Thinking vs. Feeling

First thing this morning I ran across an essay in a blog that seemed to cogently capture the ideological split in America today. Persons who arrive at positions on matters through "thinking" are certainly different from those who get there through "feelings". You can see for yourself if this is true by going here.

Social Security for Rent

I almost always get upset when I reach for the New York Times first thing in the morning, but today my gastric mucosa is being irritated by an article without any liberal bias that I can detect. As a matter of fact, if the NYT could be getting on the trail of the abuses resulting from our complete lack of border control. You can read the article here, but it primarily documents the practice whereby Mexicans work here for a few months a year and then go back to Mexico for a few months while drawing unemployment compensation. Then, while on the dole down there, they rent out their Social Security numbers to illegals who work here using them for a few months. Since they don't make enough to actually pay taxes, the one who rents the card out gets the tax refund claimed by the other person. Since legal American residents can lose their green cards if they stay out of the country too long, the practice is not likely to stop.

Gore is still at it

Al Gore has asked the international group of mayors (I didn't even know there was such a group) to fight for lower emissions of almost everything to prevent global warming. You almost don't have to know anything else about the subject once you realize this nonsense is being propagated by Al Gore. Here we have an idiotic idea being advanced by an idiot.

Here come the Indians

I was trying to watch the golf tournament yesterday afternoon on ESPN, but the national spelling bee was being covered and golf was delayed. It was down to the last 4 contestants and hard for me to miss the fact that they all seemed to be from India. Each spoke flawless English, however, and could really spell. Good for them. Each had a complete set of parents there with them and each student got a big hug from them when they were eliminated. Obviously, they were being raised right.
This morning, Tom Friedman who writes for the New York Times had an opinion piece connecting the recent rejection of the EU constitution with the exploding move of young people in India to the top of global competiveness in technology. As he says, the French are trying to preserve a 35 hour work week at a time when highly educated and motivated Indians are willing to work 35 hour days and they don't even expect 6 week vacations. As Friedman says, this is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work - just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.

Advice for Graduates

I just ran across a blog written by Mr. Sun. He put up some good advice for graduates that you can read here. An example is:

Contrary to what you may have heard about business, you should not think outside the box. You should get your green-as-grass self back in the box and don't come out unless it's to bring me some hot coffee and do my work so I can take credit for it. Welcome to the working world, Rookie.

Disproportionate Giftedness

You can read more about this ridiculous situation here, but in essence the Davis, California school board is upset that the procedures used to identify kids as gifted result in too few black and latino students being so named. Asian students predominated (surprise?). Despite such efforts as tinkering with the testing procedures and adding a teacher "reappraisal" which added students from the underrepresented groups, the problem persists again this year, the school board remains perplexed and one member was quoted as saying,"We have to come up with something better." Pathetic.

Medical Care for Mexico

Let's consider the case of Cristobal Silverio. He emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., to work as a fruit picker. With him came his wife and three children, all illegals. His wife, Felipa, soon gave birth to a fourth child who was born prematurely and spent three months in a neonatal incubator. That cost San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. The Silverios are just one example of the hidden costs to American citizens of allowing an uninterrupted flow of “cheap” labor. There are other costs as well. “The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences,” writes Madeline Pelner Cosman, author of the report, adding that “many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis.” Faced with what is becoming a national medical emergency caused largely by borders it has failed to secure, the federal government has announced a plan to reimburse hospitals for up to 30% of their unpaid bills for such care through 2008. Even that plan may have the perverse effect of attracting even more illegals. We are a compassionate nation. But in a world of limited resources, we cannot afford to be the emergency room for the whole world while U.S. citizens remain in need.

The French vote "Non"

Everyone seems to be interested in the vote by France to reject the proposed Constitution advanced for the EU. My interest in the French is fairly minimal, but with everyone so excited, I have made a small effort to see what all the excitement is about. The best I can come up with is the lower class of France voted no because it would likely infringe on the French "way of life". This could mean a lot of things, but the common interpretation is it would have perhaps required one to work longer than 35 hours a week with fewer holidays and shorter vacation times. Makes sense to me. What I don't really understand, and I don't care enough to investigate further, is why Chirac, who fought hard for approval, is now firing people in his administration in response to the rejection.Oh, well.

Koran Abuse

It seems to me the Koran in the hands of our guests in Cuba is causing way too much of a problem. The guards have been accused by the terrorists held there of disrespecting the Koran and this has an easy solution. As far as I know, we have no obligation to provide these to prisoners. Take them away and be done with the problem.

Stem Cell Research

Stem cell legislation is much in the news now and there are several points which need to made since you won't get an accurate account from TV or the newspapers in most cases. Much of what you hear and read will hold that Bush is pledging to veto stem cell reasearch legislation and as a result we will never cure diseases like diabetes and quadrapedics will never walk again. We need to keep in mind that Bush's decision applies only to federal funding of research involving laboratory-derived embryos. His position does not "ban" anything. He is simply refusing to allow federal funds to be used for research which millions of Americans find morally offensive. At the federal level, funding for stem cell research of all forms is being increased from $306 million to $566 million (using adult and umbilical stem cells). At the state level, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts all have or will have large stem-cell projects. Some 70 companies, which will eventually profit from the fruits of this research, are also engaged in a wide range of research approaches. I am not sure that I would draw the line exactly where Bush drew it with regard to existing emryos which will be destroyed anyway, but he was elected and the line he drew is certainly logical. We just need to keep in mind that the position being taken by our President is not banning anything. Furthermore, one need not use federal money to do research.

Another Bad Idea

Just when I had decided they had done everything possible to destroy education in America, they have thrown another scoop of dirt on the grave. The latest idiocy is a decision that the children's classics like "Little Women" and "Treasure Island" are too hard to wade through for those children with poor reading skills. The solution is to retell these stories with simpler language and easier words. Ten of the literary classics have been published and 9 more are in the works. To date, 533 thousand copies have been sold. This suggests our so-called educators are buying into the publishers marketing nonsense that these books are for the student with learning disabilities. My sad hypothesis is the education establishment is so stupid that they find the books easier to read and thus choose them for their students.

Newsweek

My wife called Newsweek yesterday. The guy on the phone didn't even ask why we were cancelling.

Senate Rules

This is getting tedious with all the spin about whether or not the Senate should rule that a majority of those present and voting should be allowed to confirm a presidential nominee to a federal court. The democrats are loudly proclaiming that it would be a travesty if the rule were changed since the minority would not be able to filibuster judicial nominees. To get a firm grasp on just how specious that argument is, ask yourself this. If the Republicans do get such a ruling, do you think that when the dems get the senate back (and they will) and have a dem President, they will change the rule back so the republicans can then filibuster their nominees? The principle will not be so holy under those circumstances.

Tsunami Relief

As part of another great column, Mark Steyn gives us an update on the tsunami relief effort in the context of the John Bolton confirmation battle. Here is a tease, but you should read the entire column here

Thus, Bolton would have no problem getting nominated as U.N. ambassador if he were more like Paul Martin. Who? Well, he's prime minister of Canada. And in January, after the tsunami hit, he flew into Sri Lanka to pledge millions and millions and millions in aid. Not like that heartless George W. Bush back at the ranch in Texas. Why, Prime Minister Martin walked along the ravaged coast of Kalumnai and was, reported Canada's CTV network, "visibly shaken." President Bush might well have been shaken, but he wasn't visible, and in the international compassion league, that's what counts. So Martin boldly committed Canada to giving $425 million to tsunami relief. "Mr. Paul Martin Has Set A Great Example For The Rest Of The World Leaders!" raved the LankaWeb news service.
You know how much of that $425 million has been spent so far? Fifty thousand dollars -- Canadian. That's about 40 grand in U.S. dollars. The rest isn't tied up in Indonesian bureaucracy, it's back in Ottawa. But, unlike horrible "unilateralist" America, Canada enjoys a reputation as the perfect global citizen, renowned for its commitment to the U.N. and multilateralism. And on the beaches of Sri Lanka, that and a buck'll get you a strawberry daiquiri. Canada's contribution to tsunami relief is objectively useless and rhetorically fraudulent.

Look for this article in the MSM

Will the main stream media pick up on this story?

A French study of 2,837 births - the first to investigate the link between terminations and extremely premature births - found that mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive suffer serious disability.

Read the whole article here

Extremists thwart science

It turns out there are there are Islamic “Weapons of Mass Destruction” after all. In particular, biological weapons. But these mass killers have been developed within Islamic nations, and are doing most of their damage there. The war on terror has taken many American doctors to Islamic nations, and they have discovered a heretofore hidden AIDS epidemic. . . .

But it’s not just AIDS. In Nigeria, faith based paranoia on the part of Islamic clergy, and politicians, caused a polio epidemic, which is now spreading to other Islamic nations. The UN has been trying for years to wipe out polio (which has been eliminated in most Western nations). In the last few years, UN medical resources were massing to wipe polio out in one of the last places where it still thrives; northern Nigeria. But some local Islamic clergy got the idea that these foreigners and their medicine (polio vaccine) were actually out to poison young Moslem females and make them sterile. Yeah, it’s nuts, but it went over big in northern Nigeria and stopped the polio eradication program cold.

Sad correlation

The news, especially cable news, seems to move from one tragic missing/murdered child to another. We had a couple in Florida and now two girls in Illinois were murdered by the father of one 9 year old. The commentators on these news programs never seem to linger on the obvious fact that in essentially all cases the family is to some degree non-functional. A father was shacked up with a girlfriend when his child is taken and killed by a known child molestor living in the neighborhood. In another case a woman stays with a man who is just out of prison for attacking someone with a running chainsaw. He kills her child. He has some 19 felony and heavy misdemeanors on his record. In Georgia, a mother lets her two children--aged around 2--wander off and drown in a sewage pond. Her ineptidude as a mother was well documented by the state child welfare workers, but she evidently could not function as a caretaker for her children.
Until the underpinnings of the American family are strengthened, more sad stories like these are to come.

This is insane.

The Bush administration has now agreed to take some of our tax money and use it to pay for medical care for illegal aliens in several border states since they conclude this is a federal responsibility. The reason it is a federal responsibility is because the federal government refuses to provide border control and security. The guidelines, however, forbid hospitals from asking persons who present themselves for treatment if they are here illegally. In order to collect on this fund of money, they have to ask indirect questions, like where they were born and if they are eligible for Medicaid. What a pile of nonsense. Read more here

Sowell hits another one out of the park

This is a very brief overview of Sowell's newest book and, as usual, he gets to the essence of the problem with the black culture and the harm being done by the liberals in their support of it.

I love this

Every now and then I read something which summarizes a situation so perfectly I just have to share it. An example was in the Wall Street Journal today and the quote is from Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. who captured the current social security debate beautifully.

"First of all, Social Security and Medicare are the same problem--and that problem is how Americans under 50 can provide for their old-age consumption without engaging in wishful thinking about enormous taxes that future workers would be willing to pay to keep them happy in retirement."

GM on life support

Most of us will find it incredulous when GM goes into bankruptcy. I remember when all their new cars came out in September each year and everyone raced to the dealership to see that years models. The company,however, will go the way of the steel companies. Over the years both agreed to labor demands for larger and larger benefits and wages which were tenable when there was no global competition. That is no longer true--especially in cars and steel. Here is the data. If you take all the company's shares and multiply them by the market value of a share you get the equity value of the entire company. That is what you could buy the company for. In the case of GM that comes to 14 billion dollars. As George Will pointed out, that is less than the value of Harley Davidson. More pertinent to the GM case, they have health care liablities of 20 billion and a 90 billion pension fund. The situation at Ford is no better since they agreed to much the same labor demands. I am really glad I am not depending on either company for a pension check each month. On the other hand, the effect of these bankruptcy declarations on the economy and stock market could be traumatic.

What's Important

I have decided there is a large disconnect between what the people I happen to talk to in the course of daily contact think is a problem in the U.S. and what the TV and other major media are talking and concerned about. Right now, everyone but the people are talking about social security and what changes we should make and whether Bush is winning or losing on the issue. There is no interest in the subject as far as I can tell. The young people I meet should be concerned, but don't seem to have moved intellectually beyond the point where they are resigned to the fact it won't be there for them. The extractions from their pay for social security is painless and has always been there, so it is accepted. Young people have other concerns. Old geezers all seem to realize that the problem won't ever affect themselves and don't seem to have the energy to fight on behalf of their children and grandchildren. Likewise, the broad middle age group in America probably have other bigger worries financially than social security. They are focused on the next set of monthly payments, college tuition for children, and gas prices.
The one issue which I hear talked about during casual contact is not at all on the radar of the politicians and media. That is the complete breakdown of security on our borders. The President spent one hour answering questions from the press last Thursday and nobody brought up the subject. The liberals don't want to stop the influx of potential democrat voters and the conservatives don't want to seem cruel so the problem festers. So, the politicians ignore the problem. I predict that will change at some point this year. There will be some event which focuses the national attention on the disgraceful lack of enforcement of our border laws and I just hope it is not another 9-11 sized incident. If it is, President Bush will never have another night of peaceful sleep and his presidency will be forever held in the disgrace it will deserve. He stood on the steps of the capitol twice with his hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the laws of the U.S. He has not done it and neither have the 535 Congressmen and women who took a similar oath. A situation like this can only end badly.

Real Estate Bubble in Iraq?

• In a sign of growing economic confidence, the real estate prices in Baghdad are on the way up:
  

  Residential real estate prices in Iraq's capital have quadrupled in many parts of the city, says Ali al-Difaie, 54, manager of a government office that processes property deeds. Difaie and real estate agents say the rise is driven by an increase in income since the U.S.-led invasion two years ago and the liberalization of building and property laws... Statistics are hard to come by, but Difaie says an average 3,000-square-foot home in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district sells for $300,000 now. That is four times the Saddam-era prices. Prices are similar in other middle-class neighborhoods around the capital, Difaie says.

• The prices have initially risen following the liberation, but then were driven down by the security problems. Following the January election and improving security situation, the trend is up again.

Sad way to start the week

London - A 20-year-old Scottish woman is suing a hospital where she had an abortion in 2001 after one of her twins survived the operation.

Stacy Dow, who is raising her now three-year-old daughter Jayde with her parents, said late on Sunday she is seeking £250 000 (nearly R3m) to cover the costs of raising the child.

"I have got a child now that I wasn't planning to have and I believe the hospital should take some responsibility for that," she said.

She said the hospital in Perth, Scotland where she had her operation had failed "to take reasonable care to establish that the termination had been successful".

Dow was 16 when she learned in early 2001 that she was pregnant and immediately decided to have an abortion.

Although the operation was declared a success, she realised several weeks later after visiting a doctor that she was still pregnant with one of her twins.

She then gave birth in August of that year.

In a similar case in 2001, a 36-year-old mother from Stafford in central England received £10 000 compensation under an amicable agreement with a surgeon who had failed to end her pregnancy.

In that case too one of a pair of twins survived the operation.

A blog recommendation

I just read this blog from Ali in Iraq and I recommend it for those wishing to understand how Iraqis think.

Start your day right

Once in a while you get such a wonderful start on your day that you almost want to go buy lottery tickets. Today was such a day for me. One of the first articles I read today reported on a prank by three MIT students. They developed a computer program that produces academic gibberish. The program generates sentences taken from real papers but it leaves many words out and replaces them randomly with buzzwords common in computer sciences. It then adds meaningless charts and graphs. This in itself is just delightful, but these students actually got such a paper accepted at the Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systematics, Cybernetics and Infomatics scheduled to be held in Orlando in July. The title of the 4 page paper was "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy".
The conference has been the victim before. An Australian computer scientist described 3 papers which were accepted in 2002. One submission juxtaposed lines from two different papers and another tried to sabotage itself by stating the proposed method "does not work at all".
When word of the hoax reached the symposium organizers they refunded the $390 fee the students paid to attend the meeting and have the paper published in the proceedings. One of the organizers stated that he doubted the paper fooled anyone who actually read it. I love it.

Dissatisfaction with NCLB

I am certainly no expert on the details of the President's educational package known as "No Child Left Behind", but I am beginning to read more and more that makes me doubt it is such a good deal for this country. As I understand the logic of the legislation, the schools are to show progress in the testing results of all children in various schools in order to avoid the dreaded label of "non-performing". That certainly makes good sense at first blush. Now that it has been in effect for awhile, however, the education establishment is beginning to howl that certain groups are holding them back because they are not performing through no fault of the wonderful teachers, administrators, school boards, etc. If children from poor neighborhoods with poor parents, children with learning disabilities, and other sub-groups of students were not included, the test scores would be just fine, thank you. One might have predicted such a response by the failing teachers and schools, but now we have a problem with the Bush administration going wobbly, it seems. The new Secretary of Education, Margret Spellings, was recently quoted thusly:"From now on, more students with academic disabilities will be allowed to take tests that are specifically geared to their abilities...". This sounds to me like gobbledegook that means lazy or unintelligent children will no longer be held to the same standards as industrious ones and the tests will be dumbed down so everyone can pass. If that is the case we have a situation where the emphasis is on raising the lower echelon of student and none on helping the gifted students which this country is going to count on to lead this country in every way. If we don't devise a way to avoid a stifling of our gifted students in early grades, this country is going to suffer greatly. Furthermore, the students who have been the recipient of an artificial support system in the educational system will eventually be required to compete in a real world where they will hopefully be judged on achievement rather than activity. Hope I am wrong.

The Georgia SAT Adjustment

The education establishment in Georgia and other states in the South is embarrassed yearly by the relative deficiency in the scores of our students who take the SAT. School systems have come up with all manner of ways to excuse and defend this situation, but now they seem to have the answer which I understand other states have previously adopted. Our University system consists of some 26 institutions of higher education and from now on students will no longer have to have a SAT score to be admitted to some 15 of these schools. If you have a C average and tuition money, you can get in these schools. This solves all sorts of problems. Students who show little academic preparation can now be counselled to simply pass on the SAT experience and go straight to college where their deficiencies will presumably be addressed in a less public fashion. After all, a healthy minority of our enrollees into our very pestigious University of Georgia needs remedial work to overcome lack of preparation by our public schools now. Our high schools will not produce a higher quality product but I would look for our relative SAT scores to increase nicely and everyone will feel a lot better.

The Bolton Affair

The President has nominated John Bolton to be the Ambassador to the U.N. and the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee has failed to confirm his appointment so it can go to the full Senate. Best I can tell, his greatest sin according to the public comments from the democrats is that over the past 11 years, he was abusive to people who worked below him on the organization chart at the Department of State. He yelled at someone and in another case he asked that a guy who had lied to him about some intelligence report be transferred so he wouldn't be around Bolton anymore. Nobody can argue that a boss who is abusive to his underlings is a good guy, but some of the senators who are particularily excercised by Bolton's behavior (like Senator Dodd) were highly supportive of President Clinton of Monica Lewinsky fame. Maybe you can argue that their relationship wasn't abusive. The real problem, of course, is that Bolton is not a great fan of the way the U.N. has functioned and has suggested as much publically. Liberals can't stand that.

My conclusion on Pope Benedict is getting stronger

A homosexual advocacy group expressed "concern" that Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, "does not present a hopeful vision of the future or inspire optimism for affirming language, policies or outreach."

Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) noted that Ratzinger "authored a Vatican document condemning marriage and adoption by gay men and lesbians in July 2003."

A reminder from Glenn Reynolds

Sixty years after the end of World War II, there are still 62,000 American troops in Europe. They are stationed in 236 bases, including 13 training areas. The force has been reduced considerably over the years, especially after the Cold War ended in 1991, leaving over a quarter million American troops in Europe. But in 2015 there will still be 24,000 American troops over there, in 88 bases, and using four training areas. The 1st Infantry Division will return from Europe in 2006, and the 1st Armored Division will go home in 2008. Both of these units were originally sent to Europe in 1942. The only major combat unit that will remain in Europe will be the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is stationed in northern Italy.
This is all because Ike went in without an exit strategy.

Habemus Papam

I don't use much Latin in my blog so the title of this one is a first. Since I am not Catholic, I do not have much knowledge of that religion's heirarchy so my ability to comment on Pope Benedict XVI is limited. It is hard not to notice all the interest in his selection by the news media who posted reporters in Rome to report on the color of smoke. For these reasons, I am pretty much a spectator and do not have much in the way of an opinion on the choice made by the 115 old men who gathered in the Cistine Chapel. Slowly, but surely, however, I am beginning to conclude they made a good choice. It certainly seems to be upsetting to the New York Times and others who make up the main stream media. It would be hard to find a better contraindicator than that.

Technical Assistance

Much of the past couple of days was spent on an effort to install a wireless router in our beach house so we can use the laptop downstairs where it is cooler in the summer and often more convenient than our loft where the computer is located. The first problem I had was with what I assumed to be Bell South who provides our DSL broadband service. It seemed to me that the modem wasn't working so I called their help number and before it was over I had talked to 2 of their phone representatives who gave me very detailed instructions to make changes in my computer and modem intended to solve my problem. Each of them was well-intentioned and mostly competent but there was a problem. I couldn't understand either of them since they were Indians from India and maybe in India for all I know. So, I spent the better part of 2 hours trying to hold on to the phone receiver, type, make attachment changes in the wiring of the modem, and react to instructions from someone speaking with an accent so strong I had to repeatedly ask him to repeat what he had just said. After all that, they came to the wrong conclusion and I made two trips of 45 miles each into Charleston to get computer attachments which later proved unnecessary when another Indian working for Cisco Systems solved my problem with dispatch and less of an accent than the other two at Bell South. Or maybe I am just understanding them better. At any rate, I sure do wish we could get English-speaking workers who had expertise in computer technology to work for what ever these companies pay persons who provide this service.

A "scientific" anniversary

Thirty years ago this month, Newsweek reported: "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now." The headline? "The Cooling World." That's right: Just 30 years ago, scaremongers were telling us about global cooling . The alarmists never stop. Reminds me of Y2K fears.

Mark Steyn

One of the best columnists out there with far too little public awareness is Mark Steyn who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times. His latest can be read here.

This is just a sample of the column which deals with our CIA and its problems.

The CIA, as I wrote a couple of years back, now functions in the same relation to President Bush as Pakistan's ISI does to General Musharraf. In both cases, before the chief executive makes a routine request of his intelligence agency, he has to figure out whether they're going to use it as an opportunity to set him up, and if so how. For Musharraf, the problem is the significant faction in the ISI that would like to kill him. Fortunately for Bush, if anyone at the CIA launched a plot to kill him, they'd probably take out G. W. Bish, who runs a feed store in Idaho.

The great bake sale kurfuffle

I am at an age where I am often the recipient of favors based not on some deserving characteristic, but only because of my age. Senior discounts are widely accepted even though they make very little sense for most of us and younger persons should find them objectionable. If you set up a business where you gave seniors some kind of preference, nobody would raise an objection. What if you started a restaurant where you gave a discount to armed service members? Again, no objections. Lower prices for children? No problem. Lower prices for blacks? Higher prices for Asians? Might be some comment there, but you would get a large black customer base relative to Asians, but the lawyers would most likely not get too excited. Black preferences are pretty much accepted today. We have had preferences for a long time in education and the black power base guards them tenaciously. All this makes it hard to understand why the administrations at numerous institutions of higher education (Northwestern and SMU, for example) are in a state of high dungeon fighting the bake sales on campus which sell cookies and cakes to blacks for less than the price charged to whites and Asians. This is called hate "speech" and a threat to campus tranquility. And, of course, any discussion of the difference between admission preferences and cookie preferences is strictly avoided.

More on Hagel

I have been doing some more reading on the personal accounts portion of Senator Hagel's social security proposal. If it passes, those workers age 44 and younger would have two choices. The first would be to take 4% of their payroll tax and put it into one of the investment choices currently in the Federal Thrift Plan. i am not sure if the worker can use more than one and when or if he can switch out of his choice into another, but they have that worked out for federal employees. The other choice is to simply elect the current social security system. A wrinkle I just learned of should answer some of the critics of the personal accounts. At retirement, the worker would be required to convert a portion of the retirement account into an annuity which when combined with the traditional Social Security benefit would pay the worker an amount which is at least 135% of the poverty level. The remainder of the account could be used to help with health care costs, pay college tuition for grandchildren, help children with a home purchase or simply retained for heirs. All of this seems reasonable to me, so it probably is doomed to be ignored.

A Math Lesson

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal today that was a little depressing in that it really made me wish I hadn't avoided math so successfully when there was another option. This article discussed the fact that the prime number theory, called the "Reimann Hypothesis" was getting closer to being proved. This was advanced in 1859 by Bernhard Reimann and is now considered the most important unsolved problem in mathematics. There is even a $1 million prize to whomever proves it. Well, I am no threat to get the million since I can't even understand why they care if it is proved or not and I am also unable to understand the theory and the significance of prime numbers. One thing I read largely prevented me from studying the problem further. In her discussion, Sharon Begley made the point that there is an infinite number of prime numbers. O.K., I can accept that. But then she said the problem is "how big is that infinity?" Whoa. So now she is telling me some infinities are larger than others? Yes, and as an example she says the number of numbers divisible by 2 is infinite and so is the number of numbers divisible by 9. The first infinity is larger than the second. Furthermore, there is an infinite number of squares (4,9,16, etc) and cubes (8,27, 64, etc), but there are more primes than either of these infinite numbers. Here I am 66 years old and now they are telling me infinity is not just one big number out there somewhere. I pause here to think about all this.

The Hagel Plan

A good friend asked me what I thought of the Social Security plan advanced by Senator Hagel of Nebraska. I was vaguely aware that he had put forth one but knew nothing of its content, so I agreed to look at it. The details can be read here.
The plan is distinctive in that it is the only one out there. Bush doesn't have one and the dems certainly don't have one to compare with Sen. Hagel's, so about all one can do is look at the plan itself. The first thing every casual reader will notice is the retirement age would be raised to 68 from 67 in 2023. That is something the liberal demogogues will focus on in order to kowtow to their labor support, but it really is not too onerous since Hagel would leave the option to start getting benefits at age 62 for those who want to retire from labor intensive employment. They would get 63% of full benefits rather than the 70% that I get, however. Another feature of the Hagel plan is to revise the way Social Security benefits are calculated. We now use the wages earned over a 35 year period (up to a rising maximum) and the wage rate of current workers to determine benefit levels. Hagel would add a factor which accounted for what we can predict will be a rising life expectancy for the general population. This simply makes actuarial sense and is one of the problems the system faces now. Here again, the demogogues will protest in full throat that Hagel is going to reduce your benefits. That is true and inevitable if you don't have something to supplement your retirement funds. That is also why he proposes retirement accounts be made an OPTION for young workers (under 45 years old). It is the latter which the liberals oppose so vehemently. Hagel anticipates this and lays out in considerable specificity how the retirement accounts would work and they are largely proposed to mimic the ones now available to government workers via the Federal Thrift Saving Plans. There would be a Board which would manage the accounts and negotiate low administrative fees which should be low since the worker's money would only go into index funds which are naturally low fee ways to invest. In essence, the money would go into funds which invest in either stocks, bonds or a combination of both with very low risk profiles. Hagel even proposes a Default Account which would invest in say 80% stocks and 20% bonds when you are young and in later years would slide toward a more conservative mix of say 35% bonds and 65% bonds. The investment examples which Hagel gives have 10 year average returns of 5.45% to 11.9%, but his projections like all the others I have seen under estimate the potential of such accounts by ignoring the mathematical advantage over simple averages which are provided by dollar cost averaging. When you put a constant amount from your paycheck into a pool of money with unit costs which vary over time, you wind up buying more shares in the fund when stocks or bonds are down and fewer shares when they are up. Over a 30-40 year period, this can have an almost magical enhancement that is exceeded only by the phenomenon of compounding. Bush doesn't have the communication skills required to explain this to the country and the average individual is too ignorant of math to appreciate it, but if everyone did understand these positive aspects of investing, nobody could be against private accounts except liberals who don't want you to have any control over any aspect of your life except abortion.
In conclusion, I think the Hagel plan is quite reasonable in that it recognizes that something has to be done which lowers the benefits or increases the income for Social Security. His plan opts to decrease benefits slightly in the distant future and allows the worker to invest in himself and his or her heirs via a personal account which will more than make up for the reduced benefits. Since the amount you put into Social Security is now a tax (the money goes into the general revenues) the liberals will want to raise that rather than reduce benefits which are offset by investments. Another reason the liberals are so against private accounts, and you won't see this written down in a lot of places, is they know that their base is too stupid to opt in to something to provide intelligently for their retirement.

Obituary Lapse?

You have to search really hard to find any mention of the Cardinal Bernard Law matter in any of Pope John Paul's obituaries and career accounts. A few years ago, it seemed quite probable that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston would have to face trial for his appalling collusion in the child-rape racket that his diocese had been running. The man had knowingly reassigned dangerous and sadistic criminals to positions where they would be able to exploit the defenseless. He had withheld evidence and made himself an accomplice, before and after the fact, in the one offense that people of all faiths and of none have most united in condemning. The church that has allowed no latitude in its teachings on masturbation, premarital sex, birth control, and divorce suddenly asks for understanding and "wiggle room" for the most revolting crime on the books. Cardinal Law isn't going to face a court, now. He has fled the jurisdiction and lives in Rome where he continues his work on a board which allows him to contribute to the process of appointing diocesan bishops. I suppose the consequences of this seemingly abhorent situation and Pope John Paul's contribution to it is being handled at a higher level now.

This won't do any good.

DENVER) - Gov. Bill Owens today issued the following statement on the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to not impose the death penalty on convicted killer Robert Harlan:

"Today's decision is demeaning to people of faith and prevents justice from being served. The death penalty in a heinous crime has been overturned by a highly subjective ruling that truly splits hairs. Even the justices who voted to overturn the penalty agreed that moral values and religious beliefs are important and can be part of the debate among jurors.

"For example, a juror could recite biblical passages from memory. But because of a subjective interpretation that reading the same passage is somehow prejudicial, a convicted killer has avoided the appropriate sentence. I'm disappointed to see that the Court would supersede the will of the jury and the people of Colorado regarding the death penalty on such a technicality."

Wonder where this is going next.

DENVER -- The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out the death penalty in a rape-and-murder case because jurors had studied Bible verses such as "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" during deliberations.

On a 3-2 vote, justices ordered Robert Harlan to serve life in prison without parole for kidnapping 25-year-old cocktail waitress Rhonda Maloney in 1994 and raping her at gunpoint for two hours.

Sunset on the Amazon
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Trophy for Participation?

I read an article the other day about the modern day practice of giving children certificates and trophies for signing up and participating in various sports. Evidently someone decided that it is not fair to recognize achievement in things like baseball and soccer since some of the kids were on teams which did not win. The solution is to just give everyone a prize for showing up. In some sports, this is supported by simply not keeping score. In academics, the system has evolved to the point where teachers don't "keep score" during class and students are promoted to the point where they are called to the stage during graduation to pick up certificates which essentially state they lived long enough to go somewhere beside school in the morning.
My feeling on this is pretty much old school but I can see some form of general encouragement for very young children.....say those too young to really be able to perform in any recognizable fashion. There are 3 and 4 year old children on soccer teams and they are really just out there and not really playing the game. At a certain age, say when they start school in the first grade, they need to begin to understand that there are degrees of aptitude and ability and that this is going to be recognized and rewarded as they go through life. The problem is these realities must be supported by the parents and as in so many areas of modern society this is the weak link. Once their little darlings begin to succeed and fail at various activities too many parents seem to think the result is all about them. That is the genesis of the out- of- control parents at Little League games or junior hockey matches. These same or another set of like-minded parents will object or even sue if their kids are not promoted academically. If the parents are too detached to become involved, liberal social pressure is exerted to avoid distinctions which would recognize genuine achievement and insist on passing students who can't read.
So, my conclusion after reading all this concern about trophies is that it is a symptom of a much larger problem and it is the latter which needs addressing more than who gets which trophy at the end of baseball season.

MyFi

One of my best purchases lately is an XM satellite MyFi which allows me to have satellite radio almost anywhere and the music I like anytime. It is a hand-held iPod sized receiver which I can use to listen to up to 5 hours of music I have previously recorded or I can attach a small antenna and listen to satellite radio live if I am outside. There is a small stand it attaches to which can be hooked up to speakers for continuous use in my office. It even allows me to plug in the symbols of up to 20 stocks and then gives me an update on prices continuously via a scroll at the bottom of the screen. I already have XM in both cars, so this about completes my access to music and news on demand.

Golf on the Monterey Peninsula

Green fees are going up at America's most famous public course. According to the Monterey County Herald, a round of golf will cost $425 at Pebble Beach. That computes to $23.61 per hole.

Flu Vaccine Redux

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that all the uproar about how Bush single-handedly caused all the senior citizens to face immediate death from a bout of influenza has not exactly worked out that way. When the contamination of the vaccine plant in England reduced our supply of flu vaccine last Fall we had a gigantic uproar and seniors were waiting all night in lines to get the shots. People who had not gotten a shot for years suddenly had to have one because there was a shortage.

Well, the flu season is now about over and the verdict is in. We have flu vaccine left over and it will become useless since it can't be stored to use next season. That, by the way, is the reason drug companies don't go into the flu vaccine business. They can't set the price because of government interference and it is impossible to estimate how much vaccine will be needed in a given year. Therefore, the company is guaranteed to either make too much or not enough vaccine each year and they lose either way.

Experiment Design

I guess my laboratory career left me interested in the process of designing experiments to answer a question of interest. An article in the Wall Street Journal today suggested and discussed an interesting one. A European consortium is building a very large passenger plane called the A380 which can be configured to carry 853 passengers. It would take 1 hour to get all these people on board, seated and buckled in. In case of an emergency, it will be required that the Airbus builders demonstrate that all of these passengers can be evacuated through blankets and baggage scattered about the cabin as it would be following an accident. In addition, only 1/2 of the 16 exits would be available....in the dark. Because the plane has a second story, some of the passengers will be required to find their way to the exit and jump into space, land on a steep inflated slide and avoid pilling in a heap at the bottom of the slide. As for additional requirements, 40% of the test passengers must be female, 35% must be over 50 years of age, and 15% must be both female and over 50. Some of the females will be given dolls to cradle in their arms and take with them through the evacuation. In order for the airplane to be certified for commercial use, the evacuation must be completed in 90 seconds.

I see this as a situation where the demonstration could easily be gamed by selecting certain individuals who will not freeze at the top of the 2nd story slide, will maintain poise and calm at the exits rather than pushing others aside. In a previous experiment with another plane everyone performed well under ordinary conditions. The results were quite different when the participants were offered added financial awards depending on the speed at which they exited. It got kinda rough at the exit doors according to the reports. In some previous tests of other planes, the passengers are given helmets and have their ankles taped to prevent injuries. This could be because one 60 year old lady caught her foot in the slide, flipped and went down the slide head first. When she hit the pile of people at the bottom of the slide she broke her neck and has been paralyzed ever since.

I am sure the engineers will eventually be able to get the plane certified to operate in every country which requires such tests, but I am also sure if you are in a plane crash the evacuation will in no way resemble any of the tests and you should not get on the plane if being able to get out in 90 seconds is important to you.

I want the franchise for this in the U.S.

The following was an article published on the BBC web site:

A chewing gum which the makers say can help enhance the size, shape and tone of the breasts has proved to be a big hit in Japan.

B2Up says its Bust-Up gum, when chewed three or four times a day, can also help improve circulation, reduce stress and fight ageing.

The gum works by slowly releasing compounds contained in an extract from a plant called Pueraria mirifica.

In theory, this helps to keep the muscle tissue in good order.

Pueraria mirifica, also known as Kwao Krua, is a species found in Thailand and Burma.

It has long been used by indigenous hill tribe people as a traditional medicine.

The plant's underground tubers contain a number of chemicals called phytoestrogens - natural compounds which mimic the effects of the female sex hormone oestrogen.

These include miroestrol and deoxymiroestrol, which are believed to exert a particularly strong effect, as they are very close in chemical structure to oestradiol, the main human oestrogen.

B2Up says that it is the effect of these two chemicals, coupled with a third phytooestrogen isoflavone, which makes its gum so effective.

It cites tests carried out by Thailand's Chulalongkorn University which found Pueraria mirifica therapy was able to enhance breast size by 80%.

Further tests carried out in England found that the plant had a beneficial effect on the skin, and hair, as well as the breasts.

The company also markets different Pueraria products, including pills, and tea.

The gum, which comes in rose flavour, has proved so popular that there are plans to start selling it in convenience stores.

Scepticism

Claire Williamson, of the British Nutrition Foundation, said research had suggested phytoestrogens may be beneficial in post-menopausal women in terms of reducing menopausal symptoms, and may also have beneficial effects on risk factors for heart disease and osteoporosis.

A role in breast cancer has also been suggested.

But she said research had suggested that isoflavone supplements are not as effective in managing menopausal symptoms as isoflavone rich foods such as soya.

Furthermore, consumption of isoflavones may need to be life-long in order to have beneficial effects on postmenopausal symptoms.

"So there is clear evidence of the potential health benefits of consuming isoflavone-rich foods such as soya, however consumption in the form of a gum has not been extensively studied and such products may be simply another food gimmick."

Education In the U.S.

It is hard to exaggerate the problems in the U.S. which can be directly attributed to the decline in our public school system. Over the past half-century, the number of pupils in U.S. schools grew by about 50% while the number of teachers nearly tripled. Spending per pupil also tripled. If the teaching corps had simply kept pace with enrollment, school budgets grew as they did, and nothing else changed, the average teacher would earn nearly $100,000 plus generous benefits and a completely different caliber of student would be attracted to teaching. Class sizes would be some larger--about the size as when I was in school. There would be fewer specialists and supervisors. So, we have basically invested in more rather than better teachers. We now draw people from the lower ranks of our lesser universities. Thus, it is no surprise that we have shortages in key subjects such as science and math. It is hard to keep fully staffed when some of the locales aren't too enticing and in the sciences or math well qualified individuals can earn big bucks elsewhere.
The push for increased numbers of teachers comes from several sources. The public was sold on the concept of small class sizes when there is scant evidence that this is overridingly important. The unions, of course, want large numbers of dues paying members to represent. Departments of Education want large numbers of students to train.
So, we wind up paying lots of money for schooling, most for teachers salaries, that depends on the knowledge, skills and commitment of teachers who don't earn very much and can't see that they ever will. On top of that we restrict entry to persons "certified" by state bureaucrats after passing through mostly monopolistic training programs that add little value. What could be more insane than erecting daunting barriers of entry to an ill-paid vocation? How about making the pay mediocre for poor, good, and super teachers? We pay no more to those who take on tough assignments in tough schools than we do those in up-scale neighborhoods. In fact, the pay is usually less.
I'll add more to this sorry saga in coming days.

Report from Iraq

March 17, 2005: Iraqi popular opinion has turned against terrorism in a big way. Apparently the key event was the revelation that Osama bin Laden had appointed Abu Musab al Zarqawi as "Emir" (leader) of al Qaeda efforts in Iraq and commanded him to go forth and kill big-time. But as suicide bombing attacks increasingly failed to reach American targets, and killed Iraqis instead, it appeared that a Saudi (bin Laden) was telling a Jordanian (Zarqawi) to kill Iraqis. This attitude never made headlines, but it slowly spread among Sunni Arab Iraqis over the last year. Sunni Arab areas where were most of the violence was, particularly after Shia Arab demagogue Moqtada Sadr stopped instigating violence (because he found that he had much less popular support than he believed). Once the Sunni Arabs turned against terrorism, the terrorists found themselves operating in an increasingly hostile environment.

A big story that the media missed was that American troops operating outside the fortified camps (like the Green Zone) were a lot closer to what was going on than your average reporter (who doesn't get out much because of the danger). The combat troops, and many of the non-combat troops, deal with the danger, and Iraqis, on a daily basis. The troops saw the change in attitude among Iraqis. They also saw, in neighborhood after neighborhood, the sharp decline in attacks on coalition and Iraqi forces. They knew the reason for this was the ongoing reconstruction work (mainly supervised by coalition troops) and terror attacks that killed mostly Iraqis. The foreign media appeared to be describing a place that sort of looked like Iraq, but wasn't. Because of the growing availability of email in Iraq, for Iraqis and foreign troops, more people around the world are able to get unfiltered (by journalists) reports from inside Iraq. This has left recipients of these emails wondering what's going on with the reporters. It's simple; fiction always outsells non-fiction.

Back to the Blog

Vacation is over and we survived the Amazon Jungles and all the travel-related obstacles. As I look around at what I missed over the last couple of weeks, I see very little of major import. Michael Jackson is on trial and Peterson is going to the big house to await years of appeals of his death sentence. They are still trying to kill the Schiavo lady in Florida and will evidently succeed. The dems in the Senate are still claiming they will block Bush's judicial nominations and the repubs are still threatening to pass a rule preventing the use of the filibuster against judge's confirmation. Bush still won't take any action to prevent our country from being invaded through our southwestern borders. The feminists are going crazy once again, evidently. The poor President of Harvard is under attack because he threw out the idea that maybe women were not as adept as men in the sciences. That is not even a suitable matter for debate at Harvard. The brilliant police department in Fulton County, Georgia decided to send a 5 foot tall grandmother into court to accompany an unshackled criminal who was twice her size and now we are just astonished that he was able to take her gun from her and kill 3 people at least. Don't try to tell anyone that there are some jobs women simply shouldn't have. I have to go look for something more positive than all this.

Back to the Blog

Vacation is over and we survived the Amazon Jungles and all the travel-related obstacles. As I look around at what I missed over the last couple of weeks, I see very little of major import. Michael Jackson is on trial and Peterson is going to the big house to await years of appeals of his death sentence. They are still trying to kill the Schiavo lady in Florida and will evidently succeed. The dems in the Senate are still claiming they will block Bush's judicial nominations and the repubs are still threatening to pass a rule preventing the use of the filibuster against judge's confirmation. Bush still won't take any action to prevent our country from being invaded through our southwestern borders. The feminists are going crazy once again, evidently. The poor President of Harvard is under attack because he threw out the idea that maybe women were not as adept as men in the sciences. That is not even a suitable matter for debate at Harvard. The brilliant police department in Fulton County, Georgia decided to send a 5 foot tall grandmother into court to accompany an unshackled criminal who was twice her size and now we are just astonished that he was able to take her gun from her and kill 3 people at least. Don't try to tell anyone that there are some jobs women simply shouldn't have. I have to go look for something more positive than all this.

Bestview Respite

I am off to the Amazon for a cruise tomorrow and at $0.70 per minute to use the internet on the ship, I doubt I will be offering up this drivel on a regular basis until I return. I might come on to report on my pirhana fishing experience and if I get mobbed by a bevy of scantily clad natives I may let you know about that. Otherwise, you can just assume I am gorging myself on culinary delights and sitting on my veranda watching for monkeys in the trees.

Howard Dean

Am I the only one who is really enjoying the new Howard Dean? He has not been seen or heard from since being named Chairman of the dems.

Tidal Wave picture found on a damaged digital camera. It was taken by a couple who did not survive the tsunami after taking this phot.
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H5N1

We have a big problem in Viet Nam and this one could be even bigger than the one we had before. Bird flu, especially the one caused by strain H5N1, is a disease with a reservoir in birds and especially chickens and ducks which are raised for domestic consumption by humans. The virus causes disease in the chickens, which is of considerable economic consequence, since the animals die and when the disease occurs in a flock, the only real way to contain its spread is to eradicate the rest of the birds. Viet Nam, the country hardest hit, has some 70% of its population raising chickens in the backyard to provide a major source of the family income. Problem no. 1 arises when the family refuses to report the disease in their birds to avoid losing all of their income. So the disease can't be contained. A second problem is the birds are essentially raised in the same space occupied by the humans so close contact with infected birds is inevitable. Problem no. 3 is caused by the fact that the virus is mutating rapidly, like all influenza viruses, and this guarantees that the virus will jump from animals to humans as it adapts to a new host. This has already happened and there has been a 70% mortality in the humans who have contracted the disease.

So, the dire prognosis is for the bird flu virus to establish itself in a greater and greater number of people and spread rapidly from person to person through respiratory droplet transmission. Depending on the extent of transmission, a pandemic could be experienced in which literally millions of people die. A vaccine is being developed, but it will be very difficult to vaccinate the population likely to be affected and if the virus mutates rapidly enough the vaccine being developed could be a poor one. This is really scary.

Global Warming Nonsense

A few years back Michael Mann published a graph of temperatures that resembled a hockey stick laying on its side, with a rapid increase over the last century. His data and methods have been repeatedly challenged and debunked, though true believers refuse to admit what could only have been intentional fraud. Reading the MSM one would think that global warming caused by humans was an accepted fact, yet the facts themselves don't agree. We may be in a warming period (it's too early to tell as temperatures have only risen a little over half a degree over the last hundred years) but that fits a trend that we know has been going on forever. NASA,which is a big man-made global warming proponent, acknowledges that over the past millennium the earth's temperature has risen and fallen several degrees having nothing to do with humans. They note for example that:
Unusually low solar activity between 1645-1715 likely triggered the 'Little Ice Age' in regions like Europe and North America ... During this shift, winter temperatures cooled as much as 2 to 4 degrees F - enough to freeze rivers and alter agriculture, economy, disease, etc. Yet they go on to add that: Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period, but have since been superseded by greenhouse gases due to the industrial revolution. So a four degree change is natural, but we somehow know that a much smaller one is not? We know that prior to the Little Ice Age things were warmer than they are now. The Vikings settled Greenland and grapes were grown in England. (Note: The Little Ice Age is now thought to have covered the entire earth not just the northern hemisphere. Volcanic activity may have also contributed. Much of the recent cacophony about unnatural disaster centers around computer models and simulations done by global warning alarmists. These predict an increase in temperatures of several degrees in the next hundred years, changes they claim would be catastrophic, caused by human activity. (Some don't think higher temperatures would be so bad). Without even going into the problems with bias in computer models, we can't even build a model that will duplicate past known data. Why then should we have any faith in their predictive abilities?

Military News from Iraq

February 22, 2005: For the last three days, a brigade of coalition troops (U.S. Marines and Iraqis) carried out Operation River Blitz west of Baghdad. Based on information collected last November in Fallujah, and since, roadblocks were set up throughout Anbar province, and raids carried out in Ramadi (the capital of the province) and other largely Sunni Arab cities along the Euphrates river. Anbar province has been the scene of most Sunni Arab violence in the last year, but that began to change after Fallujah was cleared out last November. Since then, anti-government attacks have been fewer, as have coalition casualties. Arrests of terrorists have increased, and more Sunni Arab groups have defied the terrorists and began negotiating with the government. These Sunni groups, led by tribal and religious leaders, are often heavily armed, with informal militias (formal militias are illegal) containing hundreds, or even thousands, of armed men. The Sunni leaders have avoided ordering their followers to not attack the government or coalition forces, lest they have a little civil war on their hands. But that is now changing, as more Sunni Arabs, fed up with the chaos, and seeming futility of fighting the government and coalition forces, try to switch sides. The more deliberate attacks on oil facilities and utilities (like water and power), have only made life more uncomfortable. The battle of Fallujah last November made it clear that anti-government claims to have "liberated" Fallujah were just more empty propaganda. Following that, the widespread arrests of Sunni Arabs involved in the terrorism, added to the feeling among Sunni Arabs that they were backing a losing cause. Despite deliberate attacks on Shia religious festivities in the last week, the Shia dominated government continues to offer deals to Sunni Arab leaders who were willing to stick their necks out, and order their followers to cool it with the violence. These Sunni Arabs do face some real danger, for the Baath Party and al Qaeda leaders are willing to go after prominent Sunni Arabs for "disloyalty." For Sunni Arabs, the battle for Iraq is far from over.

Your humble blogger on left with siblings at Mom's 90th birthday last November.
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Happy Soldier in Iraq
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Social Security Redux

Bush opened the gate to raising taxes as a part of Social Security "reform". He said we can consider increasing the income level from $90,000 that is subject to FICA taxation. That is not only raising taxes, it is not something that will contribute to solving the problem. We have more money coming into the treasury from FICA taxation now than is going out in the form of payments. If you think giving the politicians even more to spend on things other than social security will cure the long term problem brought on by demographic certainty, this pig in a dress may appeal to you.

Hunter Thompson

I must have a big gap in my 60's and 70's literature knowledge that prevents me from getting as excited as I should be about some druggie who shoots himself with a shotgun a la Hemingway.

This makes sense to me.

Terri Schiavo Spared by 'Endangered' Designation

by Scott Ott

(2005-02-19) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has, at least temporarily, saved the life of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, the Florida woman whose former husband, Michael, had planned to disconnect her feeding tube on Tuesday.

The 11th-hour reprieve came in response to a plea from the Schindler family to have Terri classified as a silver rice rat (Oryzomys argentatus), considered an endangered species by the state of Florida and the USFWS.

"It was a longshot," said activist Randall Terry, who has recently come to the aid of the Schindler family in their efforts to save Terri from death by starvation. "But if we can prove that Terri is a silver rice rat, her life is protected by the state and the federal government."

Mr. Terry contacted the USFWS after learning that it is illegal to kill dozens of creatures in Florida, including the leatherback seaturtle, the marsh rabbit, the saltmarsh vole, the shortnose sturgeon, the Choctawhatchee beach mouse and the oval pigtoe (a mollusk).

"If we can apply to get Terri classified as a different endangered species each month, we can give her several more years of life," Mr. Terry said. "I know it sounds dehumanizing, but under our laws a rat has more of a right to life than this woman."

My mind can't handle this!

AS you read this, try to comprehend something that is 300,000 trillion miles away. You can start by realizing that a trillion is 1,000,000,000,000. Once you multiply those two numbers, try to get your mind around the fact that this distance is only one half the distance across our Milky Way Galaxy which in turn is only a small fraction of the universe.

A huge explosion halfway across the galaxy packed so much power it briefly altered Earth's upper atmosphere in December, astronomers said Friday.

No known eruption beyond our solar system has ever appeared as bright upon arrival.

But you could not have seen it, unless you can top the X-ray vision of Superman: In gamma rays, the event equaled the brightness of the full Moon's reflected visible light.

The blast originated about 50,000 light-years away and was detected Dec. 27. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

The commotion was caused by a special variety of neutron star known as a magnetar. These fast-spinning, compact stellar corpses -- no larger than a big city -- create intense magnetic fields that trigger explosions. The blast was 100 times more powerful than any other similar eruption witnessed, said David Palmer of Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of several researchers around the world who monitored the event with various telescopes.

Tsunami Connection? Several readers wondered if the magnetar blast could be related to the December tsunami. Scientists have made no such connection. The blast affected Earth's ionosphere, which is routinely affected to a greater extent by changes in solar activity.

"Had this happened within 10 light-years of us, it would have severely damaged our atmosphere and possibly have triggered a mass extinction," said Bryan Gaensler of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

There are no magnetars close enough to worry about, however, Gaensler and two other astronomers told SPACE.com. But the strength of the tempest has them marveling over the dying star's capabilities while also wondering if major species die-offs in the past might have been triggered by stellar explosions.

'Once-in-a-lifetime'

The Sun is a middle-aged star about 8 light-minutes from us. It's tantrums, though cosmically pitiful compared to the magnetar explosion, routinely squish Earth's protective magnetic field and alter our atmosphere, lighting up the night sky with colorful lights called aurora.

Solar storms also alter the shape of Earth's ionosphere, a region of the atmosphere 50 miles (80 kilometers) up where gas is so thin that electrons can be stripped from atoms and molecules -- they are ionized -- and roam free for short periods. Fluctuations in solar radiation cause the ionosphere to expand and contract.

"The gamma rays hit the ionosphere and created more ionization, briefly expanding the ionosphere," said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for NASA's gamma-ray watching Swift observatory.

Gehrels said in an email interview that the effect was similar to a solar-induced disruption but that the effect was "much smaller than a big solar flare."

Still, scientists were surprised that a magnetar so far away could alter the ionosphere.

"That it can reach out and tap us on the shoulder like this, reminds us that we really are linked to the cosmos," said Phil Wilkinson of IPS Australia, that country's space weather service.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event," said Rob Fender of Southampton University in the UK. "We have observed an object only 20 kilometers across [12 miles], on the other side of our galaxy, releasing more energy in a tenth of a second than the Sun emits in 100,000 years."

Some researchers have speculated that one or more known mass extinctions hundreds of millions of years ago might have been the result of a similar blast altering Earth's atmosphere. There is no firm data to support the idea, however. But astronomers say the Sun might have been closer to other stars in the past.

A similar blast within 10 light-years of Earth "would destroy the ozone layer," according to a CfA statement, "causing abrupt climate change and mass extinctions due to increased radiation."

The all-clear has been sounded, however.

"None of the known sample [of magnetars] are closer than about 4,000-5,000 light years from us," Gaensler said. "This is a very safe distance."

Cause a mystery

Researchers don't know exactly why the burst was so incredible. The star, named SGR 1806-20, spins once on its axis every 7.5 seconds, and it is surrounded by a magnetic field more powerful than any other object in the universe.

"We may be seeing a massive release of magnetic energy during a 'starquake' on the surface of the object," said Maura McLaughlin of the University of Manchester in the UK.

Another possibility is that the magnetic field more or less snapped in a process scientists call magnetic reconnection.

Gamma rays are the highest form of radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes X-rays, visible light and radio waves too.

The eruption was also recorded by the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array of radio telescopes, along with other European satellites and telescopes in Australia.

Explosive details

A neutron star is the remnant of a star that was once several times more massive than the Sun. When their nuclear fuel is depleted, they explode as a supernova. The remaining dense core is slightly more massive than the Sun but has a diameter typically no more than 12 miles (20 kilometers).

Millions of neutron stars fill the Milky Way galaxy. A dozen or so are ultra-magnetic neutron stars -- magnetars. The magnetic field around one is about 1,000 trillion gauss, strong enough to strip information from a credit card at a distance halfway to the Moon, scientists say.

Of the known magnetars, four are called soft gamma repeaters, or SGRs, because they flare up randomly and release gamma rays. The flare on SGR 1806-20 unleashed about 10,000 trillion trillion trillion watts of power.

"The next biggest flare ever seen from any soft gamma repeater was peanuts compared to this incredible Dec. 27 event," said Gaensler of the CfA.

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Valuable History Lesson

Tomorrow marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the battle at Iwo Jima. 110,000 Americans and 880 ships began their assault on this small volcanic island where the Japanese had put in miles of tunnels and bunkers with 361 artillary pieces, 65 heavy mortars, 33 large naval guns, and 21,000 defenders ready to die. The American defenders were willing to take 40% casualties in the first assault and even before the assault, the Navy's bombardment of Iwo Jima cost more ships and men than we lost on D-Day. At 9 a.m. on the 19th, the marines loaded down with 70 to 100 pounds of equipment hit the beach and immediately sank into the thick volcanic ash. Some 556 feet above this beach stood Mount Suribachi where the Japanese could direct their fire along the entire beach. Some 1800 marines were killed or wounded in the first 18 hours of the invasion. It took 4 days of bloody fighting to capture Mount Suribachi and that was only the beginning of the battle for Iwo Jima which drug on for another month and cost nearly 26,000 men. Forty men were in the platoon which raised the flag on Suribachi and only 4 would survive unhurt. Their company would suffer 75% casualties. Twenty out of 21 Japanese would die where they stood. One in three Marines would be either killed or wounded and 27 Marines and naval medical corpsmen would receive Medals of Honor.

The lesson for today according to Arthur Herman, the author of the article in today's Wall Street Journal recounting these events, is that free societies can afford only one response to totalitarians who confront democratic societies. Who outlasts whom? At Iwo Jima, it was the Americans who prevailed and in Viet Nam and Cambodia, it was the totalitarians with consequences which we are facing today in Iraq. Today, some in this country think the totalitarians may still win in Iraq and a few even hope so. This will not be the case if we remember those who served at Iwo Jima.

A metaphysical question

If the hockey league fell in the forest and nobody heard, would anyone care?

Comcast Gift

My cable TV provider recently decided to move MSNBC from the basic, but very expensive, package to the digital package which requires a set-top box I don't have. A consequence of this is that now there is absolutely no chance that I can inadvertently click onto the new program this loser network created for Ron Reagan.

Military E- mail from Iraq

One of lots of E-mails home from here.

Started going out in the cycle of patrols the last few days. The only one really suffering are the gunners because of the cold. As people have said many times on this site ... if you've got cold weather gear, bring it. Maybe only until the end of March, but you'll need it.

When I origianaly prepared to come here, we joked about making an award for FOBbit of the Month. Now it seems like there are plenty of people in my unit that will be in contention! It's especailly disheartening since we are in an infantry unit and we run so many patrols a day, that there are those people who never will have to leave the FOB. Ever.

Then I look at it the other way. When we all get home, nobodys loved one is going to care if somebody did 365 patrols or none. Loved ones are only going to care that there's came home from Iraq.

It is a lot different than when we were here the first time. Despite the news that you may get in the States, the “insurgents” are loosing. Big time. It is unfortunate that we have to go around wearing “Samarri suits” to keep us alive if we do get attacked. But the fact of the matter is, thier will is broken. They know that every act of aggression against us will be met with crushing force.

Federal Budget Cutting

The Wall Street Journal has an article today which should be avoided by all with blood pressure problems. It describes several programs which Bush has proposed eliminating and then expalins why the cuts will never happen. Senator Stevens of Alaska who chairs the Appropriations Committee protects the $8.5 million budgeted for something called the "Exchanges With Historic Whaling and Trading Partners" program. Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio insists that the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinnati should get $2.2 million in federal dollars even though they have raised over $100 million from private sources such as Oprah and Muhammed Ali. There are others just as egregious which are supported by various politicians of both parties, but they also point to one program with a $1 million budget which was killed. It forgave student loans for child care providers and its main sponsor was Senator Paul Wellstone who is no longer with us. It is sad to think that plane crashes are the only route to boondoggle programs being discontinued.

Random Thoughts

Television yesterday featured two completely worthless activities. First was the NFL Pro Bowl which is held in Hawaii and none of the players want to participate in the actual game. You simply can't watch it and if you are not careful when clicking to other channels, you might wind up with the Grammy Awards on your screen and the sights and sounds forthcoming from that are potentially lethal.

Internet bloggers have claimed two more victims who lost their jobs (in addition to Dan Rather) because of information diseminated by this medium. Eason Jordan, the head of CNN news, made a stupid claim that our military was targeting reporters for death in Iraq and this came on top of his earlier claim that CNN had suppressed news from Iraq so as not to make Saddam look bad and possibly taking it out on CNN reporters. Good riddance. Then liberal bloggers outted a man who obtained press credentials under a pseudonym, asked easy questions of Bush at press conferences, and may even be gay. The regulars at the White House were just aghast that their environs could be invaded in this manner. Now the big question of the day is just who is a journalist? The problem as I see it is we may broaden the definition in such a way as to include bloggers as part of the journalist community. If that happens, I may have to reconsider this activity.

Howard Dean's first excursion as head of the democrats will be to Mississippi. That should be interesting.

I wonder if the most perfect love song for this Valentine's Day is Charlie Robison's rendition of "You aren't the best but you're the best that I can do?"

Good Law

I just read in our local paper that a Republican lawmaker here in Georgia has proposed a law that would allow a parent can go down to the driver's license office and for $15 suspend the license of their child under the age of 18 for a period up to 90 days. I think that is just great and I would go one step further and suspend the license, for the same 90 days, of any student who is sufficiently disruptive to warrant expulsion from school.

Freedom of Speech

The lefties are coming out strong and loud in support of Ward Churchill's right to say anything he wants in regard to how the victims of 9/11 deserved what they got and the U.S. deserves more of these attacks for its past and current actions. Many conservatives are reluctantly agreeing that his speech is and should be protected, but many are also asking if the same liberals would be so quick to come to his defense if he was shouting the notion that blacks deserved slavery and should be sent back to Africa, etc., etc. Somehow, I don't think so. The President of Harvard couldn't even get by with suggesting that women MAY be less adapt in the sciences than men. The resulting firestorm has Dr. Summers backing down on all fronts and he may lose his job before Ward Churchill. These are similar sides to the same issue.

Tom Friedman has it figured out

Here's the truth: There is no single action we could undertake anywhere in the world to reduce the threat of terrorism that would have a bigger impact today than a decent outcome in Iraq. It is that important. And precisely because it is so important, it should not be left to Donald Rumsfeld.

Democrats need to start thinking seriously about Iraq - the way Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton have. If France - the mother of all blue states - can do it, so, too, can the Democrats. Otherwise, they will be absenting themselves from the most important foreign policy issue of our day.

Democrats do not favor using military force against Iran's nuclear program or to compel regime change there. That is probably wise. But they don't really have a diplomatic option. I've got one: Iraq. Iraq is our Iran policy.

Ward Churchill's Mistake

I guess everyone has heard the idiotic ravings by the tenured Professor of something at the University of Colorado. Now with the publicity he seems to be challenged to come up with more and more outrageous pronouncements. A few years ago, this would have been a local story with maybe a furor involving only the Colorado Board of Regents and the governor. Now, however, we have bloggers and Ward Churchill has unleased a mighty hoard of fact checkers and background diggers. Here is an example from Powerline.com. He will retain his free speech, but lose his job, I predict.

Ward Churchill has publicly stated that more 9/11-type attacks on our homeland may be "necessary" to prevent the U.S. from doing evil. He has built his academic career on unsubstantiated claims that he is a Native American. In addition, according to University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, Churchill apparently has fabricated a story about the U.S. Army intentionally creating a smallpox epidemic among the Mandan tribe in 1837. Citing a paper by Thomas Brown of Lamar University, Campos reports that Churchill simply invented almost all of the story's most crucial facts, and then attributed these "facts" to sources that say nothing of the kind.

In addition, according to Campos, John Lavelle, a Native American scholar, has documented what appear to be equally fraudulent claims on Churchill's part regarding the General Allotment Act, one of the most important federal laws dealing with Indian lands. Lavelle also accuses Churchill of plagiarism.

HINDROCKET adds: Two readers have submitted comments on Professor Churchill that I think are of interest. Tracy Allen notes that "His degrees are from Sangamon State University, an 'experiment' in Illinois that appears to have been designed to create a convergence of Marxists and anarchists. Here is a link from a couple of the believers about how the Corporate State destroyed their utopia:"

http://www.dennisfox.net/uis/state-agent.html

Among its other unusual qualities, Sangamon State recruited professors via ads in Rolling Stone magazine and didn't grade its students. The experiment was terminated in 1995 when Sangamon State became a "normal" member of the Illinois system, as the University of Illinois at Springfield. Churchill thus came out of an academic background in which activism was prized more highly than scholarship, which would seem consistent with his later practice of fabricating historical evidence to support preordained political conclusions.

David Bell worries that Churchill may not be as outlandish a specimen of academia as one would hope:

It is a good thing that you and others are pointing out the frauds and misdeeds of Ward Churchill. But there are two larger points that need to be made about this.

First, how did the University of Colorado allow such a preposterous fraud to rise so high in their institution? And how many other such frauds are on their tenured faculty, and why? What strange mission is UofC on (with taxpayer money, no less?)

Second, what does this say about the state of American academia? The fact is that Churchill is only one of the most ludicrous examples (let us hope) of what has become business as usual on even the most prestigious of campuses. To wit, as long as someone claims to be a member of an officially-sanctioned victims’ group, and as long as he says and writes “controversial” (read “polemical”) attacks on The Man, who really cares whether his credentials, his writings or his utterances have the slightest basis in fact? After all, “fact” itself is a quaintly naïve notion in the lofty redoubts of academia today, except for all the facts the deconstructionists, polemics and Oppression Studies charlatans get to assert, with immunity from the laws of deconstruction, contextualism and so on that they impose on all others.

Ward Churchill is only an absurdly extreme example of a pandemic that has all but destroyed the great universities of this country... But the real story is the iceberg of which Ward Churchill is merely a small broken off chard. The larger story is one people like David Horowitz are flogging, but I think it is important one for the blogosphere to pick up---as important as the exposing of the fraudulent and seditious MSM. And the Churchill incident is the perfect occasion to begin to raise the broader theme.

Comment from Niall Ferguson, WSJ

"Premature promises to leave on this or that date dishearten those who are supportive of American policy and embolden those who see an American withdrawal as the precondition for their own violent seizure of power."

That seems self-evident to me and I wonder if even Senator Ted Kennedy with his besotted brain also realizes that when he calls for our withdrawal plans?

You gotta scare seniors some way.

MoveOn.org launched a false TV ad in the districts of several House members, claiming through images and words that President Bush plans to cut Social Security benefits nearly in half. Showing white-haired workers lifting boxes, mopping floors, shoveling and laundering, the ad says "it won't be long before America introduces the working retirement."

Actually, Bush has said repeatedly he won't propose any cuts for those already retired, or near retirement. What MoveOn.org calls "Bush's planned Social Security benefit cuts" is actually a plan that would hold starting Social Security benefits steady in purchasing power, rather than allowing them to nearly double over the next 75 years as they are projected to do under the current benefit formula. The White House has discussed such a proposal, and may or may not adopt it when the President puts forth a detailed plan expected in late February.

What???

Tim Russert: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?

Kerry: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than it was 2 1/2 years ago. . . .

Russert: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?

Kerry: Sure. And I'm glad Saddam Hussein is gone, and I've said that a hundred times.

Does he agree with Ted Kennedy's view that America is the problem and should get out? No and yes:

Russert: Specifically, do you agree with Sen. Kennedy that 12,000 American troops should leave at once?

Kerry: No.

Russert: Do you believe there should be a specific timetable of withdrawal of American troops?

Kerry: No.

Russert: What would you do?

Kerry: I understand exactly what Sen. Kennedy is saying, and I agree with Sen. Kennedy's perceptions of the problem and of how you deal with it. . . . I agree with Senator Kennedy that we have become the target and part of the problem today, if not the problem.

From IBD

Off The Dean End

Politics: Talk about timing. Just when Iraq’s elections are bringing victory closer in the war on tyranny and terror, the Democrats are embracing a defeat strategy.

How else does one account for the fact that the party is about to choose Howard Dean, a candidate who couldn’t get past the Iowa caucuses, as the man to lead it back to power? Dean doesn’t have the party chairmanship sealed up, but he became the odds-on favorite to win after getting the support of state party leaders this week.
And what, other than a deep-seated defeatism, can explain the party’s response to this week’s good news from Iraq?
Harry Reid, the top Senate Democrat, reacted to the election by calling on President Bush to reveal an “exit strategy,” as if getting out was all that Americans wanted.
As Reid knows full well, Bush already has a strategy — to build a democratic Iraqi state capable of defending itself — and is executing it. But Reid and other Democratic leaders simply cannot or will not give Bush credit for anything, especially for success in Iraq.
They seem to assume that bad news for Bush is good news for them, and good news for Bush must be denied or explained away.
This is the mind-set of the left-wing activists who seem increasingly to be setting the agenda for the whole party.
Not all Democrats think this way. A few prominent ones, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, understand what’s at stake and keep their partisanship in bounds on foreign policy issues. But the rise of Dean suggests their influence on the party is weak and getting weaker.
Dean’s appeal to centrists is feeble. His appeal to Republicans, by choice, is nil. “I hate the Republicans and all they stand for,” he told one New York City audience this week while admitting that he admired the GOP’s “discipline and organization.” His strategy is not to win Republicans to his side, but to treat them as the enemy, to learn from their success and use the knowledge to bury them.
If the party goes with Dean rather than a moderate, it’s deciding in effect to become a party of the left, energized by anti-war activists but increasingly cut off from the politically centrist, morally conservative voters who tend to decide elections.
Already, Bush and the GOP have made inroads on moral issues with black preachers, who have been among the Democrats’ best friends. Dean hardly seems the man to reverse that trend.
If the Democrats pick him, they will help confirm the suspicion of those who think the party takes black voters for granted or is too obsessed with Bush and Iraq to care what blacks really think.

I'll take the cruise, kids.

This is a note to my two daughters:

Average total cost for an 80-year-old American to live out the rest of his or her days on a luxury cruise ship: $230,497

Average cost to live them out in an assisted-living facility: $228,075

- Harper's Index, February 2005

BBC Errors Consistent

The BBC has apologised for incorrectly broadcasting figures which suggested more Iraqi civilians had been killed by coalition and Iraqi forces than by insurgents.

Why is it the BBC always seems to make mistakes in the same direction, i.e. to make the U.S. look as bad as possible?