indication that they totally misunderstand what science IS. It's like saying that one doesn't believe in wind or sunshine.

However, if you're interested in your home planet, including issues having to do with the interaction of humanity with its environment, Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science can be very helpful.

Haircuts are in the news again (Thursday, 5/10/07)
Sometimes it's difficult to understand how the minds of many public figures work. For instance, if you were running for president as a populist, wanting to emphasize your modest economic origins, wouldn't you want to pay the going rate for a haircut, rather than, say, $400, which you KNOW will get lots of free publicity of the kind that really won't help your purposes?

However, the work culture in Silicon Valley is different. It's where barbers make, well, maybe not house calls, exactly, but work-setting calls. Here's more from Adam Tanner in Mountain View, California.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: FDI.net (Wednesday, 5/9/07)
The World Bank has been in the news a lot lately because of efforts on the part of some member countries--perhaps mostly Germany--to get rid of its President, Paul Wolfowitz. The former U. S. Deputy Secretary of Defense pulled strings in order to get his girlfriend a big raise, but some persons speculate that Wolfowitz' enemies have been most offended all along by his earlier role in taking the U. S. into the war in Iraq.

At any rate, the World Bank has been around almost as long as Dr. Wolfowitz--both started during the early 1940s--and is likely to be continuing its development work long after its current president has moved on to other things. The Bank's FDI.net site focuses on foreign direct investment.

Attitudes are changing, but being openly gay may still limit your career (Tuesday, 5/8/07)
Former basketball star John Amaechi has told a convention of Log Cabin Republicans that he "underestimated America" after announcing that he is gay. Incidentally, the organization chose its name because Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was born in a log cabin and is closely identified with human freedom. Some members of the organization also claim that Lincoln himself was either homosexual or bisexual, although this is vigorously disputed.

At any rate, Ben Klayman and Kim Dixon report from Chicago that openly gay executives still encounter a "pink ceiling" when they come up for promotion.

Market means serving philanthropic ends (Sunday, 5/6/07)
Stephanie Strom writes about for-profit companies that have nonprofit purposes.

It's not a new idea, of course. Former NBA star "Magic" Johnson's net worth appears to be approaching a billion dollars now, and most of it has been accumulated since he left basketball. He's finding that transforming American urban neighborhoods can be highly profitable. He's been building capital by establishing extremely high-quality and comfortable facilities such as theaters and coffee shops in poor neighborhoods, while taking into account his knowledge of local cultural preferences. These facilities give people really nice places to go for recreation, while also creating high-quality jobs for young people and others from the local communities, thus relieving poverty.

Carlos Slim, now the world's second-richest man, estimated to trail number 1 Bill Gates by only $3 billion, has been skeptical of the work of the Gates Foundation. He has said that poverty can't be cured by donations. However, we would guess that Gates and Buffett would agree that successful businesses can transform economies, but probably would say that some aspects of poverty, such as disease, lie sufficiently outside the market system that they have to be addressed directly.

Did we say "only $3 billion?"

Affording to do it vs. affording not to do it (Sunday, 5/6/07)
This may go down as one of the oddest headlines of recent years: "Global warming fight is affordable, says new report." If Earth is in danger of overheating to such an extent that it becomes another Venus, no cost would be too high. In fact, far short of that, if climate change threatens the living part of the Earth, as many experts insist, no cost would be too high either, given the alternative.

While it may be a silly headline, the story itself is serious and important. Peter Spotts reports that a new United Nations report estimates that largely shutting down greenhouse gas emissions would cost only about 3 percent of the Earth's economic growth during the next twenty-three years.

As we've pointed out here numerous times over the past decade, chemistry Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann has remarked that "the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment."

The media universe undergoes transformation (Saturday, 5/5/07)
Andy Goldberg in San Francisco writes about how the ownership of many major media organizations is shifting. The news has been filled with stories about how Rupert Murdock is trying to buy Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's pursuit of Yahoo!, the bidding on Clear Channel Communications, efforts to merge the two satellite radio services, and more.

All this is happening in a radically new and rapidly evolving technical and economic environment. Print newspapers as we have known them for decades may be in a death spiral, as readership and advertising revenues plummet. Young people don't read the newspapers and most don't watch television news broadcasts either. If you're old, you may still watch one of the network TV newscasts each evening, and an examination of the commercials will tell you that the networks and their advertisers know that you and mostly people like you are watching.

Moreover, broadband Internet will soon be the preferred distribution medium for words, pictures, "radio," "television," movies, and more. Much of it will be wireless and all of it will be on-demand. Also, the technology has been leveling the playing field in ways that even Tom Friedman may not have thought of. For one thing, one or a very few individuals can easily leverage the technology now to compete with huge organizations that have been used to having enormous capitalization and staffs.

Incidentally, we saw most of this coming in the mid-1990s when we founded BraveNewWorkWorld & NewWork News and when the Internet was much smaller and far less influential than it is now. May we all live in even more interesting times.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Top 25 Web Hoaxes and Pranks (Saturday, 5/5/07)
Remember that photo that circulated around the Internet sometime ago that purported to be the last picture taken from the top of the World Trade Center? It was supposed to be a picture of a tourist with the plane in the background about to hit the building. Did you wonder how somebody managed to get the picture out of the rubble that was soon to come and on to the Internet following the collision?

It's because the picture was a hoax to begin with, and it's only one of the Top 25 Web Hoaxes and Pranks listed on this site. It's likely that you've been exposed to several of the others as well.

More mid-grade sergeants are leaving the Army (Wednesday, 5/2/07)
Several years ago, Vice President Cheney is reported to have remarked that George W. Bush would have a "consequential presidency." Most Democrats and a growing number of Republicans might exclaim now that "he had THAT right."

In fact, there is growing evidence that the current presidency could turn out to be catastrophic for its effect on the geopolitics of the Middle East, American foreign policy, the American military, and the Republican Party. Columnist George Will recently remarked on television that it took Republicans forty years to recover from Herbert Hoover, and they may be facing an even bigger problem now because of the war in Iraq.

On the other hand, even though President Bush's most outspoken opponents don't like to hear this, it may still be too early to tell. There was a time when President Truman had considerably lower approval ratings than President Bush, and the most unpopular president in American history during most of his lifetime, by far, certainly was a man named Abraham Lincoln.

Nonetheless, most Democrats, many Republicans, and lots of people who define their identities with something other than strict political party affiliation are worried. One reason that top military leaders are concerned is that the midlevel ranks of the U. S. Army are thinning, and this could have implications long after America's involvement in Iraq's civil war has come to an end somehow. Here's more from Gordon Lubold in Washington.

But, WHY? (Wednesday, 5/2/07)
Brian Bremner reports on the big competition to build the world's tallest skyscraper. The tallest one at the moment is located in earthquake-prone Taiwan, but probably not much longer. Not that they're going to move it, of course.

True, Taiwan doesn't have all that much land on which to build things. On the other hand, North Dakota's capital building is a high-rise, and it isn't because of a shortage of land. Builders probably could get sufficient volume out on the vast and sparsely populated prairie even if a building were only a foot tall.

Demonstrators hope to encourage action on immigration from Congress (Tuesday, 5/1/07)
Peter Prengaman writes from Los Angeles that a nationwide demonstration today is intended to spur Congress to take action on defining a path to citizenship for the millions of people in the United States illegally before all attention shifts to the presidential primaries.

If you think that we should simply deport all the people who are in the U. S. illegally, you should know that somebody estimated that, assuming we could locate them all, it would take a line of busses extending from Austin, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota and back down to Des Moines, Iowa to carry them, which seems to be a bit impractical.