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Thursday, May 31, 2007
Defeated By Pornography
I have been hinting around about what our Grand Strategy should be in the War On Islamic Fascism. Some of the hints can be found at: Islam vs American Morality and In The Long Run Their Struggle Will Be Hopeless and The New Middle East. So what should our strategy be in plainer terms? We should be undermining Islamic fascist culture. How? There in lies a tail. Let us start with the BBC. Up to 70% of files exchanged between Saudi teenagers' mobile phones contain pornography, according to a study in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.So who is winning the battle of mobiles? "The flash memory of mobile phones taken from teenagers showed 69.7% of 1,470 files saved in them were pornographic and 8.6% were related to violence," said report author Professor Abdullah al-Rasheed.So sex is more popular than violence by a factor of better than 8 to 1. Excellent. The Opinion Journal has some early news from the battle for Iraq. In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.That was a definite vote of confidence for my proposed strategy. Ralph Peters takes a look at strategy in information warfare. For the world masses, devastated by information they cannot manage or effectively interpret, life is "nasty, brutish . . . and short-circuited." The general pace of change is overwhelming, and information is both the motor and signifier of change. Those humans, in every country and region, who cannot understand the new world, or who cannot profit from its uncertainties, or who cannot reconcile themselves to its dynamics, will become the violent enemies of their inadequate governments, of their more fortunate neighbors, and ultimately of the United States. We are entering a new American century, in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal, and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent.We can already see who the victims are. They are the people whose information on every subject has been restricted. The people who have no immunity to the torrent. The contemporary expansion of available information is immeasurable, uncontainable, and destructive to individuals and entire cultures unable to master it. The radical fundamentalists--the bomber in Jerusalem or Oklahoma City, the moral terrorist on the right or the dictatorial multiculturalist on the left--are all brothers and sisters, all threatened by change, terrified of the future, and alienated by information they cannot reconcile with their lives or ambitions. They ache to return to a golden age that never existed, or to create a paradise of their own restrictive design. They no longer understand the world, and their fear is volatile.I think that is one of the real keys. Our victims volunteer. My original idea was to have our government print up a bunch of pornoraphy and distribute it in the Middle East. I thought that there was no way this could become a government program. Too many Americans with loud voices would object. Fortunately with the advent of computers and mobile phones we do not have to print anything. Nor does our government have to have its fingerprints on the job. There is more than enough free porno on line to satisfy the immediate demand. In other words Open Source Pornography to the rescue. Secular and religious revolutionaries in our century have made the identical mistake, imagining that the workers of the world or the faithful just can't wait to go home at night to study Marx or the Koran. Well, Joe Sixpack, Ivan Tipichni, and Ali Quat would rather "Baywatch." America has figured it out, and we are brilliant at operationalizing our knowledge, and our cultural power will hinder even those cultures we do not undermine. There is no "peer competitor" in the cultural (or military) department. Our cultural empire has the addicted--men and women everywhere--clamoring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment.We are addicted to their oil, it is the engine of our prosperity. They are addicted to our culture, the engine of their defeat. Strategy Page looks at the turmoil our communication technology is causing among the Arab/Persian masses: May 3, 2007: One reason for Islamic terrorism is there are too many Moslems. At least in the sense that the economies of Islamic countries cannot create enough jobs for all the young people coming of age. Consider that for the last fifty years, the population of all Moslem countries has tripled. That's population growth that is more than double the rate of the world as a whole, and about ten times the rate of Europe. It's about five times the rate in the United States.That is the wind up. How about the pitch? While Islamic countries tend to have very low levels of education, especially for women, the introduction of satellite television and DVDs has enabled even illiterate women to learn that there are other options. Ignorance is an excellent form of control, but when the ignorance is lost, so is the control.Yep. I think the Saudi statistics bear that out. Matthew Parris discusses the end of the End of the American Empire. He says that it is premature to blow taps for America. Writing in The Spectator two weeks ago ('Why there will be no future Pax Americana'), the distinguished essayist, author and thinker had sniffed the wind and concluded that it is all up for what he calls the US 'imperium'. Islam has been Washington's undoing, he believes, and after six short decades as top dog of the world, America is already stumbling and set to lose her predominance.So does Islam really have the appeal its adherents claim? I don't think so and neither does Mr. Parris. Have we not noticed how incompetent are Islamic governments and organisations the world over? Has it not occurred to us that if al-Qa'eda really were as wily and resourceful as we tell ourselves they are, and if their tentacles really did extend as wide and deep as some say, they would be on the advance -- not battled into a stalemate by Western security and intelligence? If I were an al-Qa'eda activist I could have blown up Parliament or shot at least one of a range of prime ministers by now. Al-Qa'eda's failure to infiltrate or penetrate Western structures has been complete.Which is not to say that Islam can't cause a lot of trouble. It can, but is it something with appeal to the Western World? I don't think so. Islam prescribes the most minute details of a person's life. The West says: tear down the Walls. Minimize the restrictions. Enlarge the limits. Which will ultimately be more popular? Wretchard at the Belmont Club takes a look at the issue and our secret weapon: We are making them desire and pay for the liquifaction of their culture. Every dollar we pay for oil, not only buys physical weapons to be used against us but aso buys them our best weapon to be used against themselves and our weapons have better targeting and a negative cost for delivery. We profit from their desires. How much more American than that can you get? It tuns out much more.And that, come right down to it, is why some Muslims believe in the power of Allah. Allah strengthens the will of his adherents past any breaking point. They are willing to go past death itself. And they say to us: with our rifle and our belief in Allah we can defeat you with your laser guided weaponry and your belief in Harry Reid. Come to prayer. Come to Islam.We have a secret weapon. Come to Brittany. This is a weapon more fearsome than any 20 divisions of soldiers backed up by 10 CBGs. Memri TV has a video clip from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International about Saudi women stripping for Web Cams. They also have a transcript of the show. Reporter: Behind closed doors and far from any supervising eyes, they remove their shame and turn their backs on all customs and traditions. Girls display their bodies in chat rooms on the Internet, in most cases, free of charge. As soon as one of these girls places the camera in front of her, she begins to strip, displaying her seductive charms to more than 300 young men of different ages. Some believe that the phenomenon of stripping over the Internet may be understood within the framework of social hypocrisy, especially since they believe that our religious and educational discourse does not attribute importance to the strengthening of self-restraint, and prefers the appearance over the essence. This drives some people to play several roles and wear several masks.The liquifaction is well underway. Reporter: On the other hand, many believe that web stripping has not reached the proportions of a phenomenon, and that these are merely isolated cases. They emphasize that the vast majority of our girls protect their modesty and respect the customs, and traditions. These people believe that web cams can be useful tools. They can be used to maintain family ties, and can have educational applications, in lectures and conferences, for example.As one of my favorite bands has said, "On with the show". Yep it is just a few isolated incidents and outside agitators causing all the trouble. Sure it is. The subject is well known and yet no one knows who is involved. I believe that. Sure I do. Hasn't any one explained that when family members surf the 'net supervision is required? I'm going to let Dr. Sanity have the last word. If there was ever in history a better example of the paranoid fear of female sexuality, I can't think of it. You don't have to be much of an expert on Islam or Muslim culture to be able to observe that it has evolved into a societal structure whose primary purpose is to contain and manage female sexuality.It is unhealthy. However, in an information resticted society such obsession is inevitable. It looks to me that their defeat by pornagraphy is inevitable. I might also add that I have been doing some field research for this article (yeah, right) and it appears that pornography by Arabs are increasingly frequent on the free amateur pornography sites. A sub theme in all this is that American music is popular as background on about half the videos that have any music. It is not just sex. Democracy, whiskey, sexy is more popular than Islam. Which means that what ever military action we take is just a holding action while our culture does a number on them. H/T Little Green Footballs, and Instapundit, and The Daily Brief, and Instapundit again. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 08:45 AM | Comments (19)
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Thompson Will Run
I have been doing a lot of thinking about nuclear physics the past couple of days and I didn't want to post it here until I got the illustrations correct. I'm working on that. I might also add that politics seems to lose its interest when you can do some serious thinking about hard physics problems. Which sort of explains the "quiet time". However, Fred Thompson moves me. == I'm heartened by this. Thompson is a communicator. A skill sorely lacking in the current White House. STAMFORD, Conn. -- Politician-turned-actor Fred Thompson plans an unconventional campaign for president using blogs, video posts and other Internet innovations to reach voters repelled by politics-as-usual in both parties, he told USA Today.Actually telling people what he is thinking. A novel approach to politics to be sure. Well Fred was thinking about Michael Moore a while back. And told people what he was thinking. H/T Instapundit Partially cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Hurried Midwest highlights
This is the first time since leaving home that I've had a chance to do anything at all online, as I've been completely busy with other things. (Right now I only have about a half an hour using someone else's computer, running Windows Vista, which I'm not sure I like). This trip to the Midwest began with a hectic twelve hour delay in the flight from Philadelphia to Chicago, which shortened the Milwaukee visit. From Milwaukee to Chicago for a day, then to Rockford, home to M. Simon! We met for a beer (or two or three) at a wonderful place Simon suggested called the Irish Rose. (Damn! This sucky-ass Windows Vista doesn't even allow me to insert links!) I managed to get a photo from the evening into this computer, and I shrank it so I could upload it to the blog. ![]() High time for an official Classical Values party, no? (The problem is that I've spent so much time getting the hang of Vista that I'm quickly running out of time to finish this post!) Fast forward to yesterday, when I drove from Freeport, Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa, pausing to stop in Galena where I visited the home of Ulysses S. Grant.
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![]() Galena is an utterly charming town of 3500, just a short drive to the Mississippi River and Dubuque, Iowa. I can't think of anywhere more beautiful in the Spring, but I'm out of time, and sneaking this post in was all I could do. posted by Eric at 11:10 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Monday, May 28, 2007
Lubos Motl Looks At Sun Spots
Lubos sent me an e-mail thanking me for Clouds In Chambers and suggesting I have a look at Sunspots. He shows the correlations between sunspots and global temperatures. Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers posted by Simon at 05:37 PM | Comments (52)
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IEC Fusion for Dummies
A short technical explanation can be found at Bussard Fusion Reactor. A more detailed look with social implications can be found at Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion. Cross Posted at The Astute Bloggers posted by Simon at 05:03 PM | Comments (2)
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Harmonica Joe
Last night I had a blogger meet up with Eric of Classical Values at the Irish Rose Saloon in Rockford. My first mate was there and so was Harmonica Joe. Needless to say a very good time was had by all. When Eric returns to Philly he will be posting pictures of the usual suspects. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 03:30 PM | Comments (0)
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The Last Full Measure
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln posted by Simon at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
| TrackBacks (0) Sunday, May 27, 2007
CO2 - Its In The Air
China is set to becone the #1 CO2 producer in the world. China's rapid industrialization along with its low economic productivity is causing its energy demands to rise at a furious rate. China is on course to overtake the United States this year as the world's biggest carbon dioxide producer, according to estimates based on Chinese energy data.The nations signed on to Kyoto aren't doing too well on the CO2 front either. Germans in particular are balking at further price increases and other restrictions on their energy supplies. In the mean time how is the USA, which did not sign on to Kyoto, doing? As it turns out not too bad. U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped slightly last year even as the economy grew, according to an initial estimate released yesterday by the Energy Information Administration.Well what do you know. Market forces, which is just another way of saying voluntary cooperation, are doing a pretty good job. In fact a better job than command and control. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 05:57 AM | Comments (59)
| TrackBacks (0) Saturday, May 26, 2007
Staged?
First check out the rubber boots on the steering gear. They are intact with no obvious signs of fire. Second look at the dust on the tires. It looks like the car was dragged into place, rather than moving like a regular car which would have cleared the dust from the wheels. Or had the road been really dusty it would have covered the whole wheel and not just covered a portion of the wheel and left a portion untouched. Supposedly this car was rocketed and burned. So far it is just suspicion. Comments welcome.
And just for amusement here is a picture of Little Richard. Looks a lot like one of the guys in the photo. I wonder if the guy in the photo is an old time American Rock 'n Roll fan? Tuti Fruity, nice booty!
posted by Simon at 10:36 PM | Comments (6)
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Latest Fusion News
Tom Ligon, an engineer who worked with Dr. Robert Bussard, is giving a talk on fusion powered rockets at the International Space Development Conference in Dallas. Here is a link to Tom's Power Point Presentation at ISDC. Scroll down the page and click on the button in the lower right. In other news Tri Alpha Energy has just raised $40 million in venture capital for nuclear fusion. Tri Alpha Energy, which hopes to commercialize nuclear fusion technology, has raised $40 million from Venrock Associates and others, according to VentureWire.I have some links to their proposed design at Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion. Scroll down and look for the Hendrik J. Monkhorst information. Here are some more details on the venture capital deal from UC Irvine. Norman Rostoker, research professor of physics and astronomy, received $5.2 million from Tri Alpha Energy Inc. to research a plasma electric generator that will use as fuel a mixture of hydrogen and boron. In this generator, hydrogen will chase boron in a cylinder, eventually resulting in helium nuclei that will be made to escape into a particle accelerator. The backwards-running accelerator will slow down the nuclei, turning the energy released into electricity.Here is the patent for the Monkhorst/Rostoker design. Cross Posted at Power and Control and at The Astute Bloggers posted by Simon at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
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The Future Of Mainstream Media: 1968
From 2001: A Space Odyssey by Sir Arthur C. Clarke Heywood Floyd catches up with the headlines while travelling to the moon... There was plenty to occupy his time, even if he did nothing but sit and read. When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. I am not about to try a beat-down on Sir Arthur C. Clarke for not imagining a more user-friendly interface. When I first read these words, almost forty years ago now, I was enthralled by his vision of the world's information at your fingertips. That he didn't also invent the touchpad is no big deal. For science fiction writers the future is a moving target, and Sir Arthur has done a better than average job of keeping up with the times. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination. If we ignore all the finicky keystrokes required, what most strikes a modern reader is the user's passivity. The display is as spiffy as one would wish for, likewise the connectivity, but the content is more akin to cable tv than today's internet. Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites. Certainly, I couldn't imagine it either. I had to wait for it to happen. There was another thought which a scanning of those tiny electronic headlines often invoked. The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be. posted by Justin at 12:18 PM | Comments (2)
| TrackBacks (0) Friday, May 25, 2007
Clouds In Chambers
The study of high energy particles was greatly aided in 1912 when C. T. R. Wilson, a Scottish physicist, devised the cloud chamber. The general procedure was to allow water to evaporate in an enclosed container to the point of saturation and then lower the pressure, producing a super-saturated volume of air. Then the passage of a charged particle would condense the vapor into tiny droplets, producing a visible trail marking the particle's path.Why did Wilson invent the cloud chamber? It certainly wasn't to study nuclear physics which was in its infancy at the time. It really was the case that he wanted to study clouds. Inspired by sightings of the Brocken spectre while working on the summit of Ben Nevis in 1894, he began to develop expansion chambers for studying cloud formation and optical phenomena in moist air.So how did all this interest by people studying nuclear physics come about? Very rapidly he discovered that ions could act as centres for water droplet formation in such chambers. He pursued the application of this discovery and perfected the first cloud chamber in 1911. In Wilson's original chamber the air inside the sealed device was saturated with water vapor, then a diaphragm is used to expand the air inside the chamber (adiabatic expansion). This cools the air and water vapor starts to condense. When an ionizing particle passes through the chamber, water vapor condenses on the resulting ions and the trail of the particle is visible in the vapor cloud.Fun stuff. In fact it is so much fun that improved chambers have been developed that can make the required clouds continuously so that you do not have to keep re-pumping the chamber to get the required conditions for cloud formation. Mad Physics has a nice diagram of Wilson's original design and instructions on how to build a more modern version using methanol (wood alcohol), pure ethanol (the drinking kind), or pure isopropyl alcohol (used in diluted form in rubbing alcohol)and dry ice. Cornell University also has similar instructions along with a trouble shooting guide. OK, so men have been making clouds in chambers since 1912. Since not long after that time we have understood that high energy nuclear particles can help clouds to form. Which leads us to the question of climate and how our sun's magnetic field can affect climate. I wrote some about that in Clouds and More Clouds. As usual with any "new" science there are sceptics and deniers (you know who you are). So let us follow this along, look at some really big cloud chambers, and see if we can shed some light instead of just generating heat. Let us start with the experiment that triggered off the whole brouha. An experiment done under the auspices of the Danish Space Agency first reported in the summer of 2006. An essential role for remote stars in everyday weather on Earth has been revealed by an experiment at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.Well that is just one experiment you say. I suppose that is true if you don't count all the millions of cloud chamber experiments done since 1912. However, there are sceptics and deniers among us and we need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm all for that! Now there will always be a few flat earthers, however we want to satisfy the reasonable sceptics. The way to do that? Why get another team to to perform the same experiment to see if they get the same results. So will this be done? Yep. And by whom? Well atomic scietists to the rescue. Geneva, 19 October 2006. A novel experiment, known as CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets), begins taking its first data today with a prototype detector in a particle beam at CERN[1], the world's largest laboratory for particle physics. The goal of the experiment is to investigate the possible influence of galactic cosmic rays on Earth's clouds and climate. This represents the first time a high energy physics accelerator has been used for atmospheric and climate science.Data from this experiment will be out around 2010. So we have to wait a while. In the mean time the BBC reports on some other experiments going on. A three-week experiment to resolve the biggest riddle in climate science begins in Australia on Thursday.Just how bad is the cloud problem? I cover some of that in More Uncertainty. However, let us see what the above linked BBC report has to say: Tropical clouds carry heat and moisture from the Earth's surface high up in the atmosphere, a key process in driving heat around the globe.So even without the nuclear particle (cosmic ray) connection to cloud production there is a lot of uncertainty. Obviously more information is needed. One of the things we need is an understanding of how the sun affects the cosmic ray intensity on earth. So let us look into it. First off let us look into Dr. Nir Shaviv's review of the Danish experiment. After a long embargo, results from the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) Sky experiment were finally published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. These results will probably we overshadowed with today's announcement of this years' physics nobel prize winner (for the COBE microwave background experiment), but they are very important nonetheless.Nir is kind enough to provide the pertinent graph, pictures of the experiment and the scientists involved, and some more discussion at the previous link. Now what does all this have to do with the sun? Nir again provides us with a connection The activity of the sun manifests its self in many ways. One of them is through a variable solar wind. This flux of energetic particles and entangled magnetic field flows outwards from the sun, and impedes on a flux of more energetic particles, the cosmic rays, which come from outside the solar system. Namely, a more active sun with a stronger solar wind will attenuate the flux of cosmic rays reaching Earth. The key point in this picture is that the cosmic rays are the main physical mechanism controlling the amount of ionization in the troposphere (the bottom 10 kms or so). Thus, a more active sun will reduce the flux of cosmic rays, and with it, the amount of tropospheric ionization. As it turns out, this amount of ionization affects the formation of condensation nuclei required for the formation of clouds in clean marine environment. A more active sun will therefore inhibit the formation of cloud condensation nuclei, and the resulting low altitude marine clouds will have larger drops, which are less white and live shorter, thereby warming Earth.Ah, but Dr. Shaviv has more: So why is this link important for global warming? As previously mentioned, solar activity has been increasing over the 20th century. This can be seen in fig. 5. Thus, we expect warming from the reduced flux of cosmic rays. Moreover, since the cosmic ray flux actually had a small increase between the 1940's and 1970's (as can be seen in the ion chamber data in fig. 6), this mechanism also naturally explains the global temperature decrease which took place during the same period.Naturally you will have to visit Dr. Shaviv's site to see the figures. However, if what he says is correct then CO2 is an amplifying mechanism and not the driver. In fact if his numbers are correct solar variation amplified by the cosmic ray effect accounts for 80% of the global warming we have seen. Dr. Shaviv has a paper that originally appeared in PhysicaPlus that has more on the cosmic ray/climate connection over geological time. You can read it here along with some interesting pictures. But wait. That is not all. Let us take another look at Dr. Svensmark's research. For more than a decade, Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Center has been pursuing an explanation for why Earth cools and warms. His findings -- published in October in the Proceedings of the Royal Society -- the mathematical, physical sciences and engineering journal of the Royal Society of London -- are now in, and they don't point to us. The sun and the stars could explain most if not all of the warming this century, and he has laboratory results to demonstrate it. Dr. Svensmark's study had its origins in 1996, when he and a colleague presented findings at a scientific conference indicating that changes in the sun's magnetic field -- quite apart from greenhouse gases -- could be related to the recent rise in global temperatures. The chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, the chief agency investigating global warming, then castigated them in the press, saying, "I find the move from this pair scientifically extremely naive and irresponsible." Others accused them of denouncing the greenhouse theory, something they had not done.Well that should be more than enough to keep the deniers and sceptics busy for a while. Update: A paper by Dr. Svensmark. This appears to be one of his earlier papers on the subject (no date given) and not the results published in 2006. Another Svensmark paper [pdf] Dec. 2006 A paper by Jan Veizer [pdf] on climate over geological time. More updates: Empirical evidence for a nonlinear effect of galactic cosmic rays on clouds [pdf] Cosmic Rays and the Evolution of Earths Climate During the Last 4.6 Billion Years Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays The Sun is More Active Now than Over the Last 8000 Years Solar Resonant Diffusion Waves as a Driver of Terrestrial Climate Change Galactic Cosmic Rays and Insolation are the Main Drivers of Global Climate of the Earth Reader linearthinker has a post up on his blog about the politics behind the science with reference to the IPCC and Dr. Svensmark. Cross Posted at Power and Control posted by Simon at 01:01 AM | Comments (27)
| TrackBacks (0) Thursday, May 24, 2007
More Uncertain
I've been obsessed with the climate change debate recently (you noticed?). And did a piece on the uncertainties in the IPCC numbers on expected global warming from human CO2 emissions. However, the spam filtering software seems to gag on the post. Probably too many models in the text. If you want to read it you can go here: posted by Simon at 09:20 PM | Comments (1)
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A long voyage starts with a single blog post!
Well it might as well. Because, as soon as I finish this post, I'll be readying my departure for a nine day trip -- which means blogging (my blogging, that is) will be erratic until June 2. I hope I'll get to post before Monday, but just in case I do not, everyone have a Happy Memorial Day weekend. (But feel free to check in anyway, because you never know who will post next, or when. Things might get exciting in my absence......) posted by Eric at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
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Facts are facts, but numbers rule!
How many illegal aliens are there in the United States? The reason I'm asking is because earlier I clicked on Glenn Reynolds's link to this post by Mickey Kaus in which he says there are 12 million: If border-enforcement can be made to work (and the implausible premise of the "grand bargain" is that it can--indeed, that it will work so well it can hold off a new wave of illegals lured by amnesty) the problem of the 12 million diminishes gradually, steadily over time. Eventually, it disappears. The Bush administration, which always gins up a "crisis" before its big policy pushes, doesn't like to dwell on this point...I don't mean to dwell on a point on which George F. Will and Mickey Kaus seem to agree, but I just can't ignore it. That's because many organizations and activists insist that there are more than 12 million. Far, far more. According to Newsmax.com the number is 20 million. According to a spokesman for the Minutemen Project, there are 30 million, and that was last summer. So what is it? 12, 20, or 30? Or (from Newsmax this month) "more than 30 million"? (A jump of 10 million in a single year!) Of course, there's also a much lower figure given by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services: As of 2003, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services put the number at 7 million. Since then, United States immigration officials have said the number has grown by as much as 500,000 a year.This would give an adjusted 2007 number of 9 million. Quite a range. Now, if we look at this logically, there has to be an actual, accurate number. It's just that not only is it impossible to determine it, but there there's no way to achieve a consensus on what that number might approximately be, because there is no method of independently verifying any of the proffered numbers in a manner which would satisfy everyone. Facts are not opinions, but when opinions vary as to what the facts are, it strikes me as rather pointless to refer to numbers as if they are facts. Is this a sort of "numbers popularity contest" in which the numbers depend more on which side you're on? I strongly suspect that liberals would tend to prefer the lower numbers, while conservatives would prefer the higher numbers. But even there.... Is "prefer" the right word? I wrote about political tastes yesterday, and tastes are of course preferences. But can numbers be a preference? If so, then should the numbers to be determined by a sort of numbers democracy, in which the number which get the highest number of votes wins? Or should only "experts" be allowed to decide these things? The problem with that is that the experts would inevitably be selected by people who are elected or who have to answer to people who are elected, so democracy (and things like political disagreements) always end up being involved. I don't know how much any of this really matters, but I thought it over, and it occurred to me to apply some basic democratic logic. Numbers ought to be determined by numbers, right? So I've written a democratic numbers poll. You decide. And may the best numbers win! UPDATE: Because an alert commenter pointed out that my poll was not democratic enough, I've added the "no freakin' clue" category. Sorry for the inconvenience, but anyone who was inconvenienced, feel free to vote again! No voter will be turned away! (At the time I closed the first poll, there were only four votes: 2 for 20 million, 1 for 30 million and 1 for 12 million, so I don't expect the change to affect the poll in a major way.) posted by Eric at 12:07 PM | Comments (10)
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Philadelphia's bee problem
Anyone remember how there weren't any more bees? Last month, shortly after feeling scolded by an op-ed saying that, I was shocked to discover that my yard was full of bees, and in other posts I explored whether the great American bee extinction meme might be exaggerated. I realize, of course, that anecdotal stories about the existence or non-existence of bees are not proof of any overall pattern, but here's my bias: I like the bees. I hope the bees thrive, whether in my yard or anyone else's. Whether the bees manage to turn up on farms, on the beaches, or in the cities, I'm rooting for them. More bees! Yaay! Naturally I found myself just loving today's Inquirer piece about a bee problem in center city Philadelphia: Center City remains a very desirable place. Just ask the bees who have been swarming downtown lately.Italian? Sorry to interject there, but considering the fact that all bees in the United States began as immigrants, is it really necessary to dwell on their particular ethnicity? I was just kidding of course. Normally I take multiculturalism as seriously as I can, so I really should stick to the facts. The Wikipedia entry on Italian bees notes that they've been here since 1859, but has an ominous warning under the heading of "Character": CharacterI'd normally be tempted to ask just who is being serious here, but that's beyond my overloaded mental capacity. I shouldn't get so easily distracted by extraneous issues. Back to today's great news: It all started Tuesday morning, when thousands of bees appeared on a tree outside Liberty Place at 17th and Chestnut Streets.From imminent bee extinction to birth control for bees in barely over a month, in the same newspaper? By any standard, that's progress. Far be it from me to ask whether there a lesson in life to be learned from Philadelphia's Italian bees, as I'm far from being a moralist, and I'm just not into anthropmorphic morality. Besides, Aesop did it better. I'm just glad to read about Philadelphia's bee problem (and I'm even gladder that no one so far is blaming global warming). posted by Eric at 10:12 AM | Comments (1)
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If hysteria justifies hysteria, why not get the facts right?
For a variety of reasons, I am tired of writing posts about the horrendous Christian/Newsom double murder. Now that the victim's family and the Assistant District Attorney have finally spoken up, I'd like to think that the allegations of pre-mortem sexual mutilation have been put to rest. (Others don't think they have been, though.) The reason this series of posts started (in reverse chronological order, they are here, here, here, here, and here) was because something just didn't seem right to me when I read numerous accounts of these unspeakable tortures, without any official confirmation anywhere. Now that there has been official confirmation that the allegations were false, that ends my inquiry. It does not, however, end the legal case, which is only beginning and which will of course drag on for months and probably years. I think it's important to get the facts right in cases like this, especially when the claim is made that the MSM is ignoring them, and now that the unverified stuff has been debunked, it ought to make the discussion of the case that much clearer. The bigger debate is the MSM's treatment of the story. The MSM hysteria surrounding Duke "rape" case still being very much on the public mind, it is quite natural for people to ask questions about a media double standard. I know I've said this before, but I think media circus trials are a bad idea, as they make it very difficult for a district attorney to do his job and see to it that justice is done. In the Duke case, you had a politically motivated DA who was deliberately fueling the media circus even though he had no case. It was very wrong for the MSM to treat the case as a circus, just as it was wrong in the case of the OJ murder trial, the Michael Jackson child molesting trial, and countless others. I'm having a conceptual problem, though, because on the one hand I don't like double standards, and there certainly is a double standard in the disparate MSM treatment between the Duke "rape" case and the Christian/Newsom savage kidnap/rape/murder/corpse-burning case. But on the other hand, there's the principle that two wrongs don't make a right. Should one improper media circus justify another? It's not clear to me that it should. So, it's right to condemn the double standard, but forgive me if I don't demand a media circus. As it is, I've written enough blog posts about this, and my only goal was to verify the gruesome pre-mortem mutilation details, which I believe fueled the story to the point where it could not be ignored. In the comments to my last post, Scott from Buuuuurrrrning Hot asked me a very good question: Does mutilation really add that much to the list of evil already performed?I replied that it does, and here's why: In the normal scope of things, there is no crime worse than murder. But there are degrees of savagery which make some murders worse than others. Rape might come a close second to murder, but when you add cutting cutting off a man's penis while his girlfriend was forced to watch, and torturing the girl for four days and cutting off her breast, I think this increases the severity and the emotional appeal -- and very dramatically. I also think that these particularly heinous atrocities are what drove (and continue to drive) the story emotionally -- to the point where people became far more hysterical and less willing to be logical than they'd have normally been.I don't mean to point the finger at anyone here. I've been wrong lots of times, and relied on things I shouldn't have relied on. So, what bloggers and web sites have said, what MSM journalist John Leo said, or what a particular college reporter said, are not so much the issue as is whether the continued recitals of these erroneous details will at least stop in the future. IMO, none of them helped the DA's case against the defendants. There are degrees of murder, degrees of savagery, just as there are degrees of hysteria. Had the live mutilation allegations been true, I would have considered this to be the most horrible contemporaneous criminal case I'd ever heard about in my life. This is not to defend the defendants in any way, but a double kidnap/rape/murder does not rise to the same emotional level as cutting off a man's penis while his girlfriend is forced to watch and then cutting off her breast during four days of agonizing torture. Vicious tortures like these performed on live human beings rank among the most cruel and depraved activities of which man is capable. There is no way to read about them and not be horrified and emotionally overwhelmed -- often beyond many people's ability to be logical. The emotional hysteria thus created can create a lynch mob mentality, and once again, clever lawyers could manipulate this to the advantage of the defendants. (More here.) Because I want the people who raped and murdered Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom to pay with their lives, I don't want to give their defense team any advantages. In that respect, perhaps I should not have written about the case at all. I hope that my posts have helped defuse at least some of popular hysteria, and I also hope that people will stick to the facts of the case and let the prosecution do its job. I also hope this is my last post about the unverified "reports." UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post. I'm on the road, and mostly offline, but I do appreciate all comments. UPDATE (06/03/07): I just returned from vacation and found this email from Stefanie Williams, the text of which I thought merited an update: So as I am on summer break, our news editions don't begin until June posted by Eric at 09:07 AM | Comments (6)
| TrackBacks (0) Wednesday, May 23, 2007
"Internet accounts have exaggerated aspects of the crime" In what is described as "their first extensive interview" with the AP, the family of rape and murder victim Channon Christian are saying that the Internet mutilation accounts are exaggerated: The Christians said Internet accounts have exaggerated aspects of the crime, particularly accounts that the victims were mutilated. "Seventy-five percent of the stuff you are reading on the Internet is fallacies," Gary Christian said. "They are stretching it out of proportion. (Though) it was horrific and they were tortured."There's no question that they were tortured, but an important question is how far that torture went beyond the kidnaping, rape, and murder. While a lot of people are reciting a lot of grotesque details, I have spent a great deal of time trying to verify the numerous allegations of pre-mortem sexual mutilation, without success. As best as I can determine, the earliest recital of the claims was by a notorious racist named Hal Turner, but the first actual journalist to report the claim was the University of Marlyand's Stefanie Williams. Other than that, trying to verify the allegations is an exercise in futility. Links simply go to other links which go nowhere. The more people link these words, though, the more the mutually-linked words appear to be true, because of the nature of the Internet. This is not new (and I've seen it before), but whenever I see it, I try to point it out. There was a nonexistent retired political science professor (and former Nixon and Reagan official) named "George Harleigh," and there was the notorious Air Force Regulation 160-23. Both were alive on the Internet, but nowhere to be found in reality. (I consider it a sort of "blogger responsibility" to point such things out when I run across them, but I also see it as an individual human responsibility -- one arising out of the natural distaste I feel when I am being lied to.) In logic, of course, the inability to verify something does not mean that it did not happen or does not exist. On the other hand, should people be reciting unverifiable information and claiming it constitutes facts? I don't think so -- especially when the allegations are highly imflammatory, and involve a case which has not yet gone to trial. The Christian family's claim that the facts are exaggerated made me think of something else so obvious I don't know why it never occurred to me before, and that is this: if the pre-mortem sexual mutilation occurred, why aren't any of the suspects being charged with it? I haven't researched the law, but I'm pretty sure it is illegal in Tennessee to sexually mutilate living people, whether by cutting off penises or cutting off breasts. If there is any evidence that such crimes committed, why hasn't anyone been charged with the crimes? It's not as if there hasn't been enough time to conduct detailed medical examinations. If I may speculate for the sake of argument, if we assume the horrific pre-mortem mutilation occurred, for some reason the authorities in Tennessee are failing to charge anyone with the crime. (And they're covering it up as well.) Unless additional charges are pending, this doesn't make sense. Again, I wish people would stop reciting things that cannot be verified, because it isn't helping what is a very serious case. Those who complain about the lack of media coverage ought to be especially concerned. Again, facts matter. (Even on the Internet.) UPDATE: I have just received an email from Stefanie Williams, who believes that I treated her unfairly: Since I see you made it a point to cover what I sad in my e-mail inFair enough. I'm not playing self righteous blogger here, but I wish I'd had a reply earlier. If Ms. Williams does not consider herself a journalist, fine. Lots of people were relying on her column, which was one of the few sources cited by links that went anywhere at all. It struck me as the only reliable report in existence, and I looked. I never accused her of lying, nor hypocrisy, nor having an agenda, nor did I ever insinuate a connection to David Duke or the Klan. I only wanted to verify these reports. As to Cash Michaels and Wendy Murphy, I haven't written about them, and maybe I should. There are a lot of things I've never written about and maybe should. While I don't think all of the above criticism is well-founded, I decided to post this in order to be fair to Ms. Williams. I'd still like to know the facts, though. MORE: Since the subject was raised, readers who are interested in reading about Wendy Murphy could probably start here and here. AND MORE: Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds linked a column by the distinguished John Leo -- a journalist by any standard, for whom I have the highest respect and whom I have cited in this blog on a number of occasions. Writing in the New York Sun, here's what John Leo says: Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, were out on a dinner date in Knoxville, Tenn., on January 6, when they were carjacked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, sexually mutilated, and killed.While John Leo is right to criticize the mainstream press for not wanting to report this story, he is himself reciting the unverified facts -- which are (in my opinion) the most emotionally inflammatory details in the case. Considering John Leo's status as a sort of senior statesman in the business, the fact that he did the same thing that Stefanie Williams did hardly makes her look bad; the only difference is that she wrote about the details before John Leo did. While I wish they'd both said "according to unverified reports," I'd still like to know whose "reports" they were, because knowing the source of the reports is an aid in evaluating their possible validity. It is still possible that they'll turn out to be true. But if (as Nicholas Stix condends) they in fact originated with the notorious Hal Turner, I think that's unlikely. AND MORE: Also via Nicholas Stix, there's this report that the District Attorney's office says the sexual mutilation allegations are false: Similarly, claims made over the Internet that the couple were sexually mutilated are "absolutely not true," John Gill, special assistant to District Attorney Randy Nichols, said Friday.I don't know how to confirm that, but if it is legitimate (as it appears to be) people should just stop reciting these allegations. MORE: A web site called the Council of Conservative Citizens is taking issue with Assistant District Attorney Gill's claim that the couple was not sexually mutilated: Assistant District Attorney John Gill claims that the couple was not sexually mutilated. Well, John Gill, what do you call hacking off a woman's breasts and a man's penis while they are still alive? While the details of the crime have not been widely reported, they are well documented. Christian was forced to watch her boyfriend brutally tortured and then shot. She was then raped repeatedly for four days and tortured until she died. The suspects are also alleged to have purchased Viagra so they could continue raping the girl. Truly this was one of the most horrific hate crimes in US history.I guess this means that according to some people, the failure to file torture charges and the denial of sexual mutilation is all part of a coverup. If the details "are well documented," please, tell me where. Show me one document! Anyone? MORE: I'm now accused of "defending" the awful perpetrators in the comments below. Far from it; I hope they get the death penalty, and I certainly hope the circulation of inflammatory rumors doesn't help the defendants. It's beginning to look like some people care less about the facts (and less about the prosecution's case, even) than their partisan interests. UPDATE (06/03/07): I just returned from vacation and found this email from Stefanie Williams, the text of which I thought merited an update: So as I am on summer break, our news editions don't begin until June |