Prevent 2 Billion Births By 2050 – Or Two Billion Will Starve

Four years after World War II a defeated Japan had to finally come to terms with its enormous waste of resources in the effort to build a global empire – ending with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Incredibly, as Japanese soldiers came home to their wives they learned that Japan had added 10 million new babies. The U.S. also had its own baby boom, but the conditions in the U.S. were different because an enormous defense industry had launched the country out of a prolonged depression and its economy could support the influx. Japan’s couldn’t.

 Japan’s economy was wrecked and people were starving. Pregnant women were hurling themselves in front of trains – realizing the only alternative was to see their children starve to death. And so it was in 1949 – in an emergency measure  - Japan legalized abortion and millions of Japanese women partook lest they watch their babies die of hunger.

 The horrific example of what occurred in post-war Japan is an object lesson for what transpires when accessible resources, for whatever reason, are outstripped by mouths to feed. Though people don’t like to admit it, or concede the point, the fact is that human population growth is critically tied to food availability.  The same object lesson can be found in what happened to the Easter Islanders, whose population also outstripped its food supply.

 The Easter Islanders went from a maximum 20,000-odd population ca. 1600 AD to barely 1,000 when the first Europeans landed in 1720. The newcomers found that the natives had descended into war and cannibalism. They basically expended all their wood, forest stores – and were reduced to living in caves by the time the Europeans arrived.

What happened? The Islanders grew too comfortable with their resources, and began to consume them at a rate beyond their replacement. This had a critical impact because of the fact: a) Easter Island was so remote - closest other island is Pitcairn, 1240 miles west, and b) the trees that formed the base of the resource supply were limited in extent.

Because of the trees, the Islanders could build adequate shelters, plus construct boats able to navigate many miles offshore to catch large dolphin (fish, not mammals) and eat heartily. But they became too sated too soon. Their ability to provide a bounty of food early drove their birth numbers higher. From a base population of » 3500, it grew to 5500, then 7800, then 10,000, then 15,000.

As the Easter Islanders'  numbers increased on the tiny island, the demand for lumber did as well. Massive deforestation became the rule, as they cut down trees to try to keep pace with the exploding population. Before long, the new seedlings planted could not reach the maturity needed to build the sturdy fishing boats to go miles offshore and catch dolphin. The populace was now reduced to scavenging for small mollusks near the tidal basin, and to hunt whatever birds there were (the birds were hunted to extinction).

As people, then animals, soon descended to eating the seeds of the trees, collapse set in. By the time the Europeans arrived there were no more wood shelters, and the Islanders had retreated into caves and had been eating each other for decades.

 A look into our near  future discloses a very similar scenario might well await us, and the numbers are unforgiving no matter which way a putative “Pollyanna” slices them.

Currently, we are adding 1 million humans every 4.5 days, and that's with reasonably available  contraception. This leads to likely 11 billion people on this planet – all vying for limited food and resources – by 2100, and 9.5 billion by 2050. Take away the contraception availability and we find instead one million people added every 2.5  days leading to 16 billion by 2011 and 12 billion by 2050.

 My argument is that even with the lower reproductive load (already 6 billion beyond Earth's carrying capacity by some experts' reckoning)  we will not be able to meet food demand, and up to 2 billion will probably starve. In other words, we had better insure somehow or some way those extra babies are not generated or we may find ourselves in the same position as the Japanese post-WWII.

 Don’t believe me? Look at the numbers and look at them hard!

Even with the spread of modern farming methods the yield gains globally are now just 0.9 to 1.6 percent per year – and getting worse as climate change intensifies. A 2009 report published by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that if CO2 climbs from the current level of 396 parts per million to above 450 ppm the world will face irreversible dry season reductions in several regions which some experts liken to the ‘dust bowl’ seen in the U.S. in the 1930s. 

In the U.S. alone, annual grain harvests have fallen the past two decades from 324 million tons to 204 million tons as drought and climate conditions for crops have become more adverse. The U.S., the world’s dominant grain supplier, has had substantial stocks to draw upon but these will vanish as drought conditions intensify.  We could even see yield gains globally dive to just 0.3 percent per year by 2020, and 0.1 percent by 2035.  Given a 1.6- 2.4 percent annual increase in world population, this is a recipe for famine worldwide.

The bottom line is that it’s becoming much more difficult for the world’s farmers to keep up with the world’s growing demand for grain – largely spurred by population increase but also by rising middle classes in China and India. The fact is, however, that world grain stocks have been drawn down over a decade and we’ve not been able to rebuild them since. If we cannot do so, and there are many more indicators that we can’t than we can, food prices will soar and hunger will spread. It is a case of numbers and the law of supply and demand.

How bad is it? According to Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Crop Systems and Global Change program, it’s a “mess”. Ziska co-authored a chapter on food security and food production systems in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so he ought to know.

Ziska in a recent interview observed that in the past yield gains could be achieved  by adding energy in the form of fertilizer and adding water. But fertilizer is not only expensive but a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and in any case is becoming more difficult to obtain in quantity as the more accessible oil gives way to kerogen (oil shale) and tar sands. Water resources around the world are also in crisis, as droughts intensify and the whole problem is exacerbated by the global fracking phenomenon – which uses on average 3 to 5 million gallons of fresh water for each well.

 Here in Colorado alone, the state’s farmers are being regularly outbid at “water auctions” by the oil and gas companies. Hence, diminished water for farming and crops – ever more to inject into frack wells.  The fracked water injections in Oklahoma are so frequent that hundreds of earthquakes have been spawned the past 2 years. Fresh water loss from fracking is happening all over, including in places as far away as Australia and Europe.

 Ziska also points out that as climate change intensifies crops’ heat stress will increase, not to mention proliferation of pests and weeds. Already farmers in the SW U.S. are begging the USDA to be able to use the most lethal weed killer available (paraquat) to fight an invasion of glyphosate -resistant pig weed.  In Michigan, hog weed has invaded and necessitated workers in hazmat suits to remove it, since even a little of its sap on bare skin can cause the equivalent of a 2^nd degree burn.

Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and the World Resources Institute, notes that “Population growth rates are higher and higher. It’s getting harder to keep up with yield gains than we previously thought.”

 The bottom line? Growing more crops per acre remains elusive for all the reasons given above. We’re simply not going to be able to feed 2.6 billion more mouths by 2050 using better seeds or watering a little more land (assuming water is even available – and the rate at which fracking is being done, it may not be!)

 Reducing meat consumption and food waste as well as improving efficiency  will surely help  but perhaps to salvage 0.6 billion mouths,  not all of the extra 2.6 billion conservatively projected by 2050 .

Two billion then will starve unless something radical is done and soon. Simple gimmicks or dreams of a magic technology fix won’t save us and the time is upon us for hard choices. One possible but draconian solution: nations can do what China is doing and tax families at six times their income if they have any more children than population replacement level. But even that may not be adequate.

See also:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-look-onethird-of-the-human-race-has-to,27166/

(The above is intended to be a typical "Onion-esque" spoof or sarcastic take on the issue - but actually contains more than a grain of truth. Laugh good, but then think about the underlying fact that we REALLY do need to decrease our numbers. As Isaac Asimov once put it: "We can either lower our numbers ourselves or nature will do it for us.")


http://www.times-standard.com/opinion/ci_26055410/letter-overpopulation-key-all-our-woes

and:
http://www.howmany.org/environmental_and_social_ills.php?gclid=CNidxtWyn78CFaJaMgod3jcAGw

Obama Wants to Give $500m to 'Moderate' Syrian Rebels? Here's A Better Use: Asteroid Detection!

"The dinosaurs could tell you how a serious asteroid hit turns out - except they can't because they're all dead, thanks to a 6-mile asteroid that crashed off the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago." - Jeffrey Kluger, 'The Man Who Guards The Planet', TIME, June 9, p. 34.

The recent news that Obama has done an "about face" and decided to ask for money to arm "moderate" Syrian rebels boggles the mind. Here is an intelligent man who merely two days earlier had emphatically told interviewer Nora O'Donnell that such a move - expecting any real results- would be a "fantasy".  As Bill Maher asked last night: How do we even know those to whom we deliver the purchased arms will be the ones for whom they're  intended? Do we have a special 'moderate rebel' detector? Likely not and the arms will simply end up in ISIS' hands just like the American arms dumped by fleeing Iraqi army troops barely 2 weeks ago.

Instead of pissing away $500m on nonsense, I have a better recommendation - one for which planetary astronomers have been screaming. That is, $500m will be the exact amount needed to purchase an infrared telescope to monitor asteroids in space, especially the ones most likely to take us out - like the dinosaurs.

This is not the stuff of science fiction and any human with more than air between the ears ought to have received a wake up call after the Chelyabinsk object struck near that Russian town on the morning of February 15, 2013. The incoming object (small for an asteroid) - ended up injuring 1,600 people and damaging 7,300 buildings. And this wasn't even a direct hit! The object was 66 ft. wide and exploded with the force of 33 Atomic bombs on the scale of the Hiroshima weapon. The only thing that prevented more damage is that the object exploded in the atmosphere (air burst).

To be sure, there's little that we can do to protect against these relatively minor objects. They are simply too small and if they come in from the direction of the Sun,  virtually impossible to pick up before they're literally on top of us. This was the case with the Chelyabinsk object. Currently, NASA's office of Near Earth Objects (NEO) is tracking some 600,000 asteroids but it is a core of 11,000 so-called near Earth objects that garner the most attention. This subset is defined as those asteroids that come within 1.3 AU (1 AU = 93 million miles) . To qualify as what's known as a potentially hazardous asteroid, the object must be at least 460 ft. in diameter and come within 0.05 AU of Earth (or 4.65 million miles). Currently, NASA knows of 1,500 of these objects.

Large asteroids that actually cross the Earth's orbit are the most dangerous, the so-called Apollo objects.  How they emerge as a threat, when their orbits are perturbed, is shown in Fig. 2 above, for Icarus (Fig 1. shows a large asteroid, Gaspra, that - if it struck Earth - would annihilate all life on it)

What makes any large asteroid dangerous, is its mass in combination with its relativity velocity or speed of approach. Thus, large Apollo objects and other asteroids would typically have relative velocities from 11,000 to 30,000 meters per second, or about 6.8 to 19 miles per second. For an asteroid with a 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) diameter, at a density three times that of water, this would generate an equivalent energy on impact of one million Hiroshima sized atomic bombs. Since the Hiroshima explosion was equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, this means a larger asteroid would generate an explosive force of 13 thousand megatons. This already is roughly equal to the total equivalent of all U.S. nuclear warheads.
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For a ten kilometer asteroid (roughly 6 miles across) the explosive equivalent would translate into 13 million megatons. This would dwarf all man-made nuclear stocks and warheads, and is rightfully called ‘planet –killer’. It is specifically asteroids of this magnitude that keep asteroid searchers up late at night.

In a recent '60 Minutes' segment on killer asteroids, an appeal was made by two asteroid trackers for a special infrared telescope capable of tracking large asteroids in deep space. The goal would be to identify them and provide a time horizon long enough to be able to deflect them and prevent them from colliding with Earth. (The use of nukes, such as in flicks like "Armageddon", is not fancied by the experts because an imprecise blast could merely reduce one very large object to many smaller ones - turning a bomb into a 'cluster bomb')

Thus, the current thinking leans to long term deflection of large objects - but that requires a lot of time because such deflections amount to tiny fractions of a degree per year. To give an example of one possible method, consider the YORP Effect. This is named after Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack – or the trio of physicists that discovered it. It occurs when photons from the Sun are absorbed by a body and re-radiated as heat. In the process, two forces influence the object: one from the impact of the photons, providing a tiny push, and the other as a recoil effect when the object emits the absorbed energy. For small, irregularly shaped objects , YORP can cause measurable changes in motion.

In 2009, I attended a conference sponsored by the Dynamical  Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society that featured a paper entitled; ‘Analytic Theory of the YORP Effect for Near –Spherical Objects'. .At that time torques of the form:

dt = r x F dS

 

were considered, where r is the radius vector and F the force supplied. The element of asteroid surface area is dS.  The situations were confined to the cases therefore, where the impinging solar radiation was at right angles to the asteroid’s spin axis.  Three separate detections of the effect were announced, including for  a nearly spherical object (1998 KY), and on two more irregular objects, (1862 Apollo, and 25143 Itokawa).
 

In the case of the Apollo object the observed effect was approximately 3.0 x 10 ^-4 deg/day, vs. the theoretically –predicted YORP effect magnitude of 2.6 x 10 ^-4 deg/day. Earlier, Cornell graduate student Patrick Taylor and assistant professor of astronomy Jean-Luc Margot mapped the shape and located the spin pole of a 100-meter-diameter (about 300 feet) near-Earth asteroid called (54509) 2000 PH5 (abbreviated to PH5) between 2001 and 2005, using radar at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and NASA's Goldstone telescope in California.

 

The results suggest it may be possible to use an artificial YORP effect, generated over time, to deflect a significantly large asteroid. The strategy might include high-powered lasers  mounted on massive spacecraft to deliver one deflecting force.. It may well require using powerful lasers in tandem, say along the lines of a recently -developed high-powered 50kW laser designed by a German firm (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2259639/The-groundbreaking-Star-Wars-laser-shoot-drone-sky-TWO-MILES-away.html

 Combined with other sources of radiant energy directed at the surfaces of the asteroid this could conceivably create an artificial YORP Effect. Then, say in the case of an irregularly shaped object, one might alter its spin axis as well as motion- trajectory, when used in conjunction with the lasers.

 

How long a time horizon might be needed, assuming we can get an infrared telescope in place in an expeditious manner? (And not piss the money away on stupidity). Given that no proper asteroid-deflecting space craft yet exists (we pissed most of the money that could have built one on stupid 'wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan) and it may take five years minimum for its design and construction, we'd like need 10 years. This is according to NEO asteroid tracker Don Yeomans.   Thus, ten years is probably the minimal time needed between the time of discovery of a killer rock that has our name on it, and effecting a deflection that removes the threat.

 

Right now, without even a veneer of protection, things don't look sanguine. Simulations of a killer asteroid impact in 2021 have been conducted by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) and FEMA - using war gaming techniques - and nearly all outcomes disclose we're toast, depending on the exact size of the object. The larger the object the worse the outcome, including worst of all: nuclear winter killing off all crops within 6 months leading to the de facto end of humans. Just like the dinosaurs.

 

The U.S., while it is pressing other nations to get more involved (the U.S. is doing 98 percent of the asteroid tracking) still needs to get its own act together and cease squandering resources on stupid military adventures. Instead, it needs to apply money and resources  to asteroid intercepting and deflecting space craft (and that infrared telescope) instead.

 

On the good side, since the Chelyabinsk object struck, the budget for searching out dangerous asteroids has been doubled to $40m - but this is still a drop in the bucket. If we're serious about not getting creamed into oblivion we will first take that 1/2 billion dollars Obama wants to put toward Syrian rebels to an asteroid detecting telescope instead. Then, we will shut down the Afghan fiasco and put that 1/2 billion to 1 billion toward expediting asteroid deflecting spacecraft design.

 

Our lives may depend on it. While it's true that not all forms of life succumbed when the dinosaur-killing event occurred 65 million years ago, the dominant form was taken out. This is an object lesson we dare not ignore or dismiss given we are the heirs apparent to the dinos' once kingly position. Hence the goal is simple: avoid falling into the same fate.

 

If we are really homo sapiens, as opposed to homo moronicus, we will get on with it!

 

A Cavity Resonator Model Applied to Solar Loops and Flare Triggers (1)

The problem of identifying a unique trigger for solar flares has been pursued for over 4 decades, but with little to show for it. In this post I examine a possible approach that might be productive, especially after higher resolution images become available from a planned solar telescope.

1.     Background to Cavity Resonator Approaches:

On the Sun itself, the 5-minute oscillations, more figuratively described from time to time as a “ringing of the photosphere” were first tied to waves trapped in a resonant cavity by Schatzman, 1956[2]. The gist of the model is that the upper and lower cavity boundaries reflect waves into the cavity and thereby engender a standing wave, which may either be acoustic or gravity.

 Properties of generic coronal cavity resonators were elucidated by Hollweg (1984)[3] whereby a coronal loop is treated as three relatively disjoint regions, separated by discontinuities. The standing waves produced are invoked to account for energy dissipation and heating in the corona. Some aspects of Hollweg’s model (e.g. reflection properties of Alfven waves, quality factor Q, relation to wave number vectors) are also employed in my own resonator model for solar flare inception.

 Where I diverge from both the (e.g. Federov et al) auroral cavity resonator and the coronal one proposed by Hollweg is that in this flare trigger model I adopt a dual resonator for a given compact flare loop. The basic sketch is shown above. Thus, to trigger a specific (e.g. compact) flare the conditions must be such that the Q-(quality) value in each resonator reinforce the other. In my generic model, I include a small coronal arch cavity resonator with some resemblance to Hollweg’s and a large scale loop resonator which depends on the oscillations arising from magnetic (Alfven) waves in combination with the loop’s twist (and associated kink instability)

 The difference is that I go into much more detail to incorporate ex-post facto data into my model to show how the magnitudes of the changing physical quantities vary not only in the corona in its pre-flare state, but during the flare as well. As an application ansatz, dual resonators in the electrical engineering setting often use closed-loop resonators in order to shift down the original resonator and arrive at a very small structure (e.g. Collado et al, 2007)[4]. In the flare trigger model context this would be the kernel or coronal loop apex resonator.  In the engineering context, mirrors are sometimes employed to linear cavities (analogous to the extended coronal loop with its primary cavity at the apex) to obtain simultaneous dual wavelength oscillations. It is precisely within the scope of these dual oscillations that the flare trigger can be conceived – e.g. for specific cases when a dual resonance is achieved and with it the maximum instability.

2.     Motivation:

Having established that a hybrid flare model is the most plausible one to approach the 1B/M4 flare of November 5, 1980, I now single out the key feature for the flare trigger. Before proceeding, let us inspect the gestalt for what this article is all about, as depicted in the schematic below:

The diagram depicts the generic inputs and processes entering the hybrid flare model (in the main rectangle), which includes components for R (reliability statistics), H (helicity considerations) and Poisson statistics. Thus, the hybrid model seeks to reconcile all of these, as well as recognizing the inputs from two paradigms: the E-J and the B-v.  For example, the B-v paradigm and its assumptions figure more prominently in the reliability analyses as well as the magnetic helicity. (E.g. see: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/10/look-at-magnetic-helicity.html )  The E-J paradigm factors more into the basis for Poisson variations based on the manner in which the current densities (J) arise and how the E-field is generated.  The putative flare trigger attempts to make use of all of these.

What is desired is a model that approximately replicates the event sequence for the region AR2776 such that the flares occurring conform to the average Poisson  activity:  l _(av) =  2.6 x 10^-5 s^-1  and the length, resonance variations described above imply a twisted cavity (dual) resonator over the region defined by (l1 + ℓ1_^ +  ℓ2_^   +  x_i ).  (See e.g. my post of June 22nd: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/quantifying-solar-loop-oscillations.html

Where:   0 <   x_i  <  1.1 x 10⁶ m

The basic geometry is shown in Fig. 1 (top) in the region of the apex, and primary coronal cavity. It is assumed that with compressional Alfven waves the loop aperture can vary, from a1 to the outer radius taken as r1. This variation could well account for the uncertainty in source-kernel dimensions:

The electric field E(z) shown in Fig. 1 is described according to:

E(z)  =   E_o cos w(t – z/ v_p)

Where E_o  denotes the uniform (non-varying field magnitude) and  v_p =  c sin(J)

is the phase velocity with J the pitch angle of the twist component for relative helicity (H(R) [T]).

The model works via the basic loop changing its effective resonator length (for which there is an associated resonator angular frequency w_o) and twist (F(r)).  Radial surfaces (r_s < r)  form in the loop apex (small resonant cavity) for E-field resonating corrections modeled after the J _o (ar)   Bessel function.  The J _o (ar)   induced field in turn generates azimuthal corrections in the axial B-field that alters the twist of the gross loop.

Thus, the twist dependence is (see also http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/04/looking-at-bessel-functions-applications.html):

F(r) =   L J₁(ar)/ r J _o (ar)   =    L B _j (r) / r B_z (r)     = L E _z (r)  /  r E _j (r)

Such that: E _z (r)  ® B _j (r) ® E1 _z (r) ®   B1 _j (r) ® E2 _z (r) ®   B2 _j (r)

E _j (r) ® B _z (r) ®  E1 _j (r) ® B1 _z (r) ®  E2 _j (r) ® B2 _z (r) . . . . E_{n j} (r) ® B_{n z} (r)

From the secondary, tertiary etc. fields inner nested radii a_ij are generated which conform to ratios related to the Bessel functions. The key point of the mutually generated fields is that they operate according to a positive feedback which ultimately incepts a resonance condition and explosive release of energy. The radii in turn can be used to obtain wave modes associated with a given oscillation period for the resonator. The relative E-field strengths successively generated for the ideal cavity coronal resonator are defined by the Bessel series:

J_m (x) = (1/ 2^m m!) x^m [1 -  x ²/ 2² 1! (m + 1)  +  x⁴/ 2⁴2! (m + 1) (m + 2) -  ….

.(-1)^j x^2j / 2 ^2j j! (m + 1) (m + 2)……(m + j) +  …]

Which may be simplified for the m = 0 case  to:

J₀ (x) = 1 -  (x/2)² + 1/(2!)² (x/4)⁴ – 1/ (3!)² (x/2)⁶ +  .

Where x for the E-field is defined x =  Ö m_o Öℰ_o w r  =   2.405

For which a key cut-off radius is defined at the surface r_s  = r .  Other surfaces  (s_i) may be defined for zeros of J₀ (x).  Meanwhile, coronal loop oscillation periods and emergence have been well explicated by a number of authors (e.g. Edwin and Roberts, 1983, op. cit., Andries et al, 2005[5])

(More to come)

---

[1] E.N. Fedorov, V.A. Pilipenko, M.J. Engebretson, and T. J. Rosenber: 2004, ‘Alfven Wave Modulation of the Auroral Acceleration Region’, in Earth Planets Space, 56, p. 649.

[2] E. Schatzman: 1956, Ann. Astrophysics, 19, 45.

[3] Joseph V. Hollweg, Solar Phys., 91, 269, 1984

[4] C. Collado, J. Pozo, J. Mateu and J.M. O’Callaghan: 2007, European Microwave Week.

[5] J. Andries, M. Goosens, J.V. Hollweg, I. Arregui and T. Van Doorselaere,: 2005,  Astronomy & Astrophysics,  430, 1109.

Hypocritical Supremes: 'Do As We Say, Not As We DO!'

Following close on the heels of a rational Supreme Court decision, in disallowing the ability of cops to search cell phones without warrants, we now have another decision (9-0, incredibly)  that's a head scratcher. In fact, it's a lollapalooza, bunghole decision redolent with hypocrisy that screams: "Forget the First Amendment when the security of the elites is at risk, it only applies to the hoi polloi....the little people!"

Thus, the court ruled unanimously (in McCullen vs. Coakley)  that a Massachusetts law providing for measly 35' "buffer zones" around abortion clinics was an affront to the First Amendment and hence "illegal".  What are these nine morons drinking? Have they no conception of how violence has swirled around those MA clinics and intimidated women simply attempting to get health care? Oh no! According to this enclave of selective free speech nuts, there are "other laws" to deal with those violent situations and all we are saying is the women need to submit to "counseling" as they try to approach clinic,  and it is the "counselors" 1st amendment right to do so.

The exact wording was:

"The buffer zones burden substantially more speech than necessary to achieve the Commonwealth's asserted interests"

Excuse me?   How do they square this with the fact that the Supreme Court itself is on public property but it does in fact have a huge buffer zone?   Indeed, one can examine the graphic shown at the top to see what a mockery and double standard we have here: since  the Supreme Court's own buffer zone encompasses the ENTIRE plaza in from of the Supreme Court Building! (Meanwhile, the tiny red line underneath shows the MA abortion clinic buffer zone)

As Chris Hayes pointed out in his segment on this judicial perfidy last night:

"I mean you can't even go up the Supreme Court's door step, not even for so-called quiet persuasion or counseling. You can't tap, tap, tap on the Justices' car door windows like protestors do to women trying to access health clinics. You can't go up to a Justice on his or her way to the office and say something like 'May I have a moment to talk to you about your majority opinion in Citizens United?'

Hayes referenced that the Supremes' rebuttal was that the women going into abortion clinics were "protected by other laws" but added that last year alone:

- Nearly 90 percent of abortion providers had patients expressing concern for their safety

- More than 80 percent of abortion providers had to call law enforcement because of safety, access or criminal activity concerns

Hayes went on to point out that in the last three decades, abortion providers have seen 8 murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 181 cases of arson and 399 invasions, 1495 acts of vandalism, 2482 instances of trespassing, 4 kidnappings, and 550 instances of stalking.  He went on to say:

"Imagine how big the Supreme Court's buffer zone would be if eight federal judges were murdered in the past forty years by anti-court terrorists. If federal court buildings had been bombed forty two times, set on fire 181 times. What kind of buffer zone would those nine justices want for themselves?"


Well, it's clear it would be at least a half mile around - even affecting D.C. traffic. Or at least the size of the egregious "first amendment zones" the Bushies erected during his reign so he didn't have to hear the thunderous roar of protestors! (Why was that little bastard immune from the free speech rights of citizens?)

The abortion clinic buffer zone ruling, in other words, makes clear there' s one rule for the elites (whose precious hides must be protected at all costs - even dissing free speech of citizens) and another for the common folk - who just have to take their chances with the  nutsos and fruitcakes.

Speaking of which, who is this "McCullen" anyway who pursued this case to the SC (With the assistance of the 'Alliance Defending Freedom' rabble rousers)?  She's a  77 year old Massachusetts harpy and religious obsessive who demands that she be permitted to "quietly engage women going for abortions, to talk them out of it". Make no mistake that what she's advocating is not "quietly talking" it is forcefully pushing a religious view on vulnerable women already in a psychologically  fragile state. In this sense, it is akin to psychological torture and molestation that the CIA would use in their "renditions". Indeed, in many cases, women attempting to enter clinics are yelled at with shouts of "Don't kill that baby!" with the idiots not even aware that a fetus isn't a baby, or even a person.

Let's make clear that the nine Supremes are also hoist on their own first amendment petard. For if they will not allow "quiet counseling" directed by citizens to themselves, why have they enabled it to be pushed on vulnerable women by insane nuts? It makes a mockery of their entire argument! (Of course, some will argue that the Supremes are "special" because in the legal venue one must take care to avoid all untoward "influence". Which is total bollocks since it reduces the Court to the state of pathetic programmable robots as opposed to independent, authentic thinkers. Besides which, we note many of the Supremes, e.g. Scalia, often barge into the public domain to attempt to influence thinking of citizens. What's good for the goose ought to good for the gander!)

The bottom line is we see again there is one set of Constitutional standards that applies to the political elites and another for ordinary citizens.

The problem with double standards is that they undermine the entire Constitutional edifice and the rule of law. Make no mistake that critically thinking citizens notice these inconsistencies, or as MA attorney general Martha Coakley put it: "The donning of a black robe allows them to say do what we say and not what we do."

Ms. Coakley, to her credit, emphasized to Chris Hayes that the state has the right first and foremost to protect public safety and also the women have the right to access health care- and that the existing 35' buffer struck a good balance between speech and safety. To see it now rejected is "disheartening" given how MA women will now be subjected to screeching zombies waving placards with aborted fetuses.  Coakley will also be monitoring the situation in the wake of the law and make any changes deemed necessary - especially if one or more women are injured or worse, because a "free speechifier" gets over zealous. As she put it:

"We will do that! We are prepared to go back to the legislature. We are prepared to do whatever we need to do to make sure that women in Massachusetts have access to care.."

Good for you! Let's not allow the hypocritical Court to have the last word when they don't follow their own "free speech" edicts!

See also:
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/26/do_what_we_tell_you_to_do_or_we_will_kill_you/

Conservatives Are Totally Detached From Economic and Social Reality

The Pew Research Center is out with part two of its huge survey of American politics and it appears the American Right is even more whacked out of its collective head than we thought. Recall the first part, released a couple weeks ago, focused on political polarization see e.g.

 http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/ideological-polarization-why-its.html

For this round, Pew's researchers have created a political typology which "sorts voters into cohesive groups based on their attitudes and values." There's bound to be much interest on this and you can see where you fall in Pew's typology quiz here - but for now let's focus on the chart above, particularly the left half.

 

We find more than three quarters of conservative Americans - those in the steadfast conservative, business conservative, and young outsider typology groups - agree that "poor people have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything." Only seven percent of steadfast conservatives say that the poor "have hard lives."  Now, which group do you think is detached from reality? (And displays beliefs at least as egregious as saying climate change isn’t human engendered)

 Incredibly, and to show the extent Neoliberals and their media have mind-fucked everyone, even a not-insignificant share of left-leaning groups say that the poor have it easy.  In my book these folks aren’t truly left at all, but wine and brie chasing Neolib dilettantes most likely in the employ of Wall Street or a media company… or perhaps the beneficiaries of an inheritance so they don’t have to get off their keysters and work. But lucky for them, they aren't my targets in this post.

 

Overall, it is the widespread agreement among conservatives on this point of grabbing benefits without doing anything that's really striking. There are reasonable, well-intentioned arguments on either side of many poverty-related issues - about the causes of poverty (see the right half of the chart), or whether government benefits provide a leg up or simply perpetuate poverty, for instance. But at root the conservative beliefs about what agents perpetuate poverty are totally out of whack with the actual data - which I will get to.

As an educated liberal (some might call me - and have- "over-educated") I  have a hard time understanding how any semi-literate American could read about the experience of families relying on food stamps to eat, or those trying to manage chronic conditions with Medicaid, and conclude that these people “have it easy”. Do these morons even understand how tough – as well as humiliating – it is to even get enrolled in the respective benefit programs? Do they remotely grasp or have they a clue that in many states – since Clinton’s 1996 ‘welfare to work’ law passed- many are forced to work at menial jobs for below minimum wage pay to garner benefits?  Do these turkeys understand how the SNAP program was actually cut back in December and that the bulk of those affected are KIDS under age 18? (15.7 million in all).

It makes a citizen ashamed to call himself an “American” when so many of one’s countrymen can be so fucking ignorant, or stupid. But hell, for conservatives it’s not a handicap but a pastime – they embrace being fucking stupid and ignorant. It’s in their blood! Other salient facts and data points they might wish to process:

1) Compared to middle and upper-income Americans, the poor are three times less likely to have health insurance coverage, and more likely to put off or skip necessary medical treatment as a result;

 

2) The poor are three times more likely to be victimized by crime;

 

3) The daily stresses of living under poverty impose a cognitive burden equivalent to losing 13 IQ points;

 

4) Poor children are three times more likely to be affected by food scarcity and obesity;

 

5) Poor children receive a lower quality education in public school, and the ones who make it to college are more likely to drop out;

 

6) Poorer Americans breathe dirtier air, they sleep less, and they  even have less sex;

 

7) In the end all this "easy living" literally shaves decades off their lives.  

 The aggregate data above shows the beliefs of the conservatives are as baseless as their beliefs about climate change (i.e. not being human-caused)  We might have pity on these jokers, but their arrogance prevents it.  What I’d really  like to see is all the fat and content rich or merely comfortable conservatives try to live the lives the poor have had to- then come back and tell me how “easy’ they have it!

Here’s the harshest truth for our clueless conservative brethren: the poor exist today because a large swatch of the American work force is regarded as “disposable” by the Neoliberal political elites. In most cases, this vast enclave of perhaps 47 million is the victim of simple population increase (including via illegal immigration) which has created a large surplus labor force. Because the size of the labor force is too much by nearly 40 million, not all citizens can be fully employed. There simply aren’t enough jobs nor will there ever be (As it is,  the jobs currently  created per month barely keep up with population replacement levels. Before about 4 years ago, the jobs numbers had fallen far behind population replacement levels.)

 The other harsh fact is that Neoliberalism's market imperative rejects work benefits and hence is driven to pare labor to the bone in favor of capital. This favors companies that are “lean and mean” rather than employee friendly and also mass-hiring. What divisions aren’t profitable are outsourced overseas. The Neoliberal isn’t even content with gov’t jobs and wants to outsource all those to private “lean and mean” concerns. See :
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/richard-eskow/56585/a-secret-plan-to-close-social-securitys-offices-and-outsource-its-work

 

The other jobs in the Neoliberal sphere that pay anything are generally reserved for the embedded Wall Street and financial enclaves (including the debt promoters and holders) and a relatively few “techies” and military hardware (e.g. drone, F35) engineers. Most others  not outsourced have been automated, to relieve the corporations of having to hire flesh and blood humans and pay them - including health benefits.  Hence, the 23 odd million citizens under-employed and another 15 million who remain chronically unemployed - at least until they can try to collect Social Security (which is also causing enormous pressure on the system)

 As for  the much maligned “welfare”,  author Charles Reich has this to say about it (Opposing the System’, Crown Books, pp. 125-126:

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

 

Clearly, a humane welfare model then must be based on the premise that welfare is an obligation from society and not a ‘gift’ or reluctant transfer from the working to the non-working. If an alleged model is assembled without this premise, then it is anything but a genuine welfare model, never mind the language.  In fact, it is more a Neoliberal indentured servitude model, a la "welfare to work" advocated and passed by Clinton.

 Apart from welfare, the only vehicle of possible escape from poverty is the military. But since the Neoliberals and conservatives don’t even wish to fund the VA properly, we’ve seen how that’s turned out. That pair of political degenerate factions loves to start wars and maintain 4,400 bases around the world, but they hate to pay the costs. The end result? Those who seek to escape poverty are often cast further into it since when they leave the military they find they have to deal with PTSD and other disorders, not to mention injuries, and can’t find jobs to use whatever talents they might have.

 As for food stamps, those are hardly “hand outs”. I consider them instead to be the balance of what poorly paid workers  are owed (most SNAP families have at least one primary worker) but which the cheapskate political system refuses to pay them in formal hourly wages.  This system would rather piss away trillions on unprovoked “wars” or massive tax cuts for the rich, than feed 15.7 million kids who have no control over their own fates. Here is how the system perceives all those kids:

 

The evident dynamic:  coupling  mammoth increases in military-defense spending with enormous tax cuts for the wealthiest – is to ensure the majority of the population is unable to obtain adequate remuneration from paid work, and hence become more impoverished over time. As they do, they lose control of their lives, fall into debt bondage and either die or have to work (in lowest level or paid jobs) around the clock just to survive.

 

 

Meanwhile, young people eventually will have to cease going to college and amassing debts equal to a mortgage and join the volunteer military instead - paving the way for the need to incite more conflicts. It’s a never ending cycle of  economic and social insanity.

In effect, the globalization of U.S. production, jobs and mobile capital has laid the seeds for the acceleration of the rate of exploitation ( S/V) ..see, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/12/theory-of-political-elite-1.html

The Political Elite thereby have engineered a built-in mechanism to spawn entrenched destitution among the nation’s  middle and working class populations over time, especially as the population continued to increase in Malthusian proportions

 The issue is simple here: if the political system refuses to approve a living wage – and forces families to live on $9.50 an hour or less, then it can’t be surprised such families need food stamps!  Only a congenital idiot would believe otherwise, which evidently most of these conservatives are if they believe food stamps are “handouts”.

 Sadly, the latest PEW results simply show how further corrupted the political system has become as well as too many of those within it. If these comfortable others – mainly conservatives- can’t seem to believe that they also may one day be poor – if the hammer of fate or Neoliberal ‘craps’ falls on them, then they really have no business sucking up air or space on this planet.  They are a liability and a continuing detriment to us all. They are part of the problem instead of the solution. What we need more than anything else is a powerful revival of the REAL Left, to counterbalance this regression to the lowest common denominator. I will deal with that issue in future blog posts.