If you want to feel your heart sink in your chest, consider the forecast above shows the Deepwater oil flow is expected to round Cuba and the tip of Florida and head north into the Atlantic, within a week or so, and think of the Keys to the Future. The current progress of the flow of oil from the Deepwater drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is following the forecast worst case expectations - and the amount of oil being spilled seems to be at the worst case level - and the efforts to stop the leak are nearly at worst case conditions... changing daily. This means Florida is in deep trouble, and oil will be flowing up the Eastern Atlantic coast next week.

I turned my Nexus One to Pandora tonight to stream some free music while I work. It launched to my Pere Ubu radio and the first track that played seems so fitting for this week - "Chinese Radiation". I just heard Pere Ubu play it live at their performance of Modern Dance, at the Beachland, but I can't find any place to stream the song to you from on-line... here is a sample on Pandora - so you will have to just read the lyrics below and imagine the rest of the tune in your head... the song does not remain the same, but the story does, 32 years since 1978... buy Modern Dance:

He'll be the red guard
She'll be the new world
He'll wear his grey cap
and she'll wave her red book
He'll tell her
One way?
I want you all ways
One way

Free Download — whitehouse — May 01, 2010 — President Obama speaks at the 2010 University of Michigan commencement ceremony in Ann Arbor, MI.

Below is the text President Obama's speech at the University of Michigan Commencement, as prepared for delivery.

It is great to be here in the Big House, and may I say "Go Blue!" I thought I'd go for the cheap applause line to start things off.

Good afternoon President Coleman, the Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, and the class of 2010. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor to be a part of it. And let me acknowledge your wonderful governor, Jennifer Granholm, your mayor, John Hieftje, and all the Members of Congress who are here with us today.

I try hard to ignore what folks at Cleveland City Hall and City Council do, day to day, their performance is so depressing. I just expect the worst and hope that won't harm my children. So I have not been following the odd trade missions Jackson's people have apparently been making to the Far East lately (when, on what Fundation's dime, why) cutting odd long-term deals with Chinese lighting companies promising to bring clean jobs to America (does "clean jobs" even translate into Chinese?). Jackson... 10 year deal... "Far East" trade mission... Sunpu-Opto... yeah, right. I like touring China too... sounds well worth the effort?!?! 77% of Clevelanders did just re-elect Jackson, and the Foundations and PD love the man, so let it ride...

But then I noticed GE has attacked the Mayor for his jet-setting wheeling-dealing economic development ways and I realized I'm not alone in this backwater slum of East Cleveland noticing what a mess Jackson and his cronies are making of the region and world, now that he has gone global. Some important people like the shareholders at GE are starting to care.

Join Phil Metres and Robin Pease-Kerr for an evening of poetry, stories and discussion Saturday, May 22nd at 7:30 pm.

Location

Source: Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index

Ceridian reported today the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index™ (PCI) fell 0.3 percent in April, suggesting the economic recovery may have stalled. "The latest PCI numbers are disappointing and cast considerable doubt on the strength of the recovery and the strength of GDP numbers for 2010," said Ed Leamer, the PCI's chief economist. Five of the nine US census regions were weak in April. With a decline of 1.7 percent, the PCI in Ohio's East North Central region fell the most.

The ICEarth Welcome Wagon stopped by Sansai Environmental Technologies this weekend to tour the world's largest indoor vermitechnology facility and meet Cleveland's greenest, meanest, fighting machine - the 60 million worm team bringing the world "Magic Dust". See Sansai for more information on their amazing processes and products... here are some pictures of their crib, right in the heart of South Collinwood - Cleveland - Ohio.

The variance appeal for treehouse to expand has been withdrawn, due to the support, unity and vigilence of concerned residents, businesses and political organizations. We now have a grand opportunity to create a most unique greenscape in the heart of tremont. A format for the neighborhood which both residents and businesses can share in pride without adding to the parking congestion of the neighborhood and further solidifying  it as a vibrant , progressive and sustainably oriented neighborhood. A win win situation for all.

IT Update - Change To Blog Submission Form - Promote Your Own Pages To Home, If Authorized

In response to problems with some real coop members posting content on realNEO that is harmful or objectionable to other members, and some members abusing the coop trust structure, it has been found advisable to change how content is promoted to the home page of realNEO. In the past, all content has automatically been promoted to the home page for all members, regardless of content. Now, when you post your content, you must select to post it to the home page yourself, if authorized - you will see that option available to you in the last section of the blog (and other content type) submission form - "Publishing Options"... check "Promoted to front page". If you have been asked not to promote your content to the home page, please respect that request and leave this option unchecked. Otherwise, check this option to send your content to the home page as usual.

Scary But True: No One Really Knows Exactly How Much Oil Has Leaked From The Deepwater Horizon

Scary But True: No One Really Knows Exactly How Much Oil Has Leaked From The Deepwater Horizon

We are still at an early stage in awareness of issues surrounding the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including the amount of oil flowing from the spill daily and the effectiveness of efforts to stop the flow of oil and clean-up the mess - below are some of the latest estimates and updates as reported by various sources. Most interesting now is the forecasting of how all this oil - best or worst case - will travel through the gulf and ocean currents and impact nature and so all else on Earth. The best modeling of this I have seen is by the The College of Marine Science - USF, Ocean Circulation Group, which maintains a coordinated program of coastal ocean observing and modeling for the West Florida Continental Shelf (WFS) - you may see their models animated with projections through May 8 in the links below. For an excellent article on the anticipated impacts on Florida of this oil spill, I have also included part of an article from the LA Times, with link to that - these seem to be the latest accurate reflections on this horrible situation, as of May 4.

On April 29, 2010, EPA proposed a set of regulatory proposals under the Clean Air Act that address emissions from boilers, process heaters, and certain solid waste incinerators. These rules would significantly cut emissions of pollutants that are of particular concern for children. Mercury and lead can cause adverse affects on children's developing brains -- including effects on IQ, learning, and memory. The rules would also reduce emissions of other pollutants including cadmium, dioxin, furans, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid. These pollutants can cause cancer or other adverse health effects in adults and children. Together, these rules would cut mercury and other air toxics emissions from nearly 200,000 units across the U.S.

Music video by The Clash performing Rock The Casbah.
(C) 1982 SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (UK) Limited

One report I read today estimates that an Exxon Valdez worth of oil may be spilling into the Gulf of Mexico every two days, 50 miles off the shores of Louisiana, in what is in my mind the worst environmental catastrophe (besides war) in human history - and that may continue for months (no end in sight, at all). All happening 2 miles under some of the most treacherous seas in the world - I've known deep rig divers to confirm that - and they don't even know what caused this blowout. Bottom line, a huge area of the Gulf of Mexico and its shorelines are now probably dead for our lifetimes and generations to come, if not forever. Where the oil will invade beyond is to be determined by Mother Nature, in response. Man shook the Etch-a-sketch of the environment for eternity in an area spanning many states and international boundaries... ending the global sustainability movement forever.

It's 1969 all over again... America's rivers are burning... time for the punks to take charge!

I was driving through one of my favorite neighborhoods in the world yesterday and noticed a rare and important thing has taken bloom there - in University Circle - this Spring - Phase II of the Cleveland Museum of Art expansion is already visible and suddenly the seemingly-boxy, incomplete Rafael Viñoly transition has taken new bloom - and a roof.

Just some I-beams so far... ?!?! Not at all.

ICEarth Bigbang computers, our Linux distro, and our optimal open source data and application configurations are designed to handle the most processor (CPU and GPU), memory and transaction intensive challenges in the world, to save Earth. Doing that requires an integration of our regional and global geographic information systems with layers of valuable insight not yet integrated, like environmental, atmospheric and topographic data, to drive analyses of life impacting factors in our neighborhoods like environmental fallout from all sources of pollution, to the home and child, for free to them. A good explanation of the type of data and analyses included in such capabilities is described below, helping you make sense of what just doesn't make sense, by doing things like growing GRASS...

I received an email with breaking news and these photographs from a realNEO field reporter - I'll let her file her story later...

Norm. I shot a few pics in the last 30 mins of marchers as they marched from clark down Fulton. Their chant: "If you are not Native American, you are an immigrant. Boycott AZ. Because I am Latino does not make me illegal. Because I am an alien, I am not unworthy"!

Can you post it for me if you think that it looks ok?

I am not the best photographer.

I am also attaching a shot called "urban yard"

While I have never considered Issue 1 - the Third Frontier - offered me direct opportunity, as an Information Technology entrepreneur I do recognize this relatively low-burden, low-exposure state funding offers great opportunities for many other important technology initiatives across Ohio. The results are well documented by the well organized supporters of Issue 1 - see their message posted below - and I certainly expect this will pass by a large majority (if not, I will be shocked). Assuming this passes, I'd like to see changes in the processes for how Third Frontier money is used in the future, as I believe all our processes in the state and region must become brighter and greener. But we can't try to accomplish that without this funding being available for the technology sector. I'll vote for Issue 1, and then become active making sure the money has as great an impact as possible - results so far provide a good foundation. I recommend you do the same... see the official story below:

I've been asked what our traffic looks like over time, so I pulled a few quick charts of the number of visitors to realneo since we started using Google Analytics, and what they have visited, to measure performance of this site - and we've grown by pretty much all counts I've considered important by 30-100% since then - in some cases by 1,000s% - in less than a year-and-a-half.

Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Wed, April 28, 2010 -- 12:23 PM ET
-----

Regulators Approve First Offshore Wind Farm in U.S.

After nine years of regulatory review, the federal government
gave the green light Wednesday to the nation's first offshore
wind farm, a sprawling project off the coast of Cape Cod.

I just received great news from our friend Max Eternity - very inspiring developments for him in Atlanta, including saving a Breuer (why we all met Max in the first place)... CONGRATUALTIONS AND THANK YOU MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!

Family, Friends and Colleagues:

 

When I was asked the other day to be interviewed by Architects + Artisans, it caught me by such surprise that all I could do was laugh.  You see, in the last several years I've spent so much of my time thinking, talking and writing about others--advocating for various causes--that it had become unfamiliar to actually have someone want to write about who I was, my art, and what I was doing personally.

 

For a piece entitled "To Write, Paint and Save a Monument", the Editor of A +A, Mike Welton, who has written for The New York Times, Interior Design Magazine and Dwell Magazine, writes in part:

 

Now that he’s saved Marcel Breuer’s last building from the wrecking ball, Max Eternity has returned his attention to the things that really matter, like painting and publishing.

To maintain the integrity of the streetscape as planned since 2002(rather then put a tar surfaced parking lot in the center of the main district) and  encourage neighborhood, city and local businesses involvement until a more feasible development can be  economically sustained, we're proposing the use of the property as an urban garden and sculpture garden. This would create a visually appealing sustainable green scape and positively enhance tremont, which does not include allowing the variance.