This Should Scare the Crap Out of You

If the thought of half of all guns in the world being in the United States today doesn't give you pause...then maybe this video about the cavalier way that we have treated atomic weapons will. 

I want to give credit where it is due - I was alerted to this by the Restricted Data blog.  As Alex Wellerstein notes, the date on the video is almost certainly wrong since the US was in the middle of a nuclear test moratorium in 1959.  The more likely date seems to be about 1952.   I will leave it to Alex to make his observations, as they are much the same as I would make...plus:

1. What were we thinking?
2. Is it somehow OK to use military personnel as guinea pigs?
3. Did we really believe that ducking down in  a WW I trench would be protective/effective?   (Maybe that explains in itself a lot of the Pentagon's failings since then as well as those asinine "duck and cover" drills I was subjected to during the Cuban Missile Crisis...right in front of the "window wall" that was one side of our classroom).  

 


And just by the way...the US has more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world's nations combined that admit to possessing them, which of course excludes good "friends" like Israel.   This should make me feel better about it...but since we are also the only country that has ever used them in war......

Cool Job!

This guy has got one seriously cool job!

Watch Best of Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Obama Was Right, Just not Polite About It

If anyone is still wondering if Obama's open criticism of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision during his 2010 State of the Union speech was justified after this last election which was a wholesale disaster both for truth and thinkers as a result of that inexplicable decision, here is another view slightly more local to our part of the country . 

Hopefully some other states will follow the lead of Montana and Colorado in repudiating this decision through legal means and provoke a more sane re-review, when maybe there are a couple of  more justices with a better sense of what American democracy really means to look at it again.

 

Led From Down Under?

The land of Fosters, kangaroos and 'shrimps on the barbie' made firearm regulation history many years ago - first by acting decisively (unlikely with the US Congress), and making a significant dent in firearms deaths that has continued.  

Reclaiming the Republican Party

If we are forced to have political parties at all, it works slightly better if there are two relatively inclusive parties with a healthy spectrum of views within each -- including moderates.   Frankly I long for the "old" Republican party that was actually functional. Unfortunately, except for an occasional refreshing exception...the current  party is a clueless mess.

Tom Friedman (as he usually does) wrote a nice summation in his Sunday piece this week.

National Retrograde Association?

Ever since a not-all-there Charlton Heston did his '...cold dead hands' speech, I have really wondered if there was some form of insanity running through the NRA.

I guess after today Wayne LaPierre removed all doubt.   Even his staunchest Republican backers are having a hard time swallowing this one!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Senator Lieberman

It should not surprise anyone that I have almost no current politicians that I really respect or admire, but one of the rare exceptions is (sadly) retiring from the Senate.  Not only did he have the foresight and wisdom to become an Independent (i.e. thinker) about six years ago - this interview shows him to be every bit the level-headed, thoughtful leader that this country needs.   While I don't agree with him on everything (i.e. unqualified support for Israel's shenanigans for example), I would definitely trade him for any 50 of the newly-elected or reelected crop of partisans in Congress.

"Like Manhattan Breaking Apart Before Your Eyes"

The huge loss of the ice at the North and South poles of the earth is going to have a profound (and none too pleasant effect) on the earth's climate.   The only question is when. 

The new documentary 'Chasing Ice' is one I definitely need to see - this clip is from the film:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I Miss the Republican Party

The one that used to make some sense of course.   Not this one.

The Learning Revolution

Sir Ken Robertson spoke at a TED 2010 event as a followup to his earlier talk that I posted -- in many ways it completes the first one...and should give educators the world over pause for thought. It will be a radical shift for most educators, but it is necessary, and I really wish it had happened before I had been forced to slog through our incredibly boring, unchallenging, and largely irrelevant public education system.

The World is....Hilly?

I just saw another of the TED talks - this one hits a general theme that is a favorite of mine - the wildly inaccurate perception of "everybody knows" topics, as well as the specific debate about a flat world, globalization, etc.

One of my personal favorite myths is the "everyone is on the Internet" mantra.  When I ask "then why does only 34% of the world's population have access to the Internet?"  I get a blank stare ... and then they go back to 'liking' everything in sight on Facebook.  

Pankaj Ghemawat's video is informative and worth watching (I think there is an implicit case in here for requiring a history/economics/facts test for all voters as well !).




The implicit debate between Tom Friedman's view and this video is not as stark as it may seem.
I found Tom Friedman's books on the subject to be compelling although it is difficult to quantify into hard data the exact degree of 'flatness' such as he describes.   Much of his evidence is 'macro' in scope and based on the perception of the Western world as to markets and economic forces which have certainly shifted to some degree to a 'flatter' view.  

Regardless, I find listening to this type of discussion one of the real rewards of being a thinker rather than a blind follower of trends.....

 

Do Not Break Into Small Groups!

“There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” — Susan Cain

I have written elsewhere about TED as a source of inspirational, educational talks for thinkers.  I did not expect to find this video however - Susan Cain very clearly speaks to my own experiences in her talk.
   
Throughout my college education and business career, I have been subject to the pervasive 'groupthink' preferences and 'cattle car' office organizations.  I have strayed (I told myself ventured?) a few times from the 'introvert' path, and it has almost always been to my eventual detriment.  This went right to the top of my favorite 'TED Talks' and I don't think anything is going to match it any time soon!!!

It is very inspiring to hear someone speak about why the suppression of introverts is perhaps not the best way to go .....



I plan on reading her book very soon - it is on the way from Amazon - look for the review on Goodreads or here (and watching hthis video a few more times!).

Update: Well, perhaps not right away -- I decided this book was going to be a Christmas present to me...so I probably won't dive into it until....oh sometime early on the morning of the 25th!  But I do plan on watching her TED Talk at least four or five more times before then!

Canadians Saying No to F-35?

I have always admired the way Canada's government works.  They have some anachronistic practices for sure, some of which we don't understand in the US at all (and they have way too many political parties, but any number greater than zero is too many).  Their results however (at least for the last 30 years or so) always seem to work a whole lot better and be much more "adult" than many of the infantilisms that come out of the US Congressional stink-pile.

And as this article discusses, they have a serious "get things done" attitude in their Parliament, and a culture of much less pretense, self-importance,  and politicization than the US Congress which undoubtedly is a big contributor. 

In fact, it turns out that some MPs are tired of the more than the usual amount of smoke blown around (using Canadian standards) about the F-35 and the seemingly out-of-control costs currently funding the lifestyle of many American "1% ers" in the military-industrial complex. If you don't remember, this was the "war" plane that was delivered to the US Marines sans guns and way over budget. 

It looks like the Canadians may be about ready to pull the plug on it entirely.   Good job, eh?

Fiscal Cliff ? - Lets Get Real!

Shields and Brooks on PBS NewsHour this week were their usual erudite selves....but again I noted that in the entire "fiscal cliff" dicussion there was no mention of the real "gaping maw" at the bottom of the cliff -- the Defense budget which has doubled in the first decade of this century...to no discernible improvement on our military that I can see.  (Other than we have even more over-budget, non-working weapons systems than before).    

Still...an interesting and worthwhile discussion as always....

Watch Shields & Brooks on Jobs Report, 'Fiscal Cliff' Negotiations on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.


 

What Were They Thinking, Part 2

The second part of Michael Berens Sunday piece in the Seattle Times on elephants in captivity arrived today. 

The story doesn't get any prettier I am afraid, but it should give food for thought to thinkers about our assumptions concerning what we perceive as the 'lesser' life forms.

Great, Great, Grand Canyon?

When you reach a certain age...it is sometimes comforting to hear a debate about something, or someone, that is a  WHOLE lot older!

Watch Grand Canyon May Be 60 Million Years Older Than Thought on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

What Were They Thinking?

Every once in awhile, someone (frequently a dedicated journalist) uncovers a story that makes you wonder....what WERE they thinking? 

There is such a story beginning today in the Seattle Times by Michael J. Berens - I recommend you read it and view the accompanying video.

Quick! Pour More Money on the Pentagon!

They obviously don't have enough money -- a doubled Pentagon budget under the Bush administration was obviously not enough.  If it was they could make sure that cars they buy have wheels...or that brand-new overpriced fighters have some....guns?

Memo to 'True Americans' -- Learn the Language I

I have a feeling this will be an ongoing feature so I decided to number the title.  With all the talk about 'Americans should speak English only', etc. one of my favorite gripes is people whose words or writing appear in public but whose actions demonstrate that they were obviously asleep during English class.   Headline writers are particularly vulnerable - here is the latest example.

Update -- of course they fixed it -- the original said "principal".

Why I Hate Facebook

The title here is meant as an introduction to this post, but I really do hate Facebook, Google+ and Twitter (particularly) and have never participated in them and never will.  I just don't see the point and if there was a contest between which one I loathe more...Facebook, Twitter, or political parties of any kind I am not sure which one would finish last since all of them tend to either produce or encourage the same stream of brainless drivel and elevate the expositions of small minds and I hold them all in the same kind of contempt.  (I particularly love when I get emails that start out "I saw your profile on Facebook..." there is a real 'innovative' waste of electrons!).

Lets be real folks -- Facebook is NOT innovation by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook is a natural extension of the original Internet design as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee as a text and document sharing mechanism. It was a case of someone waiting until the technologies were in place and sufficiently advanced enough to capitalize on...then doing so. That may be innovation in the warped and sometimes sick sense of what gets Wall Street excited...but it is not technological or scientific innovation as practiced by the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or NASAs of the world.

However, a magazine arrived at the house the other day that really got my attention.  The MIT Technology Review has a long history (since 1899) of following things technological, and especially things technologically innovative.  The cover for the November/December 2012 magazine that they publish really caught my eye...and restated in few words what my frustrations have been with the state of science and technology in the USA (the small caption to the right says: "Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 moonwalker, would like a word with you.").

Fortunately, the issue talks about some people who are not giving up on the 'big problems', and more importantly recognize that we are currently falling way short.  The Founders Fund (sometimes referred to as the PayPal Mafia) is a dominant venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, and their motto is "We wanted flying cars -- instead we got 140 characters."  Interestingly enough, the firm places at least some of the blame on the VC community itself, which in the 1990s began a shift away from funding start-up firms with truly innovative ideas, to those that solved smaller, incremental or even fake problems as long as they would turn a short-term profit.

The issue is full of articles that talk to people who haven't given up, and covers topics as diverse as the crisis in higher education, dealing with the likely effects of a coming dementia epidemic, equalizing the distribution of energy to the 'have-not' areas of the world, government support for basic research, and more.  The ideas presented may seem unrealistic...but then so did Bill Gates' vision of "a computer in every home and on every desktop" when it was made.

Recommended for thinkers....

The Limits of "Freedom"

Sometimes it is wise to know when you have lost.  I can't imagine this property has increased in value because of the owner's intransigence.

Whose Religion?

One of the (many) problems I have had in allowing religion and government (particularly in the US) to mix at all is that you can't go very far down that slippery slope before you have to ask "which religions"? 

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there are 19 "major" religions in the world that are divided into 270 significant religious groups.  Among Christians alone 34,000 individual Christian groups have been identified in the world, the majority of which are "independent" churches that do not want to link with any larger groups.  

So, when Republican factions (for example) want to invoke religious "rights" or insist that government should be more 'religious' -- it would be accurate (and thoughtful) to ask "which one"?  And don't take any weaselly bull-crap answer like "those who believe in the one God" --- I guarantee you each of the above groups/religions has their own definition and perhaps name for 'God'.

Mars Mystery

Apparently there is something on Mars discovered by the Curiosity rover that was at least a bit unexpected, but NASA is (wisely) not saying anything until they double-check it.

The Pentagon Sinkhole II

Senator Tom Coburn, a physician (and Republican coincidentally) has been taking some well-deserved and real pot-shots at the Pentagon lately...not exactly endearing himself to his Republican colleagues that want to continue to pour ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer dollars over the Pentagon without question. 

Among other items he has found is that the Pentagon funded an anthropology study of whether men (of course) holding pistols are considered taller, stronger, and more masculine than those holding a range of other objects, such as caulking guns, drills, saws and paintbrushes. (Apparently they are).

His report found other ridiculous items of a non-military nature that are funded by the Pentagon's largess (and limited funds from taxpayers).  Among them from the front page of the report which is available in full here:

• Running grocery stores.
• Teaching kindergartners.
• Brew beer and make beef jerky.
• Build windmills.
• Study flying dinosaurs.

 By all means...lets pour even more money on this single largest expenditure of tax dollars...and the only un-auditable cabinet-level department in the entire government!

A Breath of Republican Fresh Air

Someone on the Republican side is acknowledging the mess at the Pentagon.

Now I Know What Twitter is For!

One of my favorite NPR programs is "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me", a weekly comical look at current "news".  It will both make you laugh and groan at times.  One of the things I like about it is the synergy of the panelists and hosts - sometimes ideas just kind of come together on the spur of the moment.  

This week's episode had a particularly good line.  I have never been able to figure out the value of Twitter, at least to where I should want to waste any time on it (although I can also say the same about Facebook and the other so-called "social networking" sites.   Combining comments from Paula Poundstone and host Peter Sagal following a particularly stupid conspiracy theory racing around Twitter that Obama had somehow caused Hurricane Sandy, the consensus between them was:

"Twitter is a dipstick for us - and we are idiots - its the only mark on the stick."

Speaking of Republicans/Conservatives I Admire

Former US Senator and Governor of our state Dan Evans is another conservative voice that the Republicans badly need to start listening to before the lunatic fringe is their only constituency (if they aren't there already).  He is the last Republican I listened to, admired, and voted for.   Unfortunately since then I held my nose, suppressed a gag reflex and voted for a couple more...and have lived to regret each and every one mightily.

He recently came out in favor of the so-called "gay marriage" item on our ballot this year.  In true, thoughtful fashion he distilled into a few words an implication of "what's the big deal?".  Knowing Senator/Governor Evans though, it was delivered without any condescension, pandering, or hidden agendas...unlike almost anything else you will hear this election season: 

"...[it] just seems right and reflects the fundamental value of fairness that we treasure here in Washington.”

Postscript: I am not the only one who misses the 'real' Republican Party.

I Double Dog Dare Ya!

Is Anyone Thinking What I Am Thinking?

The losses to the residents of the East Coast will undoubtedly be significant as a result of this storm. 

But I had a thought as I was reviewing some of the news items and pictures.   I wonder if anyone is considering that if the view of practically all mainstream scientists and climatologists comes to pass....this will be 'normal life' for many of these same areas?

I Wonder If It Gets Gas?

Our Milky Way galaxy has been vacuuming up the neighborhood it appears.

Paul Kurtz (1925-2012)

Paul Kurz, one of the original 'thinkers' who inspired me at a very young age has passed away.  He will be missed but he leaves behind a legacy of skeptical thought, reason, and questioning that has will continue to inspire.

Thinking is timeless !

Citizens United Decision Cancer is Growing

In case you were of the opinion that the Citizens United Supreme Court case (which Obama took heat for commenting on in his State of the Union address) was harmless....here is an example to make you think. 

I think this definitely does affect the "State of the Union".

The Fog of Aghanistan

"The Fog of War" is a common enough term...particularly when describing the US military misadventures in the Middle East.  But stories like this one just amaze me. 

Why is there any surprise at all that Afghanistan is an even bigger mess than when we got there?

After all, Afghanistan is the scene of two of the biggest defeats the mighty British Army ever suffered; and the Soviet Union (which doesn't have to worry about budgets or elections) after ten ignominious years there finally gave up. 

Just why did we ever think the US was going to fare any differently?  Because Reagan praised the opposition in Afghanistan against the Soviets as "Freedom Fighters"?  (A good many of those Freedom Fighters are rotting in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere awaiting trial on terrorism charges - today's catchy phrase is tomorrow's goat, or something like that). 

Because we sent in the most expensive military force in the world (by several factors), who were perfectly trained for a 1960s Cold War battlefield?  

Its not like the intelligence world and the thinkers of the world haven't known for a very long time that Pakistan and Afghanistan are two greasy sides of the same slippery coin and not worth our time, trust, or blood. 

Tanks - Of Course. Cyber-defenses - What is That?

Only a true Independent would dare to pen such an inflammatory piece. 

Any Congressperson or Senator beholding to a political party (and therefore a boatload of lobbyists) would much rather keep pouring money onto M-1 tanks that the (unauditable) Pentagon wants to stop making; or the F-35 fighter, a largely Cold War carryover which no one really seems to want to own up to because its costs are completely out of control, or the F-22, which no one even seems very eager to fly.

TED

I just realized that I quoted a TED video in the last post, and I have not really properly introduced TED here to the thinkers that I hope will read this blog. 

TED is one of my favorite spots on the web, full of the world's best thinkers and displaying a remarkable diversity of viewpoints.  You can read more about TED on the site, but it is one of my refuges when I want to stimulate my brain...or just to restore my faith that there are people out there thinking and doing great work, despite what the 'traditional' news sources are reporting.  

If you have never been there - here is a sample.  This is one of my favorite talks that I have listened to and watched multiple times.   The talk (from 2006) by Sir Ken Robinson is full of humor and wry observations, but also has some very pithy and pointed comments about how our modern public school system attempts to 'educate out' the very creativitiy and individualism we so desperately need to be cultivating.  Its only about 20 minutes long, but well worth watching - I know his two most recent books are on my "to-read" list.

Climate Change Reality Sinks In

Climate change has now begun the move from the political arena (where it never belonged in the first place) to reality in the public mindset.  The weather patterns we have seen recently are unprecedented, and scientists with the education or background to have an intelligent opinion on the subject now all agree that it is real, but they also agree that it is probably too late to do anything about reversing it...we are in for a rough ride.

In case you were wondering if climate change is real, here is at least one part of the world where it is all too real. The Marshall Islands are now expected sometime this century to vanish from the face of the earth, the first country to be claimed in its entirety by the effects of climate change, in this case rising seas. The UN has formed a committee (of course) to figure out what the response should be to an entire country disappearing due to climate change.

In fact, the first Pacific island has already disappeared back in 2006.

Here is a talk given at TED about the need to prepare locally, everywhere for the effects of a new climate.




What can you do?  Start by calling any idiot politician on the carpet who trots out the old 'jobs' argument to claim that there is nothing we should be doing.  The next time an idiot Republican Senator from Oklahoma gets up in the Senate and waves a list of English PhDs and TV weather "forecasters" as "proof" there is no global warming -- let him know you aren't buying it.  

And finally...use energy intelligently, and support the development of renewable, non-destructive energy sources.  What would you rather look at, a few more windmills or a continual firestorm from unrelenting, day-and-night heat burning down our cities and homes in a hopelessly dry climate?  Of course, food production will probably come to a complete halt long before that point!   

Homeland (In)security

Of all the hundreds (probably thousands in reality) of stupid moves the Bush administration made...the hurried, haphazard, pointless, and inefficient creation of the Department of Homeland Security has to rank right up there just behind all the random wars they started.

The DHS is right behind the Defense Department in terms of government inefficiency, needless bloat, and just....running around in circles.  I mean, other than making the color orange funny again (at least since Clockwork Orange), what has DHS accomplished?  It is a mishmash of agencies each of whom had their own well-defined responsibilities before they had this inefficient mass of bureaucracy layered on top of them. 

And now, it turns out one of the items that early DHS administrators liked to make bold promises for (and of course demand endless tax funds for) is the "fusion center" concept.  This is a direct outgrowth of the post-9/11 charges that the intelligence was faulty and that the responsible agencies were not talking to each other.  (Aside...so throwing them together to compete for prestige and dollars was supposed to fix this?).  

Recently we have found out that the intelligence was known and available and even shared - some of it as far back as the Clinton administration but politicians largely chose to ignore it or put it aside, hoping it would spontaneously 'go away'.  So, one of the major purposes for DHS fusion centers went "poof".

Now we find out that the fusion centers are worse than unneeded - they are actually worthless and may be detrimental to the overall effort of protecting the US (as well as an impressive sinkhole for tax dollars). 

I wonder if there breathes a politician with the foresight, courage, and love of country to actually propose that the ridiculous caricature that is DHS be disbanded?  

Nahhh...never happen - the name alone is too "feel good" if nothing else.....

What ARE we doing in Afghanistan?

First, George Bush invaded Afghanistan in an ill-thought out fit of pique against the Saudi Arabian terrorists that had committed the atrocities of 9/11/2001.  Not to mention that the stated purpose of 'getting bin Laden' turned out to be a joke, not only because bin Laden was evacuating Afghanistan permanently as US troops were arriving, but it also completely ignored the Russian 10-year bad experience there.  (According to many sources, the Pentagon did not even have a battle plan for invading Afghanistan when George ordered them to go).

I mention this only because I have been befuddled by Obama's entire approach to this country (and Pakistan for that matter).  I heard an unattributed quote on NPRs Talk of the Nation today (a great program for thinkers by the way) that really summed up for me the realistic effect of our presence there:

...a good friend of mine used to say somewhat tongue-in-cheek that what we've done in Afghanistan has taken arguably the best irregular fighters in the world and turned them into the worst regular army outside of Africa. 
 

I am afraid that this has a lot of truth.  One of the Pentagon's many shortcomings is that it continually prepares and re-prepares (and spends untold tax dollars on) preparing for the perfect war....of the 1960s.

The F-35 Disaster Continues

This is a large part of why the Pentagon, and not Social Security or Medicare is the single biggest drain on the country's resources.  Twenty-two years of design and development, and this plane is one of the most universally mistrusted and disliked (but very expensive) pieces of overpriced junk that the military-industrial complex keeps spewing out as long as there is an endless stream of tax dollars (or future tax dollars) coming in.

Remember, a few years ago the Pentagon threw up their hands collectively and admitted that they were not auditable by any financial standard, and wouldn't be until something like 2017.

That Sound You Hear...

...just might be the rest of the Arctic sea ice draining away.  It has finally started to build up again, but only after hitting a new low last week.  This outstrips all the climate models that have been predicting when we will lose all the Arctic sea ice permanently, and along with it a huge moderating force for our weather in the Northern Hemisphere (and to a lesser, unknown degree the Southern Hemisphere whose own moderating ice cap is also melting away).

Of course, this all brings out the very best in the "plunder the earth's resources, to heck with the future" crowd.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

The title of this post is a quotation from Jonathan Swift, and I think expresses more succinctly than anything why I hold organized religion on an approximate contempt level with political parties.    

This article from Thomas Friedman nicely applied the general concept to the current uproar in the Islamic world (one of the commenters on the post mentions the Swift quote).

Here is an interesting Pew Research Center report (one of the sources I trust) on the increase of government restrictions on religion...some of it undoubtedly well-earned, but one has to wonder why governments should care at all? 

I also by chance happened across one of those irreverent T-shirts that I like - this one asked:

"If you can tell me what to do with my body, can I tell you what to do with your Bible?"

"My body" could very easily be replaced with "my relationships, my life....." unfortunately.

River of No Reprieve (Book Review)

I just finished a very remarkable adventure story/commentary/travelogue about a corner of the world that very few people (unless you are unfortunate enough to live there) know about:


River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny by Jeffrey Tayler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quite an enjoyable and informative book about a remarkable journey down Siberia's river Lena. Down in the sense of going downstream, perhaps 'up' in the sense that the journey is south to north.

More important Jeffrey Tayler brings his unique insight as an American resident of Russia (Moscow area) to the historical stories of this area. Like his earlier work Siberian Dawn, it is as much focused on the trials and daily challenges of people as his own challenges from the journey.

The people in this book were in many cases outcasts from the "good, old" USSR as exiles and criminals real and imagined, but managed to cobble together a life that had a certain kind of comforting (for them) stability, but when the USSR fractured apart, so did the tenuous support lifeline the people in this area depended on, and mostly their lives have been in a downward spiral since. To say that the capitalists of the post-USSR era were not interested in this 'internal' penal colony and purgatory would be a kind way of expressing the truth.

Tayler's writing is both colorful and very descriptive. Let me quote just one (abridged) passage:

"Around midnight the sun slipped behind the pine-serrated ridges. The orange sky shaded into lavender, glowed phosphorescent green for two or three hours, and then, finally, lightened into the rose of dawn. {...} At times we heard the echoing roar of a brown bear (one night a hungry male torn open an anthill fifteen feet from our tents and gobbled up its inhabitants); [...] Was it any wonder that shamanism orignated here, among Yakuts and Evenks dwelling alone, scattered throughout the wilds, for months on end, with their reindeer? In the fine, tremulous light, trees and stones, rivers and brooks, all acquired spirits, all breathed with a hidden life force." [from Chapter 9]

View all my reviews

O Canada!

Canada has always been my second-favorite country.  A lot of it is the pure, unsullied, rugged beauty of the country - like having a much bigger Western US.  One of the vacations I hope to take someday if it is still possible is a coast-to-coast train trip across this interesting and intriguing gentle giant. Another big part of it of course is living my entire life within driving distance of the border, meaning that I have worked with and had as neighbors and friends Canadians who had either temporarily or permanently transplanted here. 

So it pains me point out that all is not well among all the companies in particular just across the border.  Here in Washington we are fortunate to host the US branch of the Columbia River (along with our friends to the south, Oregon of course for part of the way).  If you are musically or geographically uncertain, yes that is Woody Guthrie's "Roll On Columbia, Roll On" subject.

For several years now we have been reading stories of a Canadian smelter just across the border in British Columbia that has apparently been using the Columbia for much of the smelter's life as its private....latrine shall we say?

The legal case is complicated by the fact that the US government is trying not to get too noisily involved, but some Native American tribes (also sovereign governments in their own right) are. 

And now the company's 'defense' has been revealed. Basically it is "we did it but we are not responsible".  

Come on...even Perry Mason would blanch at that!

The Skills for Today

Another interesting Tom Friedman piece.   The first part is a thinly veiled lesson in how countries that are beating the US in education are doing it (which is most of the rest of the first-world). 

Hint...it is not by catering to teacher unions and letting a bunch of cost-cutting states decimate the public education systems in the name of 'states rights'.

The rest of the article is about how having the right skills at the right time and being flexible is much more important than 'work hard and play by the rules' (one of Obama's frequent sayings, after Bill Clinton).

Want to Blow Your Mind? (As We Used to Say)

This is just....COOL!

For the first time....EVER....a human-made object is about to (well...sometime soon) actually exit our Solar System and enter interstellar space. 

OK, I'm not counting beams of Survivor, DWTS, American Idol, etc. that travel at near-light speed but I don't want to spread it around that they came from Earth anyway -- do you?

Thirty five years Voyager has been dragging its 68K memory (that's right - K) out to the outer reaches.  If you are hold enough, think back to what you were doing 35 years ago...if not, think what your parents were doing (well, maybe not!).

Seriously, we of a certain age group (roughly the "boomers") have been fortunate to be witnesses if not participants in a succession of never-before first time events.  Neil Armstrong and the moon landing, unprecedented discoveries in the world of physics that come ever closer to explaining the origins of the universe and now, a chance to break free and with whatever instruments aboard Voyager still work, getting a glimpse of what is really out there...I mean REALLY out there.

Education Reform - from Someone Who Knows

Here is an article about Michelle Rhee's ideas for the next president on education reform...which if you take a long-term view of things like I try to (and politicians unfortunately avoid like the plague) makes sense.  I mostly agree with what she says -- particularly the stupidity of local control of schools. 

We have largely had local control of schools in the US - that's why things are in such a mess and why there is such a vast difference between graduating from high school in Mississippi or Alabama or Idaho and say...any other state. 

As a country we are getting killed in our public school system -- Bush's No Child Left Behind was the first significant attempt to bring some national order (and more importantly standards) to the US public school chaos.  Unfortunately it was very badly designed and horribly implemented (DC thought that this would not cost the states anything...silly them) - it was doomed to fail. 

I think there is a slightly different reason to question local control however than Ms. Rhee's -- although hers are more close to the metal in terms of practical matters and resistance from teacher's unions.  I think that one needs only to look at any international ranking of student performance to see the US is down around number 16 in the world (or even lower) and in some pretty shady company.

Looking at those countries with much higher student performance scores one thing stands out -- they almost all have strong, centrally managed national performance standards for schools, administrators, and yes, even teachers...as much as that might bug teacher's unions.

This is one area where the Republican party is 100% wrong -- more local control of schools will only perpetuate the US as a perennial catch-up country that imports everything it can from other countries where innovation and creativity is strong and valued over making a living off of other people's money, which seems to be the major thrust of US education. 

Magellan for Our Times

Not many people...in fact not many generations can say they were alive when something truly, universally unique and never-to-be-duplicated like the first circumnavigation of earth, or the first human to step foot on the moon occurred.
 
Many of us who are alive now were fortunate enough to witness Neil Armstrong (who passed away today at 82) perform the latter. Brian Williams was one of us and his brief commentary in this report is worth hearing.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This report gives a little flavor of the times of the moon landing.  The landing still remains the most widely watched event in history - an estimated one-fifth of the world's population at that time saw it.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Space Elevators

If you haven't read about space elevators, this is a fascinating concept, although the theory seems to be ahead of the actual materials and design know-how at this point. 

Where are you, billionaire "job-creator" class?    Time to buck up, invest in some R&D, and do something besides announcing layoffs and wishing for the magical return of American manufacturing dominance. 

Seven Words

Two of my favorite historical Americans are Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln.

Mark Twain is my favorite author of all time in any genre.  His command of the writer's craft was (and is) unparalleled and his ability to use the English language in very unique and surprising ways is guaranteed to make me stop and think (or laugh out loud) every few paragraphs.

There is certainly a lot to admire about Lincoln - absolutely the perfect leader at the right time for the nation's most desperate post-Revolution era.  But actually a lot of my admiration stems from the same roots as Twain.  The man had an uncanny, natural way to state something in a few words that had a meaning and color far beyond his sparse choice of words.  The Gettysburg Address is probably the best known example of that, but I recently came across another. 

Curiosity Lives!

Great news - Curiosity has landed succesfully ..with images of the landing to keep the Internet idiots and conspiracy freaks at bay.

Oh...and just as an aside...this entire mission cost about as much as 2-3 weeks of the meaningless, pointless war in Iraq.  And so far as I know...no one has died or been maimed.

The Real Washington Budget Crisis

The single biggest budget problem the US government faces is the bloated, unaccountable, wasteful Pentagon budget and it has been for at least the last thirty years.  Assessments vary, but it is pretty well agreed that since George got done spraying  middle and lower-class tax dollars all over it in the first decade this century (in the name of the "war on terror" -- which by the way the Pentagon still doesn't have a clue how to fight) we wound up with a total "defense" expenditure level that by some reckonings is greater than all the rest of the world's militaries put together.  Interestingly enough, this gold and platinum-plated military has not won a single major conflict since WW II.  

Republicans like to lump Social Security and Medicare together so they have a combination that is bigger than defense.  But, this is invalid...these two programs have completely separate and independent funding mechanisms, administration, and financial challenges.  However, this is the only possible way to come up with a budget target that outsizes defense (but just barely) -- it is that big...so they will continue to do so.

Now the Republicans are digging in to protect this indefensible level of "defense" spending...even to the point of telling some real whoppers in public, and occasionally getting taken to task by the few thinkers in the audience.

Now this week we find out that Senator John McCain, whom I definitely have mixed feelings about...is taking his duties as the "Senator from Lockheed Martin" much more seriously than his oath of office.  His appointment of a former staff member as Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee....after she stopped by Lockheed Martin for a lucrative little payday of $1,662,856 does not impress me at all as the actions of a real Senator...one who remembers the oath he took:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter...."

But then I fear that as long as their are political parties...there will be no "real" Senators, except perhaps among the Independents and some of the old guard, both of which are rapidly disappearing.

Yard Signs...Really?

The use of yard signs in political campaigns I strongly feel should be banned.  I mean...is this a Third World country or what?  They always have bizarre looking posters plastered all over public spaces hawking various candidates (with no useful information on them other than some empty slogans). 

We in the US of course have advanced to the point of having cardboard signs (and ugly billboards)...with bizarre designs and with no useful information on them other than some empty slogans.  Personally, I wish we had the technology to detect...if an individual is swayed to vote for a particular candidate or cause by the presence of a billboard or yard sign -- they should have their voter registration permanently revoked...they are obviously too stupid to be allowed to participate in something as important as a democracy.   

The Pentagon Sinkhole

Anyone want to know why Bush's (and now the Republican Party's) strategy of pouring money all over the non-accountable, non-auditable (for 20 plus years) Pentagon is a bad idea?  The Pentagon can't even say No! but it rains more tax dollars. (Note that there are 3,000 of these things already sitting idle at a remote base).

And from the Bush era.  (Even Senator John McCain was against this one).

On the state of Science in the US

On the way back from the coast, we stopped at OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), and while it was somewhat enjoyable, I couldn't help but have the same reaction as the last time I visited the Seattle Science Center.  These places tend to be stuck in presenting elementary school level 1980's "bubbles and cool lights" science. 

I realize times are tight, but I wonder how much of this is reflected in the generally dismal science knowledge of US citizens?  If people think that a high-school chemistry class and a bi-annual trip to the local "science center" means that they should be "Science-savvy", I have bad news.  I saw nothing at OMSI (or Seattle Science Center last time I was there) that mentioned any of the exciting recent developments in quantum or particle physics, or even what these sciences are, let alone the more traditional sciences.  There was a slight nod to very basic mathematics, but the 'astronomy' consisted of a planetarium giving a few overpriced and superfluous gee-whiz shows that are long on special effects but woefully short on science.

The latter brings to mind another gripe I have -- for the sub-par science offered, the prices are exorbitant.  Twelve dollars apiece for anyone over 13 to see the main exhibits (about a quarter of which are broken or hopelessly infantile) and an additional $3.00  to park in the museum lot.  Add to that $6-$7 each for IMAX movies, planetarium presentations, etc. and you are talking significant dollars for not much educational value.

How about some educational opportunities for adults with more than a cable TV education about science?  I would love to hear a college-level lecture on the latest developments in any of the physics or chemistry branches.   Maybe the general public wouldn't be so quick to swallow the endless Internet tripe about black holes being spontaneously created by the super-collider or climate change not 'being real' if they knew how science actually works  and were not dependent upon some idiot Senator from Oklahoma waving around a list of TV weather personalities as dissenting 'experts'??

Climate change - a near retrospect

Here is a report from NOAA, actually a series of reports that use scientific discipline to attempt to determine if certain weather events of 2011 were caused/made worse by global climate change, in particular the observed overall warming of the climate.  Not surprisingly it is a mixed conclusion, although the troubling thing is that it does indicate strongly that at least a few events were caused/made worse by the overall climate change.

Warning...the faint of heart, science haters, English flunkees, Republicans or the American Idol crowd may want to avoid this one - I mean it actually has the word anthropogenic in the second paragraph after all!

And then they voted...#1 of an indefinite series

A mentor/boss/friend of mine once sent out a series of humorous emails and one of them was about various...well...less mentally adept citizens among us all ending with the phrase "...and then they voted".   So with apologies, Carl, I am 'borrowing' this phrase for an irregular series of posts along the same theme.  Most of them will require no comment, including this one.

Book Review (Iraq War)

I just finished this book.  It tells the story of the pile of deceit, lies and good old fashioned tail-covering that led up to the "WMD" pretext for the Iraq war.  There were of course no WMDs at all but unfortunately the Bush Administration lacked the ability (dare I say "intelligence"?) to see through it, particularly because it served their own preconceived desires.  Too bad for all the soldiers and civilians who paid for it dearly in a completely meaningless conflict.  Here is my review from Goodreads:

Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Man Behind Them: How America Went to War in Iraq by Bob Drogin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you are an American citizen, this book should make you angry. If you are from another country, it will confirm in your mind the incredible amount of stupidity that flows out of Washington DC, particularly at the beginning of the Iraq war.

Curveball is the name of a not-very-bright Iraqi defector to Germany who wove an improbable, inconsistent, and not very believable tale of mobile germ-warfare weapons labs and stockpiles of weapons in Iraq. The Germans wound up not believing his story, and pretty much came to the conclusion that he was mentally unstable. However, the Bush administration, desperate to find a pretext for invading Iraq and most particularly the CIA eagerly swallowed Curveball's tale whole. The interesting thing was the CIA had never even interviewed Curveball in person before assuring Bush and Cheney that indeed this was the real deal.

It didn't help any that the relationship between the CIA and most other intelligence agencies was purely poisonous and not the rosy 'brotherhood against terror' that Bush told the world. The Germans in particular were still smarting over some arrogant high-handed treatment by the Americans a year or two earlier.

The book tells the tale well and completely and makes it plain that many of the people in the CIA were successful in covering their a__es but also many good, capable career intelligence people left in disgust. The last chapter covers a hastily-arranged White House lunch with Bush, Cheney, Rice and the chief 'WMD finder' for the CIA in Iraq. It is plain that even then when everyone else in the world knew the truth, Bush and Cheney were not quite ready to let go of the myth.

I found myself wanting to reach through the pages of the book and crash their heads together and say "...you morons...just how does it feel to completely destroy a sovereign nation and kill so many people for absolutely no reason ?".

Not worth...guano?

Guess we will have to find another phrase for "ain't worth s_it" now.

Science news (climatology)

A study from the University of Melbourne definitively links the shrinking of Arctic ice caps to a combination of melting sea ice (already posing a serious threat to the polar bear) and global climate warming.   Unfortunately, this study probably doesn't have near enough money behind it to begin to overcome the political power of even one mid-sized coal-fired power company. 

Sobering Facts again...

This is from last year, but still very relevant.    Here is an article from Foreign Policy that refers to a table from the IMF listing countries in terms of various measures of social and educational characteristics.  Look at the table (linked from the story).  The US is much worse in most categories than many third-world countries and almost all second-world countries.  

Considering our current death panel/insurance company system we spend more on health care (by several miles) than any other country and yet have a decidedly third-world life expectancy.  Is that maybe because only about half the adult population in the US is covered and can afford the 'cadillac' health care system we have built?

The real interesting part of the article to me though is the introduction of defense spending into the equation. The amount the US spends on defense is truly obscene...particularly for what we don't get.  Remember the US military has not had a 'victory' in a significant war since World War II.   

Interesting also is that the US spends almost exactly the same amount as Canada and Australia on social programs for its people (measured as a % of GDP)...but the results as you can see are obviously vastly different.

Yesiree..we can blow up any country in the world we want to many times over...but provide health care to our citizens...or even a world-ready education to our children???  Not so much...

The Hypocrisy of Political Parties

Ezra Klein could be my near soul mate as far as my basic premise that the political parties have made a complete and utter mess of things and do not deserve to exist in this noble experiment we call America, but he is a bit more tolerant of their existence than I.  However I do need to give him all the credit for some excellent research and commentary. 

Global warming...us???

Yes, humans....think about it...think long and hard since no one in Congress or who belongs to any political party is obviously going to have the intelligence or courage to do so.  

Think people!
 

Don't let facts get in the way....

of an opportunity to pontificate and recast the 'facts' according to your prejudices.  

This is Really Cool

to think about...no matter what kind of continuing nonsense is going on down here on the polluted orb we inhabit.  An excerpt from the Phys.org site linked on the right:

"Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system."

This is a 34-year old spacecraft and the transmissions from it take almost 17 hours...one way...and we are just geting out of our local solar system.

Feeling small yet?

The rest of the phys.org item is here.

As always, dear readers - happy thinking!

Stephen Hawking

If you haven't read Stephen Hawking or otherwise had an occasion to appreciate his intelligence and sharp wit, you have missed the opportunity to appreciate one of our greatest living thinkers.  Just a quick snippet from a recent appearance in Seattle at which he commented on his "M-theory" of other, alternate dimensions as a potential 'theory of everything':

"I feel to ignore it would be like claiming that God put fossils in the rocks to trick Darwin into believing in evolution,"

In response to a journalist's question about time-travel at a press conference:

"I have experimental evidence that [backward] time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time travelers, but I didn't send out the invitation until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came."

Book Review - Descent Into Chaos

I am posting another of my Goodreads book reviews, this one on a book that discredits thoroughly almost every assumption and move that the US has made in the last 12 years in the Middle East, particularly in regards to Pakistan.

Descent into Chaos: The United States & the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to read this book, mainly because of all the names of people and places. It is a complex and very detailed look by a respected Pakistani journalist at the mess that is Pakistan and Afghanistan. That it was largely due to the incredibly inept bungling of the Bush administration I knew before reading the book, but just how culpable, how willingly the administration chose the wrong road each and every time and how thoroughly they played into the hands of al Qaeda and the Taliban was something of a revelation.

Another fact that came out with glaring clarity was just how thoroughly the Bush administration lied to the American people - while Rumsfeld was praising the ability of the warlords to govern Afghanistan and Bush was extolling the wonderful aid Musharaff giving the US in tracking down al Qaeda they were both taking American aid money and using it to clamp down and solidify their own power in the first case or feed the money through the Pakistani army and the ISI intelligence service to the Taliban. The US would have been much better off (and closer to dismembering al Qaeda) if they had invaded Pakistan at the outset, but this would have taken too long since they had something resembling a real army and Bush would have been delayed in his blood lust to invade Iraq.

Telling as well is the insider's view of the lack of coodination in NATO between the countries, and the way their reluctance to get involved at all played out in scenario after scenario where NATO countries tried to do at least some nation-building/rebuilding but a disinterested US turned its back (and closed its wallet) to any meaningful recovery activities for the country's infrastructure or the government.

The author has personal relationships with many of the top players in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and brings a depth of knowledge about the ethnic strife and politics of the area that can only can come from living it, and watching your part of the world being savaged by faraway countries with more money and guns than common sense.

The Picture that Makes You Stop

I came across this a few months ago and just found it again.  I have mentioned before that in another life I could enjoy a career in photojournalism.  The best images simply take your breath away for a moment.  This example is one of the best of the craft I have seen recently...I hope it wins some recognition. 

 

A boy swings in a park converted to a cemetery in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib on Saturday. RODRIGO ABD / Associated Press

What does this image say to you?  Are the graves in this converted city park marching inexorably toward the swing, and the innocence of youth it represents?  Perhaps toward the boy? 

(The full caption from the Tulsa World is included to acknowledge the photographer, the image was originally dated in March of 2012.)

He Probably Was "One of Them"

If you ever saw the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind you might remember a scene as the World War II Air Force pilots disembark form the alien ship and one of the scientists marvels "They haven't even aged. Einstein was right." and the team leader replies, "Einstein was probably one of them." 

Well, Einstein just keeps being proved right -- there have been some minor areas where he was wrong, but he somehow seems to have gotten the "big stuff" right.  The latest challenge to his theories pretty much bit the big one.

That's one of the beauties of science -- ideas and theories only last until a better one comes along (or the theory is disproved) by peer review and experimentation.  Unlike politics, science just keeps self-correcting and honing itself to be ever closer to a new understanding of truth.  No wonder when politicians try to belittle science, they don't use the tools of science, but rather the prattle-brained rhetoric of people who long ago gave up any right to even a pretense of the pursuit of truth.    

Book Review - Country Driving (China)

Here is my Goodreads review of the third book in the amazing, interesting, personal, fascinating, informative, and thoughtful three book series on China by Peter Hessler.  My earlier reviews of the first two books are here and here.

Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip by Peter Hessler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This final installment in Peter Hessler's China trilogy is in itself a trilogy. Three books in one covering a seven year period after Peter got his Chinese driver's license. Getting a license in China is a process that is equal parts bureaucracy and and unintentional humor (imagine a driving test in the US that was based largely on the way people actually drive).

The first of the three books covers a 7,000 mile trip across northern China, chasing the outlines of the Great Wall. The Wall, like most near-legendary places and things turns out to be much more than the common pictures of a sturdy-looking stone and brick structure that we usually see in magazines. Not only can "it" not be seen from space but is actually not one wall but several different fortifications built out of many different materials including tamped earth in many spots, over a wide span of time.

The second book covers six years Hessler spent living in a small agricultural village north of Beijing, where he sees both the struggles and the adaptations necessary in rural China brought by the wrenching changes in recent decades. He also gets an inside look at the impact of national politics at the village level.

The final book covers several driving trips through the rapidly-urbanizing south of China, where he sees factories spring up where mountains used to be and watches those same factories move locations literally overnight to save a few dollars in costs, and sometimes disappear altogether. He also observes the emerging entrepreneurial class, where status and position are marked by the brand of cigarette smoked.

Throughout the book Hessler writes with the same personal, compassionate, observant viewpoint that marked his other books. From rushing a sick child to a hospital in Beijing and calling on doctor acquaintances in the US for help when the Chinese doctors don't seem up to the task, to sitting at a meal in a one-room hut with a family whose father and daughters all have taken up the urban factory semi-migrant lifestyle in the south, you sense Hessler's compassion and commitment to the real story in China -- the people.

Book Review - Oracle Bones (China)

I just finished the third in Peter Hessler's China trilogy of books last night.  Here is my Goodreads review of the second book, Oracle Bones:

Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present by Peter Hessler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hessler continues his thoughtful writing and narration style in this second book and I won't repeat my admiration and enjoyment of it again (earlier review of River Town).

This book comes after Hessler's "Two Years" as a Peace Corps teacher in Fuling, and finds him a freelance writer in Beijing, and nicely brings together the past and present (up to 2002) of China. If you have not read the "Two Rivers" book, I recommend you do so before reading this one. It is not a requirement, but it will enhance your enjoyment since many of Peter's more memorable students from that book return in this one as he follows up their lives post-graduation - they provide much of the 'now' insight into China.

The primary theme of the book is Chinese history centered around some fascinating old archaeology (themed around the enigmatic Oracle Bones that give the book its title) and new (the slow current-day mapping of a buried walled city). Through research and speaking to some of the last living survivors of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward eras where Chinese history or the study of it was distorted, twisted and in some cases broken Hessler weaves a story of not only of a long and complex history, but the people who study it despite some great obstacles.

But the book is much more than this - there are 'side threads' and stories throughout, one of the most significant is Hessler's friendship with a Chinese ethnic minority Uighur who eventually emigrates to the US, giving Hessler the opportunity to think anew about the differences and similarities between China and the US. There is also a thread running through the book about one of the primary scholars of Oracle Bones inscriptions, who was a casualty of the social upheavals in China but left an interesting trail of work, friends, and knowledge.

Finally, the book is organized with chapters called 'Artifacts' that are short side journeys looking at specific items and people from the far past of China that do not fit in the main narrative of the book. I found these to be welcome respites from the main story and fascinating in their own right. There is also a very usable map (in the edition I read) so that you can keep track of the various places mentioned in the book which I much appreciated - it had a sticky note marking it the whole time I was reading.

One quotation from this book stuck with me because it is a simple idea but one that leads to some interesting possiblilities - from the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu:

A fish-trap is for catching fish, once you've caught the fish, you can forget the trap. A rabbit-snare is for catching rabbits; once you've caught the rabbit, you can forget about the snare. Words are for catching ideas, once you've caught the idea, you can forget about the words. Where can I find a person who knows how to forget about words so that I can have a few words with him?"

The idea that words are of impermanent utility probably applies to this book, but it is a very memorable book nonetheless - the ideas are permanent and I know I will be reading and researching more about China because of it. It is a book to be read slowly and one of those I did not want to end since I know there is much more to tell and Hessler is a very talented writer - I look forward to the next.



Here is a video from 2006 at a Google Authors event in Which Hessler talks about the content of this book.