Avoid Trump Rallies IF You Believe In Free Speech

Protester Rekeem Jones shows the battered cheek he got after a hee-haw cornpone goon sucker -punched him for exercising his free speech rights at a Trump rally in NC.  (Right, the dumb hick who did it, John McGraw , who now is in jail)

The parade of violent events at Trump rallies reached a crescendo yesterday as news feeds showed a wild-eyed North Carolina hick in a cowboy hat sucker punching a black protester exercising his free speech rights. Not only did this cornpone maggot make  a mess of Rekeem Jones' face he also blabbered, like a true domestic terrorist,  “Next time we see him, we might have to kill him!”

The video images evoked scenes shown to me in 1978 by my now deceased German friend, Kurt Braun, from newsreels he compiled of the Nazi rampages in the 1930s.  E.g.

Some of the most violent scenes showed Hitler's Brownshirts, the S.A., wading into political demonstrations with sticks - beating Jews, socialists (real ones, not the faux national "socialists"), labor union members and communists. All targeted in assorted protests and beaten to a pulp by the Hitler thugs. As former Hitler Youth Kurt put it, "Germany must never descend to such depths again".  Maybe, but if he saw what was happening in America today he'd be retching his guts out.

The latest incident, with terror hick McGraw acting out his Id,  is only the latest of a string of vile assaults captured on video, including of Michelle Fields - a conservative reporter from Breitbart.com. So it appears Trump's goons are an indiscriminate bunch of tormentors.

But this latest broadcast mugging shows some Trumpies really have S.A. creds. The sickening spectacle,  caught-on-camera, was yet another example of free speech protesters and media members being manhandled at Trump rallies. The most egregious aspect is that it went down as cops were actually ejecting the 26-year-old Jones from the event. So, get this, Jones was being frog marched out and barely gets to the top of the stairs and the exits when he's coldcocked by the 78- year old wannabe tough guy, Trumpie loyalist.

What we have beheld - in these assorted violent beatings by the Trumpies,- encouraged by Trump himself ("Get him outta here! Punch him in the face! Kick him! Step on her head!") is their total intolerance for the free speech they supposedly hold dear (in every other situation where it suits them).  But this opposition should not surprise us because Trump himself has gone on the record vowing to shut down the presses - if he's elected- and they write anything "bad" about him.

As reported in a recent TIME article on him by David von Drehle (March 14, p. 36) Trump has no patience or tolerance for what he deems "dishonest" or "inaccurate" statements.  What is his solution?

"He would like to open up the laws on libel to protect people like himself"

Similar ideas percolated in Adolf Hitler's head after becoming Chancellor in 1932 and this led to the establishment of the Reich laws which permitted the arrest and detention of journalists and news reporters in Germany - including being sent to the camps- if they so much as wrote a single sentence critical of the Fuhrer.

Would Trump do this if President? We don't know but the current signs and portents are not encouraging. And even if he himself didn't pass specific anti-free speech laws, who is to say what his insane, unhinged supporters might do?  Form gangs and smash the windows of  local  TV stations and newspaper offices, a la Kristillnacht?

The most disturbing aspect of this latest attack is the way videos showed  the ponytailed McGraw, clad in a cowboy hat and black leather vest, sitting back down after cold-cocking the peaceful young black protester. This,  as his knuckle-dragging  seatmates congratulated him on the dirty blow.

Then, to add insult to injury, McGraw - later confronted over his action - spitting out that the guy "might need to be killed next time" and besides "he wasn't even an American".  HUH?

In fact, Jones was one of the few REAL Americans at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville NC  given he was actually invoking his first amendment rights. The anti-Americans, the faux Americans, were the yahoos like McGraw who felt it their bounden duty to shut a real citizen up and even waylay him

Welcome to the new Nazis, and if Trump is elected President, look for many more to come out of the wood work.

Educating TIME's Joe Klein On The Nature Of Rights & Privileges

As we move further into the Neoliberal world order, a number of efforts are being made by their elites to gut citizen thought via propaganda and language manipulation. In the past I had already cited the efforts to eviscerate all notions or memes associated with political conspiracy, i.e. by substituting the word 'scandal' for what had formerly been described as conspiracies. For example, the Watergate conspiracy is now the "Watergate scandal" and the Iran-Contra Conspiracy (as defined by then Counsel Lawrence Walsh in his Iran - Contra Report), is now the "Iran-Contra Scandal". (This was recently referenced in a segment on MSNBC by Andrea Mitchell noting how Nancy Reagan had sought to protect Reagan from the blowback from the "Iran-Contra Scandal". ) Thus as more and more hear this misuse they come gradually to accept it.

As the Elites attempt to gut all notions of political conspiracy by such language re-crafting, they are also painfully aware it cannot work completely until all of us with historical facts and memories pass away. Then, all that will be left is a mainly ahistorical, younger population that was never aware of the original terms - and probably doesn't care. In this way the future can be altered to the Elites' advantage based on reframing the events of the past.

Another domain ripe for manipulation, or what I call "mind fucking",  has to do with the nature of rights and privileges. In this case, because so few Americans understand or have been educated on the nuances of rights, and relation to privileges, they are susceptible to having their brains subtly or not so subtly exploited.

I bring this up to reference a recent column (March 14, p. 31)  by TIME's resident Neolib, Joe Klein, who wrote this in reference to Bernie Sanders's proposals:

"There is also the problem of 'rights' that Sanders claims for the people: health care is a right, not a privilege, free college education is a right - but these rights are granted without any reciprocal responsibilities. Surely, if we're going to give middle-class kids a four year college education they owe something in return- some form of service perhaps."

Clearly, like most Neoliberals, Klein regards health care and free public education as privileges not rights. But he is sadly mistaken.  Take health care. It is not a luxury item. . Rather, people are likely to need it most when their health is gravely compromised-say in a serious accident or a heart attack-  exactly the time it's most likely to be punitively expensive, or they're likely to be denied necessary care outright.

The fact that access to health care can determine life or death clearly means it falls within the purview of an unqualified RIGHT, not a privilege. On the other hand, driving a car is a privilege even if one needs a car to get to work. Hence, the recent TIME magazine cover to the effect that robot autos will soon take over and "all you have to do is give up your right to drive" is misplaced, You have no innate human right to drive. It's a myth. Nor do you have any innate rights to fast food, to ATMs, to home ownership or your own yacht.

Let's go back to health care and try to educate Klein and his Neolib cohort. In the first instance, health care can be regarded as a definite positive right under the “unenumerated rights of citizens" declared under the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. These are referred to as those rights 'not denied or disparaged' by the formally enumerated rights.

Alas, the whole concept of rights that can exist without being actually mentioned is something beyond the Neolibs' ken, or conception! Evidently, then, they never read the Constitution as carefully as they believed! In fact, as Prof. Garry Wills has pointed out  (A Necessary Evil-A History Of American Distrust Of Government, Simon & Schuster, 1999), the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing document. The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention. They thereby allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later under the provision of the Ninth Amendment. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

Apart from health care being a right under the 9th amendment, it is also a right by declaration of the U.S. government explicitly when it signed a (1994) UN Declaration mandating that health care is a universal right. (It can't be, clearly, if it is unaffordable or if accessing it in a desperate situation leads to bankruptcy).

Another example of  an unenumerated right is the right to privacy. This is covered under the 4th amendment, but because it's not spelled out in black and white most who read that amendment don't process it. The Fourth Amendment reads:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

So follow me now on this: Being “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

Let's now return to free public education. It can be argued this also is a universal right and which is why we have free public schooling in the U.S. The value placed on the education of citizens is implicit, else it would not exist. Extrapolating this, one can argue that granting free higher education is also a right, i.e. for those citizens who can maximize its use and contribute to the nation as a result. Klein mentions "giving something in return" but to me that is only attendant on whether the student is funded for higher elite education and in specific areas - like medicine.  In a public university it should not require anything more than the student performing to a sufficiently high academic standard. (As I pointed out three posts ago).

The "return on investment" will thereby come naturally when the graduate subsequently brings his learned skills to bear in the society, whether via the teaching profession, law, science, medicine, or in business. Hence, we acknowledge by contributing monies to the funding of qualified students' higher public education we as a nation are the ultimate winners- not losers.

Klein also carps about the "right of unwed mothers to food stamps". Again, implying that this is some kind of a privilege granted. But if we as a nation truly value life, new life in the womb  - and wish to make abortion less common - then it is incumbent on us to provide those food stamps to the unwed mother and her unborn. Not to do so is to act bestially and in an uncivilized manner, and to thereby vindicate all those who insist the anti-abortion Right only cares about protecting life in a restricted way.

Klein further asks if such mothers "don't owe us some standard of civic responsibility too"?  Yes, they do - that is to exercise intelligence and use family planning before engaging in sexual relations. Thereby, not placing an undue burden on the state.

Klein's questions and positions also elicit how the Neoliberal state and agenda has gutted job potential in the nation and created a vast unemployed (and underemployed) underclass. Given his position to do with the unwed mothers receiving food stamps with no strings, I am sure he would also demand "service" from those on welfare. (I.e. based on Clinton's wrong headed 'welfare to work') The first line victims of Neoliberal trade policies, including NAFTA. The answer is 'No'.

Charles Reich ('Opposing the System', pp. 125-26) correctly observes:

"The claim that government is free to reduce or cut off welfare and other forms of support for people in economic need is totally mistaken. Welfare is not a gift, nor is it, despite frequent assertions, a transfer from those who earn a living to those who are not.  Welfare is rather an obligation from society – and from those who are working- to those who have been deprived of work and the opportunity to earn a living. If we want to speak of transfers, it would be more accurate to say that those with a secure place in the economic system are enjoying a transfer of wealth from those who have been excluded from the economic system. Welfare then is partial compensation for a deprivation of livelihood that allows others to work"

In other words welfare,  seen in the proper context,  transcends even being a "right" to being an OBLIGATION from a basically rich society.  The latter, embracing  a perverted economic system, owes  a basic economic viability to those who have been deprived of work and are excluded.

Maybe a hard nut to swallow but there it is!

Rocket Engine Controversy Continues to Undermine U.S. Space Security & Future Programs

Russian rocket takes off from Baikonur Cosmodrome last year with supplies for the ISS.

As I noted in a post last year, the U.S. is undermining its own space security and the future of its space program by allowing dumpkopfs in the Repuke congress to play politics with our space programs.  In case people forgot,  the Russians came to the rescue of the ISS crew back on July 2nd, 2015  with three tons of food, fuel and other supplies ferried up, mere days after the Elon Musk private commercial rocket (Space-X)  failed miserably. That failed launch not only messed up reception of needed supplies but also caused consternation for more than 60 Colorado science students who had patiently prepared experiments - all of which came to perdition.

How was the Space-X different from the Russian rocket OR to the previous successful military spy satellite launches? This is the 64 dollar question that needs to be addressed. The primary difference is that the military-Pentagon has been using a proven performer in the Russian-produced RD-180 rocket engine (also used for the Soyuz)  which powers the Atlas V that lofts two thirds of all national security satellites.

As noted in a WSJ piece at the time ('National Security After the Space X Explosion', June 30, 2015, p. A18) by William Shelton, the U.S. government "encouraged Lockheed Martin to use this engine primarily because of its performance and relatively low cost."

Pretty straightforward, eh?  Well, for anyone of normal intelligence or higher, but evidently not a dumbass Reeptard congress, determined to teach those Russkies a lesson or two. And the Bozo who takes the cake is Sen. John McCain, who's instigated a brawl over the Air Force continuing to use RD-180 Russian rocket engines.  The doting Senator from AZ whose judgment has been an issue for years (after picking Sarah Palin as running mate in '08) now is trying to claim that the use of the RD-180 engines is a "threat to U.S. security" because the money from their sale to the U.S. is going into Vladimir Putin's pockets.

Fortunately, as noted in a recent WSJ article ('Air Force Plan on Rocket's Fate Is Under Attack', Mar. 7, p. B1) Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James went on the record to correct the old fart by noting she had no inside information on WHO was making money from rocket engine sales. Implying if ol' Johnno has some information he needs to make it known. She did tell an Armed Services Committee that if the AF followed McCain's edict (to use only U.S. engines) then "that would end up costing $5b above current projections".

Five billion bucks! That's enough to pay for free college tuition and room and board for 100,000 students for a year at a public university.  But let's try to unpack for readers why that is the case.  We note that two years ago congressional legislation was stupidly  passed that prohibits the use of any Russian-made engines on U.S. rockets.  As a result of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act which became law in December, 2014, the RD-180 Russian made engines were banned with the exception of the few remaining in stock. According to Shelton (ibid.):

"The purported rationale is to uphold Russian sanctions and avoid rewarding the country's bad behavior in Ukraine"

Which is totally stupid and irrational, given it puts pressure on a rapid phase out.  Anyway, an independent panel examining the phase out, and looking at different strategies, concluded that (WSJ, 3/7/16):  "a slower schedule is needed for deploying a domestic replacement roughly stretching through 2025.  "

Adding that this plan "would be less risky and probably save taxpayers billions of dollars".  Under this plan the AF would gradually shift satellites slated to be launched on the Atlas V rocket (using the RD 180 engines) to the Delta IV rocket (scheduled for retirement in 3 years and with U.S. made engines) 

The Air Force, however, strongly disagrees with the projected impact, estimating it will be much more. In fact, $5 billion more than the panel projects.   McCain, in his senile dotage, isn't buying this and wants a speedier phase out - not wanting the use of any Russkie engines for much longer. The problem is the extra costs will be in the billions and land right in U.S. taxpayers' laps. But I guess as a Senator gets older he doesn't really care.

What we know, as the WSJ piece makes clear, is that if a compromise isn't forthcoming this controversy could have much broader implications for the U.S. space future as well as space security with spy satellites. Do the moralistic repukes care? One wonders.

Bernie's Surprise MI Win Keeps Campaign On Life Support

Bernie Sanders in the last Dem debate in Flint, MI, gave a devastating account of how free trade policies ripped jobs out of the country, including affecting Michigan. The connection to Hillary was indirect, her hubby was the one who pushed NAFTA - with the Repubs - but there just the same. Evidently his message got through in Michigan despite the elitist filters like factcheck.org claiming the "actual job loss from free trade is negligible". If that were so, then one of author William Greider's most significant books,  (One World Ready Or Not - The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism', 1996). would be fiction. Greider documented how American jobs dispatched to low wage nations overseas not only hollowed out our industrial cities but eliminated living wages.

Auto manufacturing jobs were also sent overseas, because it cost the "Big Three" and others less to assemble them there - saving billions.  A lot of this was traced to Clinton's NAFTA. The Wharton School site (Knowledge@Wharton) quoted Robert Scott, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute:

“Jobs making cars, electronics, apparel and other goods moved to Mexico, and job losses piled up in the United States, especially in the Midwest where those products used to be made.....By 2010, trade deficits with Mexico had eliminated 682,900 U.S. jobs, mostly (60.8 %) in manufacturing.”

Scott went on to point out that the scuttlebutt that NAFTA helped create jobs was due to false accounting. Other sources cited by Wharton claim the losses would still have occurred without NAFTA but we will never know, will we? The point of historical note is that economies in the Rust Belt all got uniformly worse after the passage of NAFTA and most of the Left who look at this don't believe it was coincidence.

All this had to play with the Michigan audience watching the Flint debate  - which was one of the most heated - with Hillary incessantly screeching and trying to interrupt Sanders, who at one point had to admonish her to "let me finish speaking".

In the end, the result, Sanders 50% to Clinton's 48% of the vote, left the pundits gasping as they had predicted from their polls Hillary winning by something like 11 pts. (Typical polls showed Clinton 55% and Bernie 44% the day before.)

But when the dust settled last night, Clinton had 1213 delegates and Bernie 557. So she is more than half way to the D-nomination. Unless Bernie can blow her momentum up next week with YUUUUUUUGE wins in Ohio, Florida etc. his campaign remains on life support only thanks to the odious DNC  superdelegate system.. Thus, sober heads still regard his campaign as basically 'game over' and he is merely staying in to keep Clinton honest while also seeking to gain some leverage at the convention. What that will be, who can say?

Time to face facts:  even with a string of major upsets by Bernie,  Clinton will still get the secretive state  super delegates to toss their lot in with her. As one angry Denver Post letter writer and Sanders supporter put it 2 days ago: "Why are we busting our butts if all our phone calls and canvassing efforts will just be trumped by hidden party bosses and lackeys?"

Good question! It's because the "Democratic" party believes in undemocratic means for nomination. While they tout voter "choice" in the primaries, this is only a smokescreen to convey the façade of democracy - while the actual wheels for the party heads spin beneath- detached from the voters' will.

Look for Bernie to take a few more contests, but ultimately the superdelegates of the Dem Neoliberals and the Clinton Machine will win.  This isn't pessimistic but being realistic.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/09/it_should_be_over_for_hillary_party_elites_and_msnbc_cant_prop_her_up_after_bernies_michigan_miracle/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gaius-publius/66336/can-hillary-clinton-beat-donald-trump-a-preliminary-look

Sen. Bernie Sanders's Free College Tuition Plan Is Feasible Under Specific Conditions

Many students entering college are overwhelmed by the demands of the courses. More needs to be done to ensure only those who are thoroughly prepared merit free college tuition.


In a recent salon.com piece, noted author Camille Paglia wrote :

"It is an intolerable scandal that college costs, even at public universities, have been permitted to skyrocket in the U.S., burdening a generation of young adults with enormous debt for what in many cases are worthless degrees. The role played by the colleges themselves in luring applicants to take crippling, unsecured loans has never received focused scrutiny."

 

Adding:

"The annual college ranking by U.S. News & World Report, which began in 1983, triggered a brand-name hysteria among upwardly mobile parents and turned high school into the nightmarish, gerbil-wheel obsession with college applications that it remains today....The steady rise in college tuition, leading to today’s stratospheric costs, began in the 1980s and was worsened by a malign development of the 1990s:  the rapid swelling of a self-replicating campus bureaucracy, whose salaries exceeded those of most faculty."

These points are germane as they pertain to Sen. Bernie Sanders's proposed free college tuition plan, which I will show here can feasibly work - provided we adopt some specific assumptions . The key condition or assumption can be found in a recent Wall Street Journal article (Feb. 24, p. A6) that dealt with Sanders benefiting from a free tuition plan at Brooklyn College in 1959. We learn, in fact, that: 

"Eighteen year old Bernie Sanders didn't pay for tuition for his freshman  year and neither did 8,000 other undergraduates."

We further learn that "New York City's public colleges didn't charge for  tuition back then for students who attended full time during the day."

How could this be achieved? The answer is also embedded in the piece, which provides a perspective on the history of free tuition though it is inappropriately titled 'Sanders's Free Tuition Failed Cost Test In The Past'.  On the contrary, free tuition succeeded in passing the cost test in the past precisely because "free tuition colleges flourished at a time when student enrollment was small."

In other words, when college was still regarded as the province of the select, academically able - it was workable. It isn't now because virtually everyone considers it the only ticket to a better life. But this is belied by the facts that: a) Many incoming students require remedial courses (e.g. in math, English)  just to get on a basic academic footing - driving up costs, and b) a large number (in some cases nearly 60 percent) drop out but still have massive loans to pay off.  Both these problems and expanding college costs would be managed in a Sanders-type tuition program by reducing the total population enrolling.

This elicits the question of where will the bulk of students leaving high schools funnel their aptitudes and energies if not in 4-year colleges and universities? The answer is in vocational-technical areas, for which there are many mid-level aptitude jobs available (e.g. aircraft mechanics, auto mechanics, electricians, plumbers etc, )

Are HS grads too "good" for these jobs? That's nonsense given the entire German labor system is predicated on apprenticeship for a craft. A terrific aspect of the German "master craftsman" model is that once one gets through the program required - including taking a number of examinations- he receives the equivalent recognition (including a certificate) of a Bachelors' degree. This is achieved with no additional cost.

The nature of master craftsmen in different countries can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_craftsman

Clearly, the U.S. is in need of a similar system as opposed to expecting all HS grads go through the college route.

Another alternative is to make more use of the community college system and tailor HS guidance counseling to seriously consider the A.A. degree as opposed to pushing unqualified students into 4 year schools.  In his Dec. 14, 2014 piece on community colleges used for Voc-tech preparation,  education writer Dick Hilker quoted Rhonda Bentz (Colorado's media and government relations director) :

"the Voc-Technical route is the educational system's best kept secret. Students come for two year degrees and then get real jobs."

As Hilker goes on to note:

"In other words there are solid alternatives to spending big bucks at Big State U. to major in Tibetan Culture or Music Appreciation before winding up as a clerk at Mega-Mart."

A brutally frank observation, but which no rational person can dispute.

What does this all add up to? Well, that lenders need to be much more rigorous in terms of lending qualifications. It makes no sense to loan to those who are much more likely to struggle in completing a 4 year degree, and also have trouble repaying the loan.

All this means getting rid of the fanciful expectation that "college is for everyone". It therefore implies the corollary that free college tuition cannot be for everyone.

Of course, Sanders's Policy Director (Warren Gunnels), is not fond of this solution because, well, it lacks the "broad appeal" of just making tuition free to everyone without qualification. That implies Bernie wouldn't get as many young backers, but then it also means his campaign is more grounded in reality and less liable to attack by fiscal critics who brand it pie in the sky.

Let's even say his 50 c tax on each Wall Street trade starts out raking in the coppers, say to achieve the needed $750b over ten years. But how long is that likely to continue? Eventually the traders (and quants)  will figure out a refined scheme rendering those taxed trades redundant or too obscure. Then how will all that tuition be paid for? I also don't buy Gunnel's worry (ibid.) that if the policy isn't broad most people will treat it as a special "welfare program"

No, it won't be because in order to qualify the recipients will have to demonstrate sterling academic requirements like at least a 3.0 grade average and a minimal SAT score , say in the upper quartile.  The last is especially more justified now as the SAT standards have been melted down to the point there's no longer even an essay portion, guessing is no longer penalized and the multiple choice options have been reduced to 4, from 5. I mean, cheese Louise! But then the SAT is no longer even regarded as a scholastic aptitude test, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-so-many-past-aptitude-tests-are-no.html

 In addition, if high standards aren't kept up, judging the GPA after the first semester or more likely the first year, then the recipient stands to lose the free tuition. So in other words we have a meritocratic tuition program, not simply a mindless 'gimme' free for all.

This is how Bernie's free tuition program can work, and though its expectations have been  dramatically lowered from the stratosphere, they are more in line with fiscal and educational reality.  It can also be more aggressively defended as a practical solution and not just socialist jabberwocky or inflated political promising.

The bottom line is that no free tuition program should be expected for students not academically inclined in the first place, or who need remedial courses just to catch up with peers. Or those likely to drop out before completing their degrees.

All of which militates for the country to seek alternative training and educational paths for the bulk of the population.

Airline Seat Space Is About More Than Comfort

"Skyrider" seats demonstrated several years ago at a trade show. If adopted by the FAA, and for long trips, passengers better be ready for blood clots and hemorrhoids - also escaping a possible disaster.

As Spring break unfolds, airline travelers are confronted not only by absurdly long TSA security lines (as staffing has been scaled down by 15 percent) but also by ever reduced seat pitch in economy class. For example, Spirit airlines has now reduced the space between seats to 28 inches, which might tempt some to use the infamous "knee defender" which came to light two years ago. To refresh memories, the device is designed to protect the knees and legs of a tall, lanky passenger in the seat behind. It works by preventing the forward passenger from exercising the recline option. Needless to say, a number of angry altercations erupted on planes where some passengers attempted to use it.

Now, Sen. Chuck Schumer, to the chagrin of airline profiteers,  has proposed a law mandating that the FAA require more legroom. While some nabobs have insisted this is specious, a matter of the government setting decrees on acceptable comfort (and costs) it is actually about something more important - safety. If seat pitches are too narrow than in the event of an emergency - such as a fire on a plane - they make seat egress much more difficult. Schumer's argument is that we shouldn't await a calamity to address the matter. I agree.

It doesn't take an Einstein or 'rocket scientist' to figure out why the airlines have crammed more rows and seats into their planes. It is all about money, profits. The more seats, the more fares and the more moola collected. In the case of Spirit, if the current 28 inches pitch was mandated to be 31 inches, the airline would effectively lose at least two rows of seats. This is based on the 26-row configuration posted on the website SeatGuru.  Multiplied over a lot of Spirit flights that translates into significant revenue lost.

The Neoliberal capitalist nabobs aren't that concerned with safety issues, even one disaster that might claim 100 lives because most passengers were unable to get out in time. No, they are more exercised over the disappearance of low cost fares - evidently believing passengers care more about low cost flights than the ability to escape a plane fire erupting just before takeoff.

One of the opinion pieces appearing in the Denver Post yesterday - against Schumer's plan - claimed:

"In January, the travel website Skift attempted to calculate the cost of additional legroom and recline on a passenger jet flying in the competitive North Atlantic region (e.g. London to New York). The conclusion: $33 per inch or $13.33 per degree of recline"

The implication here is that an economy passenger isn't willing to pay for an extra 3 inches of leg room (say $99 according to the Skift analysis) if it could save the person's life. Of course, in the person's own cost -benefit analysis he or she may believe the occasion for which the extra inches matter - say to escape a plan fire - has too low a probability of occurrence to trade for higher fares. True, but if and when that odd event happens would you still want to be trapped? Think before answering.

The Neoliberal author pushing against any FAA regulatory mandate noted that "many economy class passengers already have the option to purchase economy -plus seats"  with 6 extra inches of legroom. The price is about 18 percent higher than economy class.  But he adds that  Skift's analysis shows that the "passenger load factor - the seats occupied by paying customers - in economy -plus cabins, only averages 36 percent."

In other words, airline passengers evidently don't value extra leg room as much as low fares. But if this proposition is true, why do so many passengers try to resort to the use of knee defenders on flights?  The increasing use of these devices shows that many passengers do value the extra leg room, even if one analysis by one site for one level of cabin (economy-plus) seems to show otherwise.

Before the era of airline deregulation in the 1980s, many of us (boomers) were flying comfortably in the 1960s, on Pan Am, Eastern and National Airlines. We enjoyed spacious seat pitch as well as seat width - and halfway decent airline meals. The typical fare to fly from Miami to New Orleans in 1969 was $90 which would translate into $360 in today's dollars. To us that extra comfort was more than worth the price.

I am also hard pressed to believe that airline passengers today are so inured to being packed like sardines or cattle that comfort (and safety) no longer matter and low cost trumps all. But perhaps I am wrong. Because 90 percent of the passengers traveling by air today don't know any different experience, maybe indeed it doesn't matter to them, I mean, you can't pine or miss what you never had in the first place.

Let's just hope that if that preference for lower fares is real and means embracing ever smaller seat pitch, the test for safety thresholds doesn't intrude too soon.

"At Its Heart Science Is Based On Faith?" -- Errr....No!

The issue of whether science is based on faith, like supernaturalist religion, is one that repeatedly occurs in debates - almost like the return of a bad penny. But in fact it is nonsense.

Look at your computer:  laptop, desktop or Ipad,  at which you're sitting and reading this post. Is the computer real?  Can you interact with it, i.e. scroll down, change pages, reduce scale ....etc....or is it merely a figment of your imagination in which you must invest faith that it really exists? I submit you know it is real and you need no "faith" to believe so or that you can interact with it.  In fact, the computer comprises  hard core evidence of the factuality of science - specifically quantum mechanics - because without the phenomenon of quantum tunneling computers could not exist, nor could video games, HDTVs, smart phones or dozens of other devices we take for granted.

My point here is that if  scientific knowledge is based merely  on an internal (subjective) faith in its methods of inquiry, there would be no hardware ever emerging from discovery of first principles. Nor would there be advances in the hardware. The reality of the hardware (such as working telescopes - like the one shown in the image accompanying this blog-  and computers,  scanners, GPS systems etc), implies that science must be based on something radically different from faith. In essence, there must be a substantial and objective dimension to scientific knowledge, i.e. that exists apart from the scientist's mind and personal beliefs.

For example, there is no disputing the reality of high-speed computers and micro-processors, medical imaging and diagnostic devices (e.g. MRIs), more efficient telecommunications systems -including fiber optics relays, and novel advances in gene mapping (such as to arrive at the human genome) and splicing techniques as applied to genetic engineering. Collectively, these show two things: 1) that science as a process cannot be "standing still" - since technology advances and technology is the offspring of applied or basic scientific research, and 2): these researches can generate real, physical counterparts in the objective world. (So they are in no ways the same as "souls", "demons" etc.)

Let's go one further and refer to the monumental achievements of celestial mechanics. The name conveys exactly what the subject embodies: Mechanics applied to the dynamics of celestial objects. A typical diagram from my own Celestial Mechanics notes when I took it at Univ. of South Florida, is shown below:














The diagram shows assorted "orbital elements" for a planet of mass m2 (the Sun is m1) and these could be used as a basis for orbital energy analysis and also to predict future positions.  By inclusion of Newtonian dynamics one could also map the trajectories of spacecraft to distant planets, as well as the Moon.

Is the wonderfully sophisticated mathematics of celestial mechanics and astrodynamics based on "faith"? Hardly! If it were indeed so then we'd never have been able to land men on the Moon- nor would we have trusted "faith" to get Apollo 11 there first, on July 20, 1969. Nor would we have used it to send the Mars Curiosity Rover to the Red Planet, e.g.

or indeed would we have been able to dispatch the NASA New Horizons spacecraft on its recent flyby of the planet Pluto to capture extraordinary images, e.g.
 
The fact we have been able to accomplish these space feats shows clearly celestial mechanics is not based on any "faith" but on precise physical and mathematical laws which remain invariable over appreciable lengths of time. (Hence, enabling me to predict the position of Jupiter 100 years from today's date.)

It was therefore disturbing to read a recent (Mar. 2) WSJ essay by Matt Emerson ('At Its Heart Science Is Faith -Based Too') that attempts to portray science in the same mold as religion - based on faith.  But mixing science and religion up like he does serves the interest of neither.

To attempt to validate his argument he quotes a passage from Paul Davies' book, 'The Mind Of God':

"Just because the Sun has risen every day of your life, there is no guarantee that it will tomorrow. The belief that it will, that there are indeed regularities of nature - is an act of faith, but one which is indispensable to the progress of science."

Emerson seems not to grasp that just as there is artistic license, there is a degree of "scientific license" in popular books written by serious physicists. This is the case here, because if the laws of celestial mechanics are indeed precise - and moreover apply at the macro level of space craft, planets and asteroids (so exist independent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) then indeed the Sun must rise tomorrow, meaning that the Earth will continue rotating on its axis so that the current night side will see the dawn. (The Sun itself does not move, of course.)

What we actually have then isn't faith, but a mathematically -based expectation that is repeatedly confirmed. In order for it not to be confirmed all the laws of physics and celestial mechanics would have to be suspended and as even Davies acknowledges on the same page (81) if this were to transpire science would become merely a "charade"  since all regularities would then be treated as belonging to the realm of the random.

In this case you'd never be able to trust that the Newtonian law of gravitation remains as it is, as opposed to being suspended,  with disastrous consequences. Instead of rain or snow falling to Earth then one fine day it might levitate up toward the sky, and your  cup of coffee would instantly disperse as if suddenly in a weightless environment. Hence, all laws of physics would then become quixotic and chaotic.

Alas, Emerson misreads these fundamentals and hence misreads recent scientific discoveries such as the gravitational waves by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) when he writes:

"When the scientists searching for gravitational waves set up LIGO to detect the waves they did so believing that Einstein's mathematics would be reliable and deep space would respond as their calculations had forecast. And they  kept us this faith even when by 2010 they saw no confirmation.."

In fact, this sustaining of the LIGO project was not predicated on "faith" but on the realization that more time was simply needed to find the source object (in this case, 2 colliding black holes) which could generate the necessary magnitude of gravitational waves to meet the measurement threshold.. Einstein's tensor equations were already known to be more than up to the task once the required source object was found.

Of course, given his earlier missteps it was inevitable Emerson would reach his last bogus conclusion in the form of a plaintive (if pathetic) question:

"If the combination of faith and reason can deliver the sound of two black holes colliding over a billion light years away - confirming a theory first expressed in 1915- what is so unthinkable about the possibility that this same combination could yield the insight that God became Man?"


Well, a number of reasons.  For one thing there is no hard evidence for the localization of a purported infinite entity into the form of a human. Secondly,  real science must always explain the unknown in terms of the known, or the relatively more known. Supernaturalists, by contrast, inevitably invoke the more unknown to explain the unknown. How, for example, does Emerson account for his God at all? He doesn't! Classical logicians refer to this fallacy as:  ignotum per ignotius:  “explaining the unknown by means of the more unknown.”  This is the fallacy Emerson has committed, given any natural object - like a black hole  - will always be more known than a supernatural construction like a god-Man.

More to the point, the claim fails other tests that negate any remote comparison to the gravitational wave find.  Can it be set against original and actual scientific hypotheses? No, it cannot.  Can it admit the basis of numerous empirical tests- and moreover- can it be susceptible to any form of prediction? NO, again, it cannot.

 If the answer is ‘No’, then we cannot place it into any scientific context. It will then have to be admitted that “faith” be enjoined to embrace or accept it, since no scientific rationale will permit true scientific inquiry. Hence, an incarnated deity cannot be a genuine object of scientific inquiry.

We can, however, pursue gravitational waves, black holes, colliding galaxies, pulsars and other astrophysical objects knowing the a priori physical tests can be met.  It is this testing of reality which provides a coherent basis for scientific claims, and which bestows on science a legitimacy founded in reality rather than wish fulfillment fantasies.  This is a basis, moreover, for which theological claims have no counterpart, despite that fact that theologians have often tried to make their claims sound like proven theories. The most often used tactic is to present some sort of "evidence" or other for a theological fiction, thereby exposing themselves to scientific scrutiny and criticism.

The best policy for Emerson, to prevent subjecting religious claims to harsh scientific scrutiny, would be not to mix issues of faith and science in the future. No matter how much he may want it,  neither modern physics  nor any other branch of science  will validate the basis that a god-Man ever existed. And not to put too fine a point on it, but even many theologians (such as based in the Jesus Seminar) deny any credible basis for such a belief. 

 See also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/god-and-astronomy-what-bob-berman-gets.html