Thursday, September 27, 2012

Separate Corps. and State!

The title of this post might be a good mantra for what's needed to rescue the United States from its current slide into oligarchic Banana Republic-anism.  (The most recent consequence of this slippery slide, "The Great Recession", began when the Glass–Steagall Act was gutted.)

There is considerable evidence that the root cause of America's ills is corruption and crony capitalism that are fed by unrestrained political campaign contributions.  A rational person knows that it's a bad idea to let corporations write the laws that are supposed to regulate and restrain them from bad behavior, but that's what happens.  Now that corporations are "persons", they can contribute vast amounts of money toward buying the politicians who pass those laws.  It doesn't matter whether a politician is a Democrat or a Republican.  They all appreciate and respond to the money that keeps them in office; they don't bite that hand that feeds them.

In this interview, http://www.upworthy.com/, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) makes a strong case for two actions:
  • A Constitutional amendment to strip corporations of their "free speech right" to make campaign contributions.
  • Public financing of political campaigns, as in, e.g., Canada and European countries.
The United States has become a nation whose government is controlled by corporations. 
This is why its citizens and voters need to "Separate Corps. and State!"

Global Warming: Good News, Bad News

This article is rather interesting:  
http://revmodo.com/2012/08/31/reflecting-sunlight-fight-climate-change/   
It describes some technically feasible ways to reflect sunlight away from the earth, so as to reduce global warming.  

Most people are unaware that on average, the past few years have been relatively cool.  According to some experts, the reason is that, in their race to industrialize, the Chinese have been burning so much coal!  The coal is impure and contains sulfur.  When the coal burns, it adds more carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas) to the atmosphere, which ultimately will exacerbate the situation.  However, the sulfur in the coal burns, too, and turns into sulfur dioxide. The sulfur dioxide also goes into the atmosphere, but it does a great job of reflecting sunlight.  Thus, in a sense, the technology is already proven.

So the good news is that we can do it; the bad news is that if we can do it, then why stop putting carbon dioxide into the air?  And will a reflective band-aid work as well as hoped?  Check with Murphy's Law...

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Fang, that bloody drunk

"The drunk cut himself shaving.  He bled so much, his eyes cleared up."

   -- by way of Terry Gross, by way of Phyliss Diller (1986 interview)

Thou shalt not kill.

Which part of "Thou shalt not kill." don't you understand?

Do you support the death penalty?

Given that war is institutionalized killing of people designed "the enemy", under what circumstances do you think war is justifiable and morally acceptable?

Is it OK to industrialize the slaughter of animals so we can eat their meat?  

Are humans animals?

Do you oppose abortion but support the death penalty and war under some circumstances?

Do you think abortion is the lesser of several evils and, therefore, should remain available?

Is a fertilized egg a chicken? Is a sprouting acorn an oak tree?
Do you think a two or four cell embryo is a bona fide human being?   If so, do you think a fertilized ovum (one cell) is a human being?  How many cells must an embryo have to be a real human being?

Do you see the world in black and white, either-or, non-nuanced terms?  (E.g., George Bush: "I don't do nuance.")

Which part of "Thou shalt not kill." do you not understand?



"Life" in prison

Did You Know?

As of December 31, 2009, there were approximately 3,000 people serving
life sentences under California's 3-strikes law for having been
convicted of non-violent, non-serious crimes.

 --From Insight Prison Project

Did you know that, among all the countries in the world, the U.S.A. jails the highest percentage of its population?  Is this the price of freedom? Do you feel safer -- and freer -- for it?

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Letting Go


=============================
It's like this: There's this bird, and you catch it in your hands
You feel its softness, warmth, its heart rapidly beating.
But if you keep holding it, it's no longer a bird,
So you open your hands, catch it and let it go, again and again.

 -- Wendy Lewis

=============================
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendos,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

 --Wallace Stevens

=============================
The birds have vanished into the sky,
And now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and I,
Until only the mountain remains.

 -- Li Po

=============================
The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

 --Wallace Stevens

=============================
Break open a cherry tree,
And there are no flowers,
But the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms.

 --Ikkyu Sojun


Friday, May 4, 2012

Udacity.com: free, quality education for anyone, anywhere

Check it out: www.udacity.com.  Another worthy contender is coursera.org.

Udacity courses are hard: they're equivalent to what you'd get at the finest private universities, but they're designed to help you learn the material without hazing or boring you.

One of our friends recently took a course and earned this certificate:


























Cute, huh? The "highest distinction" endorsement means he scored 100% on the final exam.  Congratulations, Pete!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

The Lecture Method of Education Considered Harmful

... or at least a waste of time.
Evidence shows that alternatives are better pedagogy than students taking notes while listening to lectures.
Following are raw links to discussion of problems with the lecture method of teaching and alternatives to it:
http://entropysite.oxy.edu/morrison.html
http://entropysite.oxy.edu/gutenberg_method.html
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/09/dont-lecture-me-rethinking-how-college-students-learn/
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/problem-with-lecturing.html
http://arts.monash.edu.au/philosophy/peer-instruction/
http://web.mit.edu/rsi/www/2005/misc/minipaper/papers/Hake.pdf 
http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/ # Richard R. Hake
http://www.blogger.com/profile/10753878005211770282
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2010/10/a-college-teacher-who-doesnt-lecture/
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/01/students-learn-at-their-own-pace-in-the-future-school-day/
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/resources.html
The power of peer affirmation is key to sourceforge and open source success.
 "Those closest to the problem are generally best equiped to deal with the problem."  (This assumes they already have the tools and concepts...)
Peer affirmation also applies to teachers and students:
http://www.angelamaiers.com/2012/03/beyondthetextbook-please-join-the-conversation.html/

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Free, quality education for everyone

See http://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan Academy is a phenomenal place to learn many useful technical subjects.  The level of subjects spans middle school through university education.  A bright, motivated student, young or old, can potentially learn a subject in short order, that might otherwise take many months.  Note that the presentations alone are probably insufficient, as one must work exercises and apply knowledge to truly learn it, and supplemental information from the web or books might be helpful, too.  Still, Khan Academy is an amazing resource, and it potentially foretells the future of education.

In some ways, Khan Academy is revolutionary and disruptive, because its spirit counters the common, burdensome, tracking and age-locked education system of today.  By using this site, a bright, motivated kid -- with proper guidance and assistance -- could acquire much of a quality college education by age eighteen.

If public education were properly redesigned, the teacher's role would change from information spoon-feeder, taskmaster, disciplinarian and baby sitter to tutor and consultant. Higher quality education could be delivered at lower cost, and the stature and importance of teachers in society would be restored to its proper, high level.  Why should a teacher deliver the same, ad-hoc, boring lectures over and over, year-in and year-out?  It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, these courses can help a student readily master standard school courses and sprint ahead. Parents, educators, students, and self-educators take note!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

future evolution and human legacy


A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I'd like to widen people's awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead -- for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4bn years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. Six billion years from now, it will not be humans who watch the sun's demise. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae. -Martin Rees, cosmologist and astrophysicist (b. 1942)

Friday, July 22, 2011

Monty Python's Green Door

Human beings are wondrously marvelous creatures -- but with limitations.  Humans have evolved in a way that prevents them from seeing certain problems, solutions and situations correctly.  That is, solutions that seem obvious or common-sensical are simply wrong.  It happens that the solutions to such problems can be seen, but only if you look at them in the right way, a rather unnatural way.  These problems are really vexing.  Following is a great example of one such problem:
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors [and will win what is behind the chosen door]. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. The car and the goats were placed randomly behind the doors before the show. The rules of the game show are as follows: After you have chosen a door, the door remains closed for the time being. The game show host, who knows what is behind the doors, now has to open one of the two remaining doors, and the door he opens must have a goat behind it. If both remaining doors have goats behind them, he chooses one [uniformly] at random. After the host opens a door with a goat, he will ask you to decide whether you want to stay with your first choice or to switch to the last remaining door. Imagine that you chose Door 1, and the host opens Door 3, which has a goat. He then asks you "Do you want to switch to Door Number 2?" Is it to your advantage to change your choice?
Baaah!

Please think about it some more.  Better yet, imagine that there are a hundred doors (all with smelly goats behind them, except for one hiding a car), and the host opens all the doors except one.  So now, only two doors are closed: your initial choice and the one the host didn't open.  Would it improve your chances to switch doors?  Ask yourself, when you chose that first door, what were the odds that it had a car behind it?  Then ask yourself, what are the odds that the car is behind the door that the host left closed???  "To switch or not to switch?", that is the question.

Don't be hasty, but for the solution (and the source of the above problem statement), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Clear Thinking vs. Groupthink

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Courage may be a sine qua non of clear thinking, but more ingredients are often required. It happens also that "there is strength in numbers" (a nice double entendre, and we don't mean lying with statistics, either).

Much to the irritation of Western individualists, it turns out that difficult problems are best solved by groups of individuals, and the best ideas come from groups, too.  What, designed by a committee and a product of groupthink?   Are you, a believer in the supreme power of the individual, shocked and aghast?  You should be, because the evidence is compelling.  See Chapter 26, "How Many Inventors Does It Take to Make a Lightbulb", in Evolution for Everyone, by David S. Wilson.

This annoying conclusion is the tip of a dangerous iceberg, that humans have a kind of group mind, where the whole is sometimes smarter than any individual.  Not always, but sometimes, and those times can be very important.  So we're playing coquette today, teasing you with truth, but not the whole truth, and returning later...

Monday, July 18, 2011

The War on Drugs, Prohibition Redux, and A War on Sanity

Remember the bumper sticker, "End this War", modified to read "This Endless War"?
That's the so-called War on Drugs (WOD), which has mutated into corporate socialism for the prison industry and jobs-for-life for prison guards. It's also an excuse for cops to finance their organizations via "direct taxation," i.e., seizure of property from drug offenders.

Remember prohibition in the U.S? It resulted from an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, sponsored by well-meaning folks infused with the Puritan Ethic. Seems like only folks nostalgic for Eliot Ness and Al Capone remember it now. It was a bad idea then and a colossal fiasco. It's a bad idea now, too, and we've had a newer version of it since the late 1960's. A better idea is harm reduction, where the cure is not worse than the disease and does not destroy the patient's life.

Drug abuse (read: abuse, not use) is bad for everyone, but the WOD is even worse. The violence in Mexico and Colombia are direct results of U.S. policy. Even more ironic, drug importers and dealers want the U.S. to retain its current policies, since it keeps the price of product up: it's the market in action, but trade is not free, due to the U.S. embargo, which helps sustain the high profit margin, violence, and loss of freedom and life. A sarcastic cynic might call this American Capitalism at its finest.

The United States imprisons a much higher percentage of its population than any other country.  Is that the price of security?  No, but the WOD is part of the reason.  See this for the shocking reality, which deserves more commentary: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht-23prison.12253738.html

Let's end this nonsense now and spend the money on treatment and education. Money spent on education is money well spent, an investment in the future.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Counting to Ten in the Age of Partial Enlightenment, part I

The metric system is a wonderful tribute to the Age of Enlightenment idea of all things of, by and for man, in the words of the French philosopher Condorcet, to be "for all people for all time".   Unfortunately it didn't go quite far enough, and now we're stuck with their oversight for the foreseeable future -- and beyond.

The problem is that the standard number system is based on ten.  Why? Because most of us have ten fingers and ten toes.  After all, what could be more important in arithmetic than counting on your fingers?

But first, let's ask why the has U.S.A. resisted metrification?  True, the U.S. is conservative and slow to change, highly resistant to many good ideas that originate in government, and due to its bizarre organization, states have power over policies that would elsewhere be centralized.  But that's not the reason.  Evidently, the reasons have to do with proportion and with convenience of the number system.  A yard does correspond to a meter, but that's about it.  A foot corresponds to a human foot, which is approximately 30.5 cm, an odd duck of a number.  In contrast, a foot has twelve inches, a number nicely divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6 (but not by 5).  And a yard is three feet long, because three feet fit therein.  Why do you think a day has 2X12 hours (instead of 10 or 20) and an hour and minute are each divided into units of 60 (instead of 100)?  They didn't get metrified, at least not until you start measuring in milliseconds.

There is also evidence that many things manufactured and designed in metric units, just don't look right: their proportions are slightly off.

We understand that these ideas may be a little strange to the reader, but a bit of research and thought might be convincing.  We are convinced, so let's get to the point.

The point is that the Enlightenment should have changed the base of the number system from ten to twelve.  This would throw off finger-counters, but it makes arithmetic otherwise easier for people.

We realize that this notion is a bit difficult to grasp.  For example, two new digits would be needed to take the please of the two-digit numbers 10 and 11.  Just for fun, let's use a phi (ϕ) to represent 10 in this system.  For 11, we can use a 'U' character.  So to count, it would go: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,ϕ,U,10,11,12...,19,1ϕ,1U,20,21...  and so forth.  It works exactly the same as before but with more digits.

There are some other changes, but while initially odd, they work out better.  Let's consider division by 2 (in base 12 arithmetic). For example, ϕ/2=5, U/2=5.5 and 10/2=6. It's just like dividing inches in a foot.  It works much better than if a foot were divided into ten inches!

So a meter would be divided into 12 units, four of which would correspond to a foot.  Each of those 12 units would be divided into 12 more, and so forth, just like the metric system, only in a different number system. It would be unimaginably better.  The problem is the "unimaginable" part, so it's just not going to happen. Too bad those smart folks missed their big chance...

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Who increased the U.S.A. national debt the most? ...and the War on X

A: See http://www.flickr.com/photos/speakerpelosi/5684032538/sizes/l/in/photostream/
...subject to "fact check", of course, but accurate enough for politics.

The Republican War on Taxes is a War against Government, a war against a balanced budget and vital government services.  The U.S.A. has the lowest taxes of any industrialized country except for Japan.

Repealing the Bush tax break for corporations and the upper echelon would nearly balance the budget, and a War on War (War for Peace?), i.e., avoiding needless war would put the country on the debt reduction road.  (So which wars are needless? A: Most of them.)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The "royal we" vs. the "imperial I"

...or, we vs. me.  Why doesn't this observer and commentator call itselves "I"?
A: Think "Benign Borg", with many benefits, but, sorry, memberships and voluntary assimilation are unavailable.  Insistence is futile.

Root causes of Global Warming, i.e., global climate change

Nearly nobody seems to notice or want to talk about the connection between burgeoning human population, degradation of the environment, exhaustion of natural resources, and reduction in quality of life.  There is a connection -- and a causal relationship.  Meanwhile, good Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, et al, continue to reproduce themselves willy-nilly because their religions and relatives tell them to, so they'll have someone to take care of them when they're old, and to maintain an illusion of immortality.

Of course, most people want and have kids, and only a cad doesn't love children.  That's why the discussion ends before it begins.  "...for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7 KJV, Christian Bible)

However, there is a glimmer of hope to be seen.  In time, the population of industrialized countries becomes stable.  (Why?  You tell us.)  The only exception is, as usual, the U.S.A., but in that case it's due to its immigration policy (or lack thereof).  Unfortunately, industrialized countries are enormously wasteful and polluting, and they have an insatiable thirst for oil.  So let's look for a country whose energy needs are satisfied by a non-carbon energy source.  When and where will it happen?  Will its population stabilize?

Pregnancy for Dummies

The other day, we were howling with laughter upon seeing the book title Pregnancy for Dummies.  Various thoughts came to mind such as, "It's as easy as falling off a log -- or a romp in the hay." and "Any dummy can get pregnant."  (Of course this isn't true for some people, and it may cause them distress.)

Later we realized that the book is not about how to get pregnant but about managing the condition so as to result in the mother having a healthy, happy baby, etc.  In any case, be sure to first browse it and read the reviews before running out and (not) buying it...

Closing thought: Is there a follow-on book, Raising Children for Dummies?  Should there be?

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Mil-newspeak or neutral term: Warfighter?

They used to be called soldiers, sailors, and then airmen.  They are military personnel and (too-long term) "members of the military"; some once were "freedom fighters".  We have our warriors, and now we have "warfighters."  Why the rebranding?

From a historical perspective, we have William Astore's analysis:
When did American troops become "warfighters" -- members of "Generation Kill" -- instead of citizen-soldiers? And when did we become so proud of declaring our military to be "the world's best"? These are neither frivolous nor rhetorical questions. Open up any national defense publication today and you can't miss the ads from defense contractors, all eagerly touting the ways they "serve" America's "warfighters." Listen to the politicians, and you'll hear the obligatory incantation about our military being "the world's best."
All this is, by now, so often repeated -- so eagerly accepted -- that few of us seem to recall how against the American grain it really is. If anything -- and I saw this in studying German military history -- it's far more in keeping with the bellicose traditions and bumptious rhetoric of Imperial Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II than of an American republic that began its march to independence with patriotic Minutemen in revolt against King George.
So consider this a modest proposal from a retired citizen-airman: A small but meaningful act against the creeping militarism of the Bush years would be to collectively repudiate our "world's best warfighter" rhetoric and re-embrace instead a tradition of reluctant but resolute citizen-soldiers.

If that's not to your liking or too circumspect for you, a more neutral perspective is here: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-warfighter.htm

Is it a good idea to have a professional, enlisted army?  Would the U.S. have fewer military adventures if the draft were brought back?  Consider this spectrum: temporary slave, draftee, professional soldier, mercenary.  Should the U.S. Defense Department return to its old name, "War Department"?

Friday, July 1, 2011

Is George W. Bush a war criminal or a sincere defender of American security?

Seen in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_w._bush but notably absent from U.S. news controlled by mainstream media outlets:
After Bush announced a planned visit to Switzerland in 2011, Amnesty International, in a memorandum to the Swiss authorities in February 2011, asked Switzerland to uphold its "obligations under international law" to arrest and detain the former president for "his alleged involvement in and responsibility for crimes under international law, including torture...." Event organizers, United Israel Appeal, canceled the visit. Reports differ over whether the cancellation was because organizers feared Bush's arrest for war crimes,[377] or, as was stated by the event organizer's lawyer, the event was canceled to avoid the prospect of violent protests.[378] Human rights groups have vowed to continue to seek Bush's arrest.[379]
More reportage:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/bush-switzerland-torture_n_819175.html
http://harpers.org/archive/2011/02/hbc-90007967

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Humans are not biological, and they are not evolved.

A majority of Americans do not "believe" in the theory of evolution, and many people think humans are "above" biology and not part of nature.  In the words of former U.S. president G.W. Bush about evolution, "the jury's still out."  Well, the jury is not out, but the light bulb is. Dear reader, biologists can scarcely talk about biology nowadays without considering evolution. It's not even controversial, because the evidence is compelling, and because it explains things better than any other theory.  That's a fact.
Note: "theory" means that the facts support it.  The facts support Darwin's theory.

Now you don't have to believe us.  Even more surprising, it turns out that you can even have religion and appreciate the power of Darwin's theory of evolution.  Please see this wonderful book, Evolution for Everyone, by David Sloan Wilson:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Everyone-Darwins-Theory-Change/dp/0385340214
http://evolution-institute.org/foci/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolution/

One of the great surprises is how much evolution explains -- and this tsunami of understanding is only starting.  Evolution is a tide: you can swim in it, but you can't escape it.  Or, mangling more metaphors, it's the tip of an iceberg, easy to see a little, but if you look below, the implications are enormous.

You won't regret reading Wilson's book; we promise!

Why Democrats Have Trouble Getting Elected -- and What To Do About it.

Here's a fascinating tale of partial blindness and the emperor's new clothes, a story of good intentions but bad behavior.  The analysis is compelling; it's a great talk, and Dems would do well to pay heed.

Prof. Joan C. Williams gets right to the heart of it -- after the intro, at around 02:20:
https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/joan-williams-why-are-democrats-embattled-and-how-can-they-win-again-6311