Fumbling the Future

With my pulled Achilles tendon, cracked bone spur and now a cough and fever, I barely slept last night. Woe is me. Finally, I gave up trying to sleep and sent an email to our Library Director: Kathy, Here it is 4:35 in the morning and I'm awake at my computer. It reminds me of grad school. In the 1970s the only people in the world with "personal computers" were a few lucky Xerox employees. But that's another story. This time my cough and fever woke me up every hour like clockwork. Anyway, I don't want to infect you and Bob so I will phone into the meeting at 10AM. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Well that got me thinking of the good old days at Xerox and the birth of the personal computer. I wonder how many people know that the PC was a Xerox invention. I think I’ll tell a bit of that story from my personal perspective.

In 1972 I was finishing up my doctorate, teaching a full load of physics at the community college and doing research at Xerox. Not a lot of free time for me. But I had a wife, Lee, and two kids, Carolynne was nine and John was three, and cash flow was a problem. One day early in 1972, my thesis professor, Len Mandel, came into my lab where I was repairing my latest broken apparatus. Len had allowed me to work at this experiment for three years spending a large portion of his equipment budget. I was a klutz.

Very gently Len asked if I might like to consider doing a theoretical thesis. He couldn’t afford me and wanted to get me out before my kids entered high school. For the year he tutored me in advanced quantum optics, we wrote three papers and I finished my thesis.

Now the thesis brings me back to Xerox. In 1972 Xerox started work on a personal computer that was a marvel. By 1975 the Alto was born. It had a powerful CPU, lots of memory, an operating system with windows, “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” graphics, a word processor, a mouse, an Ethernet card and a network and networked printers. Imagine writing your thesis and printing it out on that machine. But I was a couple of years too early.

Fortunately for me our kindly physics department secretary was looking for some part time work and she offered to type my thesis on her IBM typewriter for 50 cents a page. That cost included two drafts, handwritten equations and lots of White Out. When the thesis turned out to be 135 pages, I paid Nancy $100 and she was thrilled.

Now the question I want to address is this: Why isn’t Xerox a big name in the personal computer business? They had a several year head start on Apple and a decade or more on IBM/Microsoft. What happened?

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) had invented the computer technology and developed a dazzling product prototype. In 1979 when Steve Jobs visited PARC for a demo, he was astonished and went back to his office determined to duplicate the Xerox technology in the Apple Lisa and Macintosh. “It was one of those apocalyptic moments,” he said. “I remember within ten minutes of seeing the graphical user interface, just knowing that every computer would work this way some day.”

So Xerox had the technology. And Xerox was founded on a huge gamble on another novel technology that nobody thought would work (IBM, Kodak and many other companies passed on the opportunity to develop Xerography) for a market that looked miniscule except to Xerox and with a machine that was hazardous to your health. (The first machines were shipped with fire extinguishers inside)

The problems were a bad business/technical strategy and internal politics.

The PARC scientists were very bright and very proud. They designed a proprietary computer system built on home made electronics that prevented software developers from creating programs for the Alto. Xerox wanted to do it all. And the proprietary system made it impossible to use off the shelf microprocessors that followed Moore’s Law. (Every processor generation takes about 1.5 years to develop and by squeezing more transistors on the silicon chip achieves twice the performance or half the cost of the previous generation. Thus in 6 years or 4 generations, the processing speed goes up by 2x2x2x2 = 16 times or the price goes down by 16 times. It’s been happening since the mid 1970s) Thus when the IBM PC was introduced in 1981 it was a pale competitor in terms of features but it cost far less that the Alto. When the Apple Macintosh launched in 1984 it had a similar user interface (Jobs learned from PARC) but again at far less cost.

While the bad decision to use proprietary technology could have been reversed, the internal political problems were insurmountable. It was a war between two cultures. On the East Coast were the old time big iron guys who made all the (huge) profits for the company. On the left coast, in Palo Alto, were the tofu-eating computer geeks who created much of the losses. It’s easy to see who wins that war. By 1984, Xerox was out of the computer business while Apple and IBM/Microsoft were about to create an industry.

References

“Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer,” Douglas Smith and Robert Alexander.

“Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age,” Michael Hiltzig.

Democratic Survival Strategy

I am considering a post retirement career as a political consultant. Since the Democrats need the most help, I’ve decided to help them off the endangered species list. Not that I want Democrats to win elections, heaven forbid, but I do want to preserve the two-party system in the US.

As I see it, the Democratic Party has been embracing a culture of death. From the political perspective, I see a spectacle of mass induced hira kiri led by Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and their ilk. The Clintons are smart enough to see the abyss the Party is facing yet every time Hillary tries to triangulate, the fringe lefties pull her back in. It’s just like the mafia.

It is clear to me that the Democratic Party (DP) is being controlled by a left wing anti-American minority, numbering perhaps 30%. The politically astute (Clinton, Lieberman, Warner) know this is a recipe for failure but they don’t know what to do about it.

Enter the PalosVerdesBlogger.

My proposal is to kick out the left wing kooks and try to replace them with moderates. The key to the benefits program is to resurrect the strong, America-first philosophy of FDR, Truman and JFK.

I believe that a goodly number of centrist Democrats and an even larger number of Independents would go for it. In spite of the endless political rhetoric, much of it hateful, aimed at the President by the DP and the main stream media, Bush won the 2004 election with a 3+ million majority. (Note that on just one day, 1/21/05, Arthur Chrenkoff counted 7,750 articles published that were critical of the war, including 761 covering terrorist messages, but only 96 positive articles. Let’s see, 7750/96 = 81% against the war, and they think this is fair and balanced.) And still we voted for Bush and we will elect a Republican president in 2008 almost independent of who is that candidate. (Condi, McCain, but my favorite is Senator George Allen from Virginia). If you have half a brain this is easy to understand.

When people across the political spectrum enter the voting booth to elect a President, if they think of their kids and spouses, grandkids and other relatives and friend, and not of government handouts, they instinctively pull the GOP lever. It is that simple.

Since 9/11/01 nearly 1600 days have passed without a terrorist attack on American soil. Many have been thwarted. Last year 20 million flights took off and landed without an attack. Millions of trailer sized containers have entered our ports, only 5% have been checked for WMD, and still no attack. You may believe this is just good luck. I think it is good policy. But, even though we have been safe for four years, there are Democrats who would force the President to change his policy.

The people know enough, however, to count our blessings and even Democrats with that half brain know they tamper with our war policy at their own extreme peril.

So, back to my prescription for DP survival: The most important step is to kick the loons out of the Party. Then formulate a strong defensive posture that supports our war in Iraq. You need to mean it. Then put your money where your mouth is by voting to increase defense spending, decrease pork spending and approve any intelligent measure that will decrease our dependence on mid-East oil. (Drill in Anwar, pursue alcohol - my current favorite- for automobiles, use nuclear to generate electricity.) Once this is done the DP will be attractive to social liberals who want to protect their kids at any cost.

Those who line up with the Deaniacs will not be taken seriously and should resign themselves to a prolonged period of DP hira kiri.

Those in the DP who support the war need to find common ground with other Dems and Independents on social and economic issues.

That is my advice. No charge!

Judicial Do Gooders

At our Saint John Fisher Church "Moral Decisions Group" meetings we have been studying the First Amendment of the Constitution, aided by the fine videotapes of Notre Dame Law Professor Gerard Bradley. At the last meeting one of our fellows objected to Bradley’s contention that the “common good” has been harmed by the Court’s mistaken interpretation of the First Amendment, and that society would be better off were those false interpretations reversed.

Our friend felt that the Supreme Court has done a lot of good, and he mentioned the Civil Rights movement as a prime example of judicial “do-gooding.”

OK, as Brit Hume would say to the Fox All Stars, “So what about it?” Mort?

Regrettably, I must answer for Mort and Fred but probably not Mara that it is not the Supreme Court’s job to “do good.” The courts must do justice and that is a whole other kettle of fish. The courts, Supreme and other, are tasked by the Constitution to decide cases on the basis of the facts, the Constitution and prior law (Stare Decisis). The courts responsibility is to do justice under the law and not to make social policy to suit their own ideas of “good.”

When courts make decisions they are not allowed to take into account their opinions, or feelings, about what is good, fair or pleasant. When the courts stray into legislative territory, they harm the constitutional republic and generally do much more harm than good. It’s what we call judicial activism or judicial tyranny.

Now let’s be specific, beginning with the religion clauses of the First Amendment. In the Dec. 1995 issue of The American Enterprise, Judge Michael McConnell (Mitch is a great candidate for the Supremes) wrote about “The Movement for Religious Rights.” Mitch noted that: “In the past few decades, there has been an extraordinary secularization of American public life, especially in the schools.”

His position on free speech is as follows: “First, when private persons (including students in public schools) are permitted to engage in speech reflecting a secular viewpoint, then speech reflecting a religious viewpoint should be permitted on the same basis. Second, when the government provides benefits to private activities, such as charitable work, health care, education, or art, there should be no discrimination or exclusion on the basis of religious expression, character, or motivation. Most people agree that government should be neutral toward religion, but … neutrality and secularism are not the same thing.”

Even the famously liberal Justice William Brennan agreed in McDaniel v. Paty, 1978: “The establishment clause… may not be used as a sword to justify repression of religion or its adherents from any aspect of public life”

Yet in thousands of cases, valedictory speeches have been censored because of religious content, student research topics have been selectively curtailed, distribution of religious leaflets has been limited, and public employees have been ordered to hide their Bibles. In the public schools religious references in the curriculum have been comprehensively eliminated and religious students are forced to shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate, while advocates of various “progressive” ideologies are free to use the schools to advance their ideas of public morality, even when these ideas contradict the convictions of religious parents.

Religious symbols of historic value are stripped from public seals, the Ten Commandments are forcibly removed from public buildings, atheist's are trying to strike the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and the First Amendment has been turned into an excuse for official hostility to religion.

But what about the “good” Civil Rights movement? The splendid jurist Roger Taney writing for the majority in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford case (1856) said that “citizenship was perfectly understood to be confined to the white race.” Thus blacks were not citizens, until Mr. Lincoln, not himself a judge, did something about it.

Then in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law providing separate accommodations for blacks and whites on trains, legitimizing generations of “separate but equal” consequences. Finally when it was overturned in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Court at least stopped doing harm.

But don’t forget the 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States when the Supreme court upheld the saintly FDR’s decision to put 110,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps.

There is much more judicial doing good but I'll save it for another post.

I guess the courtly philosophy is pretty well summed up by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall: “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

Yep, that’s the ticket.

Grading the GOP

In the last post (Democratic Marginalization) I explained that Democrats will splinter into centrists who are tough on defense and marginal leftists who want to join a socialist whole world government. The Dems have no chance at the presidency unless they kick out the lefties and embrace the America-first centrists. Write it down.

Some of my friends are worried about my prognostication.

Colonel Dave wrote "I hope and pray you are right, but after reading the article below (from today’s WSJ) and knowing that on Monday duke cunningham will be sentenced, I am not as confident as you. I’ve said it before: we are spending like drunken democrats and it sickens me. Don’t get me wrong: for national defense and similar worthwhile endeavors I’m all for spending everything we need to spend; it’s the pork that kills me."

How to Turn a Red State Blue, WSJ 2/23/06

If you think Republicans on Capitol Hill have troubles, take a look at Virginia, where GOP lawmakers are busy writing an instruction manual on how to become a minority party. Republicans in that ostensibly "red" Southern state got their clocks cleaned in November's elections after they refused to take a coherent stand on taxes, and Democrat Tim Kaine squeezed to their right on pocketbook issues. As GOP state senator Ken Cuccinelli explained, "We ran on a message of almost being for tax cuts, almost for smaller government, almost for protecting Second Amendment rights, and almost being pro-life. As a result, the voters almost came out and voted for us." Now the GOP is calling for tax increases despite a $2 billion biennial budget surplus spurred by the Bush investment tax cuts.

I agree with Dave and the WSJ. It is sad that Republicans are spending like Democrats. And we need to fight against it. But perspective is all important.

Let’s put spending aside for a moment and list the priorities for the Federal government. In order, my list is (1) the war; (2) national defense; (3) judicial appointments; (4) the economy; (5) taxes; (6) education; (7) entitlements; (8) spending. Federal spending makes my list but way down it. Allow me to explain my priorities and how I rate the Bush administration on each.

(1) The war is the highest priority for any Federal government. I give Bush an A grade for his vision, courage and persistence in the face of difficulty and Democratic opposition. The military gets an A+.

(2) National defense is right at the top with war fighting. Bush gets good grades for defense spending, modernizing the military, the Patriot Act, spying on the bad guys, but poor grades for the leaky borders and for allowing political correctness to prevent racial profiling at airports. Overall I think he gets a grade of B.

(3) Judicial appointments are critically important to the health of our society. Bush gets an A grade for Roberts, Alito and all of his court of appeals appointments. Let’s hope he has the chance to make one or two more Supreme Court appointments.

(4) Despite an economic downturn inherited from Clinton, the 9/11 attack, the cost of war and defense and the devastating hurricanes the economy is humming along, the envy of the world, with unemployment below 5%. Grade A.

(5) The Bush tax cuts are one of the primary causes of the roaring economy, and we all get to keep more of our money. Grade A.

(6) Generally I’d like the Federal government to keep out of education. However, public education in America is in such a mess that his effort to bring visibility and accountability to the system is to be lauded. The fact that most teachers hate “No Child Left Behind” tells me it is the right thing to do. Since the Feds spend too much money on colleges I’ll give a C grade.

(7) Unfunded entitlements are a huge problem for our children. Bush gets some credit for his brave attempt to reform Social Security in the face of Democratic opposition. He also promotes personal medical accounts. I’ll give Bush a C grade only in comparison to what the Democrats would do; remember Hillary-Care?

(8) Federal spending is a problem (see “Budget Blues” 2/10/06). I found $177 Billion that I’d cut in a flash. But, remember, it is a drop in the ocean compared to the entitlements. Also note that, as a percent of GDP, Federal spending in 2005 was 20%, in line with the average since the mid 1970s. Again, in comparison to the Drunken Democrats, I’ll give a C grade.

Overall I think Bush gets a B+, but on the things that matter most it is A-.

Gore, Kerry, Hillary,.. your favorite Democrat.....fugetaboutit.

Democratic Marginalization

My “Polarization” post (2/21/06) attracted some interesting comments.

Andy noted some studies on political differences using functional MRI that found it's how people think the government should relate to society is the difference. If you believe the nation is like a family with a "strict father" you’re a conservative. Especially after 9/11, it's understandable that conservative people desire the "strict father" who's going to go out and kick some terrorist ass.

Andy, you’ve got me dead to rights. I want the government to kick some terrorist ass, and keep on kicking until they are utterly defeated.

Peter was surprised to read that you don't think our two-party system will survive with the political gaps between them. I see it completely different. That's the strength of our system, the gun-toting redneck capitalists on one side, and the pacifist tofu eating socialists on the other (that was quite a string of adjectives you gave on the differences, I can't remember them all). My characterization of the difference between the parties is simpler: The Democrats can't keep it in their pants, and the Republicans can't keep it out of their wallets. But it works! It works better than any other system that has tried to manage a free pluralistic society! Our young men (and I was one once) do, and should, risk their life to preserve it against all enemies.

Pete, I do think that the 2-party system will survive because the Democrats will splinter into (A) centrists who are tough on defense (like you Pete) and (B) leftists who want to join a socialist whole world government. The B part will become like the Greens (marginal) while the A part will attract some Independents and become viable. That scenario is my hope, but by no means a surety. Meanwhile the Dems have no chance at the presidency. Write it down.

It seems the Democratic Party has already begun the fission that I predicted. The latest Zogby poll (2/23/06) noted that "by objecting to virtually every initiative and proposal of the Bush administration and congressional Republican majority, Democrats are undermining their party's chances of regaining the majority in the fall elections."

The poll shows that 58 percent of rank-and-file Democratic voters say their leaders should "accept their lower position in Congress and work together with Republicans to craft the best legislation possible." Most Democratic voters accept their party's minority status and nearly a quarter say Republicans do a better job running Congress.

On the other hand 61 percent of Republican voters think the Republican-led Congress "has passed much legislation during the past 11 years that has reflected Republican values."

Only 6 percent of Democratic respondents say the No. 1 goal for their party's lawmakers in Congress should be to bury Republican bills. Unfortunately, among Democratic legislators (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Gore, Kerry, …..) the percentage of naysaying nabobs is much, much higher. I’m afraid that the Democratic leadership is in the boat with the marginal leftists who will become the new Green Party. Only if the majority of the Democratic electorate kick out the loonies will the Party attract the centrists they need to win national elections.

Gratitude

The Kiss...
He had just saved her from a fire in her house while he continued to fight the fire. She is pregnant. When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper, "The Observer," noticed her in the distance looking at the fireman. He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do. As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies, and kissed him, just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

It's simple gratitude.

Then there is the human variety.

Students reject honor to 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' hero

The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school. Student senator Jill Edwards said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce." Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men." Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington "was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform," for which he was awarded the Navy Cross. Smith said "the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."

These priveledged university students don't have the sense to honor the memory of an American hero. Boyington was a student at the UW from 1930-34 then served as a combat pilot in the 1st Squadron, American Volunteer Group – the "Flying Tigers of China" – and later as a Marine Corps combat pilot in charge of Marine Fighting Squadron 214, "The Black Sheep Squadron."

Along with the Navy Cross, Boyington was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his heroism. He was shot down and spent 20 months in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Boyington, who died in 1988, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Colonel Dave McCarthy said it best: If this is indicative of today’s university students, then it’s a national tragedy. Semper Fidelis, DMM

These kids need to learn about gratitude from the Dobbie.

Polarization

As I ponder my debate with Tom the Democrat (Debating a Democrat, 2/18/06) and read the comments from Brian, Dori, Dave, Greg, Jim, John, Prim, Ray, Tom R. on my side, and from Andy, Anonymous and Tex on Tom’s side, I wonder: Are we the same species? Or is it that Republicans (not men) come from Mars, while Democrats (not women) come from Venus?

Does the obvious polarization apply only to the Iraq war issue or is there a more fundamental, more widespread divide? James Q. Wilson addressed this question in his article “How Divided Are We” in the Feb. 2006 issue of Commentary magazine. Wilson defines polarization as “an intense commitment to a candidate, a culture, or an ideology that sets people in one group definitively apart from people in another, rival group.” When it comes to the presidency of George W. Bush or the war in Iraq, polarization is the operable term. What about other issues?

Dave Barry summed up the distinction between Republicans and Democrats in his own unique way: Republicans are “ignorant racist fascist knuckle-dragging NASCAR-obsessed cousin-marrying road-kill-eating tobacco-juice-dribbling gun-fondling religious fanatic rednecks,” while Democrats are “godless unpatriotic pierced-nose Volvo-driving France-loving leftwing Communist latte-sucking tofu-chomping holistic-wacko neurotic vegan weenie perverts.” It does sound a bit like Mars vs. Venus.

But, seriously, the most significant issues that separate us, in addition to the war in Iraq, are the use of military strength, abortion, judicial activism, entitlements and social secularization.

Since the Reagan era, Republicans have believed that “the best way to ensure peace is through military strength.” By the late 1990’s well over two-thirds of all Republicans agreed with this view, but far fewer than half of all Democrats did.

In the fall of 2005, according to Gallup, 81 percent of Democrats but only 20 percent of Republicans thought the war in Iraq was a mistake. Three-fourths of all Democrats but less than a third of all Republicans told pollsters that good diplomacy was the best way to ensure peace. In the same survey, two-thirds of all Republicans but only one fourth of all Democrats said they would fight for this country “whether it is right or wrong.” This is Mars vs. Venus at its most elemental.

In his book “Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America,” Morris Fiorina looked at the abortion issue. Between 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, and now, Fiorina writes, there has been no change in the degree to which people will or will not accept any one of six reasons to justify an abortion: (1) the woman’s health is endangered; (2) she became pregnant because of a rape; (3) there is a strong chance of a fetal defect; (4) the family has a low income; (5) the woman is not married; (6) and the woman simply wants no more children.

Only about 40 percent of all Americans will support abortion for any of the last three reasons in his series, while over 80 percent will support it for one or another of the first three. Almost all Americans support abortion in the case of maternal emergency, but fewer than half if it is simply a matter of the mother’s preference.

That profoundly important split has remained in place for over three decades, but Fiorina misses that it affects how people vote. In 2000 and again in 2004, 70 percent of those who thought abortion should always be legal voted for Al Gore or John Kerry, while over 70 percent of those who thought it should always be illegal voted for George Bush.

These divisions are fundamental, deep and long lasting. I’ll take a look at judicial activism, entitlement spending (socialism) and secularization in a future post. My opinion is that it is not possible for both political parties to exist over the long term with such chasms between us.

Debating a Democrat

I'm sure you remember the "Stuck on Stupid" (9/27/05) picture of Cindy Sheehan leaning on Jesse Jackson. Well it's making the rounds again and generated a heated email exchange between Palos Verdes friend Tom, the Democrat, and your humble PV blogger. I think the debate is rather revealing. Here is Tom's first salvo.

Not having lost a child or been through a divorce I am not inclined to judge her (Sheehan). Similarly I am not inclined to judge someone who would serve his wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital for cancer surgery. (Newt, as I recall) These kinds of things are very personal and shouldn't become partisan, just like an accidental shooting shouldn't become partisan. Let's stay focused on the real issues and pointed toward the right result. Even if some of us may differ from time to time on the right path to a result I think we often agree on the result we want. A free and democratic Iraq would be a great result, but I for one still question whether it is worth a half a trillion dollars (your guy's current prediction), not to mention all the young lives either lost or ground up in the process. Let's send over a bunch of old guys instead. Indeed the Vice President seems pretty handy with a gun--let's send him. The old guys have less to lose and are much less important to our future. And they always seem to be enthusiastic about wars, so let them fight. A draft for all men over 50! I like it. Solves the need for troops and the ballooning costs of Medicare and Social Security all at once.

Tom compares Sheehan with Gingrich and is enthusiastic about drafting all men over 50. Reasonable? My response follows.

I believe that Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson are disgraceful anti-Americans. I would be horrified to know either one of them. But they are unimportant. Your view of the war, however, is a serious matter.

Like most Democrats and liberals, you make a fundamental mistake in assessing the war. You say that a free and democratic Iraq is not worth half a trillion dollars and the lives of 2200+ soldiers. The valid question is: What is it worth to avoid another 9/11 (or worse) attack on America?

Because of Clinton's inattention in the 1990s, we lost 3000 citizens on 9/11 and the economic cost measured in the $Trillions. Can you imagine the cost in lives and the economic cost if we were hit again with a dirty bomb, or a biological or chemical weapon? That would have happened already, in my opinion, if we had not invaded Iraq and killed a lot of the bad guys. Listen to the bin Laden videos or the Saddam tapes if you doubt their intentions.

You may have a different opinion, and that is the problem for Democrats. Until the Democratic Party reclaims the courage of Truman, Kennedy, and Lieberman, we will never let them back into the White House. So if you care about liberal social policies you would be better served by Democratic leaders who can be trusted to protect the country. Forget about Hillary.

Back to Tom.

I agree another 9-11 would be a terrible cost. It would cost more lives than Iraq and perhaps as much as 10% of the money Iraq has cost. If I thought Iraq were the enemy, I could understand the war better. Afghanistan harbored the Taliban and their training camps so that invasion made sense and many of us are not challenging it.

Saudi Arabia and UAE provided all of the terrorist killers for 9-11 and the money. Iraq did nothing as far as I have seen. Yet we attack it and Saudi Arabia and UAE get a free ride. I am still waiting for a good explanation of that enigma. You can't fight an effective war without identifying the enemy. And I don't believe the Saudi protestations that its citizens were just acting privately. Was it just a private flying club that attacked us on December 7th 1941? Nonsense. The Saudi government has funded and encouraged Wahhabi fanatics for years. With "friends" like Saudi Arabia and the UAE we don't need enemies.

But hey I stand by my plan to draft 50 plus year olds. They are always the most enthusiastic for war in every society and yet they are protected. In the old days when wars were fought on raw strength that made sense. But now it is all technology. The old folks have fewer years left so less would be lost and indeed they cost society more. OK I am a little tongue in cheek on this but it galls me to see Arab fanatics (all old guys) sending their young to die in suicide bombings and to at the same time see our elderly leaders sending young kids to die in a fight not focused on the real enemy.

Ok, so Tom thinks another 9/11 would cost around $50 Billion (10% of the Iraq war), that we should have invaded Saudi Arabia and he really wants me to sign up.

Ah Tom,
It's the non-mathematical lawyer talking. You say a WMD attack on America would cost the economy 10% of the Iraq cost, when it would be more like 10 times the Iraq cost. Just imagine a nuke in LA, just one city. Forget about living or doing any business in LA County for years after. Up to one million people killed, 10 million out of their homes, many trillions of dollars lost in property values and many more trillions in business.

Debating Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the rest is a waste of time. Taking the war over there was the key rather than fighting it in America. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the rest of the Muslim mobsters had better wise up or they will be living in the Dark Ages with their dark age religion. The real enemy includes all the Islamic fanatics and if we kill them in Iraq that's just as good as killing them in Saudi Arabia.

And I think you are dead wrong about who supports the war. The old folks aren't the warriors. It's the kids like my grandson who signed up at 18, after 9/11, and millions more like him who are brave and believe in defending America.

Back to Tom.

I applaud your grandson for volunteering. But I submit that he is way more important to the future of this country than you are (and way more important than I am too.) We'd be better off with you and/or me fighting than him. It isn't the middle ages anymore and so our inability to put on armour and lift a heavy sword isn't a problem.

The choice of the real enemy is important. We didn't respond to Pearl Harbor by attacking Thailand on the grounds that the enemy was Asian and Buddhist. We responded to the Japanese. Iraq had no WMDs and no Wahhabis either. The 9-11 attackers were ALL Saudis and one UAE. But, of course, this administration is so closely tied to Saudi Arabia that any thought of attacking the real enemy must be set aside. For WMDs we need to focus as much on defense as offense. Where are the drugs for acute radiation poisoning? The administration won't fund them. The likely scenarios for a WMD are not the destruction of all of LA County--just areas near the Port (like us). In this case it's not the non-mathmematical lawyer talking, but the son of the physicist.

We need an open discussion of our priorities without dissenters being accused of being un-American so I appreciate your willingness to debate the issues. Everyone should be as intellectual about this as you are. And I do share the concern about Islam. If it is blasphemy to portray Mohammed poorly then it must be blasphemy to commit mass murder or launch suicide bombers in his name. And yet neither of the latter two things got the protests we are now seeing. Both got protests in their favor. That speaks volumes.

Now I'm starting to get worried. He's figured out that the nuke will be exploded in the harbor and only the South Bay (including us!!!) will be devastated and then calls me an intellectual; what nerve!

Tom,
Do you actually know a soldier? Have you seen any films of the battles in Iraq? I've got to believe your answers are No and No or you could not possibly make such a silly suggestion. ( We'd be better off with you and/or me fighting than him. )

I need to introduce you to Col. Dave McCarthy who has been to Afghan once and Iraq twice and is expecting to go back again. He would tell you what fighting is all about. Or Cpl. Brian Weiss, age 30, who joined the Marines at 29 and is heading for Jbouti in North Africa. Brian is the guy who used to run the PV farmers market on Sundays. He would tell you about the training they get in hand-to-hand combat so they are prepared before they ever get into battle. Sgt. Johnny Walton (my grandson) could tell you what it's like to jump out of an airplane carrying an M16 and an 80 pound pack.

I'd bet a lot that even a biker/swimmer such as you would not make it through basic training. As for me, fugetaboutit!! So let's not waste any more time on silliness.

I beg you to get serious about the real enemy (The 9-11 attackers were ALL Saudis and one UAE.) Do you expect me to believe that you would be right behind the war effort if we had attacked Saudi Arabia and the UAE instead of Iraq? That is very disingenuous!!

We attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to 9/11. And Bush made clear at the time that if you are a State supporting terrorists you were on our list (the Axis of Evil). Iraq was number one because it (1) was in violation of the 1991 Gulf War cease fire; (2) had been firing on US planes for a decade; (3) was in violation of 17 or so UN resolutions; (4) paid the families of Hammas suicide bombers; (5) was re-arming aided by corrupt governments (France, Russia, China to name a few) using the oil-for-food mechanism, while their people were suffering; (6) were likely working on WMD programs; (Want to bet that the WMD materials show up in Syria. The Saddam tapes point in that direction.) and finally, (7) We had to start somewhere and Iraq is a strategically good place.

As for defence, I agree that much more needs to be done. First we need to secure the borders. Do you support a security fence along the Mexican border? Do you support racial profiling at airports, etc.? Politics is getting in the way of our defence. Look at the misery the Administration is taking over the wire-tapping of overseas calls between foreign terrorists and their agents in the US. In the past such defensive activities would be roundly supported by both political parties. I blame the Democrats for this huge problem. I too would like drugs for acute radiation poisoning but it is a matter of cost/benefit tradeoff and I would prefer that we spend the money on stopping the bomb before it goes off.

Finally, I wholeheartedly agree that these are the kinds of discussions that should be happening all over the country, especially in the Congress. Let's write our Senators Boxer and Feinstein with that message; a letter signed by Tom and Bill.
Now that would speak volumes!

Tom's next edition is in the comments. But I am getting frustrated and may not respond. Tom is a smart guy and a friend. What should I do? What would you do?

Happiness is a GOP Thing

Pew Research Center

Poll shows 84% of
Americans are
Happy or Very Happy
only 15% are
unhappy






The recent public survey by the Pew Research Center shows that, once again, Americans are among the happiest people in the world. And these numbers have remained very stable for a very long time.

But some of us are happier than others. Can you guess who?

Married people are happier than unmarrieds. Married people (43% very happy) are a good bit happier than unmarrieds (24%) and this has been a consistent finding over many years and many surveys. It holds up for men as well as for women, and for the old as well as the young.

People who worship frequently are happier than those who don't. People who attend religious services weekly are happier (43% very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31%); or seldom or never (26%). This correlation has been a consistent finding in the General Social Surveys taken over the years.

Republicans are happier than Democrats. Some 45% of all Republicans report being very happy, compared with just 30% of Democrats and 29% of independents. This is not because their Party is in power, in fact Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey began taking polls in 1972. If one controls for household income, Republicans still hold a significant edge: that is, poor Republicans are happier than poor Democrats; middle-income Republicans are happier than middle-income Democrats, and rich Republicans are happier than rich Democrats.

Rich people are happier than poor people. The survey shows that nearly half (49%) of those with an annual family income of more than $100,000 say they're very happy, while just 24% of those with less than $30,000 say they're very happy. Here again politics plays a significant role. Republicans who make the low-middle income of $30,000 - $50,000 are already very happy (44%) while Democrats in that income range are only 23% very happy. Democrats have to make between $50,000 - $75,000 to have 30% in the very happy category.

Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks. Blacks (28%) are somewhat less likely than whites (36%) or Hispanics (34%) to report being very happy. But among blacks, there is no correlation with income - blacks with a family income of $50,000 a year or more are about equally likely to say they are very happy (28%) than are blacks with a family income of less than $50,000 (27%).

So if you happen to be a married, religious, white Republican with an income greater than $30,000 you are in fat city! Hey,... that's me.






45% of Republicans
are Very Happy

compared to
30% of Dems

America the Beautiful

United States

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European Union

Starbucks buddy Melanie let me borrow her copy of The World in 2006 published by The Economist Magazine. Said Mel: Go forth and Blog!

The article about Europe begins this way: The existential angst that has gripped the European Union ever since French and Dutch voters roundly rejected its draft constitution in mid-2005 will continue, unresolved, through 2006.

"Existential angst" --- concern for one's existence --- perhaps not surprising now that the European birth rate has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. But being an Economics magazine, the angst is mostly generated by financial matters.

The figure above shows the record of economic growth for the Euro Area compared to the US over the last decade, and projected for 2006. For the last ten years the EURO growth of GDP has averaged 2% per year, while the US average was 3.34% per year. The magic of compound growth exaggerates this difference: the total European GDP grew 21.6% over the decade while the US GDP grew 38.8%. And if the growth rates persist for another decade the US GDP will have grown 93% during the 20 years while the European growth will be only 48%. The trans-Atlantic gap continues to widen.

The US economy has performed much better than Europe's and is expected to do so for the foreseeable future.

The gap widens even further when one looks at personal finances and cost of living. The following table gives the projected 2006 GDP in US $billions, the GDP per person (GDPpp) and the GDP per person at purchasing power parity with the US(GDPpp/ppp) which accounts for cost of living differences.

Country ----- GDP ------------ GDPpp ----- GDPpp/ppp

France ------ $2,280B -------- $37,500 ------- $32,700

Germany ---- $3,000B -------- $36,300 ------- $30,600

Italy --------- $1,780B -------- $30,600 ------- $28,900

Spain -------- $1,210B -------- $27,800 ------- $27,800

Britain ------- $2,340B -------- $38,900 ------- $34,000

USA -------- $13,180B ------- $44,200 ------ $44,200

Japan -------- $4,960B ------- $38,900 -------- $32,800

Note that the United States GDPpp/ppp is 44% higher than the average of the largest European countries and 35% higher than Japan's.

Beautiful country, America!

Republican Incompetence

Cheney shoots senior citizen, covers it up: Vice President Dick “The Shooter” Cheney finally comes clean; he believed the man he shot was al Qaeda terrorist Ahman al-Zawahiri who had infiltrated the quail hunting party. Cheney confessed to Fox News Brit Hume that the winged hunter was actually his close friend Harry Whittington, a 78 year old millionaire lawyer. Senior citizen! Lawyer!!

Cheney blamed the mix-up on faulty intelligence. "I believed I had credible intelligence that al-Zawahiri had infiltrated my hunting party in disguise with the intent of spraying me with pellets," Mr. Cheney told reporters. "Only after I shot Harry in the face and he shouted 'Cheney, you bastard' did I realize that this intelligence was faulty."

A DOD spokesman announced that as a result of Mr Cheney's accurate shooting, he would be awarded the Army's Basic Marksman Medal. And at the White House, President George W. Bush defended his vice president's shooting of a fellow hunter, saying that the attack sent a strong message to terrorists everywhere. If Dick Cheney is willing to shoot an innocent American citizen at point-blank range, imagine what he'll do to terrorists!!

But the main stream media was having none of it. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius opines that "arrogance of power is on display with the Bush administration," and compares the Veep's hunting accident to Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick:
“Nobody died at Armstrong Ranch, but this incident reminds me a bit of Senator Edward Kennedy's delay in informing Massachusetts authorities about his role in the fatal automobile accident at Chappaquiddick in 1969.

Did Ted have a little problem at Chappaquiddick? Hmmm...

And the White House press corps is outraged that Cheney waited 20 hours or so to disclose the incident. Don't these Bush people understand that the cover-up is worse than the crime? West Wing producer Larry O’Donnell demanded to know whether the Vice President was drunk. Larry's a fake reporter just like the White House press corps.

Bush Fails to Prevent East Coast Blizzard, Minorities Hit Hardest: As President Bush and his staff cowered in the White House, the snow continued to pile up on the many poor and African American victims who could not afford to get out of town or to safety in Florida. Crucial supplies of blankets, hot cocoa, popcorn and dark rum - so essential to surviving the stress of any major snowstorm - lay in stores undelivered.

"Where is the government? I need my sidewalk shoveled so I can get out to buy my lottery tickets" said one D.C. resident from his living room. "Why are we wasting money in Iraq when we could be spending it here on me?"

Howard Dean has suggested he will call for an investigation once his new medications kick in and John Kerry took a break from the sporting activities of the glamorous super-rich in some exotic locale to call for new legislation outlawing snowstorms. "The Republican Congress has dropped the ball once again. I have always been a staunch supporter of anti-snow legislation, except for certain locations where I ski. Snow has no business on our roads and the President and Congress knows that."

Curl Girls, Working Guys

US Girls Curling Team




Pinerola, Italy – The US women’s curling team, frustrated by fast ice, lost to Norway 11-6. But look how cute they are. Rush said he likes to watch a woman using a broom. Wonder what he means.

The US men’s team, however, bunched their stones and beat the Norwegians by two. In the second men’s game, the US team and the Finns were tied 3-3 after nine ends. The US had the last rock, the hammer that is expected to score at least one point by getting closest to the button. US captain Pete Fenson took the hammer throw but left a Finnish stone closest to the target.

The Finns Marku Uusipaavalniemi then blocked the top of the house and Fenson’s final stone curled a few inches left and failed to knock a US stone into the middle. The Finns won 4-3.

So the US is involved in the wild world of ... curling.

Meanwhile, an opinion poll conducted for Valentine’s Day asked 1022 adults what they wanted in a spouse. I took some solace in the results.

What Women want in a mate:

1. steady job
2. paying bills on time
3. sense of humor
4. get along with my family
5. want children
6. clean driving record

What Men want in a mate:

1. sense of humor
2. get along with my family
3. steady job/
3. good credit history
5. want children
6. good kisser

Very practical are these young singles. “Good looks” doesn’t make the top six, even for men, though they do like kissing. A sense of humor is very important, as is being a reliable provider and getting along with the family. Men and women still want children, unlike the Europeans.

One working woman commented about the top wants for women: “And they say money can’t buy you love. It’s sort of a sad commentary.” Or perhaps women just want a good provider to support the babies.

Finally, here's a look at the British team. They curl better than our girls do.

Texas Style Tort Reform

Frustrated by lack of progress on tort reform in the Senate, Vice President Dick Cheney decided to take matters into his own hands. On a quail hunting trip at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, the Vice President turned his shotgun on 78-year-old Texas lawyer Harry Whittington. Official word from the White House is that Cheney wounded his long time friend and fellow hunter in the face, neck and chest, apparently because he didn't see Whittington approaching as he fired on a covey of quail. Apparently?

Some US newspapers took potshots at Cheney over the weekend hunting accident. Time Magazine opened a profile of Whittington with the tongue-in-cheek observation that "Accidentally shooting a lawyer is never a good idea, especially one who's known for being something of a pistol himself."

Note that in 1999, then Governor Bush appointed Whittington to the Texas Funeral Service Commission. Cheney, meanwhile, was heard muttering to himself: “So many lawyers, so little time.”

I started this post intending to do a Scrappleface treatment of the incident:

Filled with remorse over the incident, the vice president immediately repealed the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms. “I’m truly sorry that I winged Harry when he blocked my shot at the quail,” said Mr. Cheney. “I now realize that gun violence is not just an inner-city poor problem, but rather an epidemic that can spill out of the ghetto and affect wealthy and powerful, elderly Americans.”

But I’m no Scott Ott. And after listening to the clueless press corps grill White House spokesman Scott McClellan, there is no way I can write anything as silly as what the press morons were saying. One after another they kept referring to Cheney as “the shooter.” Check it out.

Science and the Church

“Veni, vidi, vici” neatly sums up Gaius Julius Caesar’s report to Rome in 47 B.C. after conquering Farnakes at Zela in Asia Minor in just five days. As always, the victors write the histories of war to serve their own purposes. Most histories, however, are not written by centurions or generals, but by academics in universities, many with their own purposes.

The history of Church-science relations is one filled with myth and falsehood. The popular story begins with the Greeks who developed a rich scientific tradition until the fall of the Roman Empire when the “Dark Ages” fell upon Europe. During that era of superstition and intellectual stagnation, the Church fluorished but science withered on the vine. Finally, after several centuries, intellectuals rebelled against Church power and the Renaissance reopened the link to Greek learning; then the Scientific Revolution in the 16th century renewed the Greek scientific tradition. It’s a nice story!

Except that it is largely a myth, known to be one by professional historians, yet perpetuated in popular writing and many textbooks. Let’s deconstruct the myth.

Science requires both theory and experiment. Pure empiricism without explanation is not science. Pure speculation without experiment is not science. And that was the problem with Greek learning. “Greek empiricism was atheoretical and Greek theory was nonemperical.” [Stark, Block] Even Charles Darwin recognized that failing. The Greeks approached science but in the end what they achieved were non-empirical speculative philosophies (Socrates, Plato), atheoretical collections of facts (Archimedes) and isolated crafts and technologies.

Most important, the Greeks insisted on turning the cosmos into a collection of living things. Aristotle thought, for example, that celestial objects moved in circles because of their affection for that motion. The Greeks did not develop science.

And how dark were the so-called Dark Ages? Edward Gibbon’s (1737-1794) “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” was a massive indictment of religion, blaming it for barbarism and ignorance in Europe. “The Discoverers” (1983) by Daniel Boorstin also condemned Christianity: “After Christianity conquered the Roman Empire and most of Europe, we observe a Europe-wide phenomenon of scholarly amnesia from AD 300 until at least 1300.” There are so many tales.

“A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom” (1896) by Andrew Dixon White (the founder of Cornell) was an immense study of supposed Church-science conflict. His flat Earth story is most entertaining.

According to White, the Church tried to stop Columbus’ journey to the East on the presumption that he would fall off the flat Earth. In fact, all educated men since Venerable Bede (673-735) knew that the Earth was round. Indeed the most popular Astronomy textbook in the Dark Ages was “Sphere” by John of Sacrobosco (1200-1256). The Church officials opposed Columbus’ trip because he had badly underestimated the circumference of the Earth and the length of the journey. (Columbus claimed the trip was 2800 miles when it was actually 14,000 miles) Were it not for America, the sailors would have starved before reaching Japan. [Russell]

Modern historians have discredited these views and the term “Dark Ages” is out of favor. “In technology, at least, the Dark Ages mark a steady and uninterrupted advance over the Roman Empire.” [White] In fact, the Dark Ages were one of the great inventive eras of mankind. The Christian universities in the 12th and 13th centuries even enabled the resurrection of Greek scholarship (but not science) in Europe through a flood of translations of Greek works into Latin.

The most remarkable thing is that modern science began during the Dark Ages, and because of the Church, not opposed by the Church. [Grant] The Christian foundations of reason and science go back to Saint Augustine (354-430) who held that reason was indispensable to faith. Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274) wrote that it is the “purpose of science that God may be honored.” In his monumental Summa Theologiae, Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) held that it is necessary for humans to use reason to achieve knowledge and that science arises as the “handmaiden” of theology.

Thus, Western science encompassing both theory and experiment began with the Scholastics in the medieval European Universities at Paris, Bologna, Padua,.. in the 14th century. William of Ockham (1295-1358) anticipated Newton’s first law of motion. Jean Buridan (1300-1358) at the University of Paris developed the concept of inertia and described the rotation of the Earth on its axis. Nicole d’Oresme (1325-1382) further refined the understanding of the Earth’s rotation and applied mathematics for the first time to the description. Albert of Saxony (1316-1390) taught the first approximation of Newton’s first law and wrote the physics text used by Copernicus. By the time Copernicus entered university the idea of a heliocentric solar system was already well established.

Albertus Magnus (1205-1280) corrected many of Aristotle’s empirical claims and brought the scientific method to botany. Mondino de’Luzzi (1270-1326) wrote the first textbook on dissection, contrary to the popular myth about Vesalius (1514-1564). A commitment to rigorous empiricism and experiment was vital to the rise of science in the (not so) Dark Ages.

Thus, the flourishing of science during the 16th century Scientific Revolution by Copernicus, DaVinci and Galileo, was the natural progression of the scientific advances by the Scholastics starting in the 14th century. Science arose only once, in medieval Europe, in a culture dominated by belief in a conscious, rational Creator. [Whitehead]

References

Block, Mark, ”The Feudal Society” (1961)

Grant, Edward, “Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos” (1994);
“The Foundations of Modern Science” (1996)

Russell, Jeffrey, “Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians” (1991)

Stark, Rodney, “For the Glory of God” (2003)

White, Lynn, “Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 15 (1940).

Whitehead, Alfred North, “Science and the Modern World” (1967)

Budget Blues

What would you like the Federal government to spend your money on? And mine; and your Aunt Bessie’s? This is not a joke. And you can’t say “Nothing, just give me back my money.”

When most people think about the budget they easily come up with a host of things they don’t want it spent on. Michelle Malkin recently identified $1,401,104,263 of our hard-earned money that has gone to “subsidize the spring break-style trips and conferences of the federal government over the last five years.” She has a neat list of boondoggles including a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) jaunt by 236 employees to an AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain. Price tag: $3.6 million.

Senator Jeff Flake is making noises about “earmarks,” the pork-barrel projects which members of Congress secure by covertly attaching them to huge spending bills. Last year there were 15,000 of these robberies totaling $27 Billion.

But when you are dealing with a $2.77 Trillion Federal budget (note that’s $2770 Billion or 100 times the earmarks) you don’t want to merely trim around the edges. For every billion you mark for the ax, there will be a million special- interests screaming bloody murder. I prefer to take the opposite approach.

What should the government spend our money on? A good place to start is with the Constitution. Article I states that we shall have a Senate and House of Representatives, and that they need to be paid. We also need to collect taxes, coin money and maintain the infrastructure so an IRS, Treasury and Interior are appropriate.

Of course the greatest responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the common defense, and that is funded by the legislative branch and directed by the executive branch (Article II). We also need to fund veteran’s services and the State Dept. to deal with foreign countries. And finally we need to provide a federal judiciary (Article III). It’s a fairly limited set of responsibilities since the Founders wanted most of the authority to reside with the states or the people.

So what’s it going to cost? For starters let’s just use the 2007 budget figures provided by the President: Defense $439B, Homeland Security $30.9B, Veterans $35.7B, Legislative branch $4.3B, Judicial branch $5.9B, Executive branch $0.3B, State $33.9B, Interior $10.1B, Justice $19.5B, for a grand total of $579.6B.

That’s a bit more than I’d like, and we all know there’s probably 30% fat in these programs. So I say cut the total by 10% including most aid to foreign countries, reduce legislative staffs, cut the frills at Federal prisons, eliminate more of the marginally useful military bases, etc. This brings the total down to $522B in round figures.

That’s all I’d like to spend on the discretionary stuff. Oh, I know that science, space, energy, agriculture … are good things but are they necessary expenditures of the Federal government? Since I’d hate to see the market flooded with government bureaucrats, I’ll be practical. For a start, I’d eliminate the Agriculture Dept. and all farm subsidies saving $19.7B; eliminate manned space flights saving about $10B from the NASA budget; eliminate the Dept. of Education and all direct funding of colleges, keeping only the tuition aid for low income kids, saving about $40B; and reduce HHS, HUD, etc by 20%, for a total expense of $172B added to the previous $522B. This brings the discretionary budget to $694B, down $177B from the President’s $871B proposal.

Great, but this still seems like small cheese compared to the $1.77 Trillion behemoth, because it is. The huge elephant on the table is the so called “mandatory” part of the budget. These “entitlements” add up to $1.494 Trillion including Social Security $581B, Medicare $387B, Medicaid $205B and “other” $320B.

What’s worse is that these expenses are growing at an accelerating rate, from 2.5% in 2007 to 8.6% in 2011. This growth is clearly unsustainable, yet Democrats either refuse to accept that we have a problem or think that raising taxes is the solution. Hopeless!!

Gini Math

If you have stock in Chinese companies, you may want to Divest, Divest, Divest Now!!

And what's wrong? Well it's all the fault of the Gini coefficiant.

The United Nations Development Program recently released statistics that show the Gini coefficient (after Italian statistician Corrado Gini) has reached 0.45 in China. Horrors! This measure of inequality (zero expresses complete equality – good - while one expresses complete inequality - bad) has been going up for 20 years. Now the poorest 20 percent of China's 1.3 billion people account for only 4.7 percent of total income, while the richest 20 percent account for more than half.... just like Beverly Hills.

The Gini coefficient is calculated as a ratio of the areas on the Lorenz curve diagram above. If the area between the straight line of perfect equality and the Lorenz curve is A, and the area underneath the bad Lorenz curve is B, then the Gini coefficient is A/(A+B).

Like China, the US Gina coefficient is also 0.45. Below the US (better?) is Croatia 0.29, Bangladesh 0.32, the European Union 0.32, Egypt 0.34, Indonesia 0.34 and East Timor 0.38. Swell. Above the US is eg Mexico at 0.55. I sure would not want to be lower than the US, and above also seems to be a poor place. Perhaps we've got it just right. Of coures, the actual fact is that this is just another myth of economics. But back to China.

The ruling Communist Party vowed to spread the benefits of economic growth more fairly among all levels of Chinese society, seeking particularly to close the yawning income gap between farmers and city dwellers. President Hu Jintao strongly emphasized the need for more-equitable wealth distribution since taking over three years ago. Still, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen as market reforms create money-making opportunities for private businesses and allied government officials (the actual problem), while often leaving peasants in the lurch.

An article in the newspaper run by the Party School of the Communist Party of China noted that the income gap has exceeded reasonable limits. "It's worth noting that according to experience in many countries and regions, social contradictions will increase as per capita GDP grows from the 1,000 US dollar level to the 3,000 US dollar level. China is precisely in this period," says the article. "Decision makers should not turn a blind eye to the big income gap."

And the Communist solution: The government has begun to take actions to adjust the income gap by amending the individual income tax law. Raise taxes, that’s the ticket!!! And watch your economy go down the tubes.

Keep an eye on your Chinese stocks.

Myth Busters

Myths are not lies, not exactly. Myths are popular beliefs, because they are plausible; they have some empirical support and, most of all, because they are vigorously promoted by powerful interest groups. Myth busting books make great reading and provide valuable tidbits for cocktail party small talk.

But myth busting is also important. The popular belief in myths generally benefits the special interest groups while harming the public at large. As Dennis Prager says, clarity is more important than agreement.

Katelyn Sills at Stand Up and Speak Out is writing about the science myths debunked in the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science. Her first post is about the benefits of radiation from Hiroshima to Three Mile Island. It is must reading for all who believe America should aggressively develop nuclear power.

Since myth busting is so much fun, I’ve decided to follow Katelyn’s lead and explore the myths that are exposed in several books in my home library. In this post I’ll catalog the books in several areas including politics, education, economics, energy and history. I’ve already written about the myths of Darwinism in the posts “Myths of a Godless Science” (10/2/05) and “Icons of Evolution” (12/26/05).

The best myth busting books about politics, IMHO, are written by Ann Coulter. In Treason, Ann wrote about “liberal treachery from the cold war to the war on terror.” My favorite example is the myth of Senator Joe McCarthy. From a baseless “sweat drenched fear” of Communists, McCarthy conducted a Stalin-like “Great Terror” that included Hollywood blacklists, broken careers, divorce, depression and suicides. Except it is all a myth that has been promoted and well used by liberals and Democrats for 50 years.

I also loved Coulter’s Slander that begins with a famous quote from Margaret Mead: “The natives are superficially agreeable, but they go in for cannibalism, headhunting, infanticide, incest, avoidance and joking relationships, and biting lice in half with their teeth.” Ann’s talking about liberals.

The subtitle of Education Myths by Jay Greene is “What special interest groups want you to believe about our schools and why it isn’t so.” Greene talks about the money myth: “Schools perform poorly because they need more money” and the Exeter myth: “Private schools have higher test scores because they have more money and recruit higher-performing students while expelling low-performing students” and the myth of decline: Schools are performing much worse than they used to,” … eighteen myths in all. This is an important book.

In Our School, Joanne Jacobs tells the inspiring story of a charter school in San Jose that recruits underachieving students and promises to prepare them for college. It completely explodes the myth of helplessness, that poverty causes students to fail and schools are helpless to prevent it.

Economics, the “dismal science,” is chock full of myths. Freakonomics by the two Steve’s, Levitt and Hubner, is an amusing account of a serious subject. One chapter asks: “Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” In it the authors deal with crack, how it’s invention was the “worst thing to hit black Americans since Jim Crow.” They study the impact of Roe v. Wade on violent crime statistics. Freakonomics applies the tools of economics to the serious problems of society, and destroys myths along the way.

A more serious but equally interesting book about economics is The Myths of Rich and Poor by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm. According to Investor’s Business Daily, the authors “take on the merchants of pessimism and show their tales and predictions of woe to be myths.” One of the myths is that in America the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. In fact, in the land of income mobility, the poor are getting richer faster. I’ve used the book as a reference for an upcoming post called “To Be Poor in America.”

A recent book about energy myths is The Bottomless Well by Peter Huber and Mark Mills. Talk about a gloomy subject. You know, we are running out of oil, the only solution is strict conservation, increasing energy use is destroying the planet. Woe, woe, woe! Wouldn’t it be nice to know that, while efficient cars and light bulbs will never reduce demand, the supply of energy will never run out. Read this book.

History is a subject rife with myths, and some might say that myths are the subject. In the last few posts I used the excellent history by Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts and the end of slavery. Starks latest book is The Victory of Reason.

Myth busting is Rodney Stark’s passion, and mine.

Origins

In the last post I introduced the article “On the Origins of Life” by David Berlinski in the Feb’06 issue of Commentary Magazine. Berlinski lists the six basic assumptions of life's origin that are the fundamentals of the standard biochemical model. It is unfortunate that the scientific understanding of this crucial step in the trail to human beings is poorly understood. Please allow me to explain.

1. The pre-biotic atmosphere was reductive. That is, the atmosphere contained Hydrogen atoms available to give up electrons in order to promote chemical reactions. Indeed, Stanley Miller of Miller-Urey fame made it clear: "Either you have a reducing atmosphere or you're not going to have the organic compounds required for life."

Unfortunately, geochemists now believe that the pre-biotic atmosphere was neutral rather than reductive, consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, sulpher dioxide and some oxygen. This is a big problem for the origin of life model.

2, 3. Nature found a way to synthesize cytosine and ribose. Cytosine and dextro-ribose were essential to life's origin and have never been created in any pre-biotic experiment. Beyond the living cell, not a trace of cytosine has ever been found. The same can be said for dextro-ribose. Its synthesis by Albert Eschenmoser in 1990 was critically dependent on his physical intercession. These are two more big problems for the origin of life model.

4, 5. Nature found the means to assemble nucleotides into polynucleotides, and discovered a self-replicating molecule. Chemists have been able to promote polymerization of pre-biotic nucleotides, but the resulting polynucleotide sequences are RANDOM. They are not RNA and RNA was required. So what are the odds?

Gustaf Arrhenius showed that the minimum sequence of nucleotides that would "demonstrate ligase activity" is roughly 100 nucleotides in length. The odds of randomly creating a 100 nucleotide piece of RNA is 1 in 4 (^100) or 1 in 10(^60), daunting odds indeed. Of course the RNA piece needs a template to replicate against so a minimum of two polynucleotides are required, at the same time and place, pushing the odds to 1 in 10(^120). Of course these 2 molecules would have to be buffered against competing reactions, and productive enough so that their duplicates would not vanish before reproducing again, and .... Ever heard of miracles?... or just two more big problems for the origin of life model?

6. Having done all that, nature promoted a self-replicating molecule into a full system of coded chemistry. This is where it becomes really difficult, even conceptually difficult. Even if the self-replicating RNA were available (see 4, 5) to manage the genetic information, how was the translation of information to the amino acid workers (proteins) achieved? We now know it required a "genetic code" but how did that arise? How could a pre-biotic form of RNA have aquired the ability to code for various proteins before coding was useful? Why did the ribozymes expedite their own obsolence?

In the 2005 issue of the journal RNA, Carl Woese referred to this problem as "the dark side of molecular biology." This is perhaps the biggest problem for the origin of life model.

Anyway, this is what the science of Intelligent Design is all about. Like the great scientists of the past, we look at the fundamental origins and examine the details. Does it make sense as a random process, is Darwinian competition sufficient, or does the evidence point to a directed process?

I’ll close with a response to Tex’s comments on the last post.

I think the record of Christianity as an inspiration for scientific thought is actually rather poor. Two of the major forces which gave rise to the resurgence of scientific thought during the Renaissance were (1) the WEAKENING of the grip which the established church had on people's thinking and (2) the renewed fascination and respect for things Greek.

This is a great example of a historical myth that still has traction among the general population, even after it has been abandoned by the historians.

It pays to get the centuries straight. The Scientific Renaissance began in the 16th century with the work of Copernicus through Galileo. This period was followed by the secular humanism movement when Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke and other intellectuals took the view that their “Enlightenment” was responsible for the rise of science after the “Dark Ages” that were mired in “decay and degeneracy.” These views have been discredited by reputable historians… they are popular myths. Indeed modern science arose during the so called Dark Ages in the 14th century, at least 200 years before the Scientific Revolution.

Now to Tex’s points:

(1) Science arose in Europe because of “the widespread faith in the possibility of science, derivative from medieval theology.” (Alfred North Whitehead at the Lowell Lectures at Harvard, 1925)

(2) It was only by rejecting Greek, and especially Aristotelian, physics that science could progress. “Greek learning stagnated of its own inner logic.” (Stanley Jaki, Science and Creation, 1986)


References:

Hubert Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life, 2005.

Robert Shapiro in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 1999.

Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God, 2003.

Pete and Bill Debate Science

The discussion with Pete Hansen, one of my Starbucks buddies, began about the validity of Intelligent Design but soon became an argument about the philosophy of science. (See Pete’s comments after my last post.) Whether or not one believes in a "Creator" of the universe, science is the discipline that searches for the truth about the physical universe. The truth may be that it was "designed" in some way, or not.

Intelligent Design proponents like Michael Behe (biology) and Steven Barr (physics) search for evidence of the “design” option. As such they are working in the grand tradition of the large majority of Western scientists since Descartes, Newton, Maxwell and Einstein who all wanted to explore nature in order to understand God's design, to know the “mind of God.”

The ultimate goal of biological science should be to understand how life was created, then how molecular machines were created, then how animals .... and man "evolved." Those are also the goals of Intelligent Design. It may be that God created the first cells and then let Darwinian evolution take over from there. Or He may have made it possible for the first cells to be created by chance or through some mechanism. Or He may have interceded more often. We want to know the truth of the matter.

A new article by David Berlinski in the Feb'06 issue of Commentary magazine looks at the molecular biology of life. After reviewing DNA replication, the transcription of genetic messages from DNA to RNA, and the translation of the messages to the amino acids, Berlinski lists the assumptions underlying the entire theory:

1. The pre-biotic atmosphere was reductive.

2. Nature found a way to synthesize cytosine.

3. Nature found a way to synthesize ribose.

4. Nature found the means to assemble nucleotides into polynucleotides.

5. Nature discovered a self-replicating molecule.

6. Having done all that, nature promoted a self-replicating molecule into a full system of coded chemistry.

Berlinski makes quite clear how very unlikely are these assumptions. He quotes Francis Crick: "An honest man armed with all the knowledge available to us now could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle." (I’ll explain further in another post.)

The noted biophysicist Harold Morowitz spoke of abandoning strict Darwinian evolution in the New Scientist: "It is part of a quiet paradigm revolution going on in biology in which the radical randomness of Darwinism is being replaced by a much more scientific law-regulated emergence of life."

Ultimately we are left with the God Coin: "Is there a Creator, or not?" You take your choice, or should I say, take your chance?


Reference: "For the Glory of God" by Rodney Stark. See the Roster of Scientific Stars on p 198.