So wait, I'm Supposed to Renounce Superior Profs for a MORON?

Professor Ronald G. Smith  (top) from Yale University. If readers wish to learn about the global climate system and global warming they're far better served getting his online Yale (Open University) lectures, than listening to a crackpot like Terry Lovell!


Sorry, but I have to howl with laughter at these reeptard morons- one of whom now advises me to ditch my "jungle jook professors" (presumably the ones I had from the Univ. Of London who also taught physics courses at the University of the West Indies) and that I'd have profited instead from a "former NASA" prof, Terry J. Lovell. Really? People might want to take a gander at who this crackpot is here:

http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25526

And again, it brings to mind another pseudo-scientist, Jason Lisle, who I pilloried several times before, exposing him as no more than a neo-Creationist fraud and certainly not a real astrophysicist. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/jason-lisle-astrophysicist-dont-make-me.html

also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/jason-lisle-uber-clown-or-uber-genius.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-jason-lisle-is-wrong-in-his-solar.html


Now, why on Earth would I any more go to Terry Lovell for global warming science than to Jason Lisle for astrophysics? Only a committed and certified dunderhead would do that. Like Lisle, all Lovell does is regurgitate  typical pseudo-scientific claptrap. In Lovell's case, the standard denier, flat Earth fare - which is part of what's keeping us back from making the changes needed to avoid the runaway greenhouse.

And if we don't make those changes, we're going to see a LOT more disasters like the Colorado flash floods and Superstorm Sandy. I already explained the global warming link to the latter in the first answer to a question on this Mail Brane blog: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/maile-brane-seeking-answers.html

As regards the Colo. Floods, we already know what launched them. It began (Denver Post, Sept. 15, p. 6B, 'Conditions Collide to Launch Flooding') with  a series of sweltering 97-degree days on the Front Range - with temperatures up to 15 F above normal. (As we know warmer air holds more water vapor)  This is tied directly to NOAA and other projections linked to climate change, which forecasts longer, hotter, drier summers for the Rocky Mountain West.. But in this case, the delayed searing heat (into September) ran into the usual monsoon rains, also delayed. A cool down effect from a low over Nev. then unleashed the floods, when the (cooler condition) monsoons blew into the Front Range. According to the Post article:

"The collision formed a giant, stalled wet weather system".

Worse, neither of the conditions "wants to give up".  In a way, this flood event is every bit the "black swan" that Superstorm Sandy was last October. And again, one can link both to the warmer, wetter world on store for us with global warming. See also: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/colorado_flooding_yes_its_climate_change/

Those interested in a real, qualified online course in the global climate system are invited to watch this series of video lectures from Ronald Smith of Yale University here:

http://oyc.yale.edu/geology-and-geophysics/gg-140

In many respects they are similar to the climate science lectures, courses available at the University of Alaska- Fairbanks when I was there over 1985-86, except obviously much more updated. Needless to say, you're much better served watching these than palaver spouted by some crackpot belonging to "the Patriot Network".

For those interested, a link which gives a pretty good idea of what people in Colorado have had to deal with can be found below:

 

http://media.reporterherald.com/2013/09/12/photos-massive-flash-flooding-along-front-range-of-colorado/#28

Are You A "Fragilista"?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: If you are too invested in religion, or read too much in the Bible, you may well be a spiritual  "fragilista"!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder   makes the claim most of us are too socially-biologically “fragile” or “fragilistas”.  If we depend on Social Security or indeed, any government program we are fragilistas. If we received VA benefits, likewise. If we are on Medicare, well ….same there too! In Taleb’s book it’s time we get right with the world, toughen up and become ANTI-fragile! Of course, the same applies to religion. If we are so uptight about following the precepts of a Church or the Ten Commandments, or reading the KJV, we are likely to be spiritual fragilistas for whom the first 'black swan' events will cause us to crumble.

Taleb basically proffers a cosmos that is governed by randomness and disorder, and for which its conscious elements (i.e. humans) can be enhanced by such provided they recognize and avoid those pitfalls, systems, and government programs that will weaken them and render them fragilistas. Am I a fragilista in Taleb’s libertarian joke world? Probably! I depend on Medicare as well as on Social Security. If I was anti-fragile, I’d disdain those “handouts” and use my wits to invest in the stock market and make money, or maybe beg for equity capital and launch a startup.


A worse proposition is that those millions of us receiving such benefits are making the entire government economic system fragile. The central proposition? Randomness, uncertainty, and volatility damage modern systems that are fundamentally fragile. Anti-fragile systems (and people!) are ones that not only respond to these forces but also get stronger as they respond, change, progress and adapt.


If then more and more of us grab benefits from the gov’t and it collapses under its own weight, say by paying out too much in “entitlements” it will be all our faults for sucking on the government’s tits.


Added to that, we need to be aware that ‘black swans’ (extreme but unlikely events like Hurricane Sandy) are liable to have more devastating consequences if they occur in places which are innately fragile, as opposed to anti-fragile. Taleb is explicit in the need to abstain from heavy handed, statist- directed and interventionist policies. The fragilista elites advancing them – say like constructing massive dykes for cities threatened by rising seas from climate change- suffer from the delusion that complex systems can be controlled, managed and their ill effects reduced.

Some of Taleb’s other assertions:

1. The corruption of large cities is avoided in smaller cities because the latter are far less dependent on statist-fragile dependencies, hence are more anti-fragile..


2. The smallest feasible unit of an organization makes it more antifragile. (In a way this is just a restatement of the ‘Peter Principle’ i.e. that people are ultimately promoted to their levels of incompetence)

Interestingly, Taleb uses the example of an elephant being "more fragile than a mouse". But, the largest organism in the world is a fungus occupying nearly 2,400 acres. Is that fragile? It is also estimated to be well over 2, 400 years old. So there must be some factor other than size that determines fragility!


3. City-states are more antifragile than our current nation-states. Nation –states erect too many interlinked systems of dependency and bureacracy for their citizens, which ultimately creates debts and deficits to soar and reach a breaking point. More self-contained states with minimal bureacracies are more anti-fragile.


4. There should be a balance between intervention and non-intervention in large companies. The gov’t bailing out General Motors made it more fragile in the long run.


5. University economic professors inhabit an ivory tower. This makes them fragilistas because they aren’t in contact with real world levels of disorder that can intrude on already fragile systems. If this were not the case, these profs should have been able to predict the 2008 credit collapse, and financial meltdown.

Taleb does make some sound points, such as any genuine progressive or leftist should never expound on the existing system or criticize it or those who profit from it, unless he himself is following his own template. In other words, if you’re making over $500,000 a year you don’t berate those making over that amount. If you’re going to lash out at the 1 percent, be sure you don’t live a 1 percent lifestyle.


Taleb also advises, based on the anti-fragile principle, a minimalist approach to medical interventions. Too many drs. meddling in your life and with your body renders you a fragilista! If you get prostate cancer and the urologist recommends a spectrum of choices, for example, you need to opt for the least drastic. If the cancer is aggressive and the choice is between radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy or administration of female hormones, you choose the least invasive. (Well, I don’t know about that!)

He then cites his own example of a spinal disc problem for which a doctor recommended surgery. He ignored it, and within weeks it healed of its own accord. Had he opted for the surgery he’d have become fragile, but by letting nature take its course he was anti-fragile.


A bit weirder, is his insistence that no beverages be imbibed that aren’t at least 1,000 years old! Hence, he drinks only coffee, water and wine! NO diet cokes, or beers! The latter new concoctions would make him fragile while confining his beverage choice to ancient fare makes him ANTI-fragile! He also insists on not comsuming any fruits that weren't present in the Mediterranean, ca. 1450 or so. Hence, no papaya for him, or mangoes, oranges also are viewed with suspicion as more a New World mutant.


Taleb’s principles and beliefs will be sure to arouse some of the pseudo-intellectual libertarian section, but they’d be advised to read the book carefully and not cherry pick. The last thing we need right now, in addressing the problems of our society, are simplified recycled bollocks under the banner of “anti-fragility”- but which in many ways resemble Ayn Rand’s principles of Objectivism.

Superstorm 'Sandy': The 'Black Swan' of this Election?

Black swan, (n) def. An event or occurrence that deviates beyond what is normally expected of a situation at a given time and when it occurs in tandem with a political election can produce unforeseen effects.


"In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down, as one people." Franklin Roosevelt, 1937

“Disasters are inherently political because government is political and preventing and responding to disasters is a primary role of the State.” – Quote from Rachel Maddow Show (10/30/12)
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Quick question: If you were in one of the states ravaged by the Superstorm named ‘Sandy’, with mammoth destruction all around, who would YOU rather have as President, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? Hurry – only a second!

A week and a day before the general election a “Black swan” transpired in the form of a Category One Hurricane (‘Sandy’) that morphed into a superstorm and ravaged the northeast. Earlier ‘black Swans’ coinciding with elections included the video of Osama bin Laden 4 days before the November, 2004 elections, putatively giving Bush Jr. the win over Kerry (though exit polls DID show Kerry taking OH and hence the presidency) and the collapse of Lehman Bros. in 2008, followed by the massive stock market crash that triggered a dynamic for millions to vote Obama. (It also didn’t help that John McCain tried to beg off the 1st presidential debate by appealing to the crash, while Obama wisely remarked that a President "needs to be able to handle two things at once.”)


What has Sandy wrought? So far all of her effects have been inimical to Romney:


- The Superstorm has taken Romney off message, i.e.diluted his yapping lies (e.g. about Chrysler sending Jeep jobs to China)

- The Storm has wrecked Romney’s bullshit that “Obama can’t work with Republicans across the aisle”. The blazing, repeatedly televised images of Obama walking with NJ Gov. Chris Christie through the storm-ravaged landscape and Christie’s effusive praise for Obama’s help in getting federal dollars, blows this BS into a cocked hat.


- The storm has forced “Mittens” to recant on his earlier vow (during the Reep debates) to fold FEMA into a privatized Neverland operated mainly by the states. Once more, then, it’s exposed this bastard as a shameless shapeshifter who can’t be trusted to say one straight thing.


- Along the same lines, it’s forced Romney and his Zombies to play act token support for the storm sufferers, i.e. the campaign staffers buying $5,000 in canned groceries at Walmart, then giving it to supporters to carry in to a photo-op as if THEY were the ones donating these to the Red Cross. (Btw, another mess up here- since the Red Cross has made it clear on its site it needs MONEY not canned goods!)


- The storm has shown Obama to be commander-in-chief in a time of regional emergency, leaving “Mittens” to run around like an impotent weasel chasing his tail – and contradicting himself every two minutes.


All of the above convey auspicious signs that Obama has received a bump from this ‘black Swan’ – as the scenes in the aftermath especially of bipartisanship, have eliminated Romney’s momentum. Meanwhile, statistical guru Nate Silver on his 538 blog now has upped the odds of Obama winning from 73% to 80.9%. Because of this Silver has been the target of unseemly attacks on the right, including by blowhards like Joe Scarborough and fake “unbiased” websites like Politico.

There are actually some deluded Repuke Hacks (think of Karl Rove) forecasting Romney in a landlside, but they are detached from political reality (Unless the Reeps steal the elections in key states via voting machines. Here in COLO, for example, Reep officials have demanded REEP Secretary of State Scott Gessler “recalibrate’ all machines before Nov. 6th!)  See also about Repo voter fraud crimes being investigated currently in Colorado and Virginia at: http://www.salon.com/2012/11/03/gop_voter_registration_fraud_probe_widens/

But moving away from the deluded or outright criminal (including all those 1 million assholes from 'True the Vote', "Vote Fair' etc. who think they will “question” voters across the nation come Nov. 6th ) these fools are in a world of their own.


Thus, Talking-Point Memo’s Poll Tracker currently projects Obama to win 285 Electoral College votes to Romney’s 191 (270 wins the White House); without toss-up states, Real Clear Politics has Obama with 290 Electoral College votes; and as I noted above, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight model gives the incumbent an 80.9 percent likelihood of victory; meanwhile Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium is even more bullish, projecting 318 Electoral College votes for the president and giving him a 97 percent chance of winning re-election.


What may well be the lasting image in the wake of this latest,  putative ‘black Swan’ is Obama working with Republican Governor Christie to try to make one devastated region better – via the use of federal resources. Even as jackass 'Mittens' seeks to make his sorry ass relevant by collecting pre-purchased (by his campaign) canned goods the Red Cross can’t use!

In the meantime, this election of 2012 is arguably the most important in our lifetime. Indeed, it’s so similar to the Roosevelt vs (Alf) Landon in 1936, that it forces the American people to make a fundamental philosophical choice. As a nation, we will either move forward as "We, the people," or adopt a small-minded, visceral rat-like philosophy of "As long as I got mine, screw YOU!”

Ask those people in New York or New Jersey which paradigm they prefer. In the meantime, let's hope that given the black Swan favorable indicators for Obama, the American people will show up and prove they're as smart as the voters in 1936.