What I'm Reading Right Now

I was quite put off Tolle's book, because it starts off saying, "One day, 112 million years ago, the first flower bloomed..." Obviously that never happened. You had thousands of years where things resembled flowers, and over a long period these can to resemble flowers more and more. There was never a 'moment'. Quite a disconnected opening gambit, and it's made me want to toss the book into a fireplace to stay warm and otherwise occupied by something interesting (flickering flames in this case).

Amazon Kindle: Paper's Future Ends Here

The two biggest publishers in Britain are to offer dozens of likely bestsellers to read on a hand-held screen [called the 'KINDLE' ] this autumn in a sign that, after many false dawns, the electronic “ebook” may finally have arrived.

Random House and Hachette, which together control just over 30% of the British book market, are to offer downloadable versions of titles by authors ranging from Delia Smith to Ian McEwan and Michael Parkinson. Every other major publisher is drawing up plans to follow suit, pitching the books at just below the price of a hardback.

More.

NVDL: A lot of people say there will always be books, always be newspapers. I beg to differ. Well, I won't beg. We simply won't afford to be able to have paper backups for everything we have digitally. I mean that literally. Paper and environmental costs (and pollution) in the future will be too great. The future of reading has arrived. This tablet is as wide as a pencil.

Greenspan: Oops on Iraq

In his new book “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Greenspan wrote: “I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Global Warming Predicates a Permanent El Nino

Hasta La Vista Amazon Rainforest

Sophisticated climate models demonstrated a disturbing trend: that global warming will induce a permanent state of El Nino. El Nino involves the significant increase of surface sea temperatures around the Pacific coastline of Peru. This induces warming in the atmosphere immediately above, and then feeds into worldwide weather systems. Until the present era, El Nino was an undesirable, but temporary phenomenon.

The current trend is for far more frequent El Nino’s, and a worsening of the concomitant infection into world weather systems.

How El Nino Affects You

Firstly, El Nino affects global weather patterns dramatically. For Africa this means flooding in the northern and central regions (currently 14 African countries are experiencing chronic flooding), while in the southern region, chronic and sustained drought is the order of the day (presently happening).

For America, warmer winters are the order of the day in the upper Midwest, while the southwestern area is cooler and wetter. Decreased hurricane activity is possibly (unless global warming is sufficiently high).

Southeast Asia and the Northern Parts of Australia will experience droughts, with the increased threats of fire and unhealthy smog levels.

Amazon Rainforest

But the most dangerous effect of El Nino is the persistent drying of Bolivia and the Amazon River Basin. Tropical rainforests require fairly specialized conditions, too little rain, or too warm conditions for a few extra weeks can mean the difference between a rainforest and brush land.
Right now the Amazon is estimated to be absorbing 20% or more of the world’s carbon dioxide (acting as a carbon sink). If the climate models for El Nino are correct, within 50 years the Amazon could have disappeared altogether, and not only will there be no absorbtion of CO2 in this territory, but the sink will begin to act as a giant carbon emitter. Fires especially can play a role in the reversal of the system that converts carbon into organic plant structures.

Global Warming

What underlies the Permament El Nino state is a certain threshold of global warming. Recent El Nino’s have occurred in the following chronology: 1986-1987, 1991-1992, 1993, 1994, 1997-1998, 2002-2003, and 2006-2007.

The numbers suggest that we are almost at a permanent El Nino state.

Lance’s 4 Success Factors

Brad Kearns book How Lance Does It explains what it takes to be a champion

Kearns book on cycling legend Lance Armstrong has something different to offer. At the very least, it offers positive reinforcement and ultimately, is a very motivating and fresh perspective.

Brad Kearns trained and raced with Lance when Armstrong was a promising triathlete, even before ihis transformation as Ubercyclist.

Kearns posits the following success factors:

Positive Attitude: By turning every negative (even something like cancer) into a positive, you create a positive result in a positive mainframe.
Clarity of Purpose: The difference between Lance and his competitors in the Tour de France was simple single-mindedness. Lance’s goal was concrete, and simple: Win the Tour. Coming second to Lance was the equivalent of losing. That represents a high standard, but the value of this commitment lies in its hard no-nonsense simplicity.

Specialized Intelligence: Competitive advantage often lies in this area, but perhaps this is the most difficult area to develop and more important, maintain an edge. Triathletes and cyclists invest a lot of energy and resources into using the lightest and most aerodynamic technology to get on top. By the same token, whoever you are and whatever your business investmenting time and thought into strategy and software can pay off huge dividends in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Important to remember, before starting anything is to first ask: Why? And then decide How?

Pure Confidence: Belief is a great motivator, and belief tends to be bolstered by preparation. Preparation means many things: work, training, readiness, investigation, homework and groundwork. It’s all of these things of course.

Lance’s life is motivating because whether we are out of shape or depressed, we can always compare ourselves to Lance who had it all, seemed about to lose it all (to cancer) and then really came back, Living Strong, with his new lease on life. We also learn that it is the basics that count: love of sport, or love of work (but a basic love of life) that must underscore an sinpired and meaningful life.