Obama Dresses US as Banana Republic

"After the cult of personality," the Colombian explained, "what comes next is nationalization." Fidel had nationalized the Cuban sugar mills, Chavez the Banco de Venezuela, Morales the Bolivian oil and gas industries.

..."The last step?" asked the Cuban. "Censorship. It won't be obvious at first--they're always too smart for that. But it will come."

"Never," replied the American. "We have the First Amendment."

"And soon enough," the Cuban said, smiling sadly, "you will also have the Fairness Doctrine." _Forbes

Latin Americans have seen the phenomenon occur time after time. They are repeat suckers for the big talking populist. But fter 8 years of GW Bush, 8 years of Clinton's finger, and 4 years of GHW Bush, the US was completely unprepared for a catastrophic populist socialism oozing from a reassuringly soft baritone that could lip-synch to a telprompter.

America is being put to the test. Can it wake up in time to stop the slow-motion cataclysm, or will it play dead to the dictator, as Latin America has done so well so many times? Because the real world of economics will not be charmed by a soothing telepromptered voice. The real world of economics will make people bleed and die if its rules are not properly followed -- despite the consensus of rich socialites, celebrities, media culture, and left-wing politicos.

The source of skepticism for many Americans is not the prospect of government waste but Obama's theory of job creation......most jobs are created by private capital in the private sector, often by small businesses. And small businesses got little policy attention in Obama's speech. An example Obama used -- retaining police officers -- is a worthy cause, but hardly typical of American job creation. A small-business owner heard nothing about his daily struggles with litigation or regulation.

There is an element of psychology -- of confidence -- in taking the risks of entrepreneurship and small-business expansion. It is difficult to imagine how that confidence is built by being ignored.

Obama was even less credible on the issue of debt. Most Americans seem to accept the need for the temporary deficit spike to provide a jolt to the economy. But Obama's pledges to go "line by line through the federal budget" and to remove "waste, fraud and abuse" were the most tired portions of his energetic speech -- and simply were not credible with Speaker Nancy Pelosi in vivid green over his left shoulder. _WaPo

Ever since mid September, 2008, when Obama became a heavy favourite to win the US Presidency, the markets of the US and the world have been dropping. Obama should have seen the panic of the markets, and reacted as any sane leader would have done. Instead, he has moved even more wildly in the opposite direction, proving to the markets that their panic was reasonable all along.

....economic activity adheres to some predictable truths. If you tax businesses and investors more, they’ll have less money to devote to wealth creation and hiring. If you bail out firms that should be put through bankruptcy, you’ll perpetuate ineptitude in management and misallocation of resources. If you keep credit-unworthy people in homes, they’ll eventually default and further weaken financial institutions.

Some things can’t be disguised by stagecraft or media cheerleading. In the end, it matters what you do, not how you describe your plans. _Commentary

The US becomes another third world nation, if it continues along the Obama / Pelosi road.

California Accounts for 2/3 of US Housing Losses

"66 percent of potential housing value losses in 2008 and subsequent years may be in California, with another 21 percent in Florida, Nevada and Arizona, for a total of 87 percent of national declines."

"California had only 10 percent of the nation's housing units, but it had 34 percent of foreclosures in 2008," Lucy and Herlitz reported. _Reason

California is the great basket case of the US. And it is a preview of coming economic attractions for the rest of the US under Obama. Obama is not cleaning up the economic mess. He is inflating it -- growing it incalculably larger. There is nothing so bad that foolish men (and women) cannot make it far worse.

For more on how the "sand states" of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida took housing value down to the cellar, check out Steve Sailer's blog.

Special Bonus: How the 2008 surge in oil prices helped take the wind out of the sails of the world economy.

How congress influenced credit rating agencies.

This is not a thinking person's congress, and Obama is not a thinking person's president. Whatever voters thought they would get by voting for Obama, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. At this point, anyone who voted for Obama and continues to support his policies has earned the label "Obama zombie." Just as in most third world countries, the US is dividing between the politically connected (and favoured) and all the rest.

Final Bonus -- Jim Rogers rains on the parade of any economic optimists out there:

What Are Best Jobs In An Obama Depression?

Survival Blog has been looking at how to survive an Obama depression. They begin by looking at safe businesses during the 1930s depression.

According to statistics published some 20 years ago by Dr.Ravi Batra, the safest businesses and industries during the worst years of the Great Depression (1929-1933) were:

Repair shops
Educational services (A lot of young men that couldn't find work borrowed money to go to trade schools and college.)
Healthcare services
Bicycle shops
Bus transportation
Gasoline service stations
Second hand stores
Legal services
Drug or proprietary stores

To bring Batra's list up to date, I would speculatively add a few more sectors and business that are likely to do well in the next depression:

Home security and locksmithing (since a higher crime rate is inevitable in bad economic times.)
Entertainment and diversions, such as DVD sales and rentals. People will undoubtedly want to escape their troubles!
Truck farming and large scale vegetable gardening (since just 2% of the population now feeds the other 98%--whereas back in the 1930s the US was still a predominantly agrarian society)
Export consumer goods. (Starting in late 2009 or early 2010, the US Dollar is likely to resume its slide versus most other currencies)
_SurvivalBlog

Pawn shops and gun / ammo shops should do well. Liquor, beer, wine, and other mind altering substances will no doubt be in demand. Loan sharks should do a good business, as should various small scale local gambling facilities and services. Prostitution and related services should also do very well.

Persons who specialise in construction of fortified reserves and sanctuaries may see an uptick in business, as US citizens more fully comprehend the magnitude of the D'oh-bama "reforms." Off-grid power supplies and alternative communications systems will likewise probably grow in popularity.

Some US cities should be seen as "unsustainable" due to reasons of poor government, uneducated and / or untrainable population, high crime, crumbling infrastructure and tax base, etc., and should probably be evacuated by persons who have families and small children. Large cities in general -- particularly those with high levels of crime and corruption -- should be abandoned as soon as economically possible.

Unionised government workers are currently sitting very pretty, at least until their underfunded pensions start unraveling. Tenured professors no doubt feel quite secure at this time, whether or not they should. Persons collecting government disbursements are the fastest growing population in the US. As the dollar loses value, their income (in real terms) will shrink rapidly.

The best chances for long term survival and prosperity rest in sustainable communities of persons who are highly skilled, competent, and willing to do what has to be done. Very few D'oh-bama voters fall into those categories, so a prudent person will want to choose his residence carefully, with that in mind.

More on the selection of a community likely to prosper through hard economic times, coming soon.

Norwegian Women are Just Asking For It!

At least ten women were attacked and molested by a gang of Somali men at Sofienberg park in Oslo on Saturday evening.

Last year a record-high 161 rapes and 35 rape attempts were reported in Oslo. Over 70% of the rapists were non-Norwegian [ed. ethnically, a majority had Norwegian citizenship].

[Somali man in Norwegian cafe]: ...when then go out almost completely naked and get completelydrunk in Frogner park or go to a party together with some friend, and then they complain about being raped? It’s their fault, says the 26 year old from Somalia. _Source

We hear the same story from Muslim men now living in Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, Melbourne, Hamburg, London . . . wherever Muslim men have immigrated into the western world. "Western women are simply asking to be raped, it is their own fault . . . ." And so gangs of Muslims rove the streets of western Europe, Australia, and wherever else the women are begging to be raped, in order to answer their desires. Or so they say.

European cities are growing increasingly Muslim through immigration and high Muslim birth rates. All it takes is 10%, or so, hostile newcomers to completely alter the political dynamics of a community. Hitler certainly started out with much less and made great strides in his political career.

Muslim population in European cities

eumap.org background research reports on Muslims in European cities

Some European cities are approaching 25% or more Muslim population, well over the threshold of radical change. Since cities are the heart of a country, the entire country's politics can take a radical turn due to the Muslim influx and rapid reproduction inside its cities. The entire of western Europe may be over 25% Muslim within little more than another decade, according to a UCSD professor. (see label "european decline" below)

It's certainly a good thing that the women of Europe have the feminists of the western world looking out for them. The same goes for the gays and lesbians of Europe, who often suffer from Muslim violence.

Free Speech in Europe? Fuggedaboudet!

Netherlands legislator Geert Wilders was recently deported from the UK without being allowed to give his scheduled presentation at the House of Lords. Unlike the UK, the US allowed Wilders free access to the country. The following is excerpted from his 23 Feb 2009 speech in NYC.

Thank you very much for inviting me. And – to the immigration authorities – thank you for letting me into this country. It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.

Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for.

As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.

...Today, I come before you to warn of a great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, slavery of women, the end of democracy. It is NOT a religion, it is an political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter.

...Their disdain of the West is so much greater than the appreciation of our many liberties. And therefore, they are willing to sacrifice everything. The left once stood for women rights, gay rights, equality, democracy. Now, they favour immigration policies that will end all this. Many even lost their decency. Elite politicians have no problem to participate in or finance demonstrations where settlers shout “Death to the Jews”. Seventy years after Auschwitz they know of no shame.

Two weeks ago, I tried to get into Britain, a fellow EU country. I was invited to give a speech in Parliament. However, upon arrival at London airport, I was refused entry into the UK, and sent back on the first plane to Holland. I would have loved to have reminded the audience of a great man who once spoke in the House of Commons. In 1982 President Reagan gave a speech there very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom.

...Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man. _AtlasShrugs

Wilders is under 24 hour a day armed guard, particularly when in his home country, The Netherlands. That is the price of free speech for one who wishes to stay alive in Europe today. Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh paid the price for their free speech in Europe. Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are living under constant threat of Islamic violence, as is the entire continent of Europe.

Update: Wilders in NYC at a small gathering with extended discussion.


From a post at Abu Al-Fin

Are You One of the Atholes Offended by a Cartoon? Then What Are You Doing Here?

There are plenty of left wing and Muslim insane asylums where such perpetually offended atholes would feel more at home than at this blog. Cartoon riots are common in the Muslim world, and now under Barak D'oh-bama we are seeing cartoon riots in the US. Do these morons actually believe that they have the right not to be offended?

In protests this week, students at a New York college urged boycotts, began burning newspapers (a hop, skip and jump away from burning books) and demanding that anyone involved with the cartoon be fired. Fair enough.

But now the Reverend Al has ordered a meeting with the Federal Communications Commission so he — a man who has set off more chaos, loathing and racism in New York than any cartoonist — can discuss the ownership of The New York Post. The FCC, according to Sharpton, has acquiesced to meet in Washington.

As an antiquated government entity, the FCC controls the public airwaves and ownership of media companies. What if it meets with Sharpton and then moves against the New York Post's owner?

We've largely avoided the corrosive trend of chilling free speech — though discussions about the "Fairness Doctrine" (and its derivatives), which allows government to dictate what opinions Americans should hear on the public airwaves, remains a hobbyhorse for some lefties.

...Recently, Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who produced the film "Fitna" — which asserts that Islam is a threat to enlightened Western values — was refused entry into England because of that nation's policy to "stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages."

The Brits proved Wilders' point about Islam's influence by suppressing his right to free expression. Wilders, who is in the U.S. right now, offers a cautionary lesson: Feel free to be indignant and hurt. Feel free to boycott and to cast nasty aspersions on the decency of those who offend you. But let's keep government out of it.

The war against offensive speech can, if we're not careful, morph into a war against free speech. _DenverPost_via_Instapundit

The war against free speech has been on ever since the leftists took over the university. Leftist faculty and staff prevent non-leftists from speaking on campus. Leftist professors prevent non-leftist academics from obtaining tenure, and give non-leftist students poor grades if they dare to contradict the professor's viewpoint. These academic indoctrination camps have been going full steam for decades now.

Under D'oh-bama is it so surprising that the war against free speech would escalate to take in the entire news and entertainment media, all of popular culture, and every aspect of public (and soon private) life in America?

So if you are offended by a cartoon that makes fun of Nancy Pelosi, and takes crude advantage of a real life "chimp gone mad" that had to be put down, then go ahead and be offended, athole. But do it somewhere else.

The Next Economy & Sharpening the old Noggin

Innovation Economics Next

View more presentations from ingenesist. (tags: innovation economics)

In order to comprehend and take part in the next economy, most of us will need to take active steps to sharpen and/or preserve our mental acumen. Here is a list of 6 ways from SciAm:

METHOD 1: EXERCISE
Mice that run on wheels increase the number of neurons in their hippocampus and perform better on tests of learning and memory. Studies of humans have revealed that exercise can improve the brain’s executive functions (planning, organizing, multitasking, and more). Exercise is also well known for its mood-boosting effects, and people who exercise are less likely to get dementia as they age....

A variety of mechanisms might be responsible for this brain boost. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which also increases the delivery of oxygen, fuel and nutrients to those hard-working neurons. Research has shown that exercise can increase levels of a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which encourages growth, communication and survival of neurons....

METHOD 2: DIET
The brain needs fuel just as the body does. So what will really boost your brainpower, and what will make you lose your mind?...The brain is mostly fat—all those cell membranes and myelin coverings require fatty acids—so it is important to eat certain fats, particularly omega-3 fats, which are found in fish, nuts and seeds. Alzheimer’s disease, depression, schizophrenia and other disorders may be associated with low levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

Fruits and vegetables also appear to be brain superfoods. Produce is high in substances called antioxidants, which counteract atoms that can damage brain cells. Researchers have found that high-antioxidant diets keep learning and memory sharp in aging rats and even reduce the brain damage caused by strokes. That’s food for thought....

METHOD 3: STIMULANTS
Stimulants are substances that rev up the nervous system, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, energy, breathing and more. Caffeine is probably the most famous of the group. (It is actually the most widely used “drug” in the world.) By activating the central nervous system, caffeine boosts arousal and alertness.....One study showed that the equivalent of two cups of coffee can boost short-term memory and reaction time. Functional MRI scans taken during the study also revealed that volunteers who had been given caffeine had increased activity in the brain regions involving attention. In addition, research suggests caffeine can protect against age-related memory decline in older women.

METHOD 4: VIDEO GAMES
.....Surgeons who spend at least a few hours a week playing video games make one-third fewer errors in the operating room than nongaming doctors do. Indeed, research has shown that video games can improve mental dexterity, while boosting hand-eye coordination, depth perception and pattern recognition. Gamers also have better attention spans and information-processing skills than the average Joe has. When nongamers agree to spend a week playing video games (in the name of science, of course), their ­visual-perception skills improve.....

Video games activate the brain’s reward circuits but do so much more in men than in women, according to a new study. Researchers hooked men and women up to functional MRI machines while the participants played a video game designed for the study. Both groups performed well, but the men showed more activity in the limbic system, which is associated with reward processing. What is more, the men showed greater connectivity between the structures that make up the reward circuit, and the better this connection was in a particular player, the better he performed. There was no such correlation in women. Men are more than twice as likely as women are to say they feel addicted to video games.

METHOD 5: MUSIC
Music can...activate your brain’s reward centers and depress activity in the amygdala, reducing fear and other negative emotions.

....music does seem to possess some good vibrations. It can treat anxiety and insomnia, lower blood pressure, soothe patients with dementia, and help premature babies to gain weight and leave the hospital sooner.

Music training can bolster the brain. The motor cortex, cerebellum and corpus callosum (which connects the brain’s two sides) are all bigger in musicians than in nonmusicians. And string players have more of their sensory cortices devoted to their fingers than do those who don’t play the instruments..... some studies have indeed shown that music lessons can improve the spatial abilities of young kids.

METHOD 6: MEDITATION
Meditation, or the turning of the mind inward for contemplation and relaxation, seems to help all types of conditions—anxiety disorders, sure, but it can also reduce pain and treat high blood pressure, asthma, insomnia, diabetes, depression and even skin conditions.

...Researchers are now illuminating the actual brain changes caused by meditation by sticking meditators into brain-imaging machines. For one, although the brain’s cells typically fire at all different times, during meditation they fire in synchrony. Expert meditators also show spikes of brain activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that has generally been associated with positive emotions. And those who had the most activity in this area during meditation also had big boosts in immune system functioning.

Meditation can increase the thickness of the cerebral cortex, particularly in regions associated with attention and sensation. (The growth does not seem to result from the cortex growing new neurons, though—it appears that the neurons already there make more connections, the number of support cells increases, and blood vessels in that area get bigger.) _Sciam

There you have it. A glimpse into the future, and a few of the things you will need to do to be able to take advantage of it.

H/T Zenpundit

Who Is Killing Iran? Demographic Collapse

Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy. _Spengler

We remember that the mad mullahs took over Iran back in 1979, with the blessing of US President Carter. Since that time Iran has been involved in revolutions, wars, and proxy wars across the middle east. Iran lost millions of its very young in the 1980s war against Saddam's Iraq, when the mad mullahs used millions of Iran's helpless youth as cannon fodder against Saddam's more seasoned troops. What karmic shadow did that huge loss throw over the future of the fanatical theocracy?

Iran is currently involved in arming and financing ethnic/sectarian killings in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq, and in building the foundations of Shia rebellion inside Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations. All this emphasis on killing, religious fanaticism and oppression, and -- the apocalyptic visions of the coming of the twelfth imam -- cannot help but warp a small nation already ripped by ethnic tensions between Persians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Azaris, Armenians, Assyrians, Georgians, and others. But, as Spengler says, a nation is never truly beaten until it begins selling its women.

...prostitution has become a career of choice among educated Iranian women. On February 3, the Austrian daily Der Standard published the results of two investigations conducted by the Tehran police, suppressed by the Iranian media. [1]

"More than 90% of Tehran's prostitutes have passed the university entrance exam, according to the results of one study, and more than 30% of them are registered at a university or studying," reports Der Standard. "The study was assigned to the Tehran Police Department and the Ministry of Health, and when the results were tabulated in early January no local newspaper dared to so much as mention them."

The Austrian newspaper added, "Eighty percent of the Tehran sex workers maintained that they pursue this career voluntarily and temporarily. The educated ones are waiting for better jobs. Those with university qualifications intend to study later, and the ones who already are registered at university mention the high tuition [fees] as their motive for prostitution ... they are content with their occupation and do not consider it a sin according to Islamic law."

There is an extensive trade in poor Iranian women who are trafficked to the Gulf states in huge numbers, as well as to Europe and Japan. _Spengler

Iranians can watch the world on satellite television. They understand that life under the mullahs is not the best life available on Earth. Many of them want something better.

For the majority of young Iranians, there is no way up, only a way out; 36% of Iran's youth aged 15 to 29 years want to emigrate, according to yet another unpublicized Iranian study, this time by the country's Education Ministry, Der Standard adds. Only 32% find the existing social norms acceptable, while 63% complain about unemployment, the social order or lack of money.

...The declining morale of the Iranian population helps make sense of its galloping demographic decline. Academic demographers have tried to explain collapsing fertility as a function of rising female literacy. The problem is that the Iranian regime lies about literacy data, and has admitted as much recently.

...The cause of Iran's collapsing fertility is not literacy as such, but extreme pessimism about the future and an endemic materialism that leads educated Iranian women to turn their own sexuality into a salable commodity. _Spengler

In Iran, they still stone women for adultery, and execute homosexuals for homosexuality. In a land of fossil fuels, people freeze in their apartments for lack of natural gas. Political connections are everything, and the politically connected can literally get away with murder, as in most oppressive authoritarian states.

Expect low energy prices to put enormous pressure on the current regime. Iran is a dead-end state, and it is becoming more difficult to conceal this fact from its citizens. Historically, such states tend to involve themselves in wars as a last ditch attempt at self preservation. Given recent revelations concerning Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons, such a war might go nuclear, and involve as much as half the world.

Big Oil Invests In Biofuels: The Bio Future is Near

Most biofuels naysayers haven't taken the trouble to look at all the different ways that biological organisms can create energy and energy feedstocks. Brian Wang recently discussed Sandia National Lab's recent study predicting the production of 90 billion gallons a year of biofuels in the not-so-distant-future. And now, Brian Westenhaus takes a good look at the growing involvement of big petroleum in the research and development of biofuels.

Big Oil is helping the biofuel industry move past the persistent perception that cellulosic-based fuel is five years from reality. “That would have been accurate five years ago,” Riva said. “It’s not accurate today.”

Meanwhile Exxon Mobil is in the media openly talking about its interest in biofuels. With an industry reputation of strong research and high powered engineering skills, Exxon Mobil getting into the business would mark a turning point for biofuels and for the long term viability of oil being an economy dominating club for the market manipulators.

...the news is that BP is in the biofuels business. Big Oil, with all the baggage the industry has to cope with in people’s perceptions has more incentive, capital, skill and management than any other segment of the economy. What the press and media overlook is that for over one hundred years the oil industry drove to lower fuel prices, expanded markets and a higher standard of living. Check your history till 1972 when the first embargo from OPEC began the market distortions. The oil industry had been a boom and bust business before OPEC, even more so since. No one craves a low priced, high volume, steadily profitable business more than Big Oil. Nearly two generations of oil industry people have endured a torrent of troubles. _NewEnergyandFuel

British Petroleum, Shell, Exxon, Valero, Chevron, and other big oil companies are researching, developing, and / or investing in production and refining of biofuels. All of this at a time when oil prices are stuck in the doldrums. This tells you that at least most of these companies can see a time when producing biofuels will be competitive with producing petro-fuels. Sometime very soon, perhaps.

Most analysts expect oil prices to rise sharply as soon as the global economic situation begins to revive. But as biofuels production becomes more economical, and scales upward in volume, petro-fuels will have a strong competitor. And competition generally helps constrain prices. I supppose the oil companies wanted to get in on the ground floor.

Taken from a post at Al Fin Energy

We Are All Cyborgs Now: Photoelectrode Control

A fascinating new type of brain stimulating electrode is being developed at Case Western Reserve University. This new electrode can be triggered by light, yet it triggers a nerve action potential at the brain implantation site.

The team led by Ben W. Strowbridge and Clemens Burda coated the interiors of extremely finely drawn-out glass micropipettes with lead selenide nanoparticles. Lead selenide is a semiconductor that is activated by IR light. As in solar cells, irradiation “catapults” firmly bound electrons out of the valence band and into the conduction band of the semiconductor, where they can move freely. This leads to charge separation and thus to an electrical potential. With a suitable laser, defined processes elicited by short light pulses set off corresponding electrical pulses in the micropipette. An electrical field is thus formed around the pipette, which can then be used by the researchers to stimulate neurons in rat brain samples with a high degree of time-resolution.

...By using these new photoelectrodes, the cooperation of nerve cells can be studied. However, therapeutic applications are also possible: the probes could be used to activate individual regions of the brain or damaged or cut nerves to restore function - without the need for disturbing wires. _Physorg

Fascinating! The laser pulses are transmitted down the glass electrode to the special implanted semiconductor material, where it is transduced to an electrical potential. This potential then triggers nerve impulses -- apparently on a very fine time resolution scale.

Think about it for a moment. A cyborg could wear a fiberoptic receiver "cap", which can be activated with finely aimed laser light from some distance away, to provide the desired brain stimulus. Would it be possible to control a human brain with any degree of multi-sensory "conscious" awareness using this technique? Eventually, perhaps.

Although lasers require line of sight control, which restricts their use vis a vis RF controllers, the lack of need for surface electronics and power supply would seem to be a significan advantage for many purposes.

Cyborgs and Grobycs appear to offer far more promise than pure robotics, at this point in time. One normally thinks of military or law enforcement applications when thinking of a "six million dollar man" with external neural triggers or shutoffs. But as more is learned about the effect of brain stimulation, we are more likely to discover ways of enhancing normal brain function. At that point, the range of applications will broaden, and the waiting line of humans desiring augmentation is apt to grow rather long.

Biomimetic Sky-Farm Captures Sun and CO2

Image SourceThe award winning "Dystopian Farm" incorporates some interesting architectural ingredients, in an attempt to create an urban high-rise agriculture for a rapidly urbanising world.

World population in urban centers is on the rise. Experts predict that by 2050 80% of the world's citizens will reside in an urban setting. These residents will need an estimated 109 hectares of arable land to provide their food. As space on the ground is limited, one increasingly attractive solution is to build upwards, creating vertical farms. _Ecogeek

Designed for the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan, Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm aims to provide New York with a sustainable food source while creating a dynamic social space that integrates producers with consumers. Based upon the “material logic of plant mechanics”, the biomorphic skyscraper is modeled after the plant cells of ferns and provides space for farms, residential areas, and markets. These organic structures will harness systems such as airoponic watering, nutrient technology and controlled lighting and CO2 levels to meet the food demands of future populations. _Inhabitat

Ideally, such a structure would incorporate novel grow-lighting methods including "light pipes", custom light cycling over a 24 hour period for optimal growth, and light spectrum customisation. As noted at Inhabitat, the DF will utilise aeroponic growing methods which do not require soil. CO2 levels should be controlled at much higher than ambient levels to better carbon-fertilise growing plants. Better methods of "nitrogen fixing" for a wide array of plant families are also needed, for such intensive urban farming.

Highly controlled, intensive urban farming methods should allow a reduction in the use of liquid fuels for shipping produce into cities. They would also provide more self-sufficiency for urban environments in the face of disruption of services and transport in the countryside. Finally, such test beds for closely controlled agriculture should prove useful when humans move their center of gravity off-planet, to less life-friendly surroundings.

When Your Average National IQ is Less Than 80, You Need a Market Dominant Minority

Riots against French colonial rule on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe have turned lethal. Sentiment has turned against not only the French, but against all Europeans, including tourists. There is an undercurrent of black nationalism behind the violence -- a resentment against being governed by whites.

Unfortunately for many indigenous tropical and semi-tropical people around the world, the average population IQ is not high enough to run a modern technological society. There is a clear association between population IQ and the GDP of countries and regions. The association is not mere coincidence. The IQ of a population assumes a bell-shaped curve. If the upper end of the curve does not contain enough persons to run the country's infrastructure, that country is doomed to poverty and misery, unless -- unless the country also has a market dominant minority to run things. Like the French in Guadeloupe, the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the assortment of outsiders who are barely keeping South Africa above water.

Guadeloupe's average (mean) IQ for its largely black population is estimated to be near 75. Assuming a standard deviation of 15 (at the most), the proportion of black Guadeloupans who are intelligent enough to be teachers (IQ 110} is less than 4%. The number of black residents intelligent enough to be engineers or architects (IQ 120) is less than 1%. The number of black residents intelligent enough to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. is less than 1/10th of 1%.

The same problem occurs across sub-saharan Africa, across the Arabian oil fields and infrastructure, across much of Southeast Asia, and throughout much of Latin America, and the tropical island populations of the world. Without an adequate "smart fraction", a population cannot field the star players to keep it functioning in a well and truly modern manner.

The modern technological world was created by Europeans and East/South Asians. The foundations of the modern world were built in China, South Asia, Babylon, Egypt, and Greece -- and were briefly incubated together in the multi-ethnic learning centers of Persia and Arabia before passing to Italy, Germany, France, Holland, and England for the run to modernity.

The parts of the world that never developed mathematics, never invented the wheel, never developed advanced written languages, should not be expected to excel in the modern technological world -- and they don't. Rioting against rule by market dominant minorities can feel quite righteous -- particularly to the socialist revolutionary "intellectual" who put the "commoners" up to it. (like the self-righteousness of the muslim imam who leads children into short but successful carrers as suicide bombers)

If you have a low-IQ society, you can get rid of the market dominant minority. Then you must prepare for poverty, hunger, unrelenting disease, and misery. But you can keep the self-righteousness. All that you want.

Planet Earth Adjusts Over Time to Recycle CO2 -- Planetary Rainforests Grow and Gobble Greenhouse Gases at Record Rates

It makes sense that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would rise as more CO2 is added to the air -- even the relatively small proportions of CO2 coming from humans. But the planet's rainforests are growing -- pushing back against human encroachment. And they are getting hungry, Hungry, HUNGRY! for CO2. Higher CO2 concentrations are spurring the growth of new jungles across the tropics. And these jungles are crying out "FEEED MMEEEEE!!!"

Africa's tropical forests have stored huge amounts of carbon over the last four decades and become a critical sponge for greenhouse gases, according to a study published Thursday.

Long-term measurements taken across the continent's tropical belt showed that African forests absorb as much carbon dioxide as those in the Amazon.

Tropical forests only account for seven-to-ten percent of the Earth's land area. But they hold up to half of the carbon locked inside the planet's terrestrial vegetation, giving them an outsized role in regulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

...Two dozen international researchers led by Simon Lewis of the University of Leeds in northern England pulled together data from 79 monitoring plots scattered across 10 countries in western and central Africa.

Sifting through the data, the scientists found that the region's rain forests had pumped progressively more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as trees underwent photosynthesis and grew.

The average increase was almost identical to those for Amazonia, a net plus of 630 kilos per hectare each year between 1967 and 2007, reported the study, published in the British science journal Nature.

The question, then, is why these tropical forests are continuing to draw down ever more CO2....

"Perhaps the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is effectively fertilizing tropical tree growth," speculated Muller-Landau.

"With adequate protection, these forests are likey to remain large carbon stores in the longer term," they wrote. _TerraDaily

Of course extra CO2 fertilises tropical tree growth. A scientist should understand these things, since they have been studied ad nauseum over several decades.

With rapid urbanisation occurring even in the primitive societies of the tropics, more and more previously farmed areas will revert to forest -- even in the face of biofuels-motivated cultivation of palm plantations. The longer oil prices remain low, the more progress that researchers in microbial biofuels will make in devising alternative methods of making biofuels from biomass -- for example using algae that are fertilised by CO2 from coal plants.

For a far better understanding of CO2 than anything you will get from the mainstream media or from the climate zombies, check out CO2 Science. For the best understanding of the effect of CO2 on oceans, go to Sea Friends' special treatment of the topic.

We are living through a disastrous convergence of the climate zombies and the Obama zombies. The news and entertainment media is rife with the rot-brained buggers, as are social science faculties of universities. Remember, if they come for you, you absolutely must aim for the head! ;-)

Papercrete Dome

Here is an interesting tutorial on how to build a papercrete dome by a couple who are building a life in rural New Mexico.

Their first papercrete dome was a simple project to house their PV battery bank. With only minor modification, it should be possible to use the same technique to build any small structure from a child's playhouse to a simple guest house, or even larger. Reinforced papercrete domes are both strong and weather resistant, if the proper finishing layers are applied. Insulation properties are good, and could be modified to the particular location. Thermal mass characteristics can likewise be adapted to location, with simple modifications. Creative possibilities in design are immense with these building techniques (papercrete and other 'cretes).

The overall structure will conform to the shape given it by the reinforcement structure. Steel re-bar is quite strong and rigid, and requires a bit of practise along with special tools to shape and size creatively. Steel mesh materials are less rigid, but provide excellent tensile support and can be creatively shaped more easily than re-bar. The trick there is supporting the structure against gravity while the 'crete is curing.

These structures can be made to appear as part of the landscape, rather than as human artifacts. In a post-apocalyptic world (whatever the nature of the apocalypse) -- or even a very stressed world in rapid transition -- being able to blend into the landscape can be a useful skill. Just a bit of imagination can go a long way.

H/T to MAKE and Wired

From an earlier post at Al Fin Potpourri

Can Smart Machines Bail Us Out?

Markram estimates that in order to accurately simulate the trillion synapses in the human brain, you'd need to be able to process about 500 petabytes of data (peta being a million billion, or 10 to the fifteenth power). That's about 200 times more information than is stored on all of Google's servers. (Given current technology, a machine capable of such power would be the size of several football fields.) Energy consumption is another huge problem. The human brain requires about 25 watts of electricity to operate. Markram estimates that simulating the brain on a supercomputer with existing microchips would generate an annual electrical bill of about $3 billion . _Henry Markram

Singularity devotees such as Ray Kurzweil place great hopes upon the advent of a super human level thinking machine that can show us the way out of the labyrinth. According to that meme, the appearance of superhuman intelligence and the onset of the singularity will coincide.

Smart machines do not have to work like the human brain, but since the human brain is the only "smart machine" we currently know of, the first ones probably will. Because we already have a "proof of concept" of the biological thinking machine, the smart money for smart machines is on the people who are trying to reverse-engineer the brain.

A recent Wired article looked at the IBM Almaden project to reverse-engineer the human brain. Several such projects are ongoing around the world, including the Blue Brain project in Lausanne, which was launched in 2005 as a joint venture with IBM. Henry Markram predicts that if progress in new computing machines continues at the current rate, he should be able to simulate a human brain in silico within 10 years. A shrewd observer of technological predictions might observe that a ten year prediction is cheap, allowing plenty of time for one to explain away the prediction.

Still, Markram is definitely one of the people to watch, if one wants to see the state of the art. The video below is two years old, from the 2006 IBM Almaden conference on cognitive computing. For anyone truly interested in the topic, the videos from that conference are worth watching.

Can smart machines bail us out? It depends on where they go to school, on what they learn and from whom. Smart machines, like smart brains, can develop along twisted, dysfunctional lines. Wisdom, intelligence, character, experience, perspective, savvy, competence, vision, are all important for developing truly smart brains and machines. Is it fair to expect from machines what we are unwilling to develop in ourselves? If we were serious about all this, would our educational systems, entertainment methods, and news/informational means take their present forms? Not likely.

Intelligent machines are possible -- we are proof of concept. Whether we are foresighted enough to evolve machines that are both intelligent and wise (from a human perspective) is another question.

Who Regulates the Regulators? Important

The predominant voice from Washington DC is the demand for more government regulation over banks and financial institutions (and everything else). Who is asking the key question, "who regulates the regulators?" Or who watches the watchers? The cutting truth behind the current downturn is that it is the government regulators who caused -- and are making worse -- the crisis. But it is a grand excuse for growing government even larger, so "slam, bam, thanky ma'am" says the Obama / Pelosi reich to the American taxpayer. "I'll be back for another quicky when I feel the urge."

H/T Simoleonsense.com and Focus On Value

For more, check out the YouTube Jim Rogers Channel

Where Is the World, Without American Consumers?

In fact, the rest of the world has queued up to lend America as much money as it might wish to borrow in order to get its consumers to spend again, and buy the manufactures and raw materials of the rest of the world. _Spengler

Spengler looks at the demographics of the developed world, and wonders where the old societies (Europe, Japan etc) will find the booming young societies to invest their wealth, for good return.

Imagination fails in the case of Europe and Japan. One out of every four Germans today is older than 60, and in 30 years the proportion will rise to two-fifths. Japan is even worse: 30% of Japanese today are above 60, and in 30 years the number will be almost half. What does a national economy look like when the demographics are so skewed to pensioners?

We never have seen anything like this before in all of history. Pension and health costs projected forward will crush these economies a generation from now. Taxes will suffocate the dwindling population of young workers. A straight-line projection of present trends takes us to the cusp of national failure. We do not know whether present trends will continue in a straight line, to be sure.

Economic expansion requires the fresh ideas and energies of the young. Old Europe, Japan, etc. no longer have youth or young.

China has more young people than any other country in the world, more than all of Europe put together, but too many of them are trapped in rural poverty, uneducated and untrained.

And China's "one-child" policy means that parents will not always be cared for by their children. They must save their money for a rainy day, since China has no meaningful "safety net." They have no brothers or sisters, no uncles or aunts, no nieces or nephews. Imagine the poverty of relations, and what that must do to a person's worldview. And no one really knows where China is heading long-term.

Without the American consumer -- that over-pampered, under disciplined, psychological neotenate who measures his well-being by the number of toys he buys on credit -- the rest of the world has no one to sell to, no safe, reliable growth to invest in.

To overpay unionized construction workers to build bridges, and bail out the bloated budgets of American states, the Obama administration will flood the world with so much Treasury debt that capital will flow out of the poorest countries to buy it. Rather than protest this outrageously unilateralist action, the rest of the world encourages him to do so, hoping that somehow the Obama stimulus package will get American consumers to buy their goods once again.

An interesting analysis, Spengler. The world wants to keep the charade going because it is the only game it knows? If so, it is understandable why Europe and China want the US military to go away. If someone owes you money, you don't want them to be able to resist a strong demand for payment should it ever come to that. Of course Russia wants the US military to go away, because with all of its nukes, Russia could dictate terms to a world without the US military.

What would it take for the rest of the developed world to leave the US to rot in its Treasuries? A new frontier. A new place to invest, like a breakaway libertarian seasteading confederacy, or a spacegoing migration to the belt and beyond. Otherwise, Africa or South America might work, except for the low IQ factor, and the plethora of authoritarian and tribal states. The Persian Gulf oil states will serve somewhat as an investment haven, once oil prices rebound and stay high. If not for Islamic tribalist backwardness, the Gulf oil states might truly provide a rich haven for investment.

I vote for the breakaway libertarian seasteading networks and space migrations. For those to happen, we will need significant advances in materials science, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and a rich new vein of pedagogical theory far from the current mainstream. And a lot of spirit and courage not seen since the openings of the American colonies and frontiers.

Barak "Milli Vanilli" Obama represents the authoritarian past. He brings a new wave of government expansion and a massive growth of citizen dependency on the power structure for more and more needs. That is what we must break away from, because that is the death of what is good in humans. The reality that Obama is creating will require an abrupt, and perhaps violent exit for those who wish to live and thrive apart from government strangulation. We must try to prevent things from going to far too fast. Our range of options is shrinking by the day.

Alien Spaceship? Or Antarctic Research Station?

Actually, it is a solar panel covered research station operated by tiny Belgium, of all countries.

Constructed on stilts on top of a ridge just north of the Soer Rondane Mountains, the base will focus on analyzing nearby deep ice shelves.

Teams of scientists, including glaciologists, are already at work there from Belgium, Japan, France, Britain and the United States.

Belgian Defense Minister Pieter De Crem and other government officials inaugurated the station on Sunday.

De Crem told VRT television from Antarctica: "It is really important that as a small country we can show our participation in large international efforts here in Antarctica."

"The base is in an isolated area where there has been little research done," said Maaike Van Cauwenbergh, from the Belgian Science Policy Office.

She said the steel-encased station is located in a vast 600-mile zone between the Russian and Japanese research stations.

The Princess Elisabeth uses microorganisms and decomposition that allows scientists to re-use shower and toilet water up to five times before discarding it down a crevasse.

Wind turbines on the Utsteinen mountain ridge provide the station with power, while solar panels on the bug-like, three-story building ensure the base has hot water. _RedOrbit

It is important that humans learn to live in polar conditions, given the inevitability of another global ice age in the coming future. It is also important to collect environmental and climate data from more points within the Antarctic continent, to avoid the type of pseudo-science recently perpetrated by Steig and Mann.

The problem of sustainable power supply in a polar winter has still not been solved. Solar panels are clearly worthless during the sunless and minimal sun months. Conventional wind turbines are unreliable, and easily overcome by severe winter conditions. In Antarctica, enhanced geothermal energy makes sense. Nuclear energy is, of course, the most sensible approach -- once reactors that allow many decades between refuelings are perfected.

For Pykrete structures floating on/in Arctic sea ice, a cold cycle form of OTEC has been proposed (as suggested in comments previously by a reader, and mentioned in Wikipedia).

Why So Coy, Admiral Kutnezov? Russia / USSR

The Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, has had a little accident. Due to a "refueling incident", the Admiral has incontinently spilled 1,000 tonnes of oil off the southern Ireland coastline. Russian response has been to avoid taking responsibility, in the grand tradition of the USSR.

Surveillance flights by Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) calculated that about 1,000 tonnes of oil were spilt.

Russian authorities put the figure at 300 tonnes and have yet publicly to admit their role.

The aircraft carrier, a Russian refuelling ship and a Russian tug were, however, found amid the oil when the spill was detected by a satelite on Saturday. Four other Russian naval vessels were nearby. _Times

Russian authorities should be proud that they can even launch such a fleet, and supply it with fuel at sea -- even if a good part of the fuel ended up in the sea, instead of in the ships' fuel tanks. Such a spill simply says to the world: "we have all the fuel we will ever need, and can even afford to dump large quantities into the ocean!" One might think they would proudly acknowledge the power and ready profligacy of the Russian Navy.

This inability to acknowledge its own actions -- even when they are open for all the world to see -- is typical of the old Soviet way of conducting business. If, instead, the Russians were to proudly declare: "sure we did it! And we'll do it again if we feel like it! Just you wait and see!", the world would be shaking in its boots at the sheer magnitude of Russian will, power, and will to power. To say nothing of its enormous natural resources.

China Drought, Pollution, Mismanagement Points to High Grain Prices Later This Year

outright shortages of water are exacerbated by water pollution, which leaves many of its rivers unfit for irrigation. _javno

China's industrial policies have devastated water resources and former farmland for decades. On top of all that, low seasonal rainfall threatens China's grain crop, already reduced by unchecked blight. Expect higher grain prices on commodities markets later this year as a result. Also, expect the "pundits" of the world to blame biofuels.

About 158 million mu (10 million hectares) of wheat crop have been damaged or destroyed by the country’s worst drought in half a century, according to official figures. Last week, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced that the Puccinia striiformis fungus, which is commonly known as stripe rust, had spread to 753,00 hectares of wheat, a 40% increase over last year’s outbreak. The MOA expects the prevailing dry climate to accelerate the spread of the fungus.

Rainfall this week has alleviated parts of drought-stricken provinces to some extent, with more rain forecast next week. Official data from China’s Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief estimates that as of 6 February, the drought had left more than 4.5 million people and 2.5 million livestock short of adequate drinking water.

More than two-thirds of China’s cities as well as 200 million rural residents already suffer water shortages. _GCC

China is a country full of intelligent and hard working people. It is their misfortune to be living under the CCP government, which in its single-minded obsession with power and regional hegemony has devastated the Chinese land, air, and water resources.

Europe Goes to Dhimmi-land

Geert Wilders was invited to deliver [an address] at the House of Lords on Thursday, February 12, 2009. Instead of making this address and showing his film Fitna, he was detained by UK immigration officials on his arrival at London Heathrow airport and sent back to the Netherlands as a risk to “public security.” _BrusselsJournal

The text of the address Wilders was to have delivered is available in full at the Brussels Journal link above. Below is a discussion in the House of Lords on the topic of Wilders' shameful deportation by the UK Home Office. [See Wilders' film Fitna]

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question of which I have given private notice.

Lord West of Spithead [on behalf of the government]: My Lords, under European law, a member state of the European economic area may refuse entry to a national of another EEA state if they constitute a threat to public policy, public security or public health.

Lord Taverne: My Lords, I am aware that Mr Wilders holds views highly offensive to the Muslim community, but freedom of speech issues often raise awkward
questions. Indeed, this ban has united in opposition the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, the Dutch Government—unusual allies—and also a section of the Muslim community which cares about freedom of expression. Does the Home Office agree that causing offence, even deep offence, to particular religious groups is no reason for compromising on the principle of freedom of expression? Why else did we repeal the laws on blasphemy? Since this is a ban on an EU citizen and Member of Parliament who has been convicted of no offence, and who has been invited to a private showing of a film in this House—not a rally in Trafalgar Square—does it not set a deeply disturbing precedent for the vital question of freedom of expression?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the Government and I are great believers in freedom of expression. Indeed, I am constantly getting into trouble because I am too free with my expressions at times. But the decision was not based purely on the film “Fitna”, but also on a range of factors, including prosecution in the Netherlands for incitement and discrimination, and other statements. The Home Secretary has to make a decision, as was said, on anyone coming in if they are a threat to public policy or public security in particular. We are constantly looking at this and are very robust about it with all sorts of extremists, from whichever corner they come. I regularly, across my desk, have to give advice to the Home Secretary about stopping people coming into this country, because I do not think it is appropriate that they should be here. I think it is good that we are being robust about this, and absolutely appropriate that the Home Secretary should have made this decision.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, there seems to be a bit of a lottery as to who is admitted and who is not. Are there any criteria by which the Home Secretary works, even if advised by the noble Lord, to justify who is refused admittance and who is not?



Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, there is effectively a list of things the Home Secretary will check through when she is making a decision about whether someone should be allowed into this country. Of course, as the House will well know, quite often we will say that someone should not come into this country, but they then appeal and, through our judicial system, it is decided that they should be allowed to do so. One of the great strengths and joys of this country is that there is a very robust approach to these things. Sometimes, it surprises many of us that that person is allowed to come in and continue to say things—that seems very strange, whatever persuasion they come from. There is a list, and it is checked through. As I said, the Home Secretary thought long and hard about this. The decision was based on a whole raft of things, not just on this film. I believe that it was the correct decision.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, for asking this Question. I suggest to the Minister—perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong—that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty. I only have one question, because I know that we do not want to spend long on this. Does the noble Lord think that this situation would have occurred if Mr Wilders had said, “Ban the Bible”? If it would not have occurred, why not? Surely, the violence and the disturbance that may arise from showing this film in this country is not caused by the film, which merely attempts to show how the violent Islamist uses the Koran to perpetrate his terrible acts, but by the jihadist, the violent Islamist. In doing what the Government have done, surely they are therefore guilty of appeasement.


Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I certainly do not think that we are guilty of appeasement in any way whatever. I do not want to go down the route of discussing a hypothetical case about what if he had talked about this or that. I am afraid that I am rather constrained about exactly what I can say about him. He is under prosecution in the Netherlands for incitement and discrimination. Clearly, anything that I say in this House could become involved in that, and I would not wish that to happen. It would be wrong if that was the case. Also, he can appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision, and anything that I say could be used there.

As I said, we are very robust across the board. We take no sides on this. We treat people whom we believe are a threat to the security and safety of this nation in exactly the same way, from whatever cloth they come; that is extremely important. I believe that this was the right decision.

Lord Trimble: My Lords, the Minister has talked about incitement, and reference has been made to the possibility of counterprotests. These are public order matters. The criterion that the Minister should be operating under is public security, which is a different thing.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, again, I really cannot go too far down this route. These things will be looked at in the Court of Appeal and in the court of another nation. I do not wish to go down this route; I think that it would be wrong for me to do so.

Lord Peston: My Lords, will the Minister comment on one matter, which might enable us to make up our minds? Who brought this matter to the attention of the Home Secretary? Since this man is an EU citizen, he does not have to apply specially to come to our country. How did this become a matter of public policy?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give my noble friend an answer to that question, because I am not quite sure how it came to the attention of the Home Secretary. I was first aware of this about a week ago. I do not know the answer. Perhaps I can write to my noble friend when I can discover the answer. _BrusselsJournal

The actions of the UK government are indefensible. Frightened out of their wits by the possibility of terrorism and riots within the UK, the cowards of the Home Office have publicly admitted that the protection of Islam is the guiding principle of UK policy at this time. When non-Muslims act as guardians of the Muslim faith, they are regarded as "Dhimmi." Appeasers. Also keep in mind that the Dutch government is prosecuting Wilders for exercising his free speech rights to warn against Islamic encroachment on freedoms within Europe, in his film, "Fitna."

The CIA projects that any near-future large scale attacks on the US by Muslim terrorists will be planned from the UK. Add to that nugget the fact that US President Obama is arranging for the UK to accept a large number of current residents of the Guantanamo terrorist holding facility on the island of Cuba. Out of sight, out of mind, eh Barack?

Dhimmis upon Dhimmis, what fools hold the seals of power in the western world. Suicidal fools.

Cross-posted at Abu Al-Fin

Demand Destruction vs. Creative Destruction vs. Opportunity Destruction

Demand destruction is an economic term used to describe a permanent downward shift in the demand curve in the direction of lower demand of a commodity such as energy products, induced by a prolonged period of high prices... _Wikipedia

Sometime late last spring, Al Fin warned that the world's economy could not support the ongoing upswing in energy prices, predicting demand destruction at the least, and perhaps even a recession as a result of the unsustainable costs of energy. In hindsight, it appears that last summer's price surge did indeed help trigger the current world economic recession -- along with other factors.

The expression "creative destruction" derives from the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, published in 1942. He coined the phrase to describe the process of change that accompanies innovation. In the book Schumpeter commented that capitalism:

…incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. _Business Opportunities

"Opportunity destruction" is a phrase that was either coined or re-coined by Al Fin. It refers to the a process that is exemplified by what the Obama / Pelosi reich is currently doing to the US economy. This process involves the narrowing of economic activities that are allowed, using unwarranted regulation or difficult license requirements. Or it may involve the restricting of potential gains from economic activity through extortionate penalties such as taxation, or mandated parasitism, eg labour union special preferences. Or opportunity destruction may involve mandated risk, eg tort liability structure that is slanted wildly in favour of trial lawyers. Or it may occur when the government actually takes over an entire industry, and prevents by law the entry of private individuals into that industry. Special hiring, contracting, or admissions preferences to preferred groups also constitutes opportunity destruction. Opportunity destruction is practised by politicians who do not understand the importance of freedom in the marketplace to the prosperity of the overall society.

Given enough time and power, virtually every government will practise opportunity destruction, since the advantages of favouring campaign contributors, cronies, and loyal voting blocs are far more obvious than any advantages of allowing the marketplace to work to create widespread prosperity.

Notice I said "widespread prosperity", rather than "universal prosperity." Universal prosperity is unlikely to happen in the real world given the variability of human aptitude and potential. But even if every citizen were healthy and given every opportunity to succeed, some would fail to live up to the achievements of others. This "inequity" of achievement -- even in the face of equitable opportunities -- would be grounds for a certain class of politician to campaign in the name of "universal and equal prosperity."

And so, in the name of universal prosperity -- equal or not -- politicians will gain power, and in order to solidify power they will re-structure the opportunity structure to favour their supporters. This re-structuring necessarily limits -- indeed it destroys -- overall opportunity in the society. Hence, "opportunity destruction."

Biotech and Nanotech: Novel Cancer Killers

Until recently, physicians have had to rely on "sledge hammer" treatments for fighting cancer: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. All three mainstream approaches to cancer therapy can kill the patient, or have devastating effects on the person's quality of life above and beyond any impact from the cancer. Both doctors and patients would like access to finely targeted therapies that kill only the cancer, and leave the patient whole and healthy. Both biotech and nanotech (as well as the two combined) offer hope for such "magic bullet" therapies.

Specialists at the Curie Institute in Paris have devised a method of "baiting" cancer cells into killing themselves, using special DNA decoys.

North Carolina State University researchers are using modified plant viruses coated with targeting molecules to selectively target and destroy cancer cells.

UC Santa Cruz researchers are coating hollow gold nano-spheres with short-chain targeting molecules that bind to cancer cells. Infrared light beamed onto the tumour is trapped by the gold particles, and the cancer cells are cooked.

Tel Aviv University researchers are building nano-submarines out of phospholipids, filling them with siRNA particles that shut down the target cell's cell division machinery, and coat them with specific targeting molecules.

German researchers are injecting nano-magnetic particles of iron directly into tumours, then using an extermal oscillating magnetic field to induce a killing heat inside the cancer.

You can see how the convergence of nanotech and biotech is aiding researchers in their highly specific targeting of tumour cells, and other cells of interest (over-active immune cells in autoimmune disorders). Some of these treatments require the application of external energy (infrared light, magnetic fields, heat, etc), and other approaches insert the killing impetus inside the nanoparticle itself. Most of the methods use bio-targeting molecules to guide the nanoparticle to the cells of interest.

This is only the beginning. As long as the entire economic infrastructure of the western world is not destroyed by the neofascists currently reigning in Washington, resources will continue to find their way to productive researchers. The pace of discovery may slow, as more resources are diverted to non-productive government programs as well as to politically connected crony-friends of the reich. It is quite possible that even after cleaning out the rat's nest through future elections, recovery from the current spree of corrupt dysfunction may take many years, or decades.

Ancient Sponges May Help Humans Survive

Researchers led by Moeller, of Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, found a sponge thriving in the midst of dead organisms. This anomalous life amidst death raised an obvious question, says Moeller: “How is this thing surviving when everything else is dead?”

Chemical analyses of the sponge’s chemical defense factory pointed to a compound called algeferin. Biofilms, communities of bacteria notoriously resistant to antibiotics, dissolved when treated with fragments of the algeferin molecule. And new biofilms did not form. _ScienceNews

Sea sponges live in a very tough neighborhood, microbially speaking. The billion-year arms race between competing organisms, and between predator and prey, has left a long trail of failed survival strategies in its wake. But the strategies that have worked, time and time again, can prove extremely potent.

Humans have their own arms race against bacteria, involving human manufactured antibiotics vs. some very clever strategies developed by bacteria over a billion year span or so. On the front lines of this battle, inside most of the hospitals of the world, bacteria are winning. Humans have been forced to come up with ever more expensive strategies to combat multiply resistant bacteria. What if we could borrow powerful strategies from other, more "street savvy" organisms? More of us might survive longer.

The compound is able to reprogram antibiotic-resistant bacteria that don’t form biofilms. When bacteria are treated with the compound, antibiotics that usually have no effect are once again lethal. This substance may be the first one that can restore bacterial resistance, Moeller says. “This resensitization is brand new.”

And the problem of perpetuating a bacterial-resistance arms race, in which bacteria rapidly develop countermeasures against new antibiotics, may be avoided entirely with the new compound. “Since the substance is nontoxic to the bacterium, it’s not throwing up any red flags,” says Moeller.

...The research is still in very early phases.

“Everyone would like to see this in antibiotic trials tomorrow,” Moeller says, but treatments for human infections are a long way off.

Sotka agrees. “Of course, we need clinical trials to take it to the next level,” she says. _ScienceNews

Scientists are sending out "scouts" to all the continents, oceans, seas, lakes, large islands, mountain peaks, and polar extremes of the world to find the winners of the ancient arms race between microbes, and between microbes and multi-cellular organisms. Improved mass screening technologies allow rapid throughput analyses of these organsims and their strategies, so that we can select the best in their class, for our purposes.

Under the Obama / Pelosi reich, the rich biomedical research community is likely to be starved for funds to conduct such research, since the new reich plans on diverting most of America's wealth -- including private sector wealth -- into government run human and social services.

Even so, the current momentum of research in university science labs, corporate labs, and other labs performing actual science, will persist for some years to come. It will take time for the reich's changed priorities to take over all the research funding agencies. Everything hinges upon the American voter, and whether they will wake up in time.

DSI: Amazing Brain Imaging Technology

The neural imaging technology known as DSI (diffusion spectrum imaging) getting better at displaying the connection pathways between areas of cortex and sub-cortical brain centers. For the patient in the video above, brain imaging explained the neurological symptoms, and alerted the neurosurgeon as to the extent of the tumour's infiltration into and disruption of normal tissue.As imaging technologies reveal the deep mysteries of brain structure, connection, and activity in greater and greater detail, the potential for emulating brain function becomes greater.

Even so, science is nowhere close to understanding the incredible multi-dimensional complexity of the simplest brain function as leading to cognition and consciousness. The challenge is so immense, that it is irresistible.

Will America Have the Money to Treat Dementia?

• As many as 5.2 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer’s.

• 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's in their lifetime.

• Every 71 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer’s.

• Alzheimer's is the sixth-leading cause of death [US].

• The direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer's and other dementias to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses amount to more than $148 billion each year. _Alz

The older you get, the more likely that you will suffer some form of cognitive impairment -- most likely Alzheimer's. With the aging of North America and the developed world, the need for better ways to diagnose and treat Alzheimer's is critical.

New cognitive tests are being developed to determine whether a person with early cognitive impairment can drive safely. Special MRI techniques can show the early tell-tale signs of Alzheimer brain atrophy.

On the treatment side, "brain games" that develop short term memory appear helpful in reversing early cognitive impairment.

Another hopeful bit of news is that Rember and Dimebon -- two novel drug treatments for Alzheimer's -- are working their way through human drug trials, and show some promise.

A bit further in the future is the promise of Ampakines. Cortex Pharmaceuticals is the foremost developers of Ampakines for a wide range of disorders -- including Alzheimer's in the long run.

Further into the future, an even wider array of drugs are being developed to target several pathological mechanisms that are believed to contribute to Alzheimer's.

The main question at this time appears to involve financing for drug discovery and testing in the midst of an international financial crisis. US governmental policies under the new administration suggest that US pharmaceutical research and research into other vital innovative technologies will be short-changed. New drug development may well move offshore from the US to East and South Asia, where capital is less likely to be diverted to non-productive ends.

It is ironic that just when a relaxation of stem cell research regulations occurs, that a misconceived and dysfunctional economic re-structuring should threaten the future of technological development in the biosciences and most other high tech fields.

Previously published at Al Fin Longevity

A Dying Russia Likely to Lash Out in Death Throes

“Russia will be experiencing a population decline not seen since the plague of the Middle Ages,” said Jackson. “This is a cause for concern because an extreme misalignment of geopolitical aspirations and demographic fundamentals can lead countries to behave unpredictably.”

Will Russia meekly accept the fate of its demographic decline, or will this trend feed extremism and provoke aggression?

“Russia has window of opportunity that is closing soon,” said Joe Purser, director of the JFCOM Futures Group. “It may face a situation in 20 or 30 years when it will be unable to see to its own security.” _ISN

If Russia's ethnic Slavs are aging without replacement, who will work to pay for the pensions of those who cannot work?

...in January 2010 the Kremlin may be paying nearly 40% more for old-age pensions than it is paying now because of Russia’s runaway consumer price inflation, which runs well above 20% on the tiny basket of staple products that ordinary Russians need to survive.

Where will the Kremlin get the money?

It has already wasted more than half of its FOREX reserves on a futile effort to artificially inflate the value of the ruble and the stock market. It is planning to spend a huge chunk of its budgetary reserves to cover existing expenses in 2009, when it will be entering a full-blown recession and incurring massive debt. It’s planning a gigantic increase in military spending, and now it will face the crushing burden of monumental new, permanent, pension expenses — or the prospect of senior citizens starving and freezing as their existing pensions are whittled down to nothing by the plague of inflation. _LR

The Russian economy -- like the ruble -- is in freefall. Russian doctors earn $1.25 an hour. If the doctor is willing to work overtime, she may earn as much as $2.00 an hour!

"At the state hospital, I earn $200 a month, $400 with overtime," Bogdashov says. _npr

Russian men typically die in their 50s. Drug and alcohol abuse have become a staple of Russian life, beginning in the early teenage years.

"You see 12-, 13-year-olds sitting in the benches, just drinking beer like soda. So young. That's a problem," Kelleher says.

It's even more of a problem in villages outside the city where life has stood still. Abandoned by anyone with ambition, the shabby wooden houses lean to one side, seemingly as drunk as many of the remaining residents. _npr

Putin ignores the internal tragedy of Russia, since it is the outward projection of Russian power that concerns him. Putin will need to move against the Ukraine soon, to solidify his ability to project force into central Europe and the Mediterranean. What will Obama do in response? He will bend over as far as Vlad requires.

Under the Obama administration, American foreign policy's initial focus is on fighting the Afghan war. So the question regarding the Russian resurgence is not what the Americans will give the Russians, but how much and how publicly. This will give the United States greater leverage in dealing with what it has identified as its prime concern, but at the cost of both creating a greater challenge in the future and undermining the strength of the Transatlantic alliance structure. _Source_via_LR

Russia will build a wide fence of disaster around itself in an attempt to create a safety buffer. Given the demographic collapse of ethnic Slavs and the demographic rise in the Islamic ethnic groups of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, such a policy is likely to bring on the downfall of the Russian state even more rapidly.

Chechen warlords and other powerful Muslim fighting groups within and near Russia are biding their time. They will take payoffs from Putin and fight small wars like the one against Georgia for the booty. But eventually they plan to walk the streets of Moscow as owners.

A "New" Form of Economics Perpetrated Upon a Complacent American Population and an Unsuspecting World

“America doesn’t have reserves and it doesn’t have anything except, so far, the ability to borrow,” [Jim] Rogers said. “That’s not going to be good for the world economy. It’s just adding more debt, more consumption to a problem that’s caused by debt and consumption.” _Bloomberg

Children in high places are determining the future of the world's economy. Mind-child Barak Obama has joined with mind-child Tim Geithner and the mind-children of the US Senate and US House of Representatives to cancel the private sector in favour of a neo-fascist form of top-down feudalism.The exact form of this brave new reich will be spelled out to the populace as soon as the mind-children in charge decide what it will be.

...Democrats will take the stimulus increases and make them part of a new, higher baseline for future spending growth. Anyone who proposes to cut from that amount will be denounced as "heartless" and Draconian.

The Republican staff of the House Budget Committee has calculated what happens to future spending if Congress continues to fund 19 of the most politically untouchable programs at their new stimulus levels. The list of 19 includes Pell Grants, Head Start money for poor kids, nutrition programs for seniors, Medicaid, special education, food stamps and cancer research at the National Institutes of Health, among others. Across a 10-year period through 2019, these 19 programs alone would increase federal outlays and tax entitlements by $1.59 trillion.

The nearby chart shows how the bill will increase the 2009 budget deficit, which is already the largest in modern history. Perhaps you recall the deficit wails from the Reagan years, but the peak deficit was only 6% of GDP in 1983. In the Clinton years we were told taxes had to rise to reduce a deficit of merely 3.9% of GDP. CBO estimates the 2009 deficit will reach 8.3% of the economy, not including the stimulus or bank bailout cash. Toss in those, and analysts at the Strategas Group estimate the deficit could hit nearly $2 trillion, or 13.5% of the U.S. economy. _WSJ

The Obama plan: Borrow more money than the world's economy can support, and consolidate power through any mechanism imaginable. The American people haven't a clue what this power grab is leading up to. The rest of the world is even less prepared.

But it is good news for all the dictators of the world who couldn't wait to see the collapse of Pax Americana. The world is departing the era of any pretense to the rule of law, and returning to the historical stand-by era of the rule of strong and ruthless men.

If the strongest and most ruthless men hail from Russia or China, the world will assume a certain form. If the strongest and most ruthless men hail from Pakistan, Caracas, or Lagos, the world will assume a quite different form.

The rules are changing. Wait and see, or take steps to prepare. Your choice.

Irrational Exhuberance? Perhaps a Little

The current economic contretemps is a forceful reminder against blind extrapolation of present trends. Those who remember other recent discontinuities such as the 9/11 attacks and the dot.com crisis -- among others -- should remember not to fall too quickly for "gee whiz!" futuristic monomania.

Eventually, after we sweep up the messes made by Pelosi, Obama, Putin, and others, humans may be back on track for some type of singularity, or choice-expanding discontinuity.

Don't expect mind uploading or human-level machine intelligence for a number of decades. When mind uploading becomes possible, don't be surprised if the destination architecture has nothing in common with what we currently think of as computers.

Expect to be surprised, in both good and bad ways. Prepare for both. That way you can move as quickly over the bad as possible, to savour the good.

H/T Open Culture

Recession Clouds Reaching as Far as Dubai

BEIJING -- The worldwide economic slump is slashing demand for exports from Asia, aggravating China's downturn and threatening to push some countries into full-blown recession.After nearly a decade of eye-popping growth, China's economy slowed dramatically in the last quarter of 2008, recording gross domestic product growth of just 6.8 per cent at an annual rate, down from 9 per cent the previous quarter. _GlobeandMail

Whether a nation's economy is based upon exports, like China or Russia, or based upon financial services like Dubai, the current global credit crisis and de-leveraging is causing significant dislocations. Consider Dubai, a nation once thought to have a bullet-proof economy:

No one knows how bad things have become, though it is clear that tens of thousands have left, real estate prices have crashed and scores of Dubai’s major construction projects have been suspended or canceled. But with the government unwilling to provide data, rumors are bound to flourish, damaging confidence and further undermining the economy.

...Some things are clear: real estate prices, which rose dramatically during Dubai’s six-year boom, have dropped 30 percent or more over the past two or three months in some parts of the city. Last week, Moody’s Investor’s Service announced that it might downgrade its ratings on six of Dubai’s most prominent state-owned companies, citing a deterioration in the economic outlook. So many used luxury cars are for sale , they are sometimes sold for 40 percent less than the asking price two months ago, car dealers say. Dubai’s roads, usually thick with traffic at this time of year, are now mostly clear.

...For many foreigners, Dubai had seemed at first to be a refuge, relatively insulated from the panic that began hitting the rest of the world last autumn. The Persian Gulf is cushioned by vast oil and gas wealth, and some who lost jobs in New York and London began applying here.

But Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi or nearby Qatar and Saudi Arabia, does not have its own oil, and had built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Now, many expatriates here talk about Dubai as though it were a con game all along. Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out. _NYT

Most unfortunate. The Arab world truly needed an interface to the larger world such as Dubai. A place where Arabs and Muslims could pretend to be free of the irrational tribal strictures of Islam, at least for a while. The dream was to create an Arab "halfway house" that would ease the transition of the Arab world from the middle ages to modern times. It looks as if medieval Saudi Arabia will have the last laugh. At least until Iran drops the big one on Riyadh.

After that, one may have to wait quite a while before anyone laughs again in that part of the world.

How Did Humans Come to Be Smarter than Apes?

Humans display significant differences in behaviour and mental aptitude from their closest relatives -- the great apes. How did those differences come about? Could a similar branching off take place in the near future, with the arrival of a new species that can make monkeys out of men?

Changing a single base, or DNA letter, is likely to have a limited effect because such mutations alter only a single gene. But large duplications containing 20,000 bases or more, such as the ones mapped in the new study, may contain more than one gene or parts of genes and regulatory regions.

Doubling, tripling or quadrupling the number of copies of a piece of DNA in the genome can potentially increase activity of genes contained in the chunks by a corresponding amount. A duplication might contain some parts of a gene, but not all of it, which could change the gene’s function. And duplications might contain control panels for genes, Gerstein says. Copying those control panels, in full or in part, and inserting them somewhere else in the genome could change the activity of genes adjacent to the insertion point.

Duplications don’t appear to happen randomly, the researchers found. Most duplications occurred next to more ancient duplications, creating hot spots in the genome susceptible to copying and rearranging....

About 20 percent of the duplications identified in the study are found only in humans. Most of the replicated chunks contain genes with unknown function, so the next step of the project is to figure out how the duplications happen and how the genes inside them contribute to making humans human. _ScienceNews

Genomic "hotspots" are analogous to the volcanic "hotspots" responsible for creating the Hawaiian Islands, and other island chains. The question is whether these genomic hotspots are still active, percolating the foundations for an even newer species that is to man as men are to apes? In any event, understanding the power of gene duplications will help to understand more of the powerful forces underlying evolution.

Such speculation is highly politically incorrect, since if the mind is not careful it may stray to the heretical topics of IQ and EF differences between population groups, and differences in measured IQ on different continents and parts of continents of the world. Such differences may suggest nascent speciation attempts that were ongoing thousands of years in the past.

Unfortunately, such self-censorship of the sciences in the western world is leading to the acceptance of the most absurd theories (imminent anthropogenic climate catastrophe) and an out of hand rejection of the study of promising avenues of research (reasons for differences in group intelligence and aptitudes). Refusing to study these things only assures that we will remain stuck in the present rut of ignorance.

Evolved, Not Designed: Magnificent Brain

The human brain is a hodge-podge Swiss Army Knife of cognitive skills, driven by emotions, instincts, and physiologic drives. Almost all of our explanations for why we do what we do, are wrong. Is it any wonder that human-level machine intelligence is already "several decades overdue"?

Romance is like addiction in the brain. Not really surprising. In terms of procreation and providing for helpless infants and toddlers, it has proved a rather useful addiction indeed.

Sleep is needed to form memories. The researchers demonstrated that sleep is needed for the brain to develop through the "critical developmental windows." As far as how much sleep an adult human really needs for normal functioning, I suspect that it all depends upon the particular human's genome, his actual job demands and life demands. I suspect that most adults could do quite well on half the sleep they actually get, once we understand what sleep does and how to help it to get done.

External choices are given higher priority than internal choices. This makes sense for individuals with under-developed or damaged frontal lobes. For others with a strong sense of self efficacy and skepticism toward outside authority, the findings might be completely different. Psychological neoteny involves a perpetual adolescent incompetence, being stuck at the stage before the pre-frontal lobes are fully developed. Present society is full of such people, which makes academic lobotomy and "media lobotomy" much easier to perform.

Brain training helps memory and real world performance in the elderly. Imagine that! When you force the brain to work, it performs better. I experience a similar "thought acceleration" when flying a plane, compared to driving a car. Likewise when performing anesthesia on a difficult neurosurgical case requiring extreme precision, the mind seems to perform at almost super human levels. Subsequent real life seems to take place extremely slowly in comparison.

Duplication in genes leads humans to branch from other primates. This article requires a blog posting of its own, its implications are so rich.

It is only reasonable that humans do not understand their own brains. Opportunists may discover particular "hacks" that allow them to take advantage of those around them. Hucksters, magicians, advertising geniuses, politicians, media tycoons -- the successful ones understand how to fool the human mind. Some of the people, all of the time. Even all of the people some of the time. But all of the people, all of the time? They are working on it.

Doctors Pelosi et Obama Promise to Cure

A new government-financed bubble will soon be upon us and, like a runaway train, it cannot be stopped. _TheAge

It is one of history's great jokes that the US, with its traditions of "limited government", should be now be led by unlimited government proponents such as Obama and Pelosi, just when a century-long string of government excesses should come to a bubble-bursting climax.

Far from restoring the economy to health, the pork-barrel Pelosi plan will likely force the US economy into the catastrophe of acute stagflation and decline, with grave long-term repercussions at home and abroad.

....With the stakes this high, Pelosi should have restrained her urge to flex political muscle.

Most economists agree that America has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, based primarily on excessive US dollar liquidity and unmanageable levels of debt. Thus, any healthy correction would necessarily involve serious deleveraging and a severe recession. After a lot of pain, the economy would rebuild with healthier fundamentals. Infrastructure improvement would aid, but not cause, the eventual recovery.

Recession is the natural cure for the politically inspired profligacy that America has enjoyed for almost 40 years. Unfortunately, the side effects of this medicine, namely the rapid reallocation of labor resources and deflationary damage to debtors, are still unpalatable to pandering politicians.
_Browne

Obama's apocalyptic threats -- of the irreversible devastation that would occur should he not get his way -- do not suggest leadership in the grand tradition of Churchill during the blitz. Instead, the push toward unlimited government powers and ever-building, unlimited government spending suggest more the Bernie Madoff scam artist of pyramid scheme fame.

This week President Obama claimed that failure to pass his economic stimulus bill will have catastrophic consequences for the U.S economy. The reality is the catastrophe will be far greater with his plan than without it. If the trends of January and early February of 2009 continue, the rug will be completely pulled out from beneath the U.S. economy, and the full cost of the President's "economic depressant package" will be apparent to all. _SeekingAlpha

It is difficult to believe that Pelosi et Obama actually understand the potential for economic devastation that lies within the current international financial stress point. Their actions suggest that they are viewing the crisis as an opportunity to consolidate power by rewarding powerful friends and by undermining the private sector of the economy -- which is viewed with mistrust and loathing by the unlimited government faction currently in control.

Obama and Pelosi do not understand the current problem. No wonder their "solution" is so perfectly crafted to make the problem considerably worse.

I fear that the trillions of government finance spent to save the world from "deflation" will, in the end, require perpetual needs for trillions more. There will be no kick-starting asset bubbles or a return of private-sector credit excess. Instead, it will be a case of throwing repeated doses of government-directed finance/purchasing power at the system. Temporary but fleeting economic boosts will then require only stronger doses of artificial stimulus.

We've commenced a new cycle dominated by government electronic printing presses in all their various forms. The inflationary consequences will be a different variety than we've grown accustomed to from previous reflations. But the bottom line is - and there's ample history to support this view - that once the "printing presses" get humming along it's going to be darn difficult to slow them down. _Noland

Neurosciences Institute 5, Carnegie Mellon 0

At the invitation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, we incorporated a brain of the kind that we were just talking about into a Segway transporter. And we played a match of soccer against Carnegie Mellon University, which worked with an AI-based Segway. We won five games out of five. That’s because our device learned to pick up a ball and kick it back to a human colleague. It learned the colors of its teammates. It did not just execute algorithms. _Edelman

When you are making brains for robots, you need to follow the right pattern for what the robot is intended to do. If the robot is supposed to perform a human function, or play a human game, its brain should preferably be patterned after that of a human, to some extent. From an interview with Gerald Edelman of Scripps Research Institute and the Neurosciences Institute:

By proposing the possibility of artificial consciousness, are you comparing the human brain to a computer?
No. The world is unpredictable, and thus it is not an unambiguous algorithm on which computing is based. Your brain has to be creative about how it integrates the signals coming into it. And computers don’t do that. The human brain is capable of symbolic reference, not just syntax. Not just the ordering of things as you have in a computer, but also the meaning of things, if you will....

What exactly is a brain-based device?
It looks like maybe a robot, R2-D2 almost. But it isn’t a robot, because it’s not run by an artificial intelligence [AI] program of logic. It’s run by an artificial brain modeled on the vertebrate or mammalian brain. Where it differs from a real brain, aside from being simulated in a computer, is in the number of neurons. Compared with, let’s say, 30 billion neurons and a million billion connections in the human cortex alone, the most complex brain-based devices presently have less than a million neurons and maybe up to 10 million or so synapses, the space across which nerve impulses pass from one neuron to another.

Our brain-based device learned to pick up a ball and kick it back to a human colleague. It did not just execute algorithms....

Why is this kind of machine better than a robot controlled by traditional artificial intelligence software?
An artificial intelligence program is algorithmic: You write a series of instructions that are based on conditionals, and you anticipate what the problems might be. AI robot soccer players make mistakes because you can’t possibly anticipate every possible scenario on a field. Instead of writing algorithms, we have our BBDs play sample games and learn, just the way you train your dog to do tricks.

Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts almost always underestimate the importance of machine architecture when they fantasise about "human level machine intelligence." Machine intelligence acolytes often seem to feel that consciousness and cognition can be captured in an algorithm, and installed in a wide range of machine architectures. Unfortunately for that effort, intelligence is not algorithmic. Humans, as "intelligent beings", devise algorithms in order to help machines and humans accomplish goals more efficiently. But the algorithms are artificial constructs usually designed for specific tasks.

The same type of mistake is frequently made by "uploading enthusiasts," who think that human consciousness will sooner or later be uploaded into a more durable matrix than the "meat brain" it currently resides in. Needless to say, the problem they think they are discussing is not what they believe.

For an example of what Al Fin thinks is the most realistic "uploading" concept so far, read John Scalzi's "Old Man's War," a work of science fiction.

Interestingly, some British roboticists are beginning to devise parallel methods of machine learning and evolution, loosely modeled on biological evolution. And a company in Japan is offering to construct a "baby you" robot that looks like the picture of you that you send in with your order and $2215. Perhaps if the British and Japanese roboticists were to get together, we may soon be able to buy youthful robots that looked like us, that could grow to imitate us and learn to take one's place at dreary official functions?

Are you thinking about "Pod People", or "Kiln People", or other fictional scenarios you may have read or seen? Don't be too quick to dismiss the idea. Life is more fun when we inject just a bit of poetry, fantasy, and magic.

Special Bonus: A Wired article looking at another "brain architecture computing" project centered at IBM Almaden, that includes researchers from Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, and UCal Merced.

A World Where Even Forests Learn to Talk

Forests? Talking? What could forests possibly find useful to talk about? What about ..... fire? Imagine a forest of trees, wirelessly networked to communicate information such as temperature, humidity, winds, and more?

enough energy is available to power wireless mesh networks within forests that can transmit data about local temperature and humidity conditions. These networks could be used for agricultural monitoring or early detection of forest fires. Voltree Power is planning to test their so-called Early Wildfire Alert Network (EWAN) beginning in the spring. _DesignNews_via_Bioenergy

Networked forests (and fields) could monitor for fires, pests, poachers, and a large number of other things.

Starting this spring, Voltree will test its device in a 10-acre area provided by the U.S. Forest Service in Boise, ID. Future applications, Love says, could include agricultural monitoring as well as radiation detection along the U.S. borders, to prevent the smuggling of radioactive goods. _TechnologyReview

Interesting. These talking forests and fields will detect smugglers, terrorists, the health of crops and trees, forest fires, and more. All made possible by the ability to turn lovely trees into "battrees."

And that is only the sensor side of the equation. What about actuators? What if trees could fight their own fires, or change the flow of the fire to make it easier for human firefighters to control? What if forests could alert animals of danger and somehow guide them to safety? Or trap poachers, terrorists, and other "undesirables"?

You can read more about the technology behind networked forests here and here. Here is the full text of a PLOS research article by MIT scientists describing the underlying phenomenon.

The voltages involved are in the milli-volt range, suitable only for a trickle charge to a small rechargeable battery. But as electronic devices are made smaller and less power-hungry -- yet more capable -- the possiblities for distributed computing and networking using very small levels of current are growing more impressive.

Russia's Problems Further Highlighted

Out of Russia's 140 million people, between 20 million and 25 million are Muslims.

If population trends continue at the current rate, Muslims could outnumber ethnic Russians in 30 years, al-Jazeera reports. More Russians are dying each year than being born, due in large measure to the popularity of abortion (Russian women had almost 13 abortions for every 10 live births in 2003), alcohol, and suicide.

Meanwhile, Russia's Muslim population has grown by 40 percent since 1989, the result of a high birth rate and continued immigration from the North Caucasus and Central Asia. There are now 25 million Muslims in Russia, and they are projected to become one-fifth of the country’s overall population by 2020. _ForeignPolicy

...with the rise of Islam, coupled with the negative growth in Russia's ethnic Slav population, dramatic change is under way.

If the trend continues, the Muslim population could outnumber ethnic Russians within 30 years. _Al Jazeera

If Russians are not procreating, but a minority 20% of the population is procreating, what will be the most popular name for newborns in the country? Muhammed? Well, at least for the boys. And where will an increasingly large portion of military conscripts originate? From the faster breeding minority, of course.

France is another country with a rapidly rising proportion of Muslims among its youth and military population. How are Muslims in the French military working out?

Over the last five years, France has been detecting, or at least fearing, loyalty problems among the fifteen percent of its soldiers who are Moslem. The military insists that these second and third generation French soldiers of, for the most part, Arab descent, are loyal. _StrategyPage

Russia's military has seen much better days. And just as high energy prices promised to allow a rapid rejuvenation of Russia's aging arsenal, commodity prices collapsed. With Russia's shrinking population, and rapidly changing demographics, how likely is it that Russia can hold its vast land empire together as one country for much longer?

The recent warship manoeuvres in the Mediterranean and Latin America were just "symbolic" gestures, carried out by the former maritime giant that was able to deploy only a small number of ships while the rest of the fleet was tied up at home without enough money to keep them in business, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said.

In February last year, a naval force led by the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov completed a two-month deployment, including a period in the Mediterranean - one of the longest of its kind since the Cold War, the IISS said in its annual Military Balance. A second naval deployment took place in October en route to an exercise with the Venezuelan Navy, and a Russian warship has joined the anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.

Oksana Antonenko, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the institute, however, told a press conference at the launch of the Military Balance: "In military terms it was all very modest. This is not a major military comeback, it was just a symbolic deployment."

She cast doubt on Russia's ability to project force, and despite the "victory" of Russian troops in Georgia last August, their performance had highlighted their limited capabilities. She predicted that next year Moscow's defence budget would suffer from an even greater deficit. "It's hard to envisage a substantial increase in defence spending," she said. _Source

Russians are beginning to speak out against Muslim immigration, fearing that they will become a minority within their own country. Violence by Russians against Muslim immigrants is growing more common, lessening national cohesion. A similar phenomenon of decohesion is occurring within the ranks of the Russian army.

Below is a short interview with investor Jim Rogers, discussing the future of Russia and its economy:

The astounding thing, is that at the same time as the overall Russian population is shrinking by 400,000 people a year, the Muslim proportion is procreating at over twice the indigenous Russian rate. What does that tell you?

Russia faces huge challenges demographically, economically, technologically, and militarily. Russia has bullied its neighbors for far too long for any of them to feel particularly friendly toward the ailing bear. As Russia's Slavic population shrinks and becomes unable to defend Russia's huge landmass, these resentful neighbors will press inward more and more forcefully, upon the bear's rich den.

What will it take for Russia to survive? And if Russia falls, will its nuclear forces unleash a final flurry of belligerent outrage upon the world? Just hope it doesn't happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst....

Government Workers: The New Privileged Class

America, in case you hadn't noticed, is dividing into two nations. The 22.5-million-strong public sector (that includes retirees) is growing ever larger, and enjoying ever greater wages and benefits often guaranteed by state constitutions. In private-sector America your job, assuming you still have one, hangs on the fate of the economy. _Forbes

America dividing into two nations? The private sector has grown subservient to a better-paid, and far more securely pensioned public sector of unionised government workers. Government workers' unions are one of the biggest lobbies at all levels of government, and have the power to swing election results. If you work in the private sector, you are in thrall to the mighty government employee, and his all powerful union.

They can pretty much spend as much as they need to in order to get what they want. They have literally billions of dollars annually in dues they collect from their members working in government. This is taxpayers money.

This is the genuine “two Americas,” those of us in the private sector who have to be wealthy in order to retire with any sort of financial security, and public sector workers, who earn as much or more than private sector employees during the years they work, then retire early with an income for life that dwarfs what they might have eventually gotten under social security. Not only is this unjust, but it has become totally unsustainable from a financial standpoint. _Ecoworld

Public employee's have very generous pensions. These huge pensions -- which all of our taxes pay for -- are being mismanaged and run into the ground by "socially responsible" fund managers who have used other people's money to invest in "global warming" and "social justice." As these idiot-run funds crash to the ground, one might ask "who will pay for these 'gilt-edged pensions'?" The answer? YOU!!! WILL!!! PAY!!!

We have watched with trepidation as the stock market declines and along with it the value of our retirement accounts. Yet with our personal accounts, it’s our own problem. When it comes to public pensions, it’s the taxpayer’s problem. Underfunded pensions could cut two ways, leading to much higher taxes and/or cuts in government spending. _NG

It is almost impossible to lay off unionised government employees. And "spending cuts" in the age of Obama are an oxymoron. Our debt -- which stretches out into the indefinite future -- can only grow by the trillions, as the new dominant class makes itself at home in the house of privilege.

Indeed, government workers have led a charmed life over the past decade. In California, state and local public employee job growth increased between 1999 and 2007 at roughly twice the rate of the private sector, according to calculations from the Beacon Economics consulting firm. Whereas the number of private sector jobs increased about 8 percent, the number of state government jobs was up 16 percent and the number of local government jobs was up 14 percent.

As for wages, state government and private sector pay increased about 34 percent during that period, while local government salaries went up 40 percent. But make no mistake: When the value of benefits is added in, public sector workers are well ahead, often enjoying pension benefits and retirement health benefits unmatched in the private sector.

Now that Obama is NIC (narcissist in chief), what is true for California will be true for the entire nation. Government work is privileged work -- sinecured, generous, with lifelong benefits. Meanwhile, the private sector is being sucked dry by the government vampire.

What parts of the private sector will profit? The parts that are well-connected to the Obama wrecking crew. The private interests that supported the campaigns of the new ruling class, the new aristocracy, the new nobility, the new royalty.

Will being King prove elevating enough for Barak? Probably not. But we will have to wait and see how long this huge, unsustainable charade can continue.

When Will the Muslim "Youth Bulge" Pass So The World Will Be More Peaceful?

Asia Times

As Spengler points out at ATimes, Muslims are not contributing very much to the modern world except religious violence and intolerance. This violence grows naturally out of the "youth bulge," the demographic spike of sexually repressed young people living in an extreme shame vs. honour culture, which can be best tracked by the "median age" statistic. Young males of limited intelligence are particularly prone to violence, and as you can see from the above graph, Islamic countries are currently swimming in young males (and females), with an average IQ of 85.

Successful cultures produce people whose contributions resonate through the world - scientists, poets, musicians, entrepreneurs, or philosophers. Just one great individual can transform a nation, by setting an example for ambitious youth. Thanks to the composer Jan Sibelius, Finland with just 5 million people became a force in the world of classical music. But woe unto cultures whence comes no contribution to the rest of humanity. Where are the Muslim scientists, novelists, entrepreneurs, athletes and musicians?

...Most Muslims want to better their lives, as Obama said, but their lives are getting worse rather than better, and nothing they know can make things better. In theory, there might be a future state of the world in which the Islamic world could live in peace and prosperity, but today's Muslims cannot get there from here. _ATimes

It is interesting to compare median age with total fertility rate. If the country's vital statistics are reliable, then the median age statistic should be fairly reliable. The total fertility rate, on the other hand, is an estimate of expected fertility which is subject to a bit of manipulation and guesswork. What does one make of Iran, for example, with a relatively low median age (25.8) AND a relatively low TFR (2.1) for the third world? It is one thing for a country such as Japan with a median age of 44 and a fertility rate of 1.28 to be declared "demographically decreasing." A significant number of women aged 44 are already infertile. I consider the same declaration to be extremely premature for Iran or any other Muslim country. Japan is approaching the "point of no return", after which it will be extremely difficult to avoid a population implosion (without massive immigration), regardless of the wishes of the government or the people. Iran's fertility, on the other hand, could change at the drop of a mullah (or the entire gang of mad mullahs).

The chart from the Spengler article is attributed to UN projections. Unfortunately, if one is familiar with other UN projections, eg the IPCC climate projections, it is extremely difficult to put much reliance upon UN numbers.

Too many people make the assumption that the fertility curves (and affluent modernity) of the third world will magically begin to track the affluence and demographic implosion of the western world. There is very little reason to believe such a thing, except the failure to think outside of one's own culture. In many cultures, a new affluence is a good excuse to grow large families.

In the west, several concomitant trends came together in the 1960s to trigger the subsequent decline in births. The rise of widespread affluence, the abandonment of religion, the technology of contraception, the legalisation of widespread abortion, the explosion of females in higher education and the professions, the ascendancy of radical feminism and with its angry disapproval of stay-at-home moms, the widespread postponing of marriage, a legal "war against fathers" that made men second-class citizens in the divorce court which discouraged men from marrying at all, and a culture of psychological neotenisation creating an abundance of "never-grow-up" Peter Pans and Cinderellas. In what cultures of the world is the same confluence of factors likely to occur as quickly as in the west and Japan?

Muslim countries -- whether rich or poor -- are generally religious and conservative. The method of child-raising creates insular minds, and cultures that look inward in a monotonous manner. Creativity is almost non-existent, technology and the sciences are moribund. High IQ youth have to escape to the west for education and escape from the stifling atmosphere back home. Fortunate is that youth who can truly escape physically, mentally, and spiritually. He is the exception. The cruel culture of shame vs. honour instilled in the child's mind too often reveals itself decades later in the grown man.

There is only one way to be sure the Muslim youth bulge violence is well behind us. More on that later.

Killer Robots Change Face of Future War

We are entering the age of military robots, where killer robots become ever more lethal as they inch toward autonomy.

Attack drones and bomb-handling robots are already common in battle zones.

Robots not only have no compassion or mercy, they insulate living soldiers from horrors that humans might be moved to avoid.

"The United States is ahead in military robots, but in technology there is no such thing as a permanent advantage," Singer said. "You have Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran working on military robots."

There is a "disturbing" cross between robotics and terrorism, according to Singer, who told of a website that lets visitors detonate improvised explosive devices from home computers.

"You don't have to convince robots they are going to get 72 virgins when they die to get them to blow themselves up," Singer said. _France24

The US has a head start in the use of robots by land, sea, air, and space -- but Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and soon North Korea will have their own killer bots. Perhaps even equipped with nuclear warheads. To each of those tyrannous regimes, North America and Europe represent obstacles to the goal of conquering the world. Better to use robots to clear out the populations, so that your own people can move in and settle the land.

So why hasn't the US done this with Mexico, to make room for southward expansion in the face of the coming Ice Age? The US has not thought in terms of expansion for many decades. But the US is changing, and new imperatives may arise in the face of a changing global economy and demographics. The next violent cross-border incursion by Mexican military forces may trigger something big -- something robotic? Who knows?

Big, destructive robots may not be the biggest threat. Tiny, nano-robots, that can be targeted like the hunter-killers of Dune -- but are too small to be seen -- are soon to arrive on the scene. Carrying a tiny dose of highly lethal toxin or microbe, such nano-assassins would be virtually unstoppable. I can think of several other ways -- easy ways -- that invisible nano-machines could kill. Better not to say more.

Nanotech plus biotech plus infotech will make for potent changes in military strategy and tactics. But robotech will be quite enough, for now. Although now I must go, in the name of the baroque bloggers association, let me say, I'll be Bach!

The Settlement of the South Pacific

Dienekes Anthropology Blog looks at the evidence behind different theories dealing with the populating of the South Pacific by Austronesians. Anthropologists can use genetic evidence along with linguistic evidence to study the migrations of groups over long periods of time. The current consensus is that this vast migration began in Taiwan, and spread southward, then eastward, and branched to all points of the compass, eventually settling the Philippines, Indonesia, parts of New Guinea, and most of the South Pacific including New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island (almost to South America).

Where else might these intrepid sea migrants have gone? Could they have formed settlements along the Chilean coast? If so, the evidence has not turned up yet.

One thing is clear, the old myth that the South Pacific islands were settled from South America is all but destroyed. Thor Heyerdahl's idea was adventurous enough and excited many romantic hearts, but doesn't seem to have proven out in the end.

The idea of the "lost civilisation" is persistent throughout the volumes of human myths and tales. When humans brave so much and travel so far to establish a home, it is likely that many promising starts ended up badly. There is a basis in fact for the "lost civilisation." Probably a much vaster basis than we can imagine.

Truly Tough People Temper in the Fire

The reaction of the intellectual elite to Sarah Palin was far more provincial than Palin herself ever has been, and those who reacted so viscerally against her evinced little or no appreciation for an essential premise of democracy: that practical wisdom matters at least as much as formal education, and that leadership can emerge from utterly unexpected places. The presumption that the only road to power passes through the Ivy League and its tributaries is neither democratic nor sensible, and is, moreover, a sharp and wrongheaded break from the American tradition of citizen governance. _Commentary

America's effete elite got exactly who they wanted in the White House. Someone who talks and thinks like themselves. Someone as equally untouched and untempered by real life, but with the proper degrees, friends, and attitude toward centralised control from "the top".

Meanwhile, America's schools and culture continues growing a large crop of perpetual adolescent incompetents, who take their cues from the effete elite via the entertainment and news media. The zombies of Obamby-land. Quite useful one day every two years, and particularly useful one day every four years. Otherwise, brain-dead zombies to be "managed."

If you learned the hard lessons of self-reliance, personal competencies, and working within the rules of society, you may not know how to talk the talk and walk the walk of the effete elite. If so, too bad for you if you want to break into national politics.

The reaction to Palin revealed a deep and intense cultural paranoia on the Left: an inclination to see retrograde reaction around every corner, and to respond to it with vile anger. A confident, happy, and politically effective woman who was also a social conservative was evidently too much to bear. The response of liberal feminists was in this respect particularly telling, and especially unpleasant.

“Her greatest hypocrisy is her pretense that she is a woman,” wrote Wendy Doniger, a professor at the University of Chicago. “Having someone who looks like you and behaves like them,” said Gloria Steinem, “who looks like a friend but behaves like an adversary, is worse than having no one.”

...In the end, Palin had a modest impact on the race. About 60 percent of those interviewed in the exit polls said McCain’s choice of Palin had been a factor in their vote. Of these, 56 percent voted for McCain while only 43 percent voted for Obama. In other words, she appears to have helped McCain more than she hurt him, but not by much, which is as it should be; we were voting for a President, after all. In the face of unprecedented attack, Palin succeeded where almost no vice-presidential candidate ever has before in winning sustained support for the ticket. _Commentary

Palin had real problems as a candidate. The news and entertainment media locked onto those weaknesses, and magnified them out of all reason and proportion. With Obama, they took exactly the opposite tack, and ignored any hint of weakness or deficiency.

They got what they wanted. And they continue to cover-up and obfuscate the huge problems of their Messiah. Zombies walk the land, oblivious. But real people, tough people, are tempered in the fire of real life. They keep living, keep growing, and keep getting tougher, because they face life full-on.

A society that grows top-heavy with a scummy faux elite, such as current American society, will eventually undergo significant changes. These changes will leave the unprepared, largely incompetent elite at a loss. The generations of zombies, psychological neotenates, are already lost -- beyond everything except technological revolutions that can remake their minds into those of real people. It's possible.

His Work Cut Out For Him

Seeking Alpha

Unfortunately, nothing he has done so far will help. In fact, if Obama's grand plans for health care nationalisation, energy starvation, military demoralisation, and amnesty for illegal aliens etc. are actually carried out, economic matters are likely to get far worse before getting better.

There is a good reason why leftism brings misery wherever it is put into practise. Obama has no experience in the real world, and refuses to learn from the experiences of others. His mind is full of misty, disconnected notions and whims, tied together by the limitless ambition of the total narcissist.

Interesting times to be alive. If you can get around all the corruption and stupidity in high places, some interesting opportunities are beginning to develop. Stay tuned.

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

We would all like to believe that the future of humanity on this planet is destined to be happy, prosperous, and long-lived. And, according to Ed Ring in "Humanity's Prosperous Destiny," that is exactly what we should expect.

Humanity is destined within a tantalizingly few decades to achieve a level of prosperity that can scarcely be imagined today. The ongoing conflicts of nations, continued destruction of the environment, heartbreaking poverty, ruthless injustice - these all constitute a dark fog of tribulations that can appear inpenetrable. But this fog that can seem so thick and toxic is actually disappearing with breathtaking speed. _More at Ecoworld

Very commendable in its optimism. I recommend reading the entire piece. It is well reasoned and documented.

While we are waiting for prosperity, the singularity, the next level, etc., we may want to make ourselves better able to deal with some of the intervening crises that may crop up. Living through the era of Putin, Obama, and Pelosi -- and reaching the age of prosperity on the other side -- will not be easy.

How will we get our basic services if society is falling down around us? Fortunately, Ed Ring provides us with information about some sophisticated tools that may come in handy, should any of us want to build "alternative communities" with minimal vital links to mainstream utility services. He starts with "energy from waste" and "making your own clean water from wastewater."

By showing how small, semi self-sufficient communities might provide their own power and wastewater services economically, Ed begins to show us how more functional self-assembling groups of people can sever most of their ties to the much larger, more dysfunctional population. There is much more at EcoWorld, on many topics dealing with improving one's world.

For the more "nitty-gritty" of dealing with the proximate hard times that may be coming, I recommend The Survival Blog(TSB). The archives of TSB are full of helpful tips and personal anecdotes that can save you a world of trouble. If the feces ever makes contact with the rapidly rotating metal blades, you will want to be able to separate yourselves from the masses of helpless pychologically neotenous whiners who populate much of the western world. Start preparing now to learn how that can be done. Here is another good information source.

The combined credit and commodities collapse of this past summer and fall were only the first in a series of economic problems coming down the pipe. It was natural that the voters of the US would choose a new face in the hope that newer ideas might be better ideas. Natural, but very stupid. Of course, a President McCain would have been at least 70% as bad as a President Obama will be, in terms of bad decision making. That 30% difference might have been most important, however.

That points out a huge part of the problem with humans -- they tend to rely on their leaders and bureaucratic structures in a most delusional manner. The self-reliance of the old pioneers is in short supply. That is obvious by how easily political scam artists get away with corruption and cheating. The media is in on the scam, of course, but with all the "new media" tools humans have, there is no reason they should still be so dependent on "old media" scam artists.

More Problems for Russia

After Putin's triumphal march on Davos, the Russian military's triumph over Georgia, energy triumph over Europe, and the recent expansion of Russia's air and sea power to larger parts of the globe, one might believe that Russia is entering a new phase of world dominance. Not so fast . . . .

The latest U.N. Development Program report on Russia's demographics, based on the birthrates of the last decade, suggests the country's numbers of young males of military age are set to halve after 2020. Russia's current economic woes, its unemployment doubling in six months and its exchange rate tumbling against the euro and the dollar reinforce the impression that the Kremlin's current ambitions are way beyond its capabilities.

...One key symbol of the financial crisis is the dizzying rise in interest rates. Since October 2008 the interest on a three-month ruble loan has more than tripled, from 9.1 percent to 28.3 percent. Another key statistic for the Russian economy is energy production, and in January oil output fell to 9.7 million barrels a day, a 1 percent decline on the year. Less oil, fetching a far lower price on world markets, is an ominous trend. At the same time, gas output fell by more than 10 percent in January because of the price row with Ukraine.... _Walker'sWorld

To Vladimir Putin, all of these problems are seen as mere distractions from his ambitious goals to extend Russian power to the antipodes and beyond. Putin wants to accomplish the ambitions of Stalin -- Russian hegemony over the globe.

Putin appears not to be aware of Russia's excessive dependence on energy exports. The huge problem of a shrinking indigenous Russian Slav population does not seem to have registered on the former KGB clerk. The rapid and massive expansion of muslim populations inside Russia and the Russian military itself must be outside of Vlad's consciousness. The powerful rise of China, and China's ravenous need for land and resources (such as the Russian far east) must not have occurred to the Prime Minister. Taking Putin's statements and actions literally, one would have to suppose that Vlad sees the world through magical eyes.

This is a pivot point for much of the world. Some of the world's leaders are taking semi-appropriate action to meet the challenges. Most are not. The aftermath may be most wretched.

Making Zombies

Human history is full of examples of ambitious people who discovered the "back door password" into human minds. Using this key, turning human beings into zombie followers was not so difficult.

Throughout history, it seems as though individuals had the ability to sway others to follow them no matter where they [led]. In the las[t] century, both Hitler and Mussolini had the ability to bend millions of people to their fascist will.

...Scott Wiltermuth of Stanford University in California and colleagues have found that activities performed in unison, such as marching or dancing, increase loyalty to the group.

"It makes us feel as though we're part of a larger entity, so we see the group's welfare as being as important as our own," he says.

...Psychologist Jonathan Haidt at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville thinks this research helps explain why fascist leaders, amongst others, use organised marching and chanting to whip crowds into a frenzy of devotion to their cause....

...our brains are geared to mimic our peers.

"We are set up for 'auto-copy'," says Haidt.

Neurological evidence seems to back this idea. Vasily Klucharev, at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, found that the brain releases more of the reward chemical dopamine when we fall in line with the group consensus. _Source

Populist leaders who have learned the secret can seemingly come out of nowhere to control an entire population. While it appears that they have turned thinking humans into complete zombies, the true situation is more complex. The potential for zombification always existed, waiting for the proper key to fit the lock.

Far more interesting to me are the "skeptics", the "resisters". Independent thinking persons who generate their own goals and stoke their own energies to create their own lives, are the starting material for the next level. Zombies and would-be zombies are flimsy, too subject to the changing winds and tides. To create a next-level human, one must start with the best materials.

It is instructive to observe the history of the American colonies, as they evolved over time. Stubborn and strong minded persons tended to flock together and created one environment, while more pliable and group-minded persons flocked to create a different environment. As settlements of even the strongest-minded individuals evolved, natural flocking tendencies began to predominate, and the more independent persons migrated out to more open territory that required a tougher-minded sort.

There is little question but that the relative strength of independence vs. conformity lies at least partially in genetic factors. Environment no doubt plays a strong part in strengthening innate tendencies toward either group-think or independence. Executive function combined with IQ and other personality and character traits, all are both largely heritable and strongly influenced by environment. Why should zombie-potential be any different?

And perhaps we do not need to go back in history at all, to see successful examples of zombification?

Challenges to Russia Piling Up Quickly Like Snow

Finland's Ministry of Defense recently made available a 2008 study of contemporary Russian challenges (PDF). As might be expected, Russia's demographic problems are highlighted:

Russia is about to face big demographic challenges. Russia’s population is diminishing by approximately 400 000 persons per year; yet, the population in 15 Russian regions increased in 2005. Each of them, such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetya in the North Caucasus has sizeable Muslim populations. The life expectancy among Muslim males is far greater than that of ethnic Russians.

Paul Goble, an expert of Islam and the Muslim populationin Russia, estimates that the majority of Russian military recruits will be Muslims in 2015. In 2020 twenty per cent of the citizens will be Muslims, provided that the current demographic trends continue. If no changes occur, within three decades the majority of the citizens of the Russian Federation will be Muslims. Russian Muslims are a very heterogeneous group, ranging from Volga Tatars and multiethnic groupings in the North Caucasus to the new immigrants from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. _Finish PDF report excerpted in Tundra Tabloids _ via _ Islam in Europe

Russia's muslims breed faster than the Slavic population, just as western Europe's muslims breed faster than the indigenous Europeans. Since muslims tend to settle in cities, where welfare payments are easier to obtain, it is the cities of Russia and Europe which will be impacted by muslim pluralities and majorities first. The Finnish ministry report predicts that by 2020, 20% of persons living in Russia will be muslim. But of course, that number will be much higher in Moscow and other cities.

Within the Russian military, new conscripts will be overwhelmingly muslim, and you will have a Slavic officer corps lording it over a disaffected muslim conscript army. Good luck with that, Vlad.

Even without the falling ruble, Russia’s impoverished population, working for an average wage of $4/hour, already faced double-digit consumer price inflation. Russia’s feeble economy is unable to produce a wide range of basic consumer products, and therefore must import them — and the falling ruble means a whole new level of inflation piled on top of the existing one. _LaRussophobe

With such problems inside Russia mushrooming, who can blame Putin for wanting to travel abroad to hobnob with the rich and famous, and harangue them on how they should be running their economies and their lives?

The Problem With Pot is Who Smokes it When

Using brain scans, researchers found abnormalities in areas of the brain that interconnect brain regions involved in memory, attention, decision-making, language and executive functioning skills. _LS

Image Source

When an adult smokes pot occasionally for relaxation and social bonding, his body and brain are well capable of dealing with the drug effects. But for the still-developing brains of adolescents and young adults, the impact of pot smoking is a bit more complicated. The brain contains abundant cannabinoid receptors, with effects that are still being discovered.

The findings are of particular concern because adolescence is a crucial period for brain development and maturation, the researchers note.

"Studies of normal brain development reveal critical areas of the brain that develop during late adolescence, and our study shows that heavy cannabis use is associated with damage in those brain regions," said study leader Manzar Ashtari of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The findings are considered preliminary, however, and more research is needed to confirm the work. The results, announced today, were detailed in the Journal of Psychiatric Research last month. _LiveScience

It is quite likely that any developmental effects of cannabinoids on adolescent brains depends upon the specific genetics of the individual in question. Some high school and college students might tolerate cannabinoids well, while other students might find particular career or life pathways aborted or forestalled by early and excessive use of pot. Even in mature adults, marijuana smoking has short and medium term effects that make certain types of reasoning (mathematical and abstract thought) more difficult.

The greatest danger of psychoactive drug use is during the formative periods of brain development. From embryonic development through adolescence and into adulthood, the young brain should be protected from substances that might alter brain development, whenever possible. We are familiar with fetal alcohol syndrome, of coke babies, and of babies born addicted to heroin. But the effects of recreational drugs on the brain development of middle school, high school, and college users has not been well studied.

We do not completely understand the Obama zombie effect, which culminated in the election of a US President completely unqualified to do anything other than vote "present." We have seen how "academic lobotomy" and "psychological neoteny" contributed to the zombification process, but is it not also likely that interference with normal brain development by psychoactive drug use also played a part? Certainly a brain unable to think for itself is more likely to be influenced by media propaganda and zombie peer pressure. The next question to ask: "Is there life after Obama-Zombification?" More on that later.

You Know You May be Demented if You Believe in Climate Catastrophe and Ocean Acidification

Admit it: any conscientious person who really believed in human-caused climate catastrophe would have shot himself in the head long ago. They could easily lighten the planet's burden and save many hundreds of tons of CO2 by the simple act of rapid intra-cranial lead infusion.

So, if you really want to save the planet, stop wasting time and energy by writing pointless articles based on flimsy evidence. Charity starts at home, but saving the environment starts in the governments of India, China and the USA. There are also a number of other ways to make a difference

1. Breath[e] less. An average person's respiration generates some 900g of carbon dioxide a day, so by breathing less, or avoiding getting steamed up over global warming issues you could make a real difference immediate.
2. Shoot yourself. My thanks to Jonathan Porrit for pointing out that doing something about population could help stop climate change, even if he can’t do the demographic maths too well. Of course the quickest way to make a difference would be to shoot yourself. Ending your life 40 years ahead of schedule would save over 400 tons of carbon dioxide, and this could be easily increased by bumping off a few other people too.
_Cientifica

You really have to be more than a bit deranged or demented to believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and ocean acidification in the first place. It's really tough to dig yourself out of a deep mental hole when you've been so thoroughly academically lobotomised and psychologically neotenised. Simply putting yourselves out of your own misery might be best.

Science is not about belief, or even about factual, declarative knowledge. Science is about questioning, doubting, testing -- building structures of testable hypotheses for the sheer pleasure of tearing them down again using ever more elegant logical hypotheses and means for testing them.

We are learning that there is no scientific basis for forecasting climate. We are learning that even James Hansen's supervisors at NASA see Hansen as dishonest and an embarrassment to NASA. We are learning that northern glaciers in Alaska, Norway, and Greenland are growing once again, and that arctic sea ice is already beginning to recover from its recent low in summer 2007. We have learned that ocean acidification from CO2 is an absurdity. We can easily see that alarmist temperature predictions from Hansen and the IPCC are diverging from actual temperature trends.

In the huge, dimly lit camp of the Obama-zombies, we see large numbers of true believers in human caused eco-devastation. The zombies constantly dwell on warming catastrophe and ocean acidification. It is easy to for them believe such things -- particularly when the rest of the milling mob believes them too. Not so easy to think for one's self, particularly when all the forces of one's upbringing, education, media and political culture...are telling you to let others do your thinking.

The science is not settled, and the debate is not over. Only the demented and the deranged hold to the static view of science promoted by Gore and Hansen. Future reality holds some harsh surprises for the zombie horde.

Singularity University: Vaulting Into the Beyond

Looking over the array of geopolitical disasters and catastrophic lack of visionary leadership in the world, it would seem that you cannot get to the singularity from here. You will need to either "tunnel" below, or vault above the dysfunctional world of nation-states, religious fiefdoms, and tribal clash. The best work of the best scientists and technologists will only be bent to the will of the worst megalomaniacs and power hungry con-men. What to do?

Peter Diamandis (X-Prize) and Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity is Near) decided to jump-start the singularity by opening the Singularity University on the NASA Ames campus, near Stanford University, in the generative Silicon Valley.

The school hopes to attract students from a cross section of emerging disciplines - including nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology - to tackle huge issues facing humanity. Pandemics and global health care concerns would be typical in scope and import.

"We are reaching out across the globe to gather the smartest and most passionate future leaders and arm them with the tools and network they need to wrestle with the grand challenges of our day," said Diamandis, who is perhaps best known for his current work as chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, a group that gives $10 million awards to teams working on breakthroughs in fields such as space travel and genomics. "There is no existing program that will offer the breadth and intensity that SU will offer."

...Kurzweil and Diamandis began talking about creating the school last year, which led to a semi-secret meeting on the grounds of NASA Ames on Sept. 20.

Nobel Prize-winning scientists joined up with NASA engineers and executives from companies like Google Inc. to brainstorm ideas for the new university.

In the end, Google provided some money and NASA provided the physical space to house the school.

Google co-founder Larry Page played a key role in focusing the school's mission, encouraging its founders to "address the grand challenges of humanity," according to Kurzweil.

Unlike a traditional university, Singularity will consist of a single, nine-week course of study every summer, during which 120 students from a cross-section of disciplines will mix together to tackle weighty issues. Tuition will be $25,000. Candidates will be chosen mostly from graduate and post-graduate programs around the world. _SFGate_via_BrianWang

Will the Singularity University provide the right mix of rigour, non-conventional insight and inspiration, and directional foresight to produce graduates who are more like the school's founders (Kurzweil and Diamandis) and less like the Ivy League Whizzards of Wall Street and Washington DC -- whose blindly greedy and grasping hands would seemingly steal the future from us in their quest for ever more power and loot? Or will graduates of S.U. become yet more cogs in the machine that empowers the kleptocracies firmly ensconced in the world's capitals?

Believe me when I say that no one in power wants anything even close to "a singularity" to occur, much less "The Singularity." Discontinuities from wildly disruptive technologies will be the end of current power structures. Such disruption would bypass many current problems and create new sets of problems that today's conformists and tenured, bureaucratic minds could never understand -- much less solve.

The Singularity University sounds a good deal more serious about solving problems than most of the "gee-whiz! futurism" that has floated around the various futurist and trans-humanist organisations of the western world for decades. It is likely that some good things will come of it.

But -- "The Singularity?" Probably not. But SU may well spawn some of the seeds that lead to accelerating disruption.

More at Brian Wang's NextBigFuture and at Business Week.

New Surprises From Non-Coding RNA

There is a lot more to genetics than the old dogma: DNA makes RNA makes protein. One of the complications to the old way of genetics thinking is non-coding RNA (see here and here). A team of scientists from Harvard, MIT, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has discovered yet another type of non-coding RNA -- with potentially huge ramifications.

A research team at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has uncovered a vast new class of previously unrecognized mammalian genes that do not encode proteins, but instead function as long RNA molecules. Their findings, presented in the February 1st advance online issue of the journal Nature, demonstrate that this novel class of "large intervening non-coding RNAs" or "lincRNAs" plays critical roles in both health and disease, including cancer, immune signaling and stem cell biology...

...the newly discovered lincRNAs are thousands of bases long. Because only about ten examples of functional lincRNAs were known previously, they seemed more like genomic oddities than critical components. The new Nature study shows that there are actually thousands of such genes and that they have been conserved across mammalian evolution.

...By correlating the expression patterns of lincRNAs in various cell types with the expression patterns of known critical protein-coding genes in those same cells, the scientists observed that lincRNAs likely play critical roles in helping to regulate a variety of different cellular processes, including cell proliferation, immune surveillance, maintenance of embryonic stem cell pluripotency, neuronal and muscle development, and gametogenesis. Further experimental evidence from several of the identified lincRNAs verified these observations. _MNT

The researchers commented that the genes that encode lincRNAs are "hiding in plain site", and expect to find a lot more of them. The discovery of important new components of gene expression comes as an invigorating "slap in the face" to genetics researchers already overwhelmed by the mass of data being generated in the field. Such discoveries amount to "new territory to conquer," with potential for scientific breakthroughs and Nobel Prizes.

Autologous Stem Cells Hold Most Promise in MS

Medical scientists are learning how to use autologous stem cells -- a person's own stem cells -- to treat serious illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS). A recent study at Northwestern University demonstrates an ingenious approach to the use of autologous stem cells:

In clinical trials, a team of scientists led by Richard Burt of Northwestern University in Chicago essentially rebuilt the immune system of 21 adults – 11 women and 10 men – who had failed to respond to standard drug treatments.

First they removed defective white blood cells that, rather than protecting the body, attacks the fatty sheath, called myelin, that protects the nervous system.

The immune systems were then replenished with so-called haemopoeitic stem cells – extracted from the patient's bone marrow – capable of giving rise to any form of mature blood cell.

....After an average follow-up period of three years, 17 of the 21 patients improved by at least one point on a standard disability scale, and none had a final score lower than before the stem cell transplant. _Cosmos

The ability to not only stabilise, but to actually reverse symptoms of advanced MS using autologous cells, is encouraging. Autologous cell therapies are preferred over cell transplants from donors or ESCs, due to the virtual absence of immune system rejection. That is why the new methods of inducing pluripotent stem cells from adult cells such as skin cells, will almost certainly be the preferred method of future medical rejuvenative and regenerative cell and (grown) organ replacement therapies.

Lancet article

Science Is Not About Facts, But About Reasoning

Researchers at Ohio State University appear astounded to discover that teaching students "science facts" does not appear to help students with scientific reasoning.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A study of college freshmen in the United States and in China found that Chinese students know more science facts than their American counterparts -- but both groups are nearly identical when it comes to their ability to do scientific reasoning.

Neither group is especially skilled at reasoning, however, and the study suggests that educators must go beyond teaching science facts if they hope to boost students' reasoning ability.

Researchers tested nearly 6,000 students majoring in science and engineering at seven universities -- four in the United States and three in China. Chinese students greatly outperformed American students on factual knowledge of physics -- averaging 90 percent on one test, versus the American students' 50 percent, for example.

But in a test of science reasoning, both groups averaged around 75 percent -- not a very high score, especially for students hoping to major in science or engineering.

The research appears in the January 30, 2009 issue of the journal Science.

Lei Bao, associate professor of physics at Ohio State University and lead author of the study, said that the finding defies conventional wisdom, which holds that teaching science facts will improve students' reasoning ability. _PO

Reasoning without facts is fanciful, and facts without reasoning are dead. Education seems to flit from one approach to the other, without understanding that children need exposure to both -- without political indoctrination (eg "climate catastrophe"), and respecting the critical developmental periods of the brain.

Educational methods pass through fads, lacking a deep understanding of the nature of human learning. One current fad is the use of computers in place of books or dialogue. There may be problems with this fad.

"By using more visual media, students will process information better," she said. "However, most visual media are real-time media that do not allow time for reflection, analysis or imagination — those do not get developed by real-time media such as television or video games. Technology is not a panacea in education, because of the skills that are being lost.

"Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades." _PO

Many teachers want students to use the computer during school time, and to have parents make the children read at home. Parents may have difficulty separating the children from their video games, cell phones, texting, messaging, MTV, videos, etc. long enough to get them to read, however. With both parents working, there may be little actual "home time" at all.

Reading, thinking, and thoughtful, informed dialogue help to teach children reasoning. Computer games can teach multi-tasking and eye-hand coordination. But the deeper reasoning that higher level modern life requires seems to fall between the cracks.

It was once thought that the $100 "laptop for every child" was the answer to educating the entire world's children. In India, they even have the $10 laptop for every child. Indian officials have high hopes for the device, naturally.

Learning to reason with objective facts -- forming hypotheses, then finding ingenious and elegant ways to test them -- is at the heart of scientific reasoning, which is what science is about.

Modern education seems to be about something entirely different. Call it a cross between indoctrination (academic lobotomy), expensive baby-sitting, and peer group socialisation into psychological neoteny. Not the best way to prepare new generations of problem solvers. More like the programming of brain-dead consumers and lifelong helpless adolescents.

Governments Die, Countries Live On .....

As this chart shows, the lessons of the rise of the American economy in the 20th century have finally been learned by the rest of the world. If the top corporate tax rate of 40%, which includes a 5% state tax on top of the 35% federal rate, remains much longer, American companies will find themselves on the short end of the stick thanks to their competitive disadvantage.

That means more people will lose their jobs. That means less wealth for all. _Heritage

Never mistake the government for the country. They are two distinctly different things. And while governments can easily die, countries are a bit tougher. The graph on the left shows the declining global trend for taxing corporations. Corporations naturally go to the countries that tax them the least, all other things being equal. If a government taxes corporations more than it is worth to the corporation to locate there, the corporation will go elsewhere and take its jobs with it.

California, New York, Massachussetts, and several other states are getting caught up in the "tax 'em high" fever emanating out of Obama et Pelosi's DC. But as you can see, the global trend has been in the other direction. Corporations are leaving California etc. and new startups are hesitating to locate there. The same phenomena is beginning to show on the global scale.

The US government is heading down the road of fiscal and budgetary suicide with a lethal combination of new, non-productive spending plus punitive taxation on productive entities and employers. Add to that devastating new regulations and taxes on energy and industry plus a growing stranglehold by trial lawyers and labour unions over business, and one can see how easily the US can go from being a good place for corporations to locate to being a losing proposition.

Corrupt high roller state governments such as California, New York, Illinois, Massachussetts, and Michigan are living well beyond their incomes -- and running to the new Obama / Pelosi reich for multi-billion dollar welfare for the states. Although the federal government is in no condition to be handing out goodies to corrupt state cronies, that is exactly what is happening with the O / P "stimulus bill." And they are just getting started.

Anyone who took the trouble to watch the 30 minute IOUSA film clip should have at least a vague idea of the coming budget disruption. You need to know how a responsible government would deal with such a problem in order to understand how badly our current government is focquing up. Rapidly failing state governments are a microcosm of the larger problem at the federal level.

The federal government can print money, it can sell notes, bonds, influence interest rates etc. as long as it has some degree of fiscal credibility. When it loses that credibility it will be stressed to the breaking point. Looking into the future, there is no sign that either the governing or the governed have an understanding of the problem, nor the will to deal with it. Demographic implosion plus government fiscal suicide plus cultural and educational decadency. Not a pretty combination, although quite common in western Europe also. In fact, most European nations have a bit of a head start. A few countries may even be starting to wake up.

What happens to the country after the government falls? What do you think happens?