: itinerant : cravings :

What can a single company do? or, "A whole lotta carbon"

2008-12-10T18:46:00.006-05:00

I've been spending much of the past few days reviewing the CDP6 responses that include Scope 3 "indirect" emissions. As a brief backgrounder, the Scope 1, 2, and 3 terminology was adopted by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Corporate Standard, and revised as "direct" and "indirect" emissions in the ISO 14064 documents. The emissions caused by facilities owned and operated by a company are classified as Scope 1, purchased electricity and steam as Scope 2, and emissions related to a company's activities but not taking place at owned or operated facilities are Scope 3. You could therefore refer to the Scope 3 inventory as the emissions due to a company's supply chain, both upstream and downstream.

So since the GHG Protocol designated Scope 3 inventorization as optional, not all companies that report to the Carbon Disclosure Project provide those numbers - hence the reason for developing new Scope 3 guidelines. However, some companies have taken these matters into their own hands and ventured into the scary wilderness of value chain accounting. So while more than 1,700 companies worldwide are currently reporting to CDP, only about 200 are disclosing Scope 3 emissions other than the conventionals (i.e., business travel, employee commuting).

You'd expect oil & gas companies as well as vehicle manufacturers to post heavy Scope 3 figures since their products' downstream impacts fall within the Scope 3 zone. If you produce oil, and it is refined into gasoline and then combusted, all the emissions released by those processes would be included in your Scope 3. Now tell me what you think the magnitude of a single company's reach is?

How about 3.1% of total global fossil CO2 emissions? Don't overlook the word 'fossil,' because land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) emissions may amount to about 1/3 of non-LULUCF emissions, meaning 3.1 would drop with that inclusion. Since the absolute number they provide is 743 mega-tonnes of CO2, which is far under 3.1% of 28 GtCO2 (not CO2e), as per 2005, it seems as if they're doing themselves a disservice. To help put this in context, CAIT shows that South America's 2005 CO2 emissions were only about 3% of the global total - but this is all wrapped up in one company's supply chain.

So what comes next? Well, GHG management, reduction targets, and supply chain cooperation hopefully. The beauty of the Scope 3 inventory framework is in emphasizing a company's sphere of influence over its supply chain partners. While you'll have more sway with your immediate neighbors, those who directly supply to you or who directly distribute your goods, if you're large enough to make waves then all neighbors will follow. Such has been the strategy of Wal-Mart who's launched an aggressive supply chain examination to determine where the greatest GHG reduction opportunities exist. This is no simple task - imagine having to go through 65,000+ suppliers. Well, all in a day's work to "rollback the prices." I hope that their program is successful in "rolling back" the emissions as well.

Sacramento Bee Op-Ed by Phil Angelides

2008-12-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

Count a victory for the Apollo Alliance. For several years now, this coalition of organizations advocating for "green growth" to spur job creation and the expansion of renewables has been hitting the pavement with insufficient media exposure. A recent edition of the Sacramento Bee features an op-ed piece from AA Chairman Phil Angelides on why the time is right for a green economic revival.

----------

My View: New strategy to rally nation under green flag
By Phil Angelides
Special to The Bee
Published: Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008 | Page 11A

When it comes to America's financial crisis, there's plenty of blame to go around. You don't have to dig far into the toxic sludge of bad credit, soaring deficits, fiscal mismanagement and deregulation to see that all of it blends together to form a really big mess. And you don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that the financial market meltdown is a warning sign that America's economy is in desperate need of an overhaul.

Leaders of nations, just like executives of financial institutions, are responsible for understanding and responding to new market signals. And when they don't, the economies of great nations – just like the creditworthiness of corporate giants – can crumble with frightening speed.

Which brings me to the biggest emerging market opportunity of our lifetime. That is the opportunity to galvanize American technology, workers, ingenuity and courage to do something truly great – building a clean-energy, good-jobs, made-in-America economy that will power our nation in the 21st century. [...]

Climate Change Photography

2008-12-07T22:08:00.000-05:00

I came across GHG Photos tonight, a site launched at the end of October that showcases the work of six photographers who are traveling the globe to visually document the effects of climate change. While many of these shots represent 'end results,' take a look at the winners of the UNFCCC CDM Photo Contest here where users submitted photos of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects. It's not clear to me how or why the First Place finish beat out the 2nd and 3rd. Maybe it had to do with failing to deliver CERs (snare drum please).

stoking a nation's metabolism

2008-11-08T00:50:00.000-05:00

In looking for the crevices of convenience, what is your magic number? It's a flavorful perfume that wards off the ghosts of chilling thoughts and stark realizations of lives left flat, chased down ammonia corridors. What is the rational ratio that instills sense to your cosmos? Put a point on it. Put a decimal place to it. While the path to accomplishment is tortuous and often yields few rewards, you still have a driver, an M.O., some catalyst whose pulse is electric enough to spark submission. In seeking balance between the pressures of your paycheck and restoring inner equilibrium, how much should you give of yourself? Will you strive for the quiet den or the strangeness of hands on your shoulder? And this will be divulged because private inventories have become public, so public - how will you recover from the loss of those crevices of convenience? In yesteryear, it was crawling towards a gravestone with never a glance from the mourners next door. Media fucked it up. It used to be so much less demanding.

You send change to the White House and expect everything save a bill of goods, but you give him no legroom by setting tropospheric expectations. Here's to 2009 and moving forward without crushing too many souls in the process. When I close my eyes and you all disappear, what we've done makes little difference because the crises are all fictive and the same. But you demand someone else to pay your bills - of course, you were never liable - of course. If the root cause is irrational decision-making, then no rational course of action would make a difference anyway.

Will a skinny President send his nation's treadmills trundling, or do the citizens respond with Jevonsian disregard? Can laziness, physical and intellectual, be overcome by example? Will people get the measure of existence right this time?

Fecal Talk

2008-10-23T00:23:00.000-04:00

This amazing article coming from Slate, though comical and uncouth, offers excellent insight into why potty business is not just personal. Helping champion the cause of access by the rural poor to improved sanitation is Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization (WTO), and a Time Hero of the Environment for 2008. Hopefully this will give you pause before you flush and remember, if it's yellow, let it mellow - if it's brown, flush it down.

auto-tidal wave relaxed (e)motion

2008-03-31T10:18:00.000-04:00

she stares down at her shoes. (...)

she stares down at her shoelaces and watches the cracks in the sidewalk pass by. (...)

she stares down at her shoelaces and watches the cracks in the sidewalk pass by and failed to look up and see the oncoming bus. (...)

she stares down at her untied shoelaces and watches the stone cracks in the sidewalk pass by and failed to look up in time to see the oncoming bus swerve off the BKE and her shopping bag of apples and Cheerios was flung to the side as she threw out her arms in SHOCK.

OH MY GOD. You know I really should stop staring at my feet when I walk!

Deaths Come in Twos

2007-09-13T12:45:00.000-04:00

Mama always said that people die in threes.
When she watchin' some deaths on the news she says,
"I know there gonna' be another" and for awhile
I was sho she was right.

See, Mama is a God-fearing woman and if the Devil
tell ya that deaths come in twos, well then he plain wrong.
At least that what I was taught.
But I only think that twos are bettah than threes
Cuz when a man and his wife depart this life togethah,
Well, that bettah than a man, his wife, and some other man's wife.

Make sense, naw?
I feel like this, when a man dies
He takes his two feet and his two good hands
And if he ain too old, then maybe e'en two seeing eyes
So I swear this death coming in twos ain't no work a' da Devil
Cuz I think the good Lord... well He like things in pairs.

So I'za reckon to myself that when my dead soul
Ain gonna look up and see those shovels
Pouring dat dirt on toppah ma head, I hope I ain't alone
Cuz I just hope that death comes in twos and I ain the only one.
Devil or no Devil...

Re: (Week 6): Voluntary organisations should take over many functions currently performed by governments.

2007-09-13T10:33:00.000-04:00

Hello. Hello Hello....

You can't start a blog entry by tapping on the microphone and expecting the audience to wait while you find the switch. There's this ocean of pain which is swimming through my skull and it's louder than an avalanche crashing on a mezzo-soprano (FA_LA_LA_LAAAAA) and more toxic than DNT detonations in proximity. There was the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative (RRPI) which was to juggle the act of shutting down and keeping open and I sense some parallels with the 7-11 whose midnight clerk has been shot in the conundrum - but all the cash was left to remain while PARABLES oozed from his glands (it flows slower and slower as the 6 o'clock shift nears) And wouldn't you know, it's the pork rinds which were stolen? There are crimes that come in the heat of the moment, some are of the heart, some are of the intestinal tract.

Friends, regardless, was the 7-11 open or closed? And if it was open, who would be the one to serve the next customer? Hah! Not open. If it was closed, who was the one who locked the door? Hah! Not closed. Likewise, there's this psycho-babble-ish half-state where poles don't meet and Poles don't meat and ... I forgot about that purchase of neodymium magnets I was so excited about back in 3rd Watts... Adam, what about our magnets? Did they get the address wrong again and send the marked goods to another evil-PHYGISIST?- - ---
--
-

Such an irrational act, so I was looking up high [and mighty] for clarification and the only sense I got that anyone was listening appeared to descend. [doop] the giant rain clouds opened up for the 3237437th day in a row. I don't know how to cope. Honestly! My umbrella is 7' long and it's like political fanfare everytime the showers come down and the maroon circle goes up. No demonstration, no remonstration, no counteraction, nothing but bombastic bloggery with no follow-through.

I'm tired. Hello hello hello! it's the sound of every lecturer who throws pint-sized textbooks (are they dialect-ICAL dictionaries, LAH?) --- yes, who throws pint-ZISED TECKSTBUX. yes, they throw them and they throw them and I can't seem to wake up from this horrible, horrible 12,000 mile nightmare and I'm sitting on the bus, but the bus isn't moving and the conductor keeps saying ALL ABOARD! ALL ABOARD! and if anyone else hops on the floorboards will bust right through and then I'll have to Wilma Rubble my way over to North America. yabba dabba -

I'm tired of the security guards with the long-drawn faces and their walkie-talkies set to channel 4. I've got a proposal - it's gain-sharing at it's best when the computer labs are silent and dead and the hallways are silent and dead and the 7-11 when the clerk was shot and his parables spilled everywhere --- well, then that (wo)man was also silent and dead. These guards - they bear the world's weight in curled fists that land squarely on spouses chins. 1000 POINTS FOR THAT ONE CHAMP!

It's the women who abuse their men, doncha know, doncha doncha? This paradigm of global this-way that-way, this-way that-way gender violence has been all wrong. We are the generation of female-perpetrated violence and mass emasculation. So sad, he attaches patches on his back everyday just to calibrate testosterone levels. Women - this is what you have subjected the lesser sex to.

So - what have you accomplished today? I saved a powerpoint from near-collapse by pumping its gills and expecting its prongs to open up. PLEASE, PLEASE, CALL 911 --- my powerpoint is DYING!

At the end of the day all you have is an inkless pen with no readers. They left you because you make no fucking sense.

Live Earth, New7Wonders, and TreeHugging

2007-07-08T02:18:00.001-04:00

Yesterday's Live Earth event, which featured concerts on all continents in a 24-hour campaign to spread awareness about climate change, came under intense spitfire from high-profile figures. Among them, the likes of Bob Geldof, organizer of the Live Aid concerts, and other artists like Roger Daltrey and Muse, jointly accused Live Earth performers of jetting around the globe in their private planes in a hypocritical bid for public attention to spotlight energy conservation and education about climate change.

While I'll side with the critics inasmuch as recognizing the carbon emissions caused by transportation to the event (though carbon offsets were purchased in the hopes of absolving guilt for this AND the event was regionalized partially to minimize transportation) runs counter to the ethic prevailing through the event, it would be myopic to let the criticism linger and not focus on the potential long-term gains from convincing large crowds of people to modify their lifestyles and decrease their carbon footprints. Of course any large-scale campaign to affect awareness on climate change will consume natural resources; you simply have to conduct a life-cycle assessment to see whether or not there's a net improvement.

What I'm more concerned with is not juxtaposing the good intentions of concert organizers and concert-goers against the actual outcomes, but the irony with which this event was timed perfectly with the release of the NEW Seven Wonders of the World list. The new Wonders list was compiled from some 100 million votes collected by SMS and internet ballots and replaces the ancient Greek list of sites found in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

This is ironic because it's obvious how this will spike tourism numbers for countries like Jordan, Brazil, and Peru among the others as vacationers worldwide will be seeking to witness these 'wonders' first-hand. The wonder that worries me is how this is compatible with widespread calls for reducing our reliance on aviation since unless you have the good fortune of living near Agra, India, good luck on visiting the Taj Mahal and not getting there by plane. I'm certain that's what Bertrand Piccard was hinting at with his appeals for climate change awareness at the announcement ceremony before he was removed from the stage.

I'd say that the difficulty of this situation has been made more apparent to me as I was browsing through the forums at a website I otherwise respect, TreeHugger, where a most disturbing thread on the connection between veganism and climate change had been posted. While I do agree that some of us vegans tend to be a bit proselytizing when it comes to animal ethics and the reasons to become vegan, I'd say there may be good cause to bring light to the carbon emissions caused by meat consumption. So the title of the article may have been innaccurately worded (something to the extent of vegans in Hummers causing less harm to the environment than meat-eaters in Priuses), the original email solicited one of the most rancorous displays of carnivorous aggression I've seen for some time. Honestly, we're not asking you to launch into why you love meat, why the animals are here for your well-being, why you think that biologically we're constructed to consume meat, etc. - we've heard it all before too many times to count, but I would appreciate you stepping down from your ivory tower for one moment to simply consider how your dietary choices affect the land from where your food comes. Not to do this because you are a thoughtful human, but because you are a self-branded 'environmentalist' spending your time tooling through the TreeHugger forums. The failure and unwillingness for even meat-eating environmentalists to be self-reflective and consider their personal impact means we'll never make it to 2050 without exceeding 550ppm.

Google and Intel Lead Climate Change Initiative

2007-06-27T12:42:00.000-04:00

Technology Group Seeks to Save Power
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
Published: June 13, 2007 - New York Times
Google and Intel are leading a consortium of major technology companies in an effort to sharply reduce the amount of power wasted by personal computers and servers. In a separate development, Intel is expected to cut prices on some of its higher-end processors in July to make room for new power-saving chip technology expected in the second half of the year. (more...)

Our objective is to come up with a comprehensive list of objectives...

2007-06-12T10:54:00.000-04:00

Twenty-three candidates crowd the playing field today. Twenty-three... like the nameless rage which for years cleared the courts for showmanship and bat cracking and now primary ballot dropping. It's time to get an objective and we haven't months to spare. Rhetoricians may have overtaken Berkeley's commencement exercises, but rhetoricians will never assume Capitol Hill Kingship. See, the former had substance.

Tomorrow is t + 1 month. My world's grown infinitely more acronymized and I swore this defied the possible. Your United E-Fares email includes the most recent list of discount domestic fares! O'Hare and Laguardia and BWI are so far away -- they are the distance of all cars floundering in Sao Paulo traffic, stacked back to back in a line to reach into the dorms of Columbia University with the grasping power of Inspector Gadget's Claw, retracting and peacefully setting you down onto tropical soils with frangipani-laced ears. shhh, everything soon becomes clean and the sand washes away the.. the... dirt.

Today is t + 1 month - 1 and a descent into pitiful games of name-dropping and skirt-twirling to demonstrate we've really made it now. Now there's no time for personal pursuits, no time for development - no time to even consider how it feels when the soul is dissolved and you melt slowly into your leather-backed chair thinking how great it is to be no one at all, but this creature, this odd fuckup of synaptic impulses that magically came together in some mysterious event that's really no more curious than the 300 million receptors in Mr. Snail's nerve center -- he happily downs the beer in your MIT examining room.

There's blood that drips steadily from the ceiling, but no one lives upstairs. They moved a long time ago and you remember this keenly because they stole the furniture you wanted for yourself. If you could slime yourself up there past the crimson pool you'd forget you ever saw anything. Such is the trend when you're living for self-preservation.

My objectives are always up for revision. I think about that everytime I hand out a business card my money never purchased. My money doesn't purchase anything anymore. Definitely not a clean conscience about profit-driving or ODA. I still want to figure this out -- the analyticals weren't cut out for this world, never were. Not since they killed off Socrates and the rationality buried beside him.

loneliness is an art in the making

2007-04-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

[from 19 oct 2005]

pleas(e) sent heaven-bound,
held up at nimbus gates
with neither turnaround
nor change in mental states.

prayer is as senseless
for the anointed
as it is for people like

us.

i wait and wait for some
e-communi-
que?
coronary ribbons separated,
teased out
tussled and tossed.
why be great and unhappy
when i could be weak
and wonderful?
why wait for the imminent
when i can craft
the end
myself?
why the curly bracket upon
the period that should provide
closure, hugging the bend
in a space
that should not even exist
{ ? }

loneliness is my given
depression is my downfall
understanding is my injection.

Ha Noi

2007-04-18T23:33:00.000-04:00

Viet Nam, May 4th - May 10th.

January was skipped...

2007-02-13T22:29:00.000-05:00

...and February is half-dead with ambitions that the New Year fuelled, but the new year killed. Malaysia is only days away, but contingent valuation, and West Point discipline, and Fuzzy Set theory are here right now. Daily postings will keep me on my toes. This blog's become no poetry, and all prose...

the point of being anywhere

2006-12-14T15:35:00.000-05:00

...an elongated, existential ramble down rue Velasquez in a far too accessible pocket of Paris . . . i hastened my pace in the direction of 'home' because i was too troubled with what to do, what not to do, what to avoid and what to follow. so, what is the point of being anywhere? why read when you won't remember the content? why question when there's no independent validation of your response? i was wondering today, when can the phenomenology of 'being in love' be validated? when can i rip out of this skin and partake of someone else's experience to ensure that my bearings are correct, that my reactions are justifiable, that these sensations are not as foreign as expected. remember when we were kids and we would share with our parents about how it felt to be rejected, to find joy, to taste of disappointment? their words were so sobering that it seemed as if they were quietly dismissing our experience. only in time and maturity was it understood that what we endured was nothing novel, nothing to boast/shout about. what are the concerns of a teenager to an adult with mortgage payments and job insecurity? only in time is this thoroughly understood.

thanksgiving cannot be deterritorialized

2006-11-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

it is geographically bounded and exclusive to a specific place and people and quickly forgotten once those borders are left behind. paris cannot bridge the distance, asia cannot bridge the distance, and the inability of email to recreate family reunions will also fail to bridge the distance spanned between intensive farming and the divine meal that hides slaughter. happy belated-thanksgiving to those outside the nation-state, to those who are beyond the pull of soft and structural powers and immune to a nationalism that bundles together Mother Goose's diffuse flock in the name of some unitary existence: a mere facade for the perplexity and complexity of hegemonic identity. i didn't do all this..., but strangers are none the wiser, and friends wiser than none. you are left alone in this sordid contemplation which shakes no mountains free of dandruff nor returns plastic bags to their mesozoic roots. you are put powerless in this place when all that can be done is pass.. more... policy...

Stealing from a thesis on the analytics of love...

2006-10-25T10:54:00.000-04:00

Some recent conversations have indicated that analytical philosophy and this amorphous word, 'love,' will make reasonable bedfellows. Passion/intimacy/infatuation/Agape -- meet Occam's Razor. The analytics of love is a rationalist project that strives to unite 'love' and reason on adjacent pillows, beneath ochre sheets, and upon the bedsprings of sensibility and objectivity. Literature may prove it's the first encounter for this cumbersome duo, at least as far as the analytical scalpel cuts, but it's a field whose expansion could yield immeasurable benefits.

The goal is this: tossing out preconceptions of 'love' which are modeled on irrational and undersubstantiated grounds of reference. If 'love' is a commodity (buy-able, saleable, and fully transferrable) whose efficient distribution is forecast by neo-liberal logic, then the invocation of any tariffs/regulations/protectionist measures/or other barriers to trade will result in inefficiency and net economic loss. Remember: make the pie grow and everyone can have a larger piece. The problem is that some people can't stop at one slice.

So the doling out of love in return for payments (be they kinetic, spatio-temporal, or merely fiscal) will ideally be judged on rational grounds that accord a dependent variable with appropriately chosen independent variables. If our dependent variable, L, at time t is a function of log($) at time t [implicit assumption of non-linear bling-bling effect] and I (intelligence), A (aesthetic merit), S (socialization acumen), T (tennis prowess), and MMS (muffin-making skills) if and only if (IFF) all variables are t-tested as significant at the 1% level. We have attempted more forgiving margins of error, but the danger of making a Type 1 error is drastically more heinous than a Type 2. So boys and girls, please check your functional form before concluding your regression.

Our great mates to the south, Emperor Penguins, had been the Christian masthead of serial hetero-monogamy. That was until the chinstrap penguin couple Roy and Silo were shacking up in Central Park and eroding Republic heteronormative moralizing over the animal kingdom. Scrappy's migration from San Diego ruined everything, but showed that even penguins know no scarcity of love. New loves will enter our lives, and old ones will exit. But while it's convenient to say that the width and breadth of love can know no finitude, we must fan ourselves back down from the Olympian clouds and remember that love hesitates to forgive, to resolve, and to move on. Imagine an infinitude of resentment, rejection, and betrayal because we delivered our love too freely.

We must be true to ourselves and claim the rights and privileges inherent in this market of love. If your FDI outflows exceed your own net worth, then you deserve more return on your emotions! Competition too high? Devalue your currency and attract capital investment! Worried about the downsides of autarky? Privatize, decentralize, and deregulate yourself to improve comparative advantage! Just remember, if you want to make your own black beans, you must intensify production and give incentives to the black-bean makers. The same applies to love. When you want the satisfaction of attention from members of the fair sex, you must strategize, capitalize, and aim to monopolize.

In conclusion (not nearly), further attention must be devoted towards natural 'scientizing' love with a potent force of analytical rigor and finesse. Then we might come closer to accepting our own inclination to rationalize love as an amalgam of characteristics and social conditions which weigh into the decision of whom to procreate with, how often, and for how long. And as Roy and Silo have demonstrated, let us not delude ourselves into believing that the answer to 'how long' is a given.

Ghast Haus 5

2006-10-23T21:50:00.000-04:00

we have finally found someone to provide us with professional-enough flyers, so I'm thankful for the big improvement over previous ones. this time we'll be playing on Saturday night starting at 11pm. tell your friends, tell your grandparents, and tell your cousins twice-removed it's in their best interest to stroll by Middle Road for some quality industrial/EBM fun for the whole family. either take a cab to The Gas Haus to 114, or huff it from the Bugis MRT station off of Victoria Street.

Ghast 3 at Gas Haus, 9.21.06

2006-09-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

Covenant - Dead Stars
Neuroticfish - Darkness/Influence
God Module - Evolve
Flesh Field - Inside
Destroid - Passion
Birmingham 6 - Israel
Tactical Sekt - Bring Me Violence
Implant - Drugs vs. Violence
Icon of Coil - Love as Blood
Ayria - Horrible Dream
God Module - Sections
Dulce Liquido - Antichristianos
Lights of Euphoria - True Life

next Ghast will be Oct. 5 at the Cafe Bar (Gas Haus), 14 Middle Road, near Bugis MRT
more info? anthonyd@nus.edu.sg

'if Davos is Mt. Everest...

2006-09-16T15:46:00.000-04:00

then the Raffles Forum is Bukit Timah.' - Kishore Mahbubani on whether or not the Raffles Forum seeks to be the World Economic Forum of the East

Larry Summers, current President Emeritus of Harvard University, in describing the dynamism of a global economy discussed how two Stanford PhD drop-outs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, would later construct a business empire, Google, to overshadow the combined worth of three industries, aerospace one of them. This statement was believable enough and some argued that aerospace has been in decline -- therefore it's plausible that Google is larger than the three.

In actuality Google is worth around $4 billion (US) while the aerospace industry recorded net sales in 2005 of around $180 billion. My point herein is manifold. One component is the absence of proper fact-checking. The claim that a single company's revenue is higher than an entire industry's should arouse skepticism, let alone a comparison against three major industries. Maybe some research assistant fed him something about the Google empire approaching a net worth of $500 billion as the result of some financial misinterpretation. I mean, chalking on extra zeros is easy, we've all done it. I just hope not on your tax returns. That others were not as arrested by this declaration was the second component. I mean, he's Larry Summers --- the man had a tenured post at Harvard by 28. Don't dare question him! And just who are you to think he's wrong?

It's the cult of authority. It happens after reaching a social stature that exempts you from the doubt of lesser minds. Confine them to the blogosphere (how I dread that word) and obscure journals. In the meantime podium stands and business class fares wait for you. But even geniuses err and should be held accountable as such. It's easy to issue this commentary from the comfort of a keyboard and easy GOOGLE access, but all public speakers should be grilled for making ludicrous claims like his. Even ex-Presidents of Ivy League universities.

the following is taken from the September 15th issue of Malaysia's The Star

Top brains meet to debate issues

SOME of the world’s best brains are in town to chew on some of the world’s thorniest problems.

From yesterday, men and women whose ideas rewrite rules, corporate jetsetters who invest millions and reap billions, and influential policymakers whose inflections – not just words – are scrutinised for meaning converge at two back-to-back seminars.

The first, the Raffles Forum, organised by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy, will engage a star-studded cast on the school’s natural territory: good governance. It will be the first of what is to become an annual forum.

Nobel laureate Prof Amartya Sen, an economist, kicked off the two-day discussion yesterday, with his perspective on how governments may evolve to run a tighter-knit world spinning ever faster, thanks to the IT revolution.

Prof Sen, who challenged the common notion that food shortage is the major cause of famines, is known for his work in welfare economics.

The acts to follow are likely to be as delectable to the intellectually-hungry. For a start, Paul Volcker will speak on the role of the state in financial markets, leveraging on his well-remembered turn as chief of the US Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987.

Li Rongrong, China’s top official in a body that runs the state’s corporate assets – the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission – will weigh in on the question of privatisation. At another session, an official from oil-rich Abu Dhabi, Saeed Al-Hajeri, will explain how he invests national wealth.

But the most-anticipated encounter is today when Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and noted American public finance stalwart Lawrence Summers, a former US Treasury Secretary, share the stage and their ideas on good governance.

LKY School dean Kishore Mahbubani could barely conceal his glee on the eve of the launch of the forum, which has been described as Singapore’s Davos.

In an interview on Wednesday, he said: “The biggest payoff is the spectacular launch for the annual forum. It’s hard to assemble a better group of speakers.

“I am particularly proud of the Amartya Sen session ... we start with a big bang. And of course, all the media interest will be on the Lee-Summers dialogue the next day ... we wanted to ensure we ended with a big bang.”

The forum was timed to take advantage of the Sept 13-20 IMF-World Bank annual meetings, he said, with the heavyweights present.

The customary Programme of Seminars that accompanies the annual meetings is co-organised by Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies. It has scored many firsts, said Prof Tommy Koh, the institute’s chairman.

“It’s the first programme which has a clear focus – Asia In The World And The World In Asia. The first to succeed in enlisting so many thoughtful leaders from the region,” he said.

“My hope is that, on Sept 19, my friends from the IMF and World Bank will tell me this is the best Programme of Seminars they have ever organised,” he added.

It is a sign of the times that both seminars have sessions to deal with a future in which demographics will threaten economics.

The implications of Asia’s ageing societies – shrinking labour force, slowing economies and pressures on pension, medical and long-term care costs – will be debated by a panel of experts at the programme. – The Straits Times / Asia News Network

Ghast 2 @ The Gas Haus, 9.7.06

2006-09-07T22:51:00.000-04:00

last night was much fun and for those who missed out, there's always Ghast 3 on 9.21 to look forward to.

playlist:

+ a night like this - god module
+ rain of blood - die form
+ cleanse - strand
+ space radio - t.o.y.
+ vertex - negative format
+ ascend (feat. dan xue) - headscan
+ ruptura (god mod remix) - hocico
+ better off dead - suicide commando
+ vision - funker vogt
+ lucifer's garden - evil's toy
+ kingdom - vnv nation

photos from Bethlehem Steel Factory trespassing, Part 0.5

2006-09-02T07:57:00.000-04:00

6.28.06 - a visual legacy of the one-time behemoth that fueled the industry of a growing country.

rest well, bethlehem...

on the future of identity and the rice krispy trail of completeness

2006-09-02T07:55:00.000-04:00

when the confines of the nation-state as we know it tumble down like hammer blows upon Berlin, in whose ocean will you leave me to drown? i'm waving my hands - HELLO! instead of internationalized, you've got sesenta international eyes sizing up and down, expecting an avalanche of dreamsicles and chupa chups. i thought they were a Honduran delicacy, but they're just as universal as tamarind treats and iced shavings in your morning coffee pick-up lines. soooooo, lady - do you take it black, white, or a tad bit in between? i've been indoctrinated with some racial/chromatic(al) pluralism, but all i can offer you is the homogeneity of Mamaroneck and Willow Grove and some Hillsborough-ish version of what life *should* be. i want to impose some categorical imperative, no-thought-required-surrender-your-will-at-the-hawker-stall-entrance with rows of gallus gallus de-beaked of dignity. no,

wait.

that's something i've left behind. yes, there was a flight, or maybe three.. there was white and blue and turbulence and something about the bering straits, one bastard child of adam smith skippering through the seven seas aboard titanium vessels built atop cantonment tressels. eco-terrorists gone aquamarine ballistics, we've got new bunker blasters in the works -- smoke out dem' progressives from their think tanks!! liberals are not liberals, they're just insufficiently conservative.

forget it -- "g. gallus burning down the palace" is a freaky pandemic coming to a Lee Hsiong Noodle shop near you. Ahn Chay on my lips, Ahn Chay on the beak. bocal guillotines and livery performances. what happened to the backseat confessions and midnight compassion for cardboard carrying poster-children of a failed america? i let my compassion be bound in some unorthodox rationalism. no karma, no guilt, no SWEAT! our new economy is 15 perspiration and a 75/10 mix of recycled rainwater and gastric bypass juices.

it's 2;04AM in the New World - i salute you with my dim sum