as a practical matter, if there was a good refutation of evolution, probably all the present scientist would have to get old and die before there was a conceptual change. but that is an improvement over most of religion.
as to how the rabbit would be approached, what you describe can be seen as stemming from use of occum's razor. Now occum was a slimey sort and if you pick on him, maybe I will applaud.
as to criticizing evolution, the right approach is to criticize mechanism, as in philosophy, IMO. again i will applaud, but if you were able to do a good job, you would not be so concerned about evolution.
there is a lot of deep time data around co2 and temperature. co2 varies and there is a correlation with temperature. given the labatory effects of co2, you might think causation. and on this data set you probably do not much hsve to worry about the genocidialists getting a data fraud.
of course, if the buy causation, you are not getting to the lag time with this data. insolation has increased 25% but there seems to be a lag time in excess of billions of years:-) best i can tell, if there was something like awg and the data was actually good, there is not a clue on the lag time.
on size of the co2 input by humans, which is really what I wanted to comment on, the big thing here is kind of the emotional reaction to how the numbers are stated.
Well, I guess we also have to note that figuring out by direct measurements global co2 load is tricky. You might think the measurements are easy and i suppose it is, but the numbers bounce all over the place.
so 25% increase in co2 recently. In terms of percent of atmosphere the difference is not impressive. In terms of the total co2 in the co2 cycle, it is not impressive. I seem to recall a claim that suggests to me the 25% increase is a 2% increase in the cycle load. not impressive, but it might be important but it is not obviously important
in just a simple minded way, the awg machine is over. science types who had feared to buck the party line are speaking up. two major governments have cslled foul on the "science". more interesting is why just now.
awg as a strategic element was crushed at copenhagen. this is a big battle won. but with, oh, vaguely, the collapse of the eurozone, the war is pretty much over. the bad guys were always going to lose, but now it is highly likely the good guys will win. so be happy.
I am convinced that humor is a powerful weapon. Exposing the MPs as objects of humor sound fine to me, and probably to you. By one comment, the title is already in that vein. the shitstorm comment
Also, you have to be a little careful about cultural assumptions. If you are USA, you might have second thoughts about the title. In australia, maybe not. I have the vague idea they are a little looser then the USA about sex. Most everyone is. but this is slashdot, so who would know anything about the subject.
figure that bush and obama figured bailing our the speculators was much more important than manufacturing capability. So they spent 23.4? trillion dollars bailing out the banks. I think we could have managed to get a nuclear power plant or two built somehow with that money. and destroying people like goldman sucks helps just about everyone.
Here is an agitational document on how to start doing something useful.
what is the status. congress critters are breaking with obama over nasa. one ex type calls for impeachment. one current says he is open to the idea. labor union leader types are hearing it from their members and calling in to get info. But the real deal will be the houston dem primary in about three weeks. we shall see.
Hmm, the right candidate is a young black lady named rogers. give her some money.
I figure that Japan being Japan, they will never really accept a foreigner, or maybe it is a white guy. so like the hermit, you define yourself for all time by what you spend your time rejecting. there is at least some unpleasant irony there.
as far as beating up on libertarians and anarchists, I figure their economic behavior would still be pretty good if they had a high enough cultural level. But then, would they be libertarians? Personally, I would rather spend my time crushing empires then beating up on what are largely patriots.
Like most everyone, I am sure you are clueless about usa history. since you are in Japan, you might talk to someone about, hmm, Matthew Carey, Lincoln's economist. Everyone reads him when they decide to industrialize. If you are a well-read leftie, look at his correspondence with Marx and figure out who was right when they disagreed. So where did carey come from?
On the usa, I am an exceptionalist. And on a practical matter, you might compare birmingham 63 to usa august 2009. and pull in dvr october 89.
as of Jan 29, 2010, you are exactly correct. However, my info came in to me today verbally and I expect it is reliable. I will wait till DC gets operational again before I figure I am wrong.
as to why you should care,
my, for you I guess the spirit of the age is getting cost per kg in leo down.
or you might wonder if something better than chemical rockets might be stuff that matters
or the real deal, looking at the state of trans-atlantic civilization, even your mundane goals will not be realized. you do not even have to look broadly--just wonder if the visionaries in OBM will approve anything at all forward looking, and do you believe anything obama says? should obama believe anything he thinks?
My best memory this was a cnn throw away, but googling all I found was Biden claiming increased productivity. no numbers. I search cnn too.
i do support high speed rail. It is a little speculative though.
Alexander the great clobbered some land based empire and began the demonstration of the superiority of maritime cultures over land based cultures. Figure this is why the British were able to beat up China.
In the 19th century, the usa went rail and a lot of people followed. There are some hints that rail based beats maritime. In any case, both russia and china are going that way big time.
I treat transport as part of the productive process, so I am a fan of rail, but that argument might not go all the way to high speed passenger rail.
different causality here. I see the funny money as an effect.
after the 87 crash, we went for speculative bubbles to prop up the financial system. we quickly got the repeal of glass-stegall and the legalization of derivatives. Yah, I know. there were two glass-stegalls and they had been chipped away on for some time. Larry summers was heavily involved in this. so bubbles collapse. new and bigger one are needed. eventually you come to residential real estate and so the gov puts a lot of cheap money in. and now we have commercial real estate ready to go down immeadiately.
Not simply a USA problem. EU is finished.
so what is the larger problem. 1.5 quadrillion dollars of derivatives, demanding your life blood. so let us say something nice about banks, commercial banks. if they are not gambling, but are investing in the physical economy, and thus actually involved in the generation of wealth, they are necessary and positive. something like goldman sucks, kill it
but a lot of free enterprise types get funny ideas and start acting like currency has intrinsic value. Unless they are gold bugs or something, most of them really know better.
on cold-war saber rattling, figure I think an alliance with russia, china, india is our way out, called four powers alliance, so there is a bad assumption on your part somewhere. the alternative policy option for these people is called BRIC, but happily that option pretty much died this week
on not watching the video, you are probably a bit correct, but i do not consider it a big "sin". I figure it would give a useful historical perspective. and I was quoting a guy I have know, oh, since 71, and who i consider reliable.
I guess when you look at whatever you are using for currency, you see an intrinsic value in it. So much so, it justifies genocide.
On the other hand, our current economic problems, including apparently expensive entitlement programs, stems ultimately from the silly view that currency has intrinsic value. as far as I can tell, this, when argued competently, is some sort of psychological value thing, and I suspect is based on a rejection of the idea that the universe is lawful and knowable. all very peculiar. but maybe it is a genetic defect.
yah, the private banks do so well at giving us a future.
to go where ever we want, we need high-energy "rockets". Otherwise serious colonization does not work. In the 70s we were ready to go with nuclear drives. Now the russians are going to finally do it. I do not see a lot of private investment in anything really different. Pooh, we now all hear about the virtues of innovation, and as far as I can tell, this is something marketing is especially good at.
if you are a conservative type, something to consider is that India will be in LEO with men in 2012 and on rhe moon, with people, in 2020. oh, India is involved deeply with the russians on the nuclear drive.
on a more earthly thing, China currently has 64 high speed rail projects. 1000's of miles. The usa has 64 miles of medium high speed rail. Some people talk about high speed rail in the usa as capable of causing a 15% overall productivity increase.
and last I looked, 54 nuclear power plants were being built, almost all in asia. the usa has one, an old mothballed tva plant being brought up.
so who has the potential for a future?
anyway, here is a video entitled "the destruction of nasa" which is supposed to be very good
But we got to kill any idea of real progress, technical or economic. anyway, we are in the terminal phase of a malthusian collapse and we need to just suck it up. After all, there is no difference between humans and animals.
funny how quickly a techie oriented slashdot goes luddite. I suspect something like astroturfing.
I seem to recall that the the over-schedule part of constellation was directly traceable to underfunding with respect to promised money.
here are two slugs on yesterday's press conferences
Hmm. might be useful to do a related founding fathers thing. the god in the declaration of independence is "nature's God". I think this is a deism thing and is fine with god creating the universe, but not a lot else. so I figure most deist would get tired of the creationists pretty quick. and a scientist type would have no real problem being a deist. Deism is sort of an enlightment thing, so I imagine the creationists would have complaints simply on that basis. I sympathize, but i wonder what in western civ the creationist actually identifies with.
BAE is the second largest defense contractor in the world. It got caught doing bribery years back and promised not to do it any more. But of course it did and lied about it. The big bribe lately was a bribe of the Saudis on maybe a 43 billion dollar deal., which is even discussed in the bribee's autobiography.
Now you might think BAE might get their ticket pulled. But on the brit side, BAE is key to their global strategy and on the usa side, a real investigation of the saudi deal would yield information on how the bribe was spent, which would be troublesome with respect to 9/11. So everyone gave BAE a nice plea deal, where BAE pays a few hundred million dollars for lying about bribery, but the charge does not mention bribery.
Of course Obama should have nixed the plea bargin, but the deal was so wired and had been in the works so long, only Obama could have nixed it. It is worth noting, but it is almost pointless to complain very much. Still, crushing BAE would have been helpful.
Still, instead of doing a framing as name calling, you might look at this as invoking the american exceptionalist moral criticism that is common to both gambling on the internet and wall street speculation. While say Resorts International, if it is still around, is deeply evil, it does not have the same direct significance as say goldman sucks. So the invocation of moral outrage at Franks support for internet gambling also raises outrage at his support for bailing out the speculators and tends to lead to his crushing, and with leadership, on a more conscious basis than exceptionalist outrage.
Now it is true that an agreement to the point say that currency does not have an intrinsic value and the implications thereof is IMO much more valuable and also leads to the crushing of Frank. But quite a bit of, for instance, history is at least useful in such a discussion. So I am willing to support sort of symbolic arguments based on cultural residues. Maybe you should also. Alas, there is no time to create a competent educational system and culture and raise a new generation to power. And you would still have to crush Franks to get there.
Degenerate Barney Frank Champions Push for Internet Gambling
February 8, 2010 (LPAC)—American statesman Lyndon LaRouche characterized Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as "a degenerate," yesterday, upon being briefed that Frank will try to ram through the legalization of Internet gambling for poker, and thereby thwart a law enacted in 2006. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 bars U.S. banks from accepting payments to settle online wagers. The bill was to go into effect Dec. 1, but Tim Geithner's Treasury and Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve gave the gambling/money laundering interests a six-month delay, to facilitate its repeal.
Barney Frank, a champion of legalizing Internet gambling and marijuana, who also championed the bailout of predator financial institutions as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is opposed for the Democratic nomination in 2010 by LaRouche Youth Movement representative, Rachel Brown.
This dirty deal for a six-month postponement of the enacted law has been masterminded by Frank, Bernanke, Geithner, and the Poker Players Alliance, funded by the Interactive Gaming Council based in Canada. Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) is so incensed that he has put a hold on the most recent six nominees for Treasury Department positions. Supporters include has-been Sen. Alphonse D'Amato (rumored to be close to the mob), and former Rep. Richard Gephardt, who now lobbies for PokerStars.
Frank has taken $100,000 in contributions from gambling interests since 2007. In summer 2009, Frank opened the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and then took in $50,000 at a fundraiser hosted by the Poker Alliance.
The Justice Department has viewed all online gambling as illegal under a 1961 law aimed at mob bookies using telephone lines, but only a handful of Internet betting operations have ever been prosecuted. The gambling firms operate from Antigua, Malta, the Isle of Man, and other "Dope, Inc." sanctuaries.
Frank's bill to legalize internet gambling is scheduled for markup in the next few weeks. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), in a replay of the sick rationale used for drug legalization, has a companion bill that would levy a 2 percent tax on gambling deposits. The Ranking Republican on Frank's committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) is strongly opposed.
It seems to me Watts has been pretty effective in causing big expenditures of effort to deal with his criticisms. As a stat guy, i think he has some credibility. Oh sure, not peer reviewed, but i figure peer review has broken down on this subject. pretty good evidence of this.
New Report Shows 20th Century Global Warming Caused By Data Manipulation
February 2, 2010 (LPAC)—Instrumental temperature data from 1850-1980 have been so systematically tampered with as to bring into doubt whether there was any significant global warming in the 20th Century. This is the conclusion of a new 110-page report by meteorologists Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts, published by Science & Public Policy Institute.
The claimed warming was the result of intentional statistical manipulation by the climate data centers at NOAA, NASA, and the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Among the ruses employed:
* From 1989 to 1994, the number of temperature stations used in compiling the data was reduced from 12,000 to less than 6,000. Stations showing a temperature increase were favored, while stations reporting temperature decline were dropped from the record. According to D'Aleo and Watts: "It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler."
* The data centers employ corrected, not raw, temperature values in their calculations. But corrections were done in such a way as to systematically reduce the recorded temperatures from earlier periods so as to create an appearance of upward temperature in the recent two decades. Statistical filters were employed which masked the urban heat island effect, while claiming to account for it.
* Sea surface temperature data was also manipulated. Satellite input was removed by NOAA in 2009 after complaints of a cold bias in the Southern Hemisphere. The immediate result was an increase in reported global ocean surface temperatures of 0.24 degrees C, leading to the nonsensical claim that the 2000s was the warmest decade in a millennium.
While the new report provides an admirable debunking of the global warming fraud, an even more important question remains unanswered. Global average temperature is a mostly meaningless figure. Earth's biosphere over the past 2 million or more years has been characterized by the successive advance and retreat of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. The orbital parameters position us for another ice sheet advance at the present time, or at any time within the next several thousand years. A decrease in summer average temperature at high northern latitudes would be one of the warnings for an advance phase of the ice sheets. This would be especially important to know for northern Canada where the Laurentide ice sheet originates. However, as climatologist Timothy Ball notes in a case study appended to the D'Aleo and Watts report, there is only one thermometer north of latitude 65N in Canada. This is the Eureka station located at a particularly warm, protected spot on Ellesmere Island. Baffin Island, thought by some glaciologists to be the key originating point for ice sheet development, is devoid of weather stations, as are the Northwest and Yukon Territories.
There was no global warming. Will there be global cooling of a catastrophic sort some time soon? Leaving the genocidalists who organized and ran the global warm hoax in control will assure that we shall not find out. So let's get them out of there.
I wonder why you would be particularly concerned about china made goods, as opposed to usa made goods. There exists more data to say Microsoft puts in backdoors than that China puts in backdoors. Not that the details are particularly convincing in either case. And security on many dimensions is so problematic that it is not clear why you want to focus on this particular threat.
So what is the real deal? Big time world-historic international politics. Figure the reason the blog got written comes directly out of that. Figure that this explains the details of Googles response to recent events.
Good post. I got some chuckles. Not many people should figure the saudis or the oil companies are their friends. But I wondered about the Karl quote. It had an element of deep truth (and deep error) which is a bit rare. So I googled him. Might be a polymath. It is useful to note that he did a political adventure on something like the climate change ticket.
this is actually an interesting article, First of all there are some laughs in an intended speculative bubble being meta-scammed. Then recall the climategate crack. It seemed unusually timely to me. With this, it occurs to me that we may be getting some nicely self-counscious asymetrical warfare. Nothing I will ever know, but fifty years out, it might be generally knowable.
Looking at all the silly comments, it amusing that about everyone tries to discuss co2 as a pollutant. I guess plants do not get a vote yet, for which we can be thankful. Here is that latest, not just on awg, but just plain global warming.
New Report Shows 20th Century Global Warming Caused By Data Manipulation
February 2, 2010 (LPAC)—Instrumental temperature data from 1850-1980 have been so systematically tampered with as to bring into doubt whether there was any significant global warming in the 20th Century. This is the conclusion of a new 110-page report by meteorologists Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts, published by Science & Public Policy Institute.
The claimed warming was the result of intentional statistical manipulation by the climate data centers at NOAA, NASA, and the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Among the ruses employed:
* From 1989 to 1994, the number of temperature stations used in compiling the data was reduced from 12,000 to less than 6,000. Stations showing a temperature increase were favored, while stations reporting temperature decline were dropped from the record. According to D'Aleo and Watts: "It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler."
* The data centers employ corrected, not raw, temperature values in their calculations. But corrections were done in such a way as to systematically reduce the recorded temperatures from earlier periods so as to create an appearance of upward temperature in the recent two decades. Statistical filters were employed which masked the urban heat island effect, while claiming to account for it.
* Sea surface temperature data was also manipulated. Satellite input was removed by NOAA in 2009 after complaints of a cold bias in the Southern Hemisphere. The immediate result was an increase in reported global ocean surface temperatures of 0.24 degrees C, leading to the nonsensical claim that the 2000s was the warmest decade in a millennium.
While the new report provides an admirable debunking of the global warming fraud, an even more important question remains unanswered. Global average temperature is a mostly meaningless figure. Earth's biosphere over the past 2 million or more years has been characterized by the successive advance and retreat of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. The orbital parameters position us for another ice sheet advance at the present time, or at any time within the next several thousand years. A decrease in summer average temperature at high northern latitudes would be one of the warnings for an advance phase of the ice sheets. This would be especially important to know for northern Canada where the Laurentide ice sheet originates. However, as climatologist Timothy Ball notes in a case study appended to the D'Aleo and Watts report, there is only one thermometer north of latitude 65N in Canada. This is the Eureka station located at a particularly warm, protected spot on Ellesmere Island. Baffin Island, thought by some glaciologists to be the key originating point for ice sheet development, is devoid of weather stations, as are the Northwest and Yukon Territories.
There was no global warming. Will there be global cooling of a catastrophic sort some time soon? Leaving the genocidalists who organized and ran the global warm hoax in control will assure that we shall not find out. So let's get them out of there.
I googled on liquid democracy but did not find much detail.
oh well. what you say about choices is true of parlimentary "democracy". In the US,if you talk about "built", recall that parties were very much in disfavor in the really old days.
anyway, the relevant thing today in the US is a very obvious mass strike. kind of a technical term. the last action in the US with significant mass strike characteristics was Birminghham 63. might be outside your history, try DVR october 89.
last i looked, Australia still had a rapidly expanding housing bubble, propped up with government subsidies. surely to keep the speculators happy for a little longer. I imagine the voters are seriously restless. Treat the current period as a general breakdown crisis and expect a lot of bad stuff.
Here is a look at Europe from last week. The author is not your friend and the article is perhaps best looked at a factional document that was too candid. Anyway, it was immeadiately suppressed.
Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2010-01-18 02:05. Section: By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph, London Sunday, January 17, 2010
Fears of a euro breakup have reached the point where the European Central Bank feels compelled to issue a legal analysis of what would happen if a country tried to leave monetary union.
"Recent developments have, perhaps, increased the risk of secession (however modestly), as well as the urgency of addressing it as a possible scenario," said the document, entitled "Withdrawal and Expulsion from the EU and EMU: Some Reflections."
The author makes a string of vaulting, Jesuitical, and mischievous claims, as EU lawyers often do. Half a century of ever-closer union has created a "new legal order" that transcends a "largely obsolete concept of sovereignty" and imposes a "permanent limitation" on the states' rights.
Those who suspect that the European Court has the power pretensions of the medieval papacy will find plenty to validate their fears in this astonishing text.
Crucially, the author argues that eurozone exit entails expulsion from the European Union as well. All EU members must take part in EMU (except Britain and Denmark, with opt-outs).
This is a warning shot for Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain. If they fail to marshal public support for draconian austerity, they risk being cast into Icelandic oblivion. Or for Greece, back into the clammy embrace of Asia Minor.
ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet upped the ante, warning that the bank would not bend its collateral rules to support Greek debt. "No state can expect any special treatment," he said. He might as well daub a death's cross on the door of Greece's debt management office.
This euro-brinkmanship must be unnerving for the Hellenic Socialists (PASOK). Last week's E1.6 billion (L1.4 billion) auction of Greek debt did not go well. The interest rate on six-month notes rose to 1.38 percent, compared to 0.59 percent a month ago. The yield on 10-year bonds has touched 6 percent, the spreads ballooning to 270 basis points above German Bunds.
Greece cannot afford such a premium for long. The country must raise E54 billion this year -- front-loaded in the first half. Unless the spreads fall sharply, the deficit cannot be cut from 12.7 percent of GDP to 3 percent within three years. As Moody's put it, Greece (and Portugal) face the risk of "slow death" from rising interest costs.
Stephen Jen from BlueGold Capital said the design flaws of monetary union are becoming clearer. "I don't believe Euroland will break up. Too much political capital has been spent in the past half century for Euroland to allow an outright breakage. However, severe 'stress-fractures' are quite likely in the years ahead."
As Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) slide into deflation, their "real" interest rates will rise even higher. "It is tantamount to hiking rates in the already weak PIIGS," he said. This is the crux. ECB policy will become "pro-cyclical," too tight for the South, too loose for the North.
The City view is that the North-South split may cause trouble but that there will always be a bailout to prevent a domino effect. "If a rescue turns out to be necessary, a rescue will be mounted," said Marco Annunziata from Unicredit.
It comes down to a bet that Berlin will do for Club Med what it did for East Germany: subsidise forever. It is a judgment on
Slashdot Mirror
so regarding scientists not changing their minds
as a practical matter, if there was a good refutation of evolution, probably all the present scientist would have to get old and die before there was a conceptual change. but that is an improvement over most of religion.
as to how the rabbit would be approached, what you describe can be seen as stemming from use of occum's razor. Now occum was a slimey sort and if you pick on him, maybe I will applaud.
as to criticizing evolution, the right approach is to criticize mechanism, as in philosophy, IMO. again i will applaud, but if you were able to do a good job, you would not be so concerned about evolution.
oh, let us look at it.
there is a lot of deep time data around co2 and temperature. co2 varies and there is a correlation with temperature. given the labatory effects of co2, you might think causation. and on this data set you probably do not much hsve to worry about the genocidialists getting a data fraud.
of course, if the buy causation, you are not getting to the lag time with this data. insolation has increased 25% but there seems to be a lag time in excess of billions of years :-)
best i can tell, if there was something like awg and the data was actually good, there is not a clue on the lag time.
on size of the co2 input by humans, which is really what I wanted to comment on, the big thing here is kind of the emotional reaction to how the numbers are stated.
Well, I guess we also have to note that figuring out by direct measurements global co2 load is tricky. You might think the measurements are easy and i suppose it is, but the numbers bounce all over the place.
so 25% increase in co2 recently. In terms of percent of atmosphere the difference is not impressive. In terms of the total co2 in the co2 cycle, it is not impressive. I seem to recall a claim that suggests to me the 25% increase is a 2% increase in the cycle load. not impressive, but it might be important but it is not obviously important
in just a simple minded way, the awg machine is over. science types who had feared to buck the party line are speaking up. two major governments have cslled foul on the "science". more interesting is why just now.
awg as a strategic element was crushed at copenhagen. this is a big battle won. but with, oh, vaguely, the collapse of the eurozone, the war is pretty much over. the bad guys were always going to lose, but now it is highly likely the good guys will win. so be happy.
I am convinced that humor is a powerful weapon. Exposing the MPs as objects of humor sound fine to me, and probably to you. By one comment, the title is already in that vein. the shitstorm comment
Also, you have to be a little careful about cultural assumptions. If you are USA, you might have second thoughts about the title. In australia, maybe not. I have the vague idea they are a little looser then the USA about sex. Most everyone is. but this is slashdot, so who would know anything about the subject.
figure that bush and obama figured bailing our the speculators was much more important than manufacturing capability. So they spent 23.4? trillion dollars bailing out the banks. I think we could have managed to get a nuclear power plant or two built somehow with that money. and destroying people like goldman sucks helps just about everyone.
Here is an agitational document on how to start doing something useful.
http://larouchepac.com/node/13385
what is the status. congress critters are breaking with obama over nasa. one ex type calls for impeachment. one current says he is open to the idea. labor union leader types are hearing it from their members and calling in to get info. But the real deal will be the houston dem primary in about three weeks. we shall see.
Hmm, the right candidate is a young black lady named rogers. give her some money.
http://keshaforcongress.com/
It is useful to recognize we are in a mass strike period.
why i live in Japan
there is a certain personal fallacy therein.
I figure that Japan being Japan, they will never really accept a foreigner, or maybe it is a white guy. so like the hermit, you define yourself for all time by what you spend your time rejecting. there is at least some unpleasant irony there.
as far as beating up on libertarians and anarchists, I figure their economic behavior would still be pretty good if they had a high enough cultural level. But then, would they be libertarians? Personally, I would rather spend my time crushing empires then beating up on what are largely patriots.
Like most everyone, I am sure you are clueless about usa history. since you are in Japan, you might talk to someone about, hmm, Matthew Carey, Lincoln's economist. Everyone reads him when they decide to industrialize. If you are a well-read leftie, look at his correspondence with Marx and figure out who was right when they disagreed. So where did carey come from?
On the usa, I am an exceptionalist. And on a practical matter, you might compare birmingham 63 to usa august 2009. and pull in dvr october 89.
as of Jan 29, 2010, you are exactly correct. However, my info came in to me today verbally and I expect it is reliable. I will wait till DC gets operational again before I figure I am wrong.
as to why you should care,
my, for you I guess the spirit of the age is getting cost per kg in leo down.
or you might wonder if something better than chemical rockets might be stuff that matters
or the real deal, looking at the state of trans-atlantic civilization, even your mundane goals will not be realized. you do not even have to look broadly--just wonder if the visionaries in OBM will approve anything at all forward looking, and do you believe anything obama says? should obama believe anything he thinks?
good call
My best memory this was a cnn throw away, but googling all I found was Biden claiming increased productivity. no numbers. I search cnn too.
i do support high speed rail. It is a little speculative though.
Alexander the great clobbered some land based empire and began the demonstration of the superiority of maritime cultures over land based cultures. Figure this is why the British were able to beat up China.
In the 19th century, the usa went rail and a lot of people followed. There are some hints that rail based beats maritime. In any case, both russia and china are going that way big time.
I treat transport as part of the productive process, so I am a fan of rail, but that argument might not go all the way to high speed passenger rail.
different causality here. I see the funny money as an effect.
after the 87 crash, we went for speculative bubbles to prop up the financial system. we quickly got the repeal of glass-stegall and the legalization of derivatives. Yah, I know. there were two glass-stegalls and they had been chipped away on for some time. Larry summers was heavily involved in this. so bubbles collapse. new and bigger one are needed. eventually you come to residential real estate and so the gov puts a lot of cheap money in. and now we have commercial real estate ready to go down immeadiately.
Not simply a USA problem. EU is finished.
so what is the larger problem. 1.5 quadrillion dollars of derivatives, demanding your life blood. so let us say something nice about banks, commercial banks. if they are not gambling, but are investing in the physical economy, and thus actually involved in the generation of wealth, they are necessary and positive. something like goldman sucks, kill it
but a lot of free enterprise types get funny ideas and start acting like currency has intrinsic value. Unless they are gold bugs or something, most of them really know better.
on cold-war saber rattling, figure I think an alliance with russia, china, india is our way out, called four powers alliance, so there is a bad assumption on your part somewhere. the alternative policy option for these people is called BRIC, but happily that option pretty much died this week
on not watching the video, you are probably a bit correct, but i do not consider it a big "sin". I figure it would give a useful historical perspective. and I was quoting a guy I have know, oh, since 71, and who i consider reliable.
an interesting moral position
I guess when you look at whatever you are using for currency, you see an intrinsic value in it. So much so, it justifies genocide.
On the other hand, our current economic problems, including apparently expensive entitlement programs, stems ultimately from the silly view that currency has intrinsic value. as far as I can tell, this, when argued competently, is some sort of psychological value thing, and I suspect is based on a rejection of the idea that the universe is lawful and knowable. all very peculiar. but maybe it is a genetic defect.
yah, the private banks do so well at giving us a future.
to go where ever we want, we need high-energy "rockets". Otherwise serious colonization does not work. In the 70s we were ready to go with nuclear drives. Now the russians are going to finally do it. I do not see a lot of private investment in anything really different. Pooh, we now all hear about the virtues of innovation, and as far as I can tell, this is something marketing is especially good at.
if you are a conservative type, something to consider is that India will be in LEO with men in 2012 and on rhe moon, with people, in 2020. oh, India is involved deeply with the russians on the nuclear drive.
on a more earthly thing, China currently has 64 high speed rail projects. 1000's of miles. The usa has 64 miles of medium high speed rail. Some people talk about high speed rail in the usa as capable of causing a 15% overall productivity increase.
and last I looked, 54 nuclear power plants were being built, almost all in asia. the usa has one, an old mothballed tva plant being brought up.
so who has the potential for a future?
anyway, here is a video entitled "the destruction of nasa" which is supposed to be very good
http://larouchepac.com/lpactv?nid=13392
Yah, I agree about the sleazy summary.
But we got to kill any idea of real progress, technical or economic. anyway, we are in the terminal phase of a malthusian collapse and we need to just suck it up. After all, there is no difference between humans and animals.
funny how quickly a techie oriented slashdot goes luddite. I suspect something like astroturfing.
I seem to recall that the the over-schedule part of constellation was directly traceable to underfunding with respect to promised money.
here are two slugs on yesterday's press conferences
http://larouchepac.com/node/13540
http://larouchepac.com/node/13539
there are a couple relevant videos, but too much flash
maybe, but what came to mind is a belief that a solar cell has a lifespan of say 20 years. Googling a bit, it seems UV constantly degrades solar cells. Here is someone working on this. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/solar-cell-coating.php
I can image some greeny reading the headline and thinking he is going to power his house forever on these.
Hmm. might be useful to do a related founding fathers thing. the god in the declaration of independence is "nature's God". I think this is a deism thing and is fine with god creating the universe, but not a lot else. so I figure most deist would get tired of the creationists pretty quick. and a scientist type would have no real problem being a deist. Deism is sort of an enlightment thing, so I imagine the creationists would have complaints simply on that basis. I sympathize, but i wonder what in western civ the creationist actually identifies with.
herti-corp
but more seriously
BAE is the second largest defense contractor in the world. It got caught doing bribery years back and promised not to do it any more. But of course it did and lied about it. The big bribe lately was a bribe of the Saudis on maybe a 43 billion dollar deal., which is even discussed in the bribee's autobiography.
Now you might think BAE might get their ticket pulled. But on the brit side, BAE is key to their global strategy and on the usa side, a real investigation of the saudi deal would yield information on how the bribe was spent, which would be troublesome with respect to 9/11. So everyone gave BAE a nice plea deal, where BAE pays a few hundred million dollars for lying about bribery, but the charge does not mention bribery.
Of course Obama should have nixed the plea bargin, but the deal was so wired and had been in the works so long, only Obama could have nixed it. It is worth noting, but it is almost pointless to complain very much. Still, crushing BAE would have been helpful.
wikipedia under BAE-Systems has a lot on BAE.
You seem like a gentle soul and I wish you well.
Still, instead of doing a framing as name calling, you might look at this as invoking the american exceptionalist moral criticism that is common to both gambling on the internet and wall street speculation. While say Resorts International, if it is still around, is deeply evil, it does not have the same direct significance as say goldman sucks. So the invocation of moral outrage at Franks support for internet gambling also raises outrage at his support for bailing out the speculators and tends to lead to his crushing, and with leadership, on a more conscious basis than exceptionalist outrage.
Now it is true that an agreement to the point say that currency does not have an intrinsic value and the implications thereof is IMO much more valuable and also leads to the crushing of Frank. But quite a bit of, for instance, history is at least useful in such a discussion. So I am willing to support sort of symbolic arguments based on cultural residues. Maybe you should also. Alas, there is no time to create a competent educational system and culture and raise a new generation to power. And you would still have to crush Franks to get there.
Hah, IANAL either, but it real hard to libel a public figure in the United States.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,945563,00.html
Degenerate Barney Frank Champions Push for Internet Gambling
February 8, 2010 (LPAC)—American statesman Lyndon LaRouche characterized Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as "a degenerate," yesterday, upon being briefed that Frank will try to ram through the legalization of Internet gambling for poker, and thereby thwart a law enacted in 2006. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 bars U.S. banks from accepting payments to settle online wagers. The bill was to go into effect Dec. 1, but Tim Geithner's Treasury and Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve gave the gambling/money laundering interests a six-month delay, to facilitate its repeal.
Barney Frank, a champion of legalizing Internet gambling and marijuana, who also championed the bailout of predator financial institutions as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is opposed for the Democratic nomination in 2010 by LaRouche Youth Movement representative, Rachel Brown.
This dirty deal for a six-month postponement of the enacted law has been masterminded by Frank, Bernanke, Geithner, and the Poker Players Alliance, funded by the Interactive Gaming Council based in Canada. Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) is so incensed that he has put a hold on the most recent six nominees for Treasury Department positions. Supporters include has-been Sen. Alphonse D'Amato (rumored to be close to the mob), and former Rep. Richard Gephardt, who now lobbies for PokerStars.
Frank has taken $100,000 in contributions from gambling interests since 2007. In summer 2009, Frank opened the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, and then took in $50,000 at a fundraiser hosted by the Poker Alliance.
The Justice Department has viewed all online gambling as illegal under a 1961 law aimed at mob bookies using telephone lines, but only a handful of Internet betting operations have ever been prosecuted. The gambling firms operate from Antigua, Malta, the Isle of Man, and other "Dope, Inc." sanctuaries.
Frank's bill to legalize internet gambling is scheduled for markup in the next few weeks. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), in a replay of the sick rationale used for drug legalization, has a companion bill that would levy a 2 percent tax on gambling deposits. The Ranking Republican on Frank's committee, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) is strongly opposed.
It seems to me Watts has been pretty effective in causing big expenditures of effort to deal with his criticisms. As a stat guy, i think he has some credibility. Oh sure, not peer reviewed, but i figure peer review has broken down on this subject. pretty good evidence of this.
New Report Shows 20th Century Global Warming Caused By Data Manipulation
February 2, 2010 (LPAC)—Instrumental temperature data from 1850-1980 have been so systematically tampered with as to bring into doubt whether there was any significant global warming in the 20th Century. This is the conclusion of a new 110-page report by meteorologists Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts, published by Science & Public Policy Institute.
The claimed warming was the result of intentional statistical manipulation by the climate data centers at NOAA, NASA, and the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Among the ruses employed:
* From 1989 to 1994, the number of temperature stations used in compiling the data was reduced from 12,000 to less than 6,000. Stations showing a temperature increase were favored, while stations reporting temperature decline were dropped from the record. According to D'Aleo and Watts: "It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler."
* The data centers employ corrected, not raw, temperature values in their calculations. But corrections were done in such a way as to systematically reduce the recorded temperatures from earlier periods so as to create an appearance of upward temperature in the recent two decades. Statistical filters were employed which masked the urban heat island effect, while claiming to account for it.
* Sea surface temperature data was also manipulated. Satellite input was removed by NOAA in 2009 after complaints of a cold bias in the Southern Hemisphere. The immediate result was an increase in reported global ocean surface temperatures of 0.24 degrees C, leading to the nonsensical claim that the 2000s was the warmest decade in a millennium.
While the new report provides an admirable debunking of the global warming fraud, an even more important question remains unanswered. Global average temperature is a mostly meaningless figure. Earth's biosphere over the past 2 million or more years has been characterized by the successive advance and retreat of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. The orbital parameters position us for another ice sheet advance at the present time, or at any time within the next several thousand years. A decrease in summer average temperature at high northern latitudes would be one of the warnings for an advance phase of the ice sheets. This would be especially important to know for northern Canada where the Laurentide ice sheet originates. However, as climatologist Timothy Ball notes in a case study appended to the D'Aleo and Watts report, there is only one thermometer north of latitude 65N in Canada. This is the Eureka station located at a particularly warm, protected spot on Ellesmere Island. Baffin Island, thought by some glaciologists to be the key originating point for ice sheet development, is devoid of weather stations, as are the Northwest and Yukon Territories.
There was no global warming. Will there be global cooling of a catastrophic sort some time soon? Leaving the genocidalists who organized and ran the global warm hoax in control will assure that we shall not find out. So let's get them out of there.
I wonder why you would be particularly concerned about china made goods, as opposed to usa made goods. There exists more data to say Microsoft puts in backdoors than that China puts in backdoors. Not that the details are particularly convincing in either case. And security on many dimensions is so problematic that it is not clear why you want to focus on this particular threat.
So what is the real deal? Big time world-historic international politics. Figure the reason the blog got written comes directly out of that. Figure that this explains the details of Googles response to recent events.
Good post. I got some chuckles. Not many people should figure the saudis or the oil companies are their friends. But I wondered about the Karl quote. It had an element of deep truth (and deep error) which is a bit rare. So I googled him. Might be a polymath. It is useful to note that he did a political adventure on something like the climate change ticket.
this is actually an interesting article, First of all there are some laughs in an intended speculative bubble being meta-scammed. Then recall the climategate crack. It seemed unusually timely to me. With this, it occurs to me that we may be getting some nicely self-counscious asymetrical warfare. Nothing I will ever know, but fifty years out, it might be generally knowable.
Looking at all the silly comments, it amusing that about everyone tries to discuss co2 as a pollutant. I guess plants do not get a vote yet, for which we can be thankful. Here is that latest, not just on awg, but just plain global warming.
New Report Shows 20th Century Global Warming Caused By Data Manipulation
February 2, 2010 (LPAC)—Instrumental temperature data from 1850-1980 have been so systematically tampered with as to bring into doubt whether there was any significant global warming in the 20th Century. This is the conclusion of a new 110-page report by meteorologists Joseph D'Aleo and Anthony Watts, published by Science & Public Policy Institute.
The claimed warming was the result of intentional statistical manipulation by the climate data centers at NOAA, NASA, and the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Among the ruses employed:
* From 1989 to 1994, the number of temperature stations used in compiling the data was reduced from 12,000 to less than 6,000. Stations showing a temperature increase were favored, while stations reporting temperature decline were dropped from the record. According to D'Aleo and Watts: "It can be shown that they systematically and purposefully, country by country, removed higher latitude, higher-altitude and rural locations, all of which had a tendency to be cooler."
* The data centers employ corrected, not raw, temperature values in their calculations. But corrections were done in such a way as to systematically reduce the recorded temperatures from earlier periods so as to create an appearance of upward temperature in the recent two decades. Statistical filters were employed which masked the urban heat island effect, while claiming to account for it.
* Sea surface temperature data was also manipulated. Satellite input was removed by NOAA in 2009 after complaints of a cold bias in the Southern Hemisphere. The immediate result was an increase in reported global ocean surface temperatures of 0.24 degrees C, leading to the nonsensical claim that the 2000s was the warmest decade in a millennium.
While the new report provides an admirable debunking of the global warming fraud, an even more important question remains unanswered. Global average temperature is a mostly meaningless figure. Earth's biosphere over the past 2 million or more years has been characterized by the successive advance and retreat of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. The orbital parameters position us for another ice sheet advance at the present time, or at any time within the next several thousand years. A decrease in summer average temperature at high northern latitudes would be one of the warnings for an advance phase of the ice sheets. This would be especially important to know for northern Canada where the Laurentide ice sheet originates. However, as climatologist Timothy Ball notes in a case study appended to the D'Aleo and Watts report, there is only one thermometer north of latitude 65N in Canada. This is the Eureka station located at a particularly warm, protected spot on Ellesmere Island. Baffin Island, thought by some glaciologists to be the key originating point for ice sheet development, is devoid of weather stations, as are the Northwest and Yukon Territories.
There was no global warming. Will there be global cooling of a catastrophic sort some time soon? Leaving the genocidalists who organized and ran the global warm hoax in control will assure that we shall not find out. So let's get them out of there.
I googled on liquid democracy but did not find much detail.
oh well. what you say about choices is true of parlimentary "democracy". In the US,if you talk about "built", recall that parties were very much in disfavor in the really old days.
anyway, the relevant thing today in the US is a very obvious mass strike. kind of a technical term. the last action in the US with significant mass strike characteristics was Birminghham 63.
might be outside your history, try DVR october 89.
last i looked, Australia still had a rapidly expanding housing bubble, propped up with government subsidies. surely to keep the speculators happy for a little longer. I imagine the voters are seriously restless. Treat the current period as a general breakdown crisis and expect a lot of bad stuff.
Here is a look at Europe from last week. The author is not your friend and the article is perhaps best looked at a factional document that was too candid. Anyway, it was immeadiately suppressed.
Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2010-01-18
02:05. Section:
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The
Telegraph, London
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Fears of a euro breakup have reached the point where the European Central
Bank feels compelled to issue a legal analysis of what would happen if a country
tried to leave monetary union.
"Recent developments have, perhaps, increased the risk of secession (however
modestly), as well as the urgency of addressing it as a possible scenario," said
the document, entitled "Withdrawal and Expulsion from the EU and EMU: Some
Reflections."
The author makes a string of vaulting, Jesuitical, and mischievous claims, as
EU lawyers often do. Half a century of ever-closer union has created a "new
legal order" that transcends a "largely obsolete concept of sovereignty" and
imposes a "permanent limitation" on the states' rights.
Those who suspect that the European Court has the power pretensions of the
medieval papacy will find plenty to validate their fears in this astonishing
text.
Crucially, the author argues that eurozone exit entails expulsion from the
European Union as well. All EU members must take part in EMU (except Britain and
Denmark, with opt-outs).
This is a warning shot for Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain. If they fail
to marshal public support for draconian austerity, they risk being cast into
Icelandic oblivion. Or for Greece, back into the clammy embrace of Asia Minor.
ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet upped the ante, warning that the bank would not
bend its collateral rules to support Greek debt. "No state can expect any
special treatment," he said. He might as well daub a death's cross on the door
of Greece's debt management office.
This euro-brinkmanship must be unnerving for the Hellenic Socialists (PASOK).
Last week's E1.6 billion (L1.4 billion) auction of Greek debt did not go well.
The interest rate on six-month notes rose to 1.38 percent, compared to 0.59
percent a month ago. The yield on 10-year bonds has touched 6 percent, the
spreads ballooning to 270 basis points above German Bunds.
Greece cannot afford such a premium for long. The country must raise E54
billion this year -- front-loaded in the first half. Unless the spreads fall
sharply, the deficit cannot be cut from 12.7 percent of GDP to 3 percent within
three years. As Moody's put it, Greece (and Portugal) face the risk of "slow
death" from rising interest costs.
Stephen Jen from BlueGold Capital said the design flaws of monetary union are
becoming clearer. "I don't believe Euroland will break up. Too much political
capital has been spent in the past half century for Euroland to allow an
outright breakage. However, severe 'stress-fractures' are quite likely in the
years ahead."
As Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (PIIGS) slide into deflation,
their "real" interest rates will rise even higher. "It is tantamount to hiking
rates in the already weak PIIGS," he said. This is the crux. ECB policy will
become "pro-cyclical," too tight for the South, too loose for the North.
The City view is that the North-South split may cause trouble but that there
will always be a bailout to prevent a domino effect. "If a rescue turns out to
be necessary, a rescue will be mounted," said Marco Annunziata from Unicredit.
It comes down to a bet that Berlin will do for Club Med what it did for East
Germany: subsidise forever. It is a judgment on
Mike Griffin ex nasa admin on the cuts
http://larouchepac.com/node/13326