Four Timely Lessons In Probability From Hurricane Irma's Strike On Florida

One of the earlier "cones of probability" - based on data available at that time, had Irma plowing up the "gut" of Florida.  The most likely path then had Miami and the FL east coast getting the brunt of the storm. Too many didn't process it was a 'likely path' - not engraved in stone.

A Category 5 hurricane originally projected to hit Miami causing hundreds of thousands to evacuate then changing track to put Florida west coast cities under threat  - and ordered evacuations. People hunkered in the Miami shelters, meanwhile, and simmering over being there when "it wasn't needed any longer". Dopes like Rush Limbaugh confecting conspiracy ideations about the "hysterical" media coverage and then tying it to advertisers' making money on bottled water.

All of which points to the need for a number of lessons to do with changing probabilities as applied to stochastic phenomena like hurricanes.

One of the most confounding, clueless comments read on a major media site appeared in The Financial Times three days ago, posted by someone using the pseudonym "Bajan Boy".  He posted his comment after Irma had altered its course to a strike on the Florida west coast, and noted "It is nuts and hysterical to move or evacuate four days ahead of a hurricane when it can change its track at any time."  He then referenced living on the island of Barbados - where I also lived - and not being disposed to moving,  given "We know a hurricane can change its direction ever so slightly so what's the point?".  

And indeed, that occurred in 1979 when the monster Cat 5 Hurricane David bore down on the island with 170 mph winds. Most of us on the island prepared for the worst, realizing in a matter of hours our homes would be reduced to splinters and giant storm surges would sweep those of us near the sea (like wifey and me) out to perdition. Almost by serendipity, at the last instant, the brute storm veered ever so slightly north of the island and plowed into the tiny neighboring island nation of Dominica instead, causing untold damage.

"Bajan Boy's" point might appear sound but in fact, is not. Let's first observe he's writing as one confined to an island 22 miles by 14 miles - for a total of 166 square miles.  There really is no place to evacuate to on such a tiny "rock". although the smarter Bajans - say near the sea- might head toward higher altitude terrain like Mount Hillaby - some 1500 ft. above sea level.

Miami and the Florida gold coast has no such high terrain available and indeed exists at barely 4 feet above sea level. This fact makes the city prone to flooding and the perils of storm surge - as we beheld with the scenes of flooded Brickell Avenue yesterday. (See "lesson two" below) Hence, given the many tens of thousands at risk - and with the capacity and space/distance to move - it made rational sense to do so. Let me put that this way: it made sense to follow the orders of local authorities (as well as Governor Rick Scott) to escape harm's way - as it was currently defined in the most probable scenario.

That made use of the map shown in the graphic with the cone of probability including the most probable path for the eye right up the interior of the state - but with the vicious northeast quadrant striking Miami most directly. This projection indicated the most devastating effects for Miami and surrounding areas of Miami-Dade (most prone to flooding) to evacuate.  That the storm subsequently altered its path to the west (though still inside the cone) didn't make that evac decision hysterical at all. It made it rational to do at the time.  Had Miami been struck as the path originally indicated and hundreds or thousands perished from a deadly 10' - 12' storm surge, authorities would never have heard the end of it.

But this is why we have the first lesson to do with Irma's strike at Florida:  A hurricane's path will always be a probabilistic one, not deterministic. In other words, it is not like being able to predict the precise path of a baseball thrown at an angle at such and such a speed, from a given height.  When one throws the ball its path is immediately under the control of gravity and the Newtonian laws of motion. The ball is a definite object, not a mass of whirling molecules, and so obeys those deterministic laws. The same doesn't apply to a giant storm composed of swirling air and water molecules..

This sounds obvious on its face, but the fact so many people in Florida carped and complained about the changed path shows it wasn't processed or appreciated. E.g. one guy writing in The Miami Herald: "I evacuated to the west coast and now see I am under the gun! Why do we pay these weathermen so much anyway?"  Well, because they are able to give us early warnings of the approach of a storm and where (in general) it will strike, e.g. FLA, never mind it is to within + 5 percent confidence levels for specific regions.  The comment writer then, ought to have known that the probability cone allowed for a small chance that Irma would move to the west and take the path we've now seen - striking Key West, Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa and even Orlando.

Let me also hasten to note how much more improved the Irma forecasts were compared to those for Superstorm Sandy five years ago.  In fact, U.S. meteorologists were unable to predict Sandy's path with any degree of accuracy. Meanwhile, Europeans (using their "European model") predicted with confidence it would turn toward New Jersey and Staten Island, NY.

Why the difference between now and then? Well, because we now have a vastly more sophisticated tool, the "Finite Volume on a Cube-Sphere" (FV3) which helps to forecast hurricane tracks more accurately because more relevant data can be integrated within.  Indeed, it now compares with the European model.

As a first test, 5 days before Harvey hit Texas, NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory used the FV3 to predict that the storm would develop a second eyewall and produce extreme rainfall across the region. Both predictions as well as the path of the storm were spot on. Because residents and public official relied on these forecasts the death toll was remarkably low for such a Category 4 storm. (Latest reports indicate 60 died in Hurricane Harvey compared to 1,833 in Hurricane Katrina).

This brings us to the second lesson to be learned from Irma's impact on Florida: The ordered hurricane evacuations were not done randomly.   They were based, for example in Miami, on areas most susceptible to storm surge - the deadliest aspect of most hurricanes. The storm surge map for Miami-Dade county is shown below:

The areas shown in red (Zone "A") are the most susceptible to storm surge flooding and were logically the priority locations targeted for evacuation. Similar maps apply to other Florida cities, for example Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Naples, Tampa.

Thus, Rush Limbaugh's claim that the ordered evacuations were triggered by "hysteria"  is nonsense. To get a glimpse of how the 5-6 foot predicted storm surge adversely affected Miami (even though Irma was churning up the west coast) see the video at this link:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article172495761.html


At the same time, we've since learned that the projections for very high storm surges didn't materialize in other places. For example, the storm surge was predicted to be 10 to 15 feet at Naples (projections made by the National Hurricane Center) but actually topped out at 4- 5 feet.  The same applies to Marco Island and Fort Myers. Each experienced storm surge significantly less than had been predicted.

This leads to our third lesson  for Irma and hurricanes in general, which is analogous to the first: The prediction of storm surges is not an exact science, depending as it does on multiple variable parameters.  NBC Meteorologist Bill Karins explained it thusly yesterday afternoon after the first tidal gauge readings came in a lot less than predicted:

"The storm gauge showed a surge at Naples  of about five to six feet and it's now dropping. Remember they said two to three hours after the eye passed the highest level (ten to fifteen feet) would be reached. I stared at the tidal gauge to make sure it was accurately reporting and the surge was indeed dropping. What does that mean? That means it saved billions of dollars in damage and it prevented the loss of lives that the ten to fifteen foot surge would have seen had it happened. 

Storm surge predicting and flood predicting is not like predicting the high of 75 and sunny the next day. There's a lot more than goes into it.  Consider: the storm now is not as strong as was expected, it's further inland than was expected. So the parameters that they put into the computer to give the storm surge were likely too high. And don't forget they always said it was 'a possible storm surge of ten to fifteen feet'."

What's the takeaway from this lesson? It is to always allow for the maximum threat - say maximal storm surge - but never to expect it is a 100 percent, absolute exact forecast.  And certainly no sane person - despite any inconvenience - should gripe when the worst doesn't come to pass. He ought to instead be grateful that it didn't.

This leads to the fourth lesson: Irma was so large - able to fit two 'Floridas' inside it - that every area of  the state was affected.  This again we saw played out in multiple scenes yesterday - from the Keys, to Miami (where two construction cranes were snapped by the winds and massive flooding occurred), to Naples, to Fort Myers and Jacksonville early this morning.

As The LA Times put it:

"So broad and punishing was the storm’s reach that no corner of Florida, the country’s fourth most-populous state, was unaffected.....Sunday’s dizzying sequence of stormy weather saw dual landfalls by the hurricane over a span of little more than six hours. After striking the Keys in midmorning, the eye of the storm moved over Marco Island, south of Naples. And soon after came the floodwaters, with water levels in Naples increasing 7 feet in just 90 minutes....As the storm’s trajectory took it north, water was sucked from part of Tampa Bay, exposing a muddy expanse that would normally be underwater — a frightening portent of flooding to come when that water, and more, comes rushing back."


This lesson - taken to heart - would have meant residents on both coasts needed to hunker down or make shelter arrangements- wherever they were, OR wherever they were going to.  Those people who fled Miami for the west coast then, needed to locate potential shelters soon after they arrived,  in case the hurricane track altered to the west, as it did.  By the same token, those who remained in Miami in shelters, then carped about being cooped up, and squawking "It's not that big a deal now Irma has moved west so I'm leavin'!"  needed to get a grip. On seeing the flooding from the storm surge in Miami, crashing construction cranes and downed power lines - their lives were probably saved.

Again, like those complaining that the altered track suddenly putting them in jeopardy  those complaining about being "stuck in a shelter for nothing" processed the lessons of Irma inaccurately.  In the latter case, just because a Cat 5 storm didn't strike with full fury and drown hundreds of  people - collapsing high rise condos - didn't mean there was no impactful event. Or that ordered evacuations weren't really needed. Hindsight is always 20-20 and especially so for events that are probabilistic from the get go.

Weather Channel hurricane specialist Bill Norcross put the general issue to do with the FL east to west coast veer in the proper context (WSJ today, p. A4):

"Everybody is going to say 'Well, they forecast it to go east and it went west'.  In actuality,  they forecast it to come to Florida and it came to Florida."

This sensibly acknowledges that everything that was within the cone of probability was indeed affected, whether greater or less.  The changes (east to west)  of the main path within the cone don't alter the fact that those changes were covered by the overall probability. Yes....it'd be awesome if the specific track changes could also be accurately predicted. But, we're not there yet with the models we have, even the advanced FV3.

Here's the real worry for people who found themselves complaining for one reason or other about Irma's eventual strike: You should be more concerned about Trump's proposed cuts to NOAA's budget. Those plans include slashing the agency's funding by one fifth which will impact all its forecast functions - from tornadoes to hurricanes. In the latter case the budget for weather satellites alone (those that give us satellite views of storms) is scheduled to be cut by 17 percent.

In the words of Mick Mulvaney - the hack turkey budget chief - trying to justify it:

"We're simply trying to get things in order so we can look at the folks who pay the taxes and say 'Look, yeah we want to do some climate science but we're not going to do some of the crazy stuff that previous administrations did."

Yeah, like accurately forecasting hurricane paths or at least providing the most confident cones of probability for their paths.  Pardon me while I insist my tax money be used for such "crazy stuff"!


See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-heinberg/75037/watching-the-hurricane-s-path

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

George Will: “No Warming for Last 16 Years” – Let Him Come to Colorado!

George Will is the geeky looking guy with spectacles and bow tie whose visage appears in his WaPo and syndicated columns. Ironically, though geeks are supposed to have higher IQs, Will often comes out with balderdash that more suggests a cretin. In the most recent instance, Will denies there’s been any warming the past 16 years while lashing out at Obama’s remarks on climate change recently delivered in Berlin. According to Will (‘Hitting a Wall in Berlin’, June 22, p. 5D, Denver Post):


“Then came Wednesday’s pratfall in Berlin. There Obama vowed energetic measures against global warming. The 16-year pause of the warming was not predicted by, and is not explained by, the climate models for which – in his strange understanding of respect for science- he has forsworn skepticism”


How so? Indeed, Will is caterwauling about a non sequitur since no serious climate scientist buys into any “16 year pause in warming”. Where did Will dredge up this codswallop? Well, from a misinterpretation of the data published in a Nature paper back in 2008 by Noel Keenlyside et al. Therein was made a tentative claim for monotonic global cooling since ca. 1998. This 'jumped the shark' and become embedded into the warming skeptics' arsenal of disinfo and set real global warming science education back at least a decade in my estimation.


At the root of this misapprehension by the faux skeptics is misinterpretation of the data appearing in the paper - not at all helped by the media (like the WSJ) which have also misconstrued it. Even Editors who fully know the actual original source still can't be bothered to consult it, they'd rather get their info 2nd hand (like from the 'Investor's Business Daily') then bloviate how global warming is wrong, or "hyped" in sundry editorials.


People prone to the denial weltanschauung then read these superficial reports, miss the key core clues, and bruit it all about that they (deniers, skeptics) were right all along. Instead of taking shortcuts, skeptics could have retrieved the ACTUAL paper from Nature! They could have studied the paper's key figure, the one that looks at past and (forecast) future global temperatures, "Hindcast/forecast decadal variations in global mean temperature, as compared with observations and standard climate model projections".


If really intelligent, the first thing Will ought to have noted about the figure -indeed, one major source of confusion - is that each data point represents a ten-year centered mean. That is, each point represents the average temperature of the decade starting 5 years before that point and ending 5 years after that point. Thus, the statistics for potential “cooling” could not possibly have been justifiably extrapolated beyond 1998 + 5 = 2003, or in Will's case, "16 years of no warming"  from 1998.


Second, would-be intelligent skeptics should have spotted the red line in the graphic of the Nature publication and – if bright enough – beheld that it was the actual global temperature data from the U.K.'s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research. They then ought to have asked: "Why does the red line stop in 1998 and not 2007?"  Again, it’s a running 10-year mean, and the authors use data from a Hadley paper that ends around 2003, In effect, they can't do a ten-year centered mean after 1998.



Lazy deniers, however, have parlayed their own perceptual deficiency and this simple statistical peculiarity of the data into believing that global warming factually STOPPED in 1998! But the stunning fact is the evidence all around belies this canard!   For example, there was the black swan storm 'Sandy' that struck New York, NJ in late fall - and most climatologists trace its origins as climate-change born. I elaborated on the reasons in the first answer I provided to a reader's question in this previous Mail Brane: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/maile-brane-seeking-answers.html    

Fast forward to January 2013, which  had barely begun when fiery images from Tasmania and Australia showed what we likely faced in the Northern hemisphere come June, July. For the record (no pun intended) July 2012 was the hottest ever recorded in U.S. annals with a mean tempeature of 77.6F. The average annual U.S. temperature for 2012 was 55.32F or one full degree higher than the old record set in 1998. (So much for the codswallop that all temperature increases ceased in 1998. )

Meanwhile, here in Colorado we’ve had over eighteen monster wildfires in the last 2 years, which can be tied inextricably to global warming-climate change. Whereas at one time a five day spate of 90-plus temperatures was rare, so much so that few Coloradans used a/c we now are in the midst of a 13 day string of such temperatures combined with extremely dry conditions and prolonged drought – ideal for fires.

In June the Black Forest fire erupted in northern Colo. Springs, burning 24 square miles. Barely a week after it was 95% contained the West Fork fire was ignited by two lightning strikes and has now burned up a total of 125 square miles. There is zero containment and fire fighters expect it will burn for months! Experts pinpoint the immediate cause as lightning striking dead trees, turned into tinder by the mountain pine beetle. The spread of the latter has been fueled directly by longer, warmer and drier springs and summers. If Georgie really does believe there was a 16 year pause in warming he ought to have been here in Colorado the past 12 ½ years with my wife and me, seeing year by year how the climate has turned hotter and drier and the beetle population in the forests increased as a result of the shorter cooling seasons. Obviously, the guy needs a practical education!

Actually, he might need ANY kind of further education, especially in basic research. He might start with The Economist (June 16, 2012) report that notes that Greenland's ice cap is "losing an estimated 200 gigatonnes of ice a year, enough to supply a billion people with water. " If this should continue, and lead to a predicted 59 cm (24 in.) rise in sea level by the end of the century, it will prove catastrophic for many population centers abutting the oceans.


  Before he next scribbles bollocks on Obama's lack of climate change insight or skepticism and the ineffectiveness of current models and how many "scientists' disagree with them, I suggest he consult Eos Transactions of the AGU, Vol. 90, No. 3, p. 22 , and the analysis therein of the extent of scientific consensus on global warming published by P. T. Doran and M. Kendall-Zimmerman . They found that (p. 24):

 "the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely non-existent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes". 

 In their analytic survey for which 3146 climate and Earth scientists responded, a full 96.2% of specialists concurred temperatures have steadily risen and there is no evidence for cooling. Meanwhile, 97.4% concur there is a definite role of humans in global climate change.   


Methinks Georgie really needs to stick to his avocation of baseball, or maybe the hack politics in which he's so proficient. He really has no future dabbling in climate science since he's already shown he can't even discern basic statistical results presented in research journals like Nature. But then again, maybe he's an agnotologist - one of those who deliberately sows doubt based on faulty economic, scientific reasoning. We also have another name for them: propagandists!

Mail Call Brane - Readers Seeking Answers!

(Note all the following questions were received in 'comment' format but with the askee requesting no special comment space rather the question(s) collated into one blog ....this one!)

Q. President Obama in response to a question yesterday at his news conference stated that one can't be sure if superstorms such as Sandy are really caused by climate change. What is the take of the climate science community on this? - Roger B., Minneapolis, MN

A. This is a tricky question, and Obama can be forgiven for dodging it in a way at his press conference, because let's face it: most of the press corps possesses the attention span of gnats.

The truth is that one aspect of climate change does show a causal relation to the genesis of Superstorm Sandy. That is the phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and its geographical distribution at particular times of the year. The NAO embodies the atmospheric pressure over a particular region (in this case it was the U.S. northeast) and it can be either 'positive' or 'negative'. In the case of the latter, which was what we observed preparatory to Sandy's arrival, the jet stream displayed a pronounced southward dip. In a positive display the jet stream would have more straddled the higher latitudes (e.g. 45N) and not bent so far south.

Now, here's the kicker: research by Charles Greene at Cornell University and other climate scientists has shown that as more Arctic sea ice melts   e.g. in the summer because of global warming (as I noted before, see my blog of  Sept. 21) then the NAO is more likely to be negative, i.e. jet stream sloping way south. This condition then set the stage for a superstorm in two stages: 1) the warm Atlantic water off the eastern U.S. coast fed energy into the system, and 2) the encounter with the cold air ensconced in the southerly jet stream added the energy equivalent of 5 single megaton nuclear bombs to the system and dramatically expanded its reach - incepting the massive destruction we beheld.

We can predict then, that if northerly moving hurricanes become a more common feature, as does a continued negative NAO, then we will see more superstorms like Sandy. The east coast and its cities will then have to decide whether or not it will spend the money, as the UK has, to construct a massive system of dykes etc. to ward off the storm waters, waves. If not, we better have no more wars, because we're going to need all that money for constant rebuilding!

Q. Reading about your brother ('Fighting Cancer, Fighting Your Brother') I can't believe you had to put up with all his crap while you were recovering from prostate cancer! What gives with the dude? Is he 52 cards short of a full deck or just ornery or what? - Mitch C., Stanford, CA

A. Well, what would you think of a guy that once circulated an idea to put all atheists in the country on a "national registry" like sex offenders?  Granted, he had to be saved from himself (he received over 400 death threats via email from outraged atheists across the world) but all that meant is that he shut down the 'Pastor Mike' blog and started a new one ('Straight Talk with Mister Mike'). The bottom line is I don't know what his main problem is, but as I said in blogs from a few years ago, I suspect IF he has mental issues they arise from believing an insane fundamentalist brand of religion. His 'god' - if you can call it that, is totally batshit insane, since it has no problems allowing a son to be killed for mouthing off against parents - as per Deuteronomy 21;18-21, or adulterers (say like Petraeus and Broadwell) to be stoned to death by Deut. 22:22 or chldren to have wild bears set loose on them if they mock "prophets". (By 2 Kings 2: 23-24). Oh, his god also approves of genocide when it means "cleansing the earth" - as in Gen. with the slaughter of the Canaanites.

As I've said many times before, tell me the concept of god in which you believe, and thence the morality you uphold,  and I will forecast your odds of going nuts. Indeed, I can tell how much of a nut you already are. If you accept or believe in batshit crazy gods you will be a batshit crazy person, and likely end up in a straight jacket on thorazine, if not in some other horrendous end.

Q. I read your blogs on prostate cancer with great interest. My husband, age 43,  recently had a biopsy and it came back with four cores at Gleason 3+4. He's in a dilemma as to the treatment but as in your case, the urologist said watchful waiting wasn't an option. He dreads all the post-operative issues to do with surgery including difficulty with sexual relations, but isn't sure about radiation either, and doesn't want to face the prospect of having the cancer come back after having done the radiation. Any ideas, suggestions?  - Marilyn F., New Orleans, LA

A. In the end the choice of treatment is a highly personal one. Apart from the information already given in the blogs, I can only suggest he obtain the two books cited as well: 'The Invasion of the Prostate Snatchers' and John C. Mulhall's  'Saving Your Sex Life: A Guide for Men with Prostate Cancer". (Note: Dr. Mulhall is the Director of the Sexual & Reproductive Medicine Urology Service based at the Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center.) Mulhall's focus is also highly on the issue of "penile rehabilitation" : http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/10/penile-rehabilitiation-what-most-docs.html .

The aversion to post-op problems following surgery is understandable. Incontinence and erection problems are often mentioned (but the solutions to these were given in the blog link, based on Mulhall's book) but the acute or short term problems are also turn-offs for many men: including risk of infections, having a catheter inserted in the bladder for possibly as long as 3 weeks, coping with the pain, constipation arising from use of pain meds, and risk of rectal injury during bowel movements because the rectal wall becomes much thinner following surgery - after removal of the prostate which originally adjoined the rectum. All this is detailed in the UCSF Patient Guide for Radical Prostatectomy which also includes sections dealing with sexual recuperation, other treatments -meds for incontinence, etc.

I chose the high dose rate brachytherapy because: 1) I didn't wish to be laid up weeks with post-op difficulties or catheters, or bowel problems, 2) I didn't want to be possibly faced with months or years of incontinence limiting my travels, freedom, and 3) I didn't want to go to extraordinary lengths for "penile rehabilitation" including having to have an implant operation, or reduced to continually using Viagra, vacuum pumps or injections. But again, each man has to make his own choices!

Q. I found your blog on solar oblateness fascinating, and wondered if you would be so kind as to provide the oblateness formula for the planets from Earth outwards.to Neptune. Thanks! - Mick, Trenton, NJ

A. The oblateness formula depends on the planet's equatorial diameter, a and its polar diameter, b. Then:

f = (a - b)/ a

The values are as follows for Earth outwards to Neptune:

Earth: 1/ 298.257

Mars:  1/ 154.409

Jupiter: 0.06487

Saturn: 0.09796

Uranus:  0.02293

Neptune:  0.0171


Q. If your Aug. 22 blog on 'the biggest spy center on Earth' is to be believed, Gen. Petraeus had much to worry about churning out all those emails. Should he have known about this spook kingdom and how they can scoop up emails, tweets on a whim? Or was he just dumb? - Andy K.,  Tucson, AZ

A. I don't believe the general was 'dumb' but perhaps in the heat of his affair his brain cells didn't process that anything committed to cyberspace or that gets infused into the 'cloud' - is there for years for any spook to grab, save and see. In the blog you referenced, I specifically mentioned (from the cited WIRED piece, 'The Black Box'):

"The mammoth Bluffdale Center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial because of the data that the center will handle: financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, confidential personal communications, legal documents and anything else initially heavily encrypted."

I also added:  "Everyone's a target, everybody with communications is a target."


So, it boggles the mind that Gen. Petraeus could have been that careless. Also, virtually anyone that spends any time on the net has to be aware that the FBI's "Carnivore" program - for ferreting out emails- is still in play. Also, the 4th amendment protections against extraordinary searches have essentially vanished since the critical provisions of the Patriot Act (mainly to do with wiretapping without the need for warrants) have been extended twice (by Democrats and Repubs - at least it's one thing they can agree on.)

My advice to anyone is that if you don't want the spooks to be amassing all your (saved) Facebook pages, blogs or tweets, then the best step is not to post them. If you don't care, it's no biggie. Btw, for those who want to learn more about the national security state we've erected (to keep us "safe") since 9/11 be sure to get hold of James Bamford's book: The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.

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)
------
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.