World Demand For Oil Set to Decline Rapidly

“A peak in oil demand was barely discussed even a year ago, but now it is a viable idea. When it happens, I wouldn’t want to guess, but it will happen sooner than we thought. There has been lots of talk about a supply peak, but it is good to start talking about a demand peak, and that has huge implications for these companies.”

__http://priceofoil.org/2010/02/04/peak-demand-will-happen-before-peak-supply/

In the developed world, demand for oil -- the blood of many world dictatorships and terror sponsors -- is declining.  Many popular progrnosticators are predicting that as the economies of China, India, and much of the third world revs up, the demand for oil will skyrocket.  Such predictions are not particularly thoughtful or insightful regarding large-scale trends of world demography.

It is true that third world population continues to grow at the same time as  populations in the advanced world are shrinking rapidly.  It makes superficial sense for demand in the shrinking first world to decline, while in the expanding third world demand should explode.  Superficial sense.  Certainly in the oil producing countries themselves, local demand for oil will increase as long as fuel prices are subsidised by governments.  But such practises can only go on for so long before becoming too costly to maintain.

Rising efficiency, conservation and substitution are steadily reducing the amount of oil needed to fuel an increase in the goods and services produced around the world.

Oil demand in the rich, industrialized countries of the West already appears to have peaked and the trend in developing economies is toward an ever-smaller increase in the amount of oil consumed for every extra unit of economic growth.

Global oil intensity - oil demand growth divided by economic growth - has fallen by about two per cent a year during the last decade and the decline is now accelerating, spurred by high oil prices, moves to alternative fuels and measures to curb global warming.

This does not yet mean that absolute oil consumption is falling because population growth and rising wealth in poorer parts of the world will push up oil consumption for some time.

But it does mean global oil use will eventually peak and start declining - and "oil-less growth" may not be far away.

"The rate of decline of oil intensity will accelerate," said Eduardo Lopez, oil demand analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which advises industrialized countries.

"There is a structural change - difficult to measure admittedly, but clear - that demand for burningfuels is no longer what it used to be."

David Fyfe, head of the IEA's oil industry and markets division, says price controls and subsidies as well as economic stimulus packages in China and elsewhere, will help prop up oil demand short-term, but longer-term the trend is downward.

"Our working assumption is that with fuel economy standards, fuel diversification and substitution ... oil intensity lessens by just under 2.5 per cent over the next five or six years," Fyfe said.

This acceleration is probably partly because of prices: crude oil hit a record high of almost $150 per barrel in 2008 and are now fairly high historically at around $80.

Estimates of when global oil consumption will stop rising vary, but many analysts see it happening over the next 15 years.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward said last month world oil demand would peak sometime after 2020 at between 95 million and 110 million barrels per day (bpd), compared with current oil demand of around 85 million bpd.

The trend toward better fuel economy for cars and other vehicles has been clear for some time and it is no surprise that developed economies are using less oil for power generation.

But data from the IEA shows it is not just the richer parts of the world that are weaning themselves off oil.

Although fuel intensity in the developed countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has consistently been far lower than in non-OECD countries, the rate of decline has been very similar, IEA figures show.

 Montreal Gazette

More on short term prospects for oil here

Simply put, the third world cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps.  China pulled itself up using cheap labour and business-friendly policies to draw vast foreign investment, leading to massive export profits.   China now has a significant economic foundation upon which to build.  But internal rot within China will limit future growth -- no matter what China's Potemkin balance sheets will tend to show.  Long term growth in China also depends upon how aggressive China's government is willing to be against the rest of the world in the quest for resources and markets.

The outside world is no longer buying at frantic pace of the 80s, 90s, and early 00s.  The China model cannot be emulated by others because world economic conditions have changed.   And face it -- there is only one China.

As Europe, Japan, South Korea, and parts of North America and Oceania dwindle away, demand for oil and other resources and exports will dwindle away with them.  As the formerly dynamic economy of the US is stifled by the Obama Pelosi reich rules of energy and industrial strangulation, demand for resources and exports will dwindle even more.

Oil traders and speculators will try to re-inflate the oil balloon in the same way as they did in 2007 and 2008.  But the aftermath when the balloon bursts will be the same.  Instead of wasting all of our time and resources on false dreams of future demand growth and grandeur, it is time to begin to focus on building a solid foundation for something truly great.

More: Beware the bursting of the China Superbubble!

Al Fin Refuses California Use of Syndicate Hit Men

Despite being pressured by some of California's most powerful political operatives, Al Fin is holding steady in his refusal to allow hit men from the Al Fin Syndicate to assist California state, county, and municipality governments to balance their budgets. With California municipalities -- starting with Vallejo -- being forced to declare bankruptcy over the cost of their exploding pension obligations, some of the craftier government executives appear to be looking into creative methods for reducing their liabilities.

While some retired government workers in California may collect yearly pensions as high as $200,000 to $500,000, a good hit man will generally charge no more than $25,000 a hit, according to the FBI. Australian hit men receive only about US $10,000 per hit, and Russian hit men will rarely charge over US $1,000 a hit. Depending upon contractual benefits to surviving family members, a government might well come out ahead by seeking professional help.

Across the US, government employee pensions are roughly $2 trillion in the red. Already overburdened taxpayers in the private sector are left holding the bag, being forced to work into their seventies so that government workers who retired in their fifties can take expensive and extended vacation cruises.

California's unfunded pension liability is about $60 billion, and that for Illinois is about $55 billion. Both states are sinking rapidly due to the absence of government executives willing to stand up to public employees' unions. New Jersey is also in a serious situation, but the new governor, Chris Christie, is attempting to implement some tough measures which may save the state from defaulting on its sovereign bond debt.

Thanks to public sector unions, several US states are in danger of defaulting on sovereign debt -- just like Greece and Spain. Governments whose workforce is thickly infiltrated with union workers will find it easy to raise wages and benefits when their economies are doing well. But when the economy crashes and tax revenues dry up, the same governments find it virtually impossible to adjust wages or benefits downward, for union employees. Default on sovereign debt can follow.

US federal government programs such as Medicare and Social Security, are likewise ballooning in cost, as the baby boom generation hits retirement age and younger generations fail to maintain tax revenues high enough to pay for the exponential rise in expenses. Consequently, President Obama and the Pelosi congress have devised a clever means to kill off large numbers of US senior citizens, and called it ObamaCare. An unfortunate side effect of ObamaCare is that it will burden the US economy with many $trillions more debt, but perhaps to Obama and Pelosi that is another good thing about the plan.

The use of hit men to eliminate the most costly recipients of overblown public employee pensions is likely to be limited to California -- where peculiar rules make it especially easy for mediocre employees to retire to the guaranteed lifestyle of a millionaire -- and to Illinois, where it is impossible to tell the difference between government and the mob. For most of the other 48 states, the stark example of their most irresponsible fellow states may jolt them into at least temporary sobriety. Hit men should not be necessary.

Regardless, you can rest assured that no Al Fin Syndicate hit men will be allowed to assist California to get out of its public employee pension mess. Al Fin feels that the California Assembly got itself into the mess, and it should either get itself out of the mess or die trying. Either way. ;-)

Do Not Bet Against Craig Venter

Craig Venter has true grit. He came by it honestly over his lifetime, and continues to display true grit in all of his ventures.

Since mapping the human genome 10 years ago, J. Craig Venter has found plenty of work. The biologist now is burrowing into DNA in as many forms as he can discover, in organisms from the sea and deep underground. His goal: to use the building blocks found in naturally occurring DNA to make synthetic cells. He and his partners at Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC believe genetically engineered life forms hold great promise for energy and other industries. _WallStreetJournal

Fuels-from-microbes is a topic of interest to scientists, venture capitalists, and technologists around the world. It is no wonder that Craig Venter finds himself at the center of the cyclone that involves finding the replacement for fossil fuels and finding the keys to biological magic both at the same time.

In July of last year, Synthetic Genomics announced a $300 million agreement with Exxon to research and develop next generation biofuels using photosynthetic algae. That investment will occur over a number of years -- but that's still a lot of cash. It's more than the total amount of venture capital invested in algae startups since 2005. A drop in the bucket for Exxon but still, big money.

Here's what Venter had to say: "We are at the early stages of seeing what biology can do."

Venter has come up an idea to trick algae into pumping more lipids out. He also claims to have "engineered algae to continuously pump out hydrocarbons," which eliminates much of the cost and energy-intensity of conventional algae oil farming. If that can be done, economically and at scale -- it is absolutely disruptive.

...Venter speaks in a matter-of-fact manner about his activities but beneath that calm tone are mind-bending ideas straight out of science-fiction novels. Venter has already created the first cell with a synthetic DNA gene. If not exactly creating life, Venter is bending the genetic code to do his bidding. He said that he is "going from the four-letter genetic code of A, C, G and T to the binary codes of ones and zeros."

He is "amassing a genetic database...continually learning to write the genetic code" and "treating the genetic code as a raw material." By "changing the DNA software in the cell, the cell converts to a new species." In Venter's words, "The concept of life is changing."

In Venter's "optimistic" estimation, it will take roughly a decade to get to scale on CO2 to fuel. But "once the proof of concept is done, this will move rapidly."

There remain many problems with algae -- it's not just a matter of tricking the algae to pump more lipids out or to secrete hydrocarbons. There's an entire process chain in algae farming that needs to be optimized -- algae growth, water issues, nutrient issues and more.

But Venter is a man of action and it's not a good bet to wager against him. _BiofuelsDigest

Venter is the Vietnam war veteran who beat the Human Genome Project to the human genome. Venter understands the stakes that are involved in learning the secrets of the gene -- whether for humans or for algae. Once these secrets are out of the box, there is no replacing them.

Programming algae to replace fossil fuels will be a trivial achievement in comparison to finding the genetic keys to nurturing smarter humans. Whatever Venter may say, there is little doubt that he would like to be at the center of that cyclone as well.

Venter is a man of grit, accomplishment, and great ambition. Such men aim high, and once they reach great heights of achievement, they tend to aim even higher.

"Waterscraper" Seastead Underwater High Rise

From PopSci via eVolo via Geekologie, comes the idea of the underwater skyscraper called the "Water-Scraper." This design is one of the entrants in eVolo's contest for best futuristic skyscraper design. Water-Scraper received special mention.

Designed by Sarly Adre bin Sarkum of Malaysia, the waterscraper would be about as tall as the Empire State Building, but with only a couple of stories exposed above the surface. The whole building would be a self-sufficient, floating, arcology. Wind, solar, and wave power would provide energy, hydroponics and the green space at the top would provide food and oxygen, and the structure would provide housing, work spaces, and areas for recreation.
Ballast tanks would keep the structure level, like in a submarine, as would the tentacles. The tentacles would also move around in the ocean tides, generating electricity from kinetic energy. _PopSci

Al Fin naval architects state that this design is interesting, but that this single vertical structure would constitute only a fraction of the totality of a workable, large-scale seastead.

The Gyre design was similar in its lower vulnerability to surface waves and storms, but Gyre is more functional due to its outrigger pier and potential breakwater surface structures. The standard Clubstead design from the Seasteading Institute offers other advantages, including a small profile to waves. The half ship / half floating island designs offer the ability to move out of the way of very large storms, and to place your seastead in optimal locations according to the season.

A seastead must be esthetically livable, fully functional economically and commercially, and be survivable in the roughest conditions.

Ultimately, seasteads are likely to provide space launch, duty-free trades, financial services, specialty services for ocean explorers and miners, and Earth-to-space liason services. Every large space colony or mega-industry will probably want to operate a seastead as an independent Earth base.

It is clear that none of the conceptual designs thus far provides for all the needs of an all-purpose seastead. But at least a few people are beginning to think about what will be needed.

A Better World Requires Better Brains

Image Source

The brain is a dangerous weapon, when utilised to its potential. But unless we understand how the brain works -- what its potential is under ordinary circumstances -- we will not know how to reach our potential under truly extra-ordinary circumstances.

Conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Minnesota Medical School, the study of rats navigating a maze found that replays occurring in the hippocampus were not necessarily recent or frequent paths through the maze, as would be expected if the event was being added to memory.

On the other hand, the replays often were paths that the rats had rarely taken or, in some cases, had never taken, as if the rats were trying to build maps to help them make better navigation decisions.

Dr. Anoopum Gupta, and his colleagues said that their findings suggest replays in the hippocampus are not merely passive echoes of past events, but part of a complex, active process of decision-making. _TOI

Building maps to assist in decision making. Testing hypotheses on the run. Remembering just enough to know what is likely to work and what is not likely to work.

Now, a new scientific collaboration, featuring German researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, in Frankfurt, and UK experts from the University of Glasgow...has shown that the brain understands predictable images much faster than it does unpredictable ones. In fact, the team says, it would appear that it is the job of the brain to formulate predictions as to what will happen to the external world. For example, imagine going to work each day and seeing one of your colleagues always on the same chair, and always there before you arrive. The brain is used to this, and it takes very little effort for it to understand what is going on. However, if you see your father, or a cousin, on the same chair, then the brain will get jammed. This reaction is natural, as the cortex realizes that it interprets the world around poorly, and that it needs to improve its prediction skills.

This investigation is tremendously important for neuroscience, as it gives researchers an extra way of understanding how the visual cortex is supported by the rest of the brain. But the team reveals that the new study also hints at the fact that visual perception is directly related to the accuracy of predictions that the brain makes of the outside world. If the hypothesis the cortex makes does not come true, then it takes longer for you to process the same image. _Softpedia

Always mapping. Always making predictions. Always testing predictions against the internal map. Always revising the map -- if the brain is healthy.

You may be under the impression that your awareness of the world around you is voluntary and intentional, continuous. But there are really a lot of blind spots and gaps in a person's observations. When a person's train of thought is interrupted, the train can go off the tracks. Voluntary attention can be hijacked by "involuntary attention" when someone jumps out and says "BOO!"

New research [looking at how attention can be derailed] from Vanderbilt University...was published March 7, 2010, in Nature Neuroscience.

"The simple example of having your reading interrupted by a fire alarm illustrates a fundamental aspect of attention: what ultimately reaches our awareness and guides our behavior depends on the interaction between goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention. For coherent behavior to emerge, you need these two forms of attention to be coordinated," René Marois, associate professor of psychology and co-author of the new study, said. "We found a brain area, the inferior frontal junction, that may play a primary role in coordinating these two forms of attention."
The researchers were also interested in what happens to us when our attention is captured by an unexpected event. _SD

When our predictions are wrong -- when something really, really unexpected happens -- that "something" tends to grab our attention. Novelists, advertisers, hypnotists, and politicians all know something about this phenomenon. Ordinary people need to understand how it works.

Still, despite not understanding how our attention is controlled, we somehow hold the belief that we are largely in control of our own minds. Research from Sweden concerning the voluntary and involuntary retrieval of memories may make us think again.

Efforts to retrieve a specific memory are dealt with by the upper part of the frontal lobe. This area of the brain is activated not only in connection with memory-related efforts but also in all types of mental efforts and intentions, according to the dissertation. This part of the brain is not involved in the beginning of the process of unintentionally remembering something as a response to external stimuli. Instead, such memories are activated by specific signals from other parts of the brain, namely those that deal with perceived stimuli like smells, pictures, and words. Sometimes such memories are thought to be more vivid and emotional; otherwise they would not be activated in this way. But Kristiina Kompus's dissertation shows that this is not the case -- memories do not need to be emotionally charged to be revived spontaneously, unintentionally. Nor do memories that are revived spontaneously activate the brain more than other memories...

...The dissertation uses a combination of two imaging methods for the brain: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). The methods yield different information about the function of the brain. By combining them, Kristiina Kompus has been able both to determine what part of the brain is activated and how the activation proceeds over extremely brief time intervals, on the order of milliseconds. _SD

Brain scientists want to understand all of the brain's connections. They want to understand all brain connections at the microscopic and molecular level. And they want to understand brain connections at the macroscopic level observable by the human eye. Some researchers want to take the level of dynamic understanding of the brain's connections all the way down to the ion channels in neuronal membranes.

These studies are all useful. They are all science, and all have the potential to overturn misconceptions and false beliefs about how our brains work. But none of them will re-create a functioning human brain. Not even a monkey's brain.

Since what we want -- what we need -- is better human brains, something more is needed. Something which can tie all of this important new knowledge together, and do something wonderful with it. That is a threatening possibility, if you are part of the power structure. Just when your elaborate plans are working out the way you wanted, something disruptive comes along.

Science -- like capitalism -- is incredibly disruptive. And politically incorrect, when practised properly. That is why so much time, energy, and funding is devoted to the obfuscation and perversion of science. And as you can see from looking at brief glimpses of brain research above, if you pervert and obfuscate science, you also pervert and obfuscate the human brain.

We want better brains, set free to do wonderful things. The powers that be, in contrast, wish to stunt, pervert, obfuscate, and hobble the brain. It is in the way children are taught in lower education -- hell, it is in the way the people who become teachers of children are taught in university schools of education. It is in the way university students' brains are academically lobotomised and indoctrinated to the point of view of the professor -- all other points of view dismissed and demonised in much the same way as would happen in a mosque or re-education camp.

You can either go along or you can wake up.

How Will You Boost Your Brain?

ImageSourceTrue "brain-boosting" can occur when the brain's ability to form new neurons and new synaptic connections is enhanced. Such cognitive enhancement can occur from the use of certain drugs, for example some anti-depressants and even ritalin.

But there are other ways to boost your brain, besides drugs. Deep brain stimulation using electromagnetism can work. And now, new research shows that brainwave training in the alpha frequencies can enhance brain plasticity and synaptogenesis.

Researchers from Goldsmiths and the Institute of Neurology have demonstrated that half an hour of voluntary control of brain rhythms is sufficient to induce a lasting shift in cortical excitability and intracortical function.

Remarkably, these after-effects are comparable in magnitude to those observed following interventions with artificial forms of brain stimulation involving magnetic or electrical pulses. The novel finding may have important implications for future non-pharmacological therapies of the brain and calls for a serious re-examination and stronger backing of research on neurofeedback, a technique which may be promising tool to modulate cerebral plasticity in a safe, painless, and natural way. _SD

The Mindflex device ($80 from Walmart and Amazon) is a fairly inexpensive way to train your brain in alpha wave relaxation. There is also a wide array of brain-machines that claim to entrain relaxation brain-wave frequencies -- including alpha. Learn how to make such a device yourself. Or browse around and see if anything here interests you. Even more here.

These are all tiny little baby steps compared to the type of brain-machine interfaces that are coming. Neurofeedback machines are available at all levels of sophistication and expense. With a sophisticated neurofeedback machine, you can go far beyond simple alpha training. But alpha wave relaxation is not a bad place to start. As long as it is just a start.

In the future, some individuals will use brain-machine interface as an escape from daily problems and challenges. What will be far more exciting is the level of challenges that people will be able to solve using various types of brain training, and machine-assisted brain plasticity.

Returning to the Source

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Scientists can detect traces of the green algae Botyrococcus Braunii in oil and coal deposits. This green algae has been producing hydrocarbons for hundreds of millions of years, and continues to do so. So if green algae B. Braunii is still on the job, why is everyone so worried about "peak oil doom?" The time scale involved. Although oil from B. Braunii is of the highest quality, it takes the algae too long to reproduce. It takes too much time to produce oil in the quantities which humans currently consume. So what is the answer?

B. braunii is a prime candidate for biofuel production because some races of the green algae typically "accumulate hydrocarbons from to 30 percent to 40 percent of their dry weight, and are capable of obtaining hydrocarbon contents up to 86 percent of their dry weight.

...Like most green algae, B. braunii is capable of producing great amounts of hydrocarbon oils in a very small land area.

B. braunii algae show particular promise not just because of their high production of oil but also because of the type of oil they produce, Devarenne said. While many high-oil-producing algae create vegetable-type oils, the oil from B. braunii, known as botryococcenes, are similar to petroleum.

"The fuels derived from B. braunii hydrocarbons are chemically identical to gasoline, diesel and kerosene," Devarenne said. "Thus, we do not call them biodiesel or bio-gasoline; they are simply diesel and gasoline. To produce these fuels from B. braunii, the hydrocarbons are processed exactly the same as petroleum is processed and thus generates the exact same fuels. Remember, these B. braunii hydrocarbons are a main constituent of petroleum. So there is no difference other than the millions of years petroleum spent underground."

But, a shortcoming of B. braunii is its relatively slow growth rate. While the algae that produce 'vegetable-type' oils may double their growth every six to 12 hours, B. braunii's doubling rate is about four days, he said.

"Thus, getting large amounts of oil from B. braunii is more time consuming and thus more costly," Devarenne said. "So, by knowing the genome sequence we can possibly identify genes involved in cell division and manipulate them to reduce the doubling rate." _SD

Humans can intentionally grow large volumes of B. Braunii across dry and desert lands -- even over the surface of oceans and seas. But unless a good genetic tweak can be found to speed up the algae's reproductive and oil production cycle, it would be very expensive to do so.

Billions of dollars are going to research to develop such tweaks. Microbial fuels should arrive on the scene within ten years -- just enough to nudge fuel markets a tiny bit. Within twenty years, microbial fuels will comprise close to 30% of the liquid and gaseous fuels markets.

Peak oil is only true in the most trivial sense -- sooner or later, humans will stop using oil because better energies and fuels will be abundantly available.

Between now and then, energy markets will see some turbulent ups and downs. But the end game is in sight, which means that a price ceiling on liquid fuels is visibly descending. Slowly, distantly, but visibly. Adjust your plans accordingly.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

The Southern Hemisphere Goes Missing! Is It a Hate Crime?

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Scotland Yard, the FBI, and Interpol are undecided as to whether the loss of the Earth's Southern Hemisphere constitutes a racist hate crime. President Obama has expressed concern, and the Reverends Wright, Sharpton, and Jackson have chartered a luxury jet to inspect the missing hemisphere -- starting with Bali.

But according to Anthony Watts and Joe D'Aleo, there may be a simpler explanation.   Climate models require roughly 7,000 reporting climate stations as input, distributed evenly over Earth's land surfaces.  We have only about 1200 ongoing surface climate stations worldwide -- of variable reliability. Perhaps 1 of 10 US stations are of the highest quality, and worldwide the US stations are the best (sadly). The southern hemisphere is distinctly under-represented.

SurfaceStations
The best survey ever undertaken of the best surface climate stations (PDF) reveals that most of the stations have been poorly sited, or have not been kept up well. Only the stations marked in blue on the map above are of highest quality.

And now we know that all of this data -- unevenly distributed and of questionable quality to begin with -- has been tampered with, tainted, and "adjusted" to the point of virtual worthlessness.

Does anyone with an IQ above his shoe size still trust the UN's IPCC reports? Anyone who is not being paid off in some way or another by the great catastrophic climate orthodoxy and carbon trading scam? Anyone who is not connected to the global green leftist dieoff and energy starvation crusade? Anyone?

A Mighty Fortress Is Our Climate Model

Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and Judith Curry spend a lovely day at the beach, constructing a lovely structure in the sand. But with the tide changing and a storm -- plus a possible tsunami -- coming their way, how long can the structure last? Even if they construct a host of sand soldiers and sand artillerymen to defend the castle, how long can it reasonably survive in the real world?

H/T Anthony Watts

A Hockey Stick Delusion by Matt Ridley

A partial list of climate scandals

3 out of 4 Official climate datasets irrevocably tainted

NASA climate data found tainted -- so they used tainted CRU data instead!

The climate orthodoxy is a crumbling castle of sand. Yet this pseudoscience is being taught to schoolchildren and is trumpeted by the mainstream media (and porno rags like Nature, Science, New Scientist, Scientific American, New York Times, etc) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The scam receives massive government funding from the Obama - Pelosi reich, and other green leftist dieoff regimes around the world.

Only a great popular uprising by the victims of the scam -- the people of the western world -- can turn back the great dieoff and energy starvation bandwagon.

The Future of Government Education, Today!

Pioneering researchers at Harcos Labs have developed a technology to meet the difficult challenges of multicultural government education. US high school graduates can no longer compete with secondary school graduates from other parts of the developed world, due to the inability of government school teachers to maintain discipline and a proper learning environment in the classroom. The new Harcos Lab technology will change all of that.

We wanted to hack a device, so that unless you remained calm and your brain stayed idle, it would shock the hell out of you. Would the horrible fear of impending pain cause you to clear your mind, or concentrate and receive said pain? _HarcosLabs _ via _ Engadget _ via _ Keelynet.com

Shocking the hell out of multicultural government school students is precisely what will be required in order to make American high school graduates competitive once again. You can obtain the Mindflex device from WalMart online for about $80 (also Amazon.com). The essential electro-shock module can be obtained here.

Some students will require more time with the device than others. That is to be expected in a pluralistic, multicultural society. But if equality is the goal, we must be willing to shock the hell out of any student who refuses to learn -- until she finally gets it.

A newer, higher voltage version of the device is being perfected at Harcos Labs for use in the exacting educational environment of the third world. With higher voltages comes the risk of permanent disability or death, but there are a lot fewer lawyers in the third world, so that should not be a problem. Those lawyers who do stir up a ruckus can be dealt with by almost any third world dictatorship apparatus. (necessary bribes will add to the total cost of any third world projects)

Tower Cities, Living Above It All

There is something to be said for living high above the muss and fuss of ground level humanity. Even better if you can put your towers offshore and inaccessible to anyone without authorised access. Such precautions are particularly wise in cities such as Marseilles or Detroit.

The Tower | city | towers project offers the opportunity to rethink all the functionalities, needs and demands of the city, especially in terms of population density and everything it involves (leisure activities, work, housing, transportation, etc.), thus allowing the nature to take back its original place.
The idea is to go back to the origin, allowing the pine-wood and the vegetation to grow again, making the rock reappear, offering the earth a deserved fallow-land, using the potential of lands conquered by the current city to give life to an alternative city which would offer an unequalled way of life and give back its place to nature.
Tower | city | towers suggests to deconstruct the existing city and build it on the sea in order to liberate the lands. _TowerCityMarseilles

The intention of the designers was to create a more dense urban center, and place the city out on the water in order to let the land regenerate. This would allow the inhabitants of the city close access to nature, trees, and open space rather than being completely surrounded by urban sprawl for miles and miles. Additionally, residents have even quicker access to the water for recreation or travel. Although designed originally for Marseilles, this skyscraper concept could be applied for any coastal city.

The new city would be built above the water so as to not disturb the marine ecosystem. Constructed in a 3D grid, the skyscraper city would still contain all the necessities of city life – places to work and live, modes of transportation, schools, shopping and every day life amenities as well as recreation. By condensing the city into a smaller, compact space, the city itself becomes more efficient, and as a bonus, a ton of additional land would be available for open space. The city would be built from the ruins of the old city, powered by renewable energy, and would include port facilities, garden and open space. _Inhabitat

The bubble tower pictured above is tower-by-the-sea meant to serve as a massive desalination structure for Almeria, in Spain.

The system works with a series of circular tanks filled with brackish water. The water is pumped through the mangrove plants via tidal power, and is ultimately stored in freshwater tanks for later use. Design Crew for Architecture estimates that the tower could potentially produce 30,000 liters of fresh water daily. _FastCompany

Such a well-intentioned approach to providing fresh water must unfortunately wait for more advanced materials and construction technologies. But as long as we are spending time talking about such projects, we remain unaware of how all our splendid past fantasies of ecotopia are lying dormant and wasting in the sun and rain.

Tidal power is the most expensive form of power generation known. Wasting resources on such fantasies has become something of a Spanish past-time recently. Meanwhile, Spaniards are vanishing from the land and being replaced by third world newcomers with average IQs at least 1 standard deviation lower. What type of ecotopia, exactly, is created via dysgenic demographic transformation?

The Marseilles Tower may be more practical -- particularly if it can provide a secure self-contained arcology that allows productive members of Marseilles to escape the rampant human predation that occurs on city streets and backways.

Europe in Chains: Return of Euro-Slaves

Slavery is not about race. Slavery is about strength and weakness. The strong will subdue the weak to serve in whatever capacity is demanded.

An ongoing demographic invasion of Old Europe by a faster-breeding culture that still incorporates slavery, polygamy, and concubinage, raises the spectre of the return of slavery to the European sub-continent.  Many commentators have made the claim that Europeans will fight back, if pushed into a corner by the faster-breeding newcomers.  Ralph Peters, in his novel The War After Armageddon, makes this claim by portraying Europeans rising up in a massive pogrom against all Muslims -- driving them into the sea in a bloody violent reaction against jihadi violence.

Certainly one can look at Europe and see faint glimpses of reaction against Muslim violence, crime, welfare dependency, and the failure to assimilate.  But these glimmers of reaction are too little, too late.  The massive  rising demographic tide of Islam is sweeping over the continent far too quickly for the masses of Europeans -- drugged on the welfare state and an oblivious multicultural leftism -- to wake up and defend themselves.

What happens when Muslims overwhelm a previously non-Muslim society?

Slavery was taken for granted throughout Islamic history. When it was finally abolished this was due to Western pressure, especially through the efforts of the British Empire: "Nor was there a Muslim abolitionist movement, no Clarkson, Wilberforce, or Garrison. When the slave trade ended, it was ended not through Muslim efforts but through British military force. Even so, there is evidence that slavery continues beneath the surface in some Muslim countries - notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962; Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970; and Niger, which didn't abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and as many as one million people remain in bondage. Slaves are bred, often raped, and generally treated like animals. There are even slavery cases involving Muslims in the United States. A Saudi named Homaidan al-Turki was sentenced in September 2006 to twenty-seven years to life in prison for keeping a woman as a slave in his Colorado home. For his part, al-Turki claimed that he was a victim of anti-Muslim bias."

Indian historian K. S. Lal states that wherever Jihadists conquered a territory, "there developed a system of slavery peculiar to the clime, terrain, and populace of the place." When Muslim armies invaded India, "its people began to be enslaved in droves to be sold in foreign lands or employed in various capacities on menial and not-so-menial jobs within the country." _BrusselsJournal

Either Islam will be Europeanised or Europe will be Islamised. There will be no peaceful coexistence in Europe, no more than there has been peaceful coexistence in Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, Thailand, the Balkans, or anwhere else along the "bloody borders of Islam."

And if Europe is Islamised -- as seems more likely -- officially sanctioned slavery will return to Europe in a big way. The prelude to this reality has been occurring among the young women and girls of parts of Eastern Europe. The slave trade in Eastern European girls is run by organised criminal gangs across Europe into Russia and down through the Balkans into the Muslim near East. But it is a mere hint at what will happen if the nations of western Europe fall to a human wave of Sharia, and the old world primitivism of Muslim tribal cultures.

Europe's population of indigenous young Euros is shrinking rapidly. The ability of Europe to field, equip, and train a defense force capable of taking back Paris, London, Brussels, Rotterdam, Malmo, Marseilles, and the rest of the once - European cities in transition, is slipping away. When the great cities of a nation and continent are submerged beneath an alien culture of crime and bloody fanaticism, the entire nation and continent become almost impossible to save.

Parts of Europe, and parts of most European nations, will survive and resist. But if the nuclear armaments and other advanced weaponry of the nations fall into the hands of the invaders, small bands of resistance can be obliterated with tanks, bombs, and artillery shells. The countryside might be made unlivable -- which will make the urban masses quite hungry -- but it is conceivable that the tide of war, death, disease, famine, misery, fanaticism, and slavery might travel very far indeed before it is stopped.

Historians often fantasise about going back in time and murdering a young Hitler before he writes "Mein Kampf" or solidifies a movement of death. Very few historians or intellectuals of any stripe live enough in the present to understand the rapidly forming atrocity of Islam in Europe. By the time they stop denying the reality -- stop mocking those who see all too clearly -- it will be too late for Europe.

After a great battle, the men and the old are typically slaughtered, and the young women and children are taken as booty. It is the way things have always been, and the way they will be again.

The "singularity" will eventually sweep much of the bloody primitivism away, as long as large areas of western civilisation can survive to support the necessary research and development. But there is a storm coming that no one seems to want to face head on. Political correctness has too great a hold on the media and western culture in general. The price to be paid for that politically correct leftist multiculturalism will be painful.

The Source of European Fertility, Now and Then

Update 21 March 2010: Blogger Statsaholic has posted a debunking of the two numbered lists below, taken from a comment in Reason magazine.  Sometime after copying the lists, and while putting together this article, it became obvious to me that the lists were wrong.  I decided to post them anyway, along with more primary sources, so that anyone who became suspicious -- as I did almost instantly -- could check them out, debunk them, and have a good laugh on Al Fin.   This blog is not about being an authority who is always right.  Sometimes, known errors -- as long as they are not too blatant -- are allowed into a published article as a type of test for readers.  If you see a mistake, be sure to point it out.  People who are truly intelligent love to be proven wrong, when they actually are wrong. 



There has been some disagreement as to the source of increased fertility in selected European nations. While fertility trends can have many underlying reasons, in this case the primary reason for a rise (or lesser drop) in fertility rates for most European nations with the highest TFRs appears to be immigration of a high-fertility population grouping -- the Muslims.

The following is taken from a comment following this article on Sweden.

Here’s the order of healthiest fertility rates for Western European countries:

1) France
2) Netherlands
3) Belgium
4) Switzerland
5) Austria
6) Germany
7) Italy
8) Spain

And here’s the order with the highest proportion of Muslims:

1) France
2) Netherlands
3) Belgium
4) Switzerland
5) Austria
6) Germany
7) Italy
8) Spain

In 50 years, Europe is going to be filled with two demographic groups: elderly Europeans and Muslims.

Below, you can see a graphical comparison of fertility rates and per cent Muslim population.



Fertility Rates in Europe

Islam in Europe, Wiki


Wiki List of Countries by Muslim Population (2009) data

CIA Factbook Fertility Rates by Country (2009 estimates)

Wiki Islam in Europe

Most advanced nations are experiencing a population crash due to low fertility alone. Russia's population implosion is due to both low fertility and high death rates.

Russia’s life expectancy at birth today is about four years lower than it was forty years ago. Its health reversal is concentrated in the working age groups. This peacetime death explosion has been triggered not by tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS, but by cardiovascular disease and injuries. Alcohol, of course, has played its part: indeed, one Russian study determined that almost half of the young and middle aged men who died of injury or cardiovascular disease were drunk at the time of death. Russians now in their 30s, 40s, or 50s have already accumulated a lifetime of insults to their health. _Source

Europe is based upon the welfare state model, where younger workers support retired persons and persons on welfare and disability. When the younger persons are themselves refusing to work and collecting welfare, Europe's system finds itself under deadly strain, with a diminishing tax base and an exploding government debt.

The US under Obama is experiencing a similar phenomenon, with the exception that the younger generations of Americans -- both native and immigrant -- are slightly more disposed to cultural assimilation and work, than the young incoming Muslim immigrants of Europe.

Yachts Morphing to Floating Islands, More

The design of the WALLY Yacht above hints at an evolution in yacht design away from traditional forms, and moving closer to the seastead floating island concept.  Such designs will allow a seastead to move out of the way of larger storms.

Meet the WHY 58X38 — a $160 million yacht that's basically an island unto itself.

"Everybody's dream is to live on an island, in complete freedom, without constraint, with the independence that only self-sufficiency can provide. A piece of land with a beautiful villa partly fulfills this aspiration because its static. A yacht offers the freedom to move, but does not have the space of a property. WHY has it all: space, stability, movement, independence, and peace," Wally Yachts President Luca Bassani Antivari wrote.

The WHY 58X38, which measures 58 meters by 38 meters (more than 35,000 square feet), offers three levels of space. The first level has living space with a beach, spa, dining room, music room and cinema. The second level has suites, a lounge and a library. The third level is the owner's space. _DailyNews

These floating islands are bound to be scaled up over time. They will also eventually incorporate heliports and enclosed, protected small boat harbours.   So, from land, you can reach your mobile floating island via small boat, helicopter, amphibious plane --- or jet pack!

The Martin Aircraft (New Zealand) jet pack uses premium gasoline for fuel, and can achieve up to 30 minutes of flight time.  It can fly you to your seastead as long as you do not roam too far away on land.

The Jetpack is constructed from carbon fiber composite, has a dry weight of 250 lbs (excluding safety equipment) and measures 5 ft high x 5.5 ft wide x 5 ft long. It's driven by a 2.0 L V4 2 stroke engine rated at 200 hp (150 kw), can reach 8000 ft (estimated) and each of the two 1.7 ft wide rotors is made from carbon / Kevlar composite.

There is always risk associated with flying so Martin Aircraft has been careful to equip the pack with redundant systems that will take over in the event that the main system goes down. If a crash-landing is required, a pilot-operated toggle will rapidly fire a small amount of propellant deploying a ballistic parachute (similar to a car airbag) which will allow the pilot and jetpack to descend together. It also has an impact-absorbing carriage, patented fan jet technology and 100 hours engine TBO (Time Between Overhaul). Small vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL) are not subject to the same limitations as other helicopters and fixed wing aircrafts but Martin Aircraft have built it to comply with ultralight regulations and therefore suggest it as at least as safe to operate, and claim it is the safest of all jetpacks yet built. _Gizmag

Ground Effect Hovercraft Video: Survival Vehicle?

If you watched the "After Armageddon" videos in the previous post, you should have some awareness of how difficult it might be to get out of town at the exact same time as several million other would-be escapees. The HovPod featured in the video below was the recipient of the Al Fin 2009 Small Vehicle Survival Award.

The HovPod is a great all-terrain escape vehicle, but you can see from the topmost video that adding flight -- even low level ground effect flight -- to your escape vehicle's capabilities may make the difference between reaching the high ground and being stuck in a bad place.

The Terrafugia Transition is featured in the video below. It is a roadable aircraft capable of flying above the gridlocked freeways below. Finding a good landing spot may be problematic under some conditions, but a wise escape artist plans ahead.

The ICON A5 amphibious trailerable plane may be your best bet if you live near a lake, river, bay, or protected harbour. With the A5 you can take off from water and land on solid surface, or vice versa. Check it out below:

A personal helicopter may be your best bet if you live in the middle of a large city, and do not have access to a waterway or runway for your private airplane. The Helicycle demonstrated in the video below, is one example of a personal helicopter. Consider adding flotation for more versatility.

After Armageddon: X Meals from Total Anarchy

Things can fall apart for many reasons, and at astoundingly rapid speeds. Whether you are 3 meals from anarchy or 9, the distance between you and deadly threat is alarmingly small. Natural disaster, epidemic disease, power failure, terror attack, or outright warfare -- potential triggers are more numerous than you can imagine.

You won't be able to leave the city by freeway -- they will all be jammed by wrecked, abandoned, and burning vehicles. Better have several alternate routes and fallback plans. Is your bugout kit packed and ready? Does your bugout vehicle have a full tank of fuel and is it well maintained? Do you have a bugout destination?

I recommend the links and the postings at PreparednessPro.com. A good site for daily browsing is SurvivalBlog. Unfortunately, membership in the Society for Creative Apocalyptology is currently closed, but several online forums of a similar nature are available.

You have a much better chance of surviving a short, medium, and long-term catastrophe if you are a member of a cooperating group of survival-oriented individuals and families with complementary skills.

Skyaking: When You Must Be First in the Water

When the need to kayak the whitewater or the surf hits, you really do not want to suffer the long ride in the car, or taking the time to tie the boat down to the rack then take it back off again. You want to be the first to hit the water when the surf's up or when the river flow hits optimum.

Miles Daisher is a 40 year old adventurer from Twin Falls, Idaho, who is polishing the fine art of skyaking on the free falling slipstream.

Over the years father-of-two Miles and his team have slowly perfected the art of skyaking.

‘There are a lot of things that can go wrong in skyaking and so you have to be prepared,’ he said.

‘In skyaking I usually put the chute quite high. With skydives I will pull at 2,000 ft above the ground whereas with skyaking I will pull at 5,000 ft above the ground incase anything starts to go a little crazy.

‘That way I have a time to sort things out, get out of the boat and then pull the chute for the kayak.’ And he has noted some strong differences in regular skydiving. ‘The rate at which you fall is a lot different,’ he said.

‘Instead of falling flat on your belly you are sitting up right in an L position. I liken it to sitting on a space hopper, balancing front to back and side to side.

‘It does take some decent balance skills. And because the boat has such a big surface area your fall rate is a lot slower.

‘If you are lying on your belly, a normal sized human will fall at 120 mph.

‘If you go into a stand up or a head down then you can build the speed up to 160-180 mph.

‘But with this boat, that has so much surface area and weighs 35 lbs, meaning that I fall at only 98 mph. _ImpactLab

You can see Miles "ditching" his craft next to the runway.  Notice the beginning of wing stall as the kayak transfers energy to the water rather smoothly, but abruptly.

Next, Miles needs to put an engine on his craft in order to add range and time aloft.   At that point, he should be able to take off from water as long as he can keep his wing inflated while picking up speed.

Zombie US States Follow Lead of Zombie King

The history of public sector unions goes back to 1962 when President John F. Kennedy signed executive order 10988 allowing unionization of the federal workforce. This changed everything in the American political system. President Kennedy’s order swung open the door for the unrelenting rise of the unionized public workforce in many states and cities. _Mish

US states have fallen into an inescapable financial quagmire, owing largely to their growing debt obligations to public employee unions. This problem is devastatingly unsolvable as long as public sector unions are allowed the same collective bargaining rights as private sector unions. As long as public sector unions can get friendly legislators and executives elected, the exploding Ponzi scheme will continue to the bitter end.

The problem in the US goes back to the early 1960s, under green rookie president John Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy thought he was doing the right thing, but he was never completely sure. And although Mr. Kennedy is long gone, his legacy of union-instigated exploding debt has just begun.

In 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988, which allowed collective bargaining and gave unions other powers.
The same year Kennedy also gave public-sector unions a tool to justify higher wages by signing the Salary Reform Act of 1962, which established that there be "comparability" of public-sector pay to pay in the private sector.
One senses that even Kennedy wasn't sure he was right. The executive order, for example, excluded the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and any other office performing security functions should its head deem that collective bargaining would endanger national security. One of the slowest federal agencies to obey the order and extend recognition to unions was the Justice Department, headed by President Kennedy's brother Robert.
Observers understood what Kennedy had done. Later presidents might move against public unions – as Reagan did against PATCO, the air traffic controllers' union. But they couldn't
This reluctance to allow union bargaining in sensitive areas is germane now because the American Federation of Government Employees is petitioning for the right to organize the 40,000 airport security workers across the country.
The public-sector unions recently surpassed private-sector unions in membership. And the lengths to which Americans have gone to accommodate public-sector unions is extensive and artful. _OCRegister

There is only one governor in the entire US who seems to have the cojones to try to turn back the killing tide of public unions: Chris Christie of New Jersey. Christie's courage is rare among public officials, and public sector unions will do everything they can to destroy his effort to save New Jersey.

A recent poll revealed that 87 percent of Americans are aware of and concerned about runaway public debt. This is pretty amazing, since it's hard to believe that 87 percent of Americans would be aware of any single thing no matter how important.

[Public employees] aren't to blame for the system in which they work. This is not an attack on them. But when the school board in Fairfax County, Va., urges supervisors to raise taxes by $81.9 million, as reported by the Washington Examiner, and admits under questioning that the need for that is mostly because of exploding pension and medical benefit costs -- well, what Reason Magazine's Nick Gillespie calls "the coming war over public-sector pensions" is getting close, very close. _BaltimoreSun

What's to be done? Here is one person's idea:

So what's done is done, and there is not much that we can do about it — except work until we are 80 to help fund cruises for folks that retired at 55.

But rest assured that when this train finally arrives, it really will run us over — just like Greece, but much closer to home.

Because standing behind all of this mess is biggest black hole of them all: your Uncle Sam, sort of like a half-assed zombie king... But that's a hair-raising tale I'll save for another day.

Until then what you need to realize is this: The status quo can not possibly be maintained. _SeekingAlpha

"The status quo cannot be maintained." That qualifies as the understatement of the year. The question is, "how badly will things fall apart when they do indeed fall?" It is possible that the longer we put off the reckoning, the more catastrophic will be the fallout.

More at Pension Tsunami and Free Enterprise Nation

And, can the US pay its $99.2 TRILLION(!) dollar pension obligation?

Update 4 March 2010: New York State competes for Zombie State Award

Kiwi Hoverwing Invention Takes You Higher

Al Fin has discussed the need to add ground-effect capability to hovercraft. Now a clever New Zealand inventor has done just that!

New Zealand mechanic Rudy Heeman spent more than 11 years of his spare time (and tens of thousands of dollars) building the hoverwing, a wing-in-ground-effect vehicle that flies on a cushion of pressurized air created between the wing and the water's surface. Hoverwing can reach an optimum height is 1.5m (4-5ft) above the water and has a current top speed of 98kmh (61mph).

Heeman told the The Nelson Mail that the "hoverwing", which is almost complete, has drawn local residents from their houses and cars to watch test flights over the Haven in the town of Nelson, at the northern tip of New Zealand’s south island.

Heeman is no stranger to hovercraft – he’s built and sold them for some time. But the hoverwing is his most ambitious project. So ambitious that an early test flight just prior to Christmas last year resulted in a crash landing. But it wasn't enough to deter him from completing the project.

The hoverwing is powered by a modified Subaru car engine while the body comprises most fibreglass. _Gizmag_via_TheNelsonMail

A hovercraft can cross land, water, sand, mud, ice, etc. but it cannot fly over obstacles above a certain size. Adding a "ground-effect" capacity to the vehicle allows it to travel over walls, ditches, larger waves, and other surface disruptions that could stop a mere hovercraft.

"This machine is fast and furious, it roars like a lion, and is not for the faint hearted. It is adrenalin pumping and exciting."

With a 1.8-litre engine and a range of more than 225 kilometres, the hovercraft cruised at 90kmh when flying, and had a smooth ride above the waves, he said.

"The fuel economy is far better than a boat of the same size and speed."_TheNelsonMail

Planet Earth's Air Conditioner System Part 3

Sense and Sensitivity by Willis Eschenbach is a must-read essay on the quest to restore falsifiable science to climatology. Mainstream climatology has sunk to unbelievable depths of defiant deceit. If someone does not come along soon to knock some sense into climate science, the public backlash will damage all of science -- not just the climate weasels such as Jones, Mann, Hansen, et al.

It is important for anyone wishing for a deeper understanding of climate to follow the cutting edge of logic in the science of climate. That cutting edge does not reside within mainstream climatology any longer, but instead rests firmly within the camp of the skeptics:

My new falsifiable predictions from my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis were as follows:

1 The climate sensitivity would be less near the equator than near the poles. This is because the almost-daily afternoon emergence of cumulus and thunderstorms is primarily a tropical phenomenon (although it also occurs in some temperate regions).

2 The sensitivity would be less in latitude bands which are mostly ocean. This is for three reasons. The first is because the ocean warms more slowly than the land, so a change in forcing will heat the land more. The second reason is that the presence of water reduces the effect of increasing forcing, due to energy going into evaporation rather than temperature change. Finally, where there is surface water more clouds and thunderstorms can form more easily.

3 Due to the temperature damping effect of the thunderstorms as explained in my Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis, as well as the increase in cloud albedo from increasing temperatures, the climate sensitivity would be much, much lower than the canonical IPCC climate sensitivity of 3°C from a doubling of CO2.

4 Given the stability of the earth’s climate, the sensitivity would be quite small, with a global average not far from zero...

[Discussion of results supporting above 4 hypotheses...]

...Clouds, thunderstorms, and likely other as-yet unrecognized mechanisms hold the climate sensitivity to a value very near zero. And a corollary of that is that a doubling of CO2 would make a change in global temperature that is so small as to be unmeasurable.

In the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the hemispheric average temperature change winter to summer is about 5°C. This five degree change in temperature results from a winter to summer forcing change of no less than 155 watts/metre squared … and we’re supposed to worry about a forcing change of 3.7 W/m2 from a doubling of CO2???

The Southern Hemisphere shows the IPCC claim to be even more ridiculous. There, a winter to summer change in forcing of 182 W/m2 leads to a 2°C change in temperature … and we’re supposed to believe that a 3.7 W/m2 change in forcing will cause a 3° change in temperature? Even if my results were off by a factor of three, that’s still a cruel joke. _WillisEschenbach

The orthodoxy of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming continues to suffer damage to its public image and credibility on a daily basis. The ability of alarmist politicians and "scientists" to control public policy by leading a gullible public by the nose, is diminishing.

The science of climate does not support the alarmist predictions of climate doom. But without doom, climatology has no clout to demand large research grants and to influence public policy. Things are coming to a head, and it is increasingly likely that heads will roll.

Rational Video Lecture Presentations on Climate

The more you know about the energy balance of our planet, and how it can change and affect the planetary climate, the less you will trust the catastrophic predictions for anthropogenic climate change. Here are two video presentations covering some quite pertinent aspects of the climate debate, for those inclined to keep learning more.

Excellent Fermilab presentation by Richard Lindzen 10 Feb 2010 via ClimateSkeptic (over 1 hour)

And below is Warren Meyer's video presentation on climate feedbacks which is also over 1 hour long.

Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.

PPT file
PDF file
Presentation webpage

Sudden US Collapse Syndrome: When Complexity Fails

To understand complexity, it is helpful to examine how natural scientists use the concept. Think of the spontaneous organization of termites, which allows them to construct complex hills and nests, or the fractal geometry of water molecules as they form intricate snowflakes. Human intelligence itself is a complex system, a product of the interaction of billions of neurons in the central nervous system. _NiallFerguson_LATimes_via_ImpactLab

The government of the United States has lasted a relatively long time, compared to other governments. It was based upon a resilient foundation -- the US Constitution. But power-hungry politicians and judges have clawed away at the limitations imposed upon them by the constitution to the point that the great document is a shadow of its former self.

The clumsy and cracking megalith calling itself the US government is just a well-placed hammer blow or two away from outright fracture and dismemberment. The massive bureaucracy is too top-heavy, too complex, too labyrinthine, too lazy, incompetent and self-serving.

Most great empires have a nominal central authority -- either a hereditary emperor or an elected president -- but in practice the power of any individual ruler is a function of the network of economic, social and political relations over which he or she presides. As such, empires exhibit many of the characteristics of other complex adaptive systems -- including the tendency to move from stability to instability quite suddenly.

The most recent and familiar example of precipitous decline is the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the benefit of hindsight, historians have traced all kinds of rot within the Soviet system back to the Brezhnev era and beyond. Perhaps, as the historian and political scientist Stephen Kotkin has argued, it was only the high oil prices of the 1970s that "averted Armageddon." But this did not seem to be the case at the time. The Soviet nuclear arsenal was larger than the U.S. stockpile. And governments in what was then called the Third World, from Vietnam to Nicaragua, had been tilting in the Soviets' favor for most of the previous 20 years.

Yet, less than five years after Mikhail Gorbachev took power, the Soviet imperium in central and Eastern Europe had fallen apart, followed by the Soviet Union itself in 1991. If ever an empire fell off a cliff, rather than gently declining, it was the one founded by Lenin.

If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time -- it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.5 trillion -- about 11% of GDP, the biggest since World War II. _Ferguson

Obama's unprecedented deficits will only grow larger in the near to mid-term future. Built-in entitlements alone assure a massive snowballing of debt. With the addition of the huge new entitlements Obama and Pelosi are pushing through Congress, the death knells could begin to toll much sooner than anyone expects.

Worse yet, Obama and Pelosi have done everything possible to shut down the development of reliable new energy sources for the US -- guaranteeing the continued stagnation of US industry and commerce. Massive new debt plus the choking off of new economic activity. A recipe for disaster in the making.

One day, a seemingly random piece of bad news -- perhaps a negative report by a rating agency -- will make the headlines during an otherwise quiet news cycle. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry about the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy but the public at large, not to mention investors abroad. It is this shift that is crucial: A complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability. _Ferguson

The American voters elected the current clown troupe that governs the US. Americans love clowns, perhaps a bit too much.

It will be difficult to reverse the dysfunctional trend, because each new generation of American children -- future voters -- is now being taught according to the curriculum of William Ayers, friend of Obama, "former radical", and just one of a host of professors in American academia who hate the US and would like to bring it down. This all happened while most Americans were looking the other way.

Americans were once self-governed. They took responsibility for their own governance. But over time a massive corps of professional politicians and bureaucrats moved to Washington DC to take over the task from average Americans. Then, the army of bureaucrats became massive, unionised, and strong enough to perpetuate the rule of sympathetic elected legislators and executives. These legislators and executives put sympathetic judges in place to complete the self-perpetuating triumvirate of monolithic government. It's all a bit tipsy now, but the monolith has become the default position the moment the American public takes its eye off the ball, and stops participating in its own governance.

That monolith is chipped, cracked, peeling, and subject to catastrophic separation if not re-sculpted to a smaller and more workable size. But that won't happen because too many Americans are dependent upon the monolith being the way it is.

What is true for the US government is also true for other governments around the world, which lack the built-in resilience which the US Constitution has provided up until now. Catastrophic failure. Debt, demographic implosion, dysgenics . . . the dynamite is ready to blow...just light a fuse.