Men vs. Women: Stress Brings Out Differences

As noted in an earlier Al Fin posting, men and women react quite differently to stress. The latest studies from the University of Southern California confirm the earlier Polish studies showing gender differences to stress.

New studies by scientists at the University of Southern California have found that while stress may result in a universal physiological "fight or flight response" there are gender differences in psychological and behavioral responses. The new findings suggest stress makes women more social and more aware of facial expressions, while it tends to make men less social.

...In the experiments, Mather and her team split their male and female subjects into two groups. One group was put under stress by being asked to hold one hand in ice water for three minutes, which caused an elevation in the level of the stress hormone cortisol that lasted for about an hour. The other group held their hands in comfortably warm water, which does not elevate cortisol levels. The subjects were then shown pictures of neutral or angry faces while they were lying inside a brain scanner.

The results showed striking gender differences in the brain scans. The men with high cortisol levels showed less brain activity in the fusiform face area (FFA), an area of the brain involved in processing images of faces, than unstressed men did, while the stressed women’s brains were more active in that area than in unstressed women. There were similar differences in the regions of the brain concerned with understanding other people’s emotions and states of mind, and in feeling empathy towards others, with the stressed men showing reduced activity and a disconnection between the regions, and the stressed women showing an increased activity and greater connectivity.

Mather said women tend to seek out, befriend and bond with other people when they are under threat or stress, whereas men generally do not. She said the women's enhanced abilities to gauge facial expressions and respond to them could partly underlie their tend and befriend reaction to stressful situations. _Physorg

When faced with stressful situations, men attempt to analyse the circumstances and devise solutions -- sometimes involving either fight or flight. Women, on the other hand, look for others to assist them with the problem in order to remove the cause of stress.

A woman's approach to stress is clearly more functional in the modern bureaucratic societal structure. Women are working their way higher and higher in bureaucratic structures, and are transforming those structures as they go. Women constitute a higher proportion of graduates in higher education, and make up a majority of many new professionals in a wide variety of professions, such as psychology and pediatrics.

Only in fields where a deep knowledge of mathematics is required, or in fields where a quick intuitive grasp of spatial mechanics is needed, do men maintain a firm grip on the majority of positions.

The male and female brains are different, statistically. Feminists of the dieoff left -- who have achieved control over the bureaucracies of many institutions in western societies -- either deny these difference, or maintain that the differences do not give males any innate advantages. They are wrong, of course, but in a bureaucratic structure, women -- once in power -- will not give up even a nano-fragment of power willingly.

Societies -- like climates -- move in cyclic patterns, of course. There is still a place for men in the world, but the world may have to fall apart a bit in order to make that place obvious again.

More: Similar research from U Penn Philadelphia

In a Low IQ Idiocracy, Violence Is the Cause

ForeignPolicy
In the many decades since African countries were liberated from their colonial masters, benevolent overseas observers have been watching and waiting for Africa to flower and bloom under their new freedoms. Every African liberation movement was seen as a noble cause, as a sacred means to the end of breaking the back of the racist subjugation of African people.

Decades later, and what are the noble causes in Sub-Saharan Africa? What drives the violence and terror that regularly sweeps across the dark continent like a searing brushfire?

There is a very simple reason why some of Africa's bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The combatants don't have much of an ideology; they don't have clear goals. They couldn't care less about taking over capitals or major cities -- in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. Today's rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people's children, stick Kalashnikovs or axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. Look closely at some of the continent's most intractable conflicts, from the rebel-laden creeks of the Niger Delta to the inferno in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and this is what you will find.

What we are seeing is the decline of the classic African liberation movement and the proliferation of something else -- something wilder, messier, more violent, and harder to wrap our heads around. If you'd like to call this war, fine. But what is spreading across Africa like a viral pandemic is actually just opportunistic, heavily armed banditry.

...I've witnessed up close -- often way too close -- how combat has morphed from soldier vs. soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier vs. civilian. Most of today's African fighters are not rebels with a cause; they're predators. That's why we see stunning atrocities like eastern Congo's rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of women, often so sadistically that the victims are left incontinent for life. What is the military or political objective of ramming an assault rifle inside a woman and pulling the trigger? Terror has become an end, not just a means.

This is the story across much of Africa, where nearly half of the continent's 53 countries are home to an active conflict or a recently ended one. Quiet places such as Tanzania are the lonely exceptions; even user-friendly, tourist-filled Kenya blew up in 2008. Add together the casualties in just the dozen countries that I cover, and you have a death toll of tens of thousands of civilians each year. More than 5 million have died in Congo alone since 1998, the International Rescue Committee has estimated.

...Most frightening is how many sick states like Congo are now showing Somalia-like symptoms. Whenever a potential leader emerges to reimpose order in Mogadishu, criminal networks rise up to finance his opponent, no matter who that may be. The longer these areas are stateless, the harder it is to go back to the necessary evil of government.

All this might seem a gross simplification, and indeed, not all of Africa's conflicts fit this new paradigm. The old steady -- the military coup -- is still a common form of political upheaval, as Guinea found out in 2008 and Madagascar not too long thereafter.

......conflicts in Africa have become -- circles of violence in the bush, with no end in sight. _ForeignAffairsvia_Instapundit

How is the low average IQ of SubSaharan Africa relevant to this perennial bloody mayhem on the primitive dark continent? Without strong leaders and a large supply of high IQ outsiders from a market dominant minority, the future of Africa will always be bleak and bloody. Sub Saharan Africans themselves cannot organise, build, and maintain a large infrastructure to support a healthy, high tech, economically prosperous society. Just as small children delight more in the knocking down of the blocks than in the building of the towers, so do mind children delight more in the tearing down of society than in the planning, construction, and maintenance.

A low IQ society tends to be violent -- not because low intelligence necessarily lends to violence, but because there will always be persons of slightly higher intelligence than most who want to take away what others have earned, and are willing to incite violence to gain their selfish ends.

As the author wrote in the above article, if you kill the leaders of a violent African movement, the movement will die for lack of leadership. Eventually, the bell curve will supply new leaders who will bring new violence. But there may be a peaceful lull between bloodlettings.

What you see in Sub Saharan Africa is also the future, Coming Anarchy, for other parts of the third world, and for the parts of the developed world that choose to import large numbers of third world people.

Law and order, a peaceful society -- such is not the natural state of low IQ human existence. Much work, time, and expenditure is required to separate the violent and the instigators of violence from the general population (as European nations are learning the hard way, following decades of foolish immigration policies). A low IQ society -- unless it also contains a significant number of high IQ market dominant minorities -- will not possess enough people with the necessary requirements to hold off the forces of violence.

This violence is the past, present, and future of Africa. It does not have to be the future of your nation.

North Korea's Secret Weapon Against Capitalist Imperialism

HumanTorpedo
The idea of the human torpedo is not new. The Japanese kamikaze method of suicidal air attack was copied by Japanese naval forces in its human torpedo suicide weapon, Kaiten.

North Korea's 17th Sniper Corps incorporates human torpedoes as part of the contingent.

Jang Jin-sung, a North Korean poet who defected to South Korea, wrote recently on his blog that the human torpedo units "are treated better than submarine crew and their training centers around suicide bombing attacks." North Korea reportedly formed such squads in each branch of the military after leader Kim Jong-il said during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that no military in the world can defeat an army that can carry out suicide bombings.

But the human torpedoes not only use suicide bombing tactics but also launch attacks using semi-submersible vessels equipped with light torpedoes or other explosives, which are fired or placed on their intended targets at close range.

The North is said to have come up with the human torpedoes after its defeat by South Korea in the first and second naval battles in the West Sea, which forced it to realize that it cannot win by conventional means.

Park Sun-young, a lawmaker with the Liberty Forward Party, told the National Assembly on April 8 a three-man team aboard a Seal Deliver Vehicle could have sunk the Cheonan. SDVs are used to transport commandos under water. Some military experts say an SDV laden with explosives could have approached the Cheonan to launch a suicide bomb attack. _ChosunIbo

[Update 1 May 2010: North Korean officials appear to be gloating over some recent triumph over their southern cousins.]
We know that Muslim terrorist suicide bombers go to their fate with the promise of 72 virgins in paradise floating through their minds. What incentive could Kim give his communist troops to commit suicide attacks against their cousins? Favourable mention during the weekly 15 minute broadcast by Dear Leader? An extra cup of rice per week to surviving family members?

North Korea is the picture of what China would be now, had Mao never died. It is the picture of what Zimbabwe is becoming, and what Venezuela could become if Chavez lives long enough. Russia can never get as bad as North Korea -- even under Putin -- because Russia is itself committing demographic suicide.

One-party rule, strong man dictatorship, the zombification of a human population to the point of willingness to commit suicidal murder for Dear Leader. It could never happen here, uh, right?

Putin Holds Russia in Accelerating Death Spiral

There is only one way that Russia could stop its accelerating population implosion. That is to give the Russian people something to live for, a reason to procreate -- the dream of a better life. But that is the one thing that Vladimir Putin refuses to provide to the long-suffering people of Russia, because it might get in the way of his dream.

Moscow’s excessive reliance on profits from the export of oil and gas -- the centerpiece of Vladimir Putin’s policies – has been contributing to a significant decline in the standard of living of most Russians beyond the capital’s ring road even as it has boosted the country’s GDP, according to a UN report on “Energy and Stable Development.”

As a result, Nataliya Zubarevich, a geographer at Moscow State University who helped prepare the report says, “there is oil and gas [in Russia] but no happiness,” at least outside Moscow, the oil and gas producing regions of Khanty-Mansiisk and Yamalo-Nenets, and the processing center in Tyumen (www.polit.ru/news/2010/04/21/paras.html).

Because the Russian government has “incorrectly” relied on oil and gas profits alone to show economic growth, she continues, there has been a decline in the well-being of Russian citizens, not only in terms of income but also in health, education and other social services.

... as long as the oil and gas money is flowing in, “the Russian powers that be really are not interested in innovations.”

Such people don’t need or want change, and they talk about innovations only to make themselves look better “in the eyes of the world.” Because that is so, Zubarevich argues, the distribution of profits is unlikely “to simulate innovations.” Instead, even if money is redistributed more equally, that alone will not promote positive change.

Indeed, the Moscow geographer says, for innovation, there will need to be “a change of institutions and the rules of the game in society.” People will have to be rewarded not because of where they sit and what they control but rather for what they think up, a complete transformation from the current situation.

...“In the institutional design which now exists in the Russian Federation,” Zubarevich said, noting that this was her “personal opinion,” “innovative development is impossible.” And some of the proposals for innovation, such as Academic Zhorez Alferov’s call for a Manhattan Project-style effort, simply won’t work.

Alferov, Zyubarevich pointed out, “is a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.” He always put the state in first place, and while the state can play some role, the kinds of innovations Russia needs are not “’nano’ and not ‘nuclear research’” but rather a broadening of opportunity for “small innovation improvements in the entire structure.”

Indeed, she says, even if Russians came up with a breakthrough in nano technology, the country would not be able to introduce it because “we do not have the stimuli and drivers which would be necessary for that kind of innovation.” Perhaps the country can change so that this will be possible, Zubarevich concludes, but it will have to change in major ways. _enerpub

Putin will not allow these infrastructural changes toward greater freedom for individuals and small businesspersons. Putin fears entrepreneurs -- who might grow too large and powerful, upsetting Putin's carefully orchestrated balance of power (and terror).

It is much easier to maintain a stranglehold on a few giant enterprises than on hundreds of thousands of small to intermediate enterprises -- any of which might suddenly grow larger and more powerful without warning.

It should now be easier to understand why Obama - Pelosi has taken the steps it has taken to control ever-larger aspects of the US economy. The masses of people may suffer and lose their freedoms, but the class of oligarchs at the top will have a much firmer control of things.

Three Distinctly Different Refrigeration Cycles

The cycle shown on top is the conventional refrigeration cycle used by household refrigerators and air conditioners. Such a cycle utilises the phase changes of a refrigerant such as "freon" to move heat from one volume to another.

The cycle just below the conventional refrigerant cycle, is an electromagnetic refrigerant cycle, which uses switched electromagnetic fields to chill a magnetocaloric material. The electrogmagnetic cycle is supposed to save at least 20% of the energy used in refrigeration, compared to the conventional cycle.

The cooling cycle shown below is based upon the compression and de-compression of a special solid material, a Nickel Manganese Indium, or Ni-Mn-In alloy developed by a team of Spanish researchers.

Until recently, the most promising materials for applications in this field were giant magnetocaloric materials, which change temperature under the influence of an external magnetic field. The authors of this new study show that application of a moderate hydrostatic pressure to a nickel-manganese-indium alloy (Ni-Mn-In) produces results comparable to those achieved with the most effective magnetocaloric materials.
According to Lluís Mañosa, a professor with the Department of Structure and Constituents of Matter at the UB and principal investigator of the study, "the aim of this field of research is to identify materials that are efficient, economic and environmentally respectful, and the advantages of the alloy used in this study is that all of the component materials meet these requirements."
In addition, Antoni Planes, a professor with the same UN department, explains that, "this type of material can produce much greater caloric effects with only slight variations in pressure, which makes it ideal for domestic refrigeration systems (refrigerators, air conditioning, etc.)." When these alloys are submitted to an external field, either magnetic or pressure, the material undergoes a solid-state phase transition, and Lluís Mañosa explains that, "this phase change generates a considerable latent heat exchange." _ScienceDaily

The "phase change principle" is analogous to that used for conventional refrigerants, but occurs in a solid state material, and is called a solid-state phase transition. According to the authors, the Ni-Mn-In alloy can undergo a solid-state phase transition in response to either pressure or a magnetic field.

This method of refrigeration could offer multiple advantages over conventional refrigeration and air conditioning:

1. At 20 to 30% more efficient, it will save power costs.
2. The "refrigerant" is not likely to leak or become contaminated or incorrectly mixed.
3. There will be no danger to the ozone layer or of "global warming" from solid state refrigerants.
4. Design, installation, and servicing of systems should be much simpler.
5. The systems should last longer with fewer maintenance problems.
6. Disposal of obsolete systems will be simpler and less costly.

We are still looking for the perfect form of cooling and refrigerating, but the new solid-state approaches appear to be in the right direction.

Damned Elusive Heat: Is it in Heaven Or is it in Hell?

"They seek him here,
they seek him there,
those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
That damned elusive Pimpernel."

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years _ NPR

Fifty per cent of "global warming" heat has gone phantom -- missing, and nowhere to be found. That damned elusive heat: where could it be? We know it is here somewhere, because our models tell us it must be.

Of course, the smarter climate scientists have been telling us all along what was going on. Unfortunately, all the fame, political power, and grant money tied up in the global warming catastrophe debate has corrupted most scientists with the closest connections to governments, intergovernmental agencies, the news media, and the most influential activist lobbies and NGOs.

The heat is gone, oh where, oh where?
Maybe in the oceans?
Maybe in the air?
It’s just not there.
They could not find it any-where. _AnthonyWatts

Keven Trenberth at NCAR is flirting with complete absurdity when he claims that the "missing heat" may be hiding in the deep dark crushing pressure of the cold sea bottoms.

Clearly planet Earth possesses significant mechanisms for dealing with heat that model-bound climatologists such as Trenberth, Jones, Mann, and Hansen know nothing about (or are unwilling to acknowledge). That type of witlessness and / or dishonesty appears to be a de facto requirement for obtaining membership in the top levels of the climate catastrophe club. In ordinary science, the scientific method works like this:

The steps of the scientific method are to:

1. Ask a Question
2. Do Background Research
3. Construct a Hypothesis
4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
6. Communicate Your Results

It is important for your experiment to be a fair test. A "fair test" occurs when you change only one factor (variable) and keep all other conditions the same.
_scienctificmethod

But in climate science the steps are altered:

1. Draw a Conclusion
2. Communicate your Results
3. Construct a Hypothesis consistent with your Results and supportive of the Conclusion
4. Build a Model designed to achieve the Results and support the Hypothesis
5. Analyse Your Data for as long as it takes until your communicated Results are supported
6. Ignore any Real World data that conflicts with Hypothesis, Results, or Conclusions
7. Re-Communicate your Results as having been doubly confirmed

No wonder fewer busy people, recently, are giving climate catastrophe the time of day.

Fly-by-Wire Brains: Melt in Place Brain Machine Interfaces

The stretchable, ultrathin design would make for better brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which record brain activity in paralyzed patients and translate thoughts into movements of computer cursors or robotic arms. Because it’s so thin and flexible, a silk-based device could reach regions of the brain that were previously inaccessible. _Wired

Wired
Brain scientists are making progress in the design of better brain-machine interfaces. The newest version -- pictured above -- is a surface mount electrode array that conforms to the curvature of the underlying brain, "melting" in place for better connection.

Now a group of researchers is building biocompatible electronics on thin, flexible substrates. The group hopes to create neural interfaces that take higher-resolution measurements than what's available today without irritating or scarring brain tissue.

"Biocompatibility is a major challenge for new generations of medical implants," says Brian Litt, professor of neurology and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. "We wanted to make devices that are ultrathin and can be inserted into the brain through small holes in the skull, and be made out of materials that are biocompatible," he says. Litt is working with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who are building high-performance flexible electronics from silicon and other conventional materials on substrates of biodegradable, mechanically strong silk films provided by researchers at Tufts University.

This week in the journal Nature Materials, the team reports using a silk electrode device to measure electrical activity from the surface of the brain in cats. Silk is mechanically strong--that means the films can be rolled up and inserted through a small hole in the skull--yet can dissolve into harmless biomolecules over time. When it's placed on brain tissue and wetted with saline, a silk film will shrink-wrap around the surface of the brain, bringing electrodes with it into the wrinkles of the tissue. Conventional surface electrode arrays can't reach these crevices, which make up a large amount of the brain's surface area. _MITTechReview

More on this new approach from Wired:

The research team printed electrode arrays onto silk films that disintegrate after they are placed on the brain’s surface and flushed with saline. They’re just 2.5 microns thick, so thin that they need to rest on a platform so they don’t fall apart during fabrication or implantation. After the silk film dissolves, the array wraps around the curves on the brain.

...The scientists would like to extend their findings by making fully dissolvable implantable electronics for monitoring and stimulating tissue growth. They have also developed rolled-up devices, which they could deliver to the brain without making large holes in the skull during surgery. Eventually, they hope to adapt the technology for retinal and cochlear implants and to treat patients with a wide range of psychiatric and neurological diseases. _Wired

This approach is certainly better than the scar-inducing metallic electrodes that penetrate -- and inadvertently destroy -- deep brain tissue. But it is a far cry from the elegant targeted self-assembly process by which the brain originally develops, and constantly re-forms itself throughout its lifetime.

A surface-mount conformable biocompatible electrode array is only the starting point. Such a surface mounted array would naturally constitute a "base station" for sending targeted and self-assembling probes safely into the brain to connect with specific brain pathways and grey matter nuclei.

The U Penn researchers have developed a fascinating early incarnation of a system that will grow far more sophisticated and complex as the tools from biotech, nanotech, materials science, and information technology become available.

Survivalist's Diesel Factory: ARIES Goes Anywhere!

On the US west coast, opposite California's Channel Islands, is a small US naval base that is trying out a remarkable biodiesel manufactory: ARIES (Automated Real Time Remote Integrated Energy System). Portable ARIES converts non-food feedstock into high quality biodiesel by remote control. The Port Hueneme naval base is trying out the unit to see if it can be used for more forward bases. But if you are a survivalist, ARIES may sound like a nice little unit for your compound.

ARIES is equipped with a new and revolutionary element: remote control technologies that provide real-time sensing and management of key chemistry and processing parameters. The tools were developed by Aerojet, the same company that developed remote sensing and automated technology that sent man to the moon.

Real-time sensing can eliminate lengthy testing steps such as transesterification, which can take up to 1.5 hours, according to Russell Teall, Biodiesel Industries founder and CEO. When the reaction can be seen as it’s happening, those tests become unnecessary. “It’s a major advancement,” he said. “It’s the first time that sort of technology has been applied to biodiesel. It speeds things up by a factor of two.” The system includes stop points where it will show readings, asking if the operator would like to proceed with the reaction.

...The system also monitors the feedstock characteristics in real time. It can take several kinds of feedstocks including yellow grease, animal fat, energy crops, waste agricultural products and more. Not only that, but they can be mixed together. “You have to know what sort of characteristics the feedstock has,” Teall said. “Separating is burdensome, but ARIES can mix them up and tell you what the characteristics are on the fly.” The system will also recommend the best formula for the process with those particular feedstocks, leaving less room for operator error. The best feedstock mix depends on the location and climate. Teall cautions dependence on one feedstock can be unsustainable and vertical integration is crucial.

The Navy will make good use of the remote-controlled system, as it has identified 20 locations for the initial rollout, Teall said, adding that he doesn’t know a timeline for their establishment. The Navy has an obligation to meet between 20 percent and 50 percent of its energy needs internally by 2012. “So it’s going to be a fairly rapid rollout,” he said. The Navy’s immense consumption of fuel prompted the seven-year project, which began in 2003. “They’re the largest user of biodiesel in the world and it’s important they have access to their fuel,” Teall said.

The integrated energy system makes ARIES applicable to non-Navy endeavors, as well. The system produces about eight times more power and heat than it needs for its own processes. “In the international market, there’s a huge need in rural communities to create income and businesses that don’t exist right now,” Teall said. He cites India, where about 150,000 villages are without electricity. “It becomes a very efficient source of local heat.” _BiomassMag

Spokesman Teall above refers to using ARIES in rural Indian villages, but who is he kidding? ARIES is one expensive piece of hardware (if you have to ask how much, you can't afford it)! Only the US military and wealthy survivalists need apply.

More info here.

If you can afford an ARIES for your survival bunker (or remote off-grid cabin in Patagonia), you may also consider the self-fueling, free-roving robot that lives off biomass and can patrol a wide perimeter around your location while you are sleeping.

Remember, just because world economies and governments are committing debt and demographic suicide, is no reason that you have to. Although the fancy new tools of energy, nanotech, biotech, and transportation are not meant for collapse-of-civilisation use, always keep in mind the off-label uses for any technology.

Taken from an earlier post at Al Fin Energy

An ARIES unit could provide a nice energy nucleus for a small, remote settlement, or a post-apocalyptic group of survivours trying to jumpstart civilisation once again. You could power a diesel generator, a few diesel tractors for crops, and some diesel vehicles for your heavy-duty explorers. Placing fuel caches at strategic locations would become easy.

While limited in energy output in comparison to a small, modular nuclear reactor and steam powerplant, the ability to fuel diesel engines is a crucial early step back on the road to the next level.

Neo-Malthusians Haunt the Modern Zeitgeist -- Again

During the 1970s, the Club of Rome report The Limits to Growth projected that, assuming consumption remained flat, all known oil reserves would be entirely consumed in just 31 years. With exponential growth in consumption, it added, all the known oil reserves would be consumed in 20 years. _Reason

Malthus was Wrong?
The spirit of Thomas Malthus roams the modern thought-ways just like back in the 1970s. Although global warming doom may be falling out of favour among more intelligent and scrupulous observers, there are plenty of other Malthusian nightmares hovering above the modern consciousness.

Once more, we are warned of a great worldwide famine approaching. Social collapse from peak oil doom appears inevitable, to large numbers. All of the multiple crises -- food, water, energy, climate, population, pollution etc -- are converging upon Earth's population like a flock of dark dementors, dooming us all to deep deprivation, disease, and impoverished misery -- unto death.

If all of this sounds somewhat familiar to those who lived through the 1970s, it is because the arguments behind this round of neo-Malthusianism are virtually identical to the arguments of the neo-Malthusianism of the 70s. Whereas the 70s Malthusians predicted that doom would fall in the 1980s and 1990s, the 2010s Malthusians are predicting doom sometime by the 2020s, 2030s -- and absolutely no later than 2050 -- or 2100 at the very latest!

You see, there is no penalty for predicting peak oil doom, overpopulation doom, scarcity doom, or doom of any kind. Any given event in the daily news can be turned to fit the theory. As long as the predicted doom is far enough into the future to give one time to adapt the theory in a plausibly retrograde manner, there is no risk.

Take Colin Campbell, one of the mythical giants of peak oil doom. Mr. Campbell is belatedly recognising -- after the 2008 oil bubble burst -- that demand for oil may be a lot more flexible than he once believed.

"I have changed my point of view about future prices," said Campbell, who used to think the peak in conventional oil production, which he believes happened in 2005, would lead to a relentless price surge.

Instead, the record rally led to a peak in demand in the developed world.

"Peak oil drives prices up in the first place. It has its own mechanism. We're sort of at peak demand right now," Campbell told Reuters from his home in the village of Ballydehob, West Cork. "I think presently the price limit is about $100."

For those who have painted alarming pictures of civil unrest as the world economy is forced to move away from conventional fuel and pay high prices for it in the interim, an inbuilt price mechanism to limit demand and move the world to other forms of energy should be a good thing. _Reuters

Not that Cambell is admitting any error, no. He is merely inserting a "fudge factor" just in case his claimed 2005 peak in oil production fails to result in a collapse of world civilisation anytime soon.

For those who are unaware of the saga of Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, read this to get up to speed. And for those who have not read Julian Simon's free online ebook The Ultimate Resource, you really need to do so ASAP.

The threat of doom hanging over our heads should certainly get our attention. But we need to be careful to distinguish true doom from faux doom. Otherwise we are likely to spend all our time and resources defending against a faux doom that never would have occurred regardless of all our efforts. In the meantime, true doom has been gathering its forces for the final assault upon our unprepared flanks.

Keep your dooms straight, so that you do not waste half your life fighting a doom that could never have been.

Source of animation via Astute Bloggers

Thorium Energy Can Be a World-Changer

At the end of this effort, we will have destroyed our 100 tonnes of highly-enriched uranium from weapons. We will have destroyed our 100 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium from decommissioned weapons. We will have destroyed the 700 tonnes of plutonium and other actinides in the spent nuclear fuel. We will have essentially eliminated the issue of spent nuclear fuel as a concern. We will have replaced the coal and gas electrical generation in the country. We will have added enough additional electrical generation to the nation’s grid to power electric cars rather than gasoline-powered ones. We’ll have cleaner air. We’ll have cleaner water. We’ll keep hundreds of billions of dollars in our country because we’ll be energy-independent. And we will have solved the energy crisis permanently.

All of this is unlocked by the fundamental properties of thorium. We can make it happen. May we have the wisdom to do so. _KirkSorensen

Kirk Sorensen wants to shift energy production away from fossil fuels toward a sustainable method of nuclear fission based upon thorium. Thorium is three times more plentiful than uranium, is less prone to being used for nuclear weapons proliferation, and can be used sustainably while burning up dangerous weapons-grade nuclear materials, and potentially hazardous nuclear waste from more conventional fission plants.

Thorium can be used in accelerator driven nuclear reactors, can be utilised in liquid fluoride thorium reactors, and now comes news that a company called Thorium One is developing a thorium - plutonium - MOX fuel that can be used in "existing infrastructure for nuclear reactors."

The Vancouver, Canada-based company is attempting to fund the development of a new fuel design—called Thorium Plutonium MOX—that it says can be used in existing infrastructure for nuclear reactors in the production of nuclear energy that does not create bomb-usable waste.

There are currently 440 nuclear reactors operating in the world with uranium-based nuclear energy (see Nuclear power is green power, says expert).

...The company is on a mission to become an integrated international nuclear fuel company, developing its product for nuclear utilities using the chemical element thorium, instead of uranium.

“Thorium can be used as a nuclear fuel that can act as a supplement to uranium in nuclear reactors,” he said.

The waste product of the thorium fuel cycle, uranium-233, can be separated and reprocessed or recycled for use in new fuel, Thorium One said. _CleanTech_via_NextBigFuture

The best source for learning about the promise of thorium power is Kirk Sorensen's website, Energy from Thorium (EfT). The archives of EfT are loaded with well written tutorials on various aspects of thorium power. The sidebar has links to useful videos, articles, websites, books, and piles of PDF documentation dealing with thorium energy and other aspects of nuclear energy.

Thorium offers an opportunity to turn weapons and waste into useful and abundant, clean, sustainable energy.

Why haven't we heard more about Thorium from our government, our news media, our thought leaders in academia and punditry, and the rest of the "leading lights" of society?

Cross-posted at Al Fin Energy

Girls and Dolls: Scientifically Proven -- Again!

Girls just love dolls, and boys just love cars. Yet another scientific study demonstrates that from the time they are just babies, boys and girls diverge when it comes to their choice of play toys. Psychologists at City University London studied 90 babies between 9 months and 36 months. The infants were allowed to choose between 7 toys. Four of the toys were stereotypical boys' toys: a car, a shovel, a ball, and a blue teddy bear. Three of the toys are more commonly thought of as girls' toys: a doll, a pink teddy bear, and a cooking set.

The infants were placed a metre away from the toys, and could pick which ever they pleased.

Their choice, and the amount of time they spent playing with each toy was recorded.
Of the youngest children (nine to 14 months), girls spent significantly longer playing with the doll than boys, and boys spent much more time with the car and ball than the girls did.
Among the two and three-year-olds, girls spent 50 per cent of the time playing with the doll while only two boys briefly touched it.

The boys spent almost 90 per cent of their time playing with cars, which the girls barely touched.

There was no link between the parents' views on which toys were more appropriate for boys or girls, and the children's choices.

The researchers presented their study yesterday at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in Stratford on Avon.

..'There could be a biological basis for their choices. Males through evolution have been adapted to prefer moving objects, probably through hunting instincts, while girls prefer warmer colours such as pink, the colour of a newborn baby.'_DailyMail_via_ImpactLab

I once stayed at a commune that was based upon the ideas of behaviourists who believed that children could be moulded into whatever the parents decided to make them. I recall one such boy who was never allowed toy guns, not allowed to play rough, and was encouraged to play with girls' toys. He grew up and joined the US Marines at the first opportunity. His mother was heartbroken.

Reality does not care what is politically correct. In some ways, reality will be the death of political correctness -- because political correctness handicaps a society and makes it susceptible to attack, invasion, and subjugation by other cultures who have not denied their own human nature to such a disastrous degree.

The Multitasking Brain: A Next Level Trait?

Human brains can consciously focus on only one task at a time. But unconsciously, the human brain is working on a multitude of tasks. New research from INSERM in Paris suggests that the two hemispheres can function independently and simultaneously -- even in normal, whole-brain persons -- and the results of both hemisphere's processes can become conscious, with motivation.

Scientists at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Paris wondered what happens when a person is asked to do two jobs at once. To find out, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor the brain activity of 16 male and 16 female volunteers, all aged 19 to 32, and all right-handed, as they simultaneously performed two related tasks. The volunteers were offered a monetary reward that reduced if they made errors.

The tasks were to match upper case letters and to match lower case letters, switching back and forth between the two tasks. Rewards for each task were calculated separately and depended on the numbers matched without error. The researchers, neuroscientists Sylvain Charron and Etienne Koechlin, found that when the volunteers tackled only one task, both halves of the medial frontal cortex worked on it, but when they tackled both tasks simultaneously, the left side of the frontal cortex corresponded to one of the tasks and the right side corresponded to the other, with the two sides working independently. Results improved as the monetary reward increased, and there was no significant difference in the results of the men and women volunteers. _Physorg

Notice that conscious awareness was switching back and forth between the two hemisphere's ongoing tasks.

The big surprise was that there was no significant difference between men's and women's performance. Generally, women are thought to be better multi-taskers due to the thicker corpus callosum connecting the two hemisphere's in a woman's brain.

This is not the same thing as simultaneous awareness of multiple complex phenomena, since awareness in the experiment was switched back and forth between tasks. In order to achieve a multiple awareness without attention switching, it would be necessary to incorporate multiple phenomena into a single awareness -- as sub-components. That would be analogous to the "chunking" of discrete items into compound items for improved recall.

The research suggests that the brain can only track two independent tasks simultaneously, since it possesses only two hemispheres.

Unconscious monitoring of multiple phenomena takes place constantly -- sleeping or waking. The unconscious mind switches between monitoring tasks based upon the relative salience of the monitored phenomena, and upon the receptive state (unconscious motivation) of the brain at any given time.

Next level humans will train to improve their capacity for multi-tasking, beginning before adolescence and continuing throughout their lives. An expanded awareness is only one of the distinguishing characteristics of next level humans, but an important one in terms of survival within the potentially hazardous environments which next levels will frequent.

Understanding the Massive Complexity of Inheritance

"We know in the human genome there are 20,000 genes, but I can't ask someone to point out to me which genes account for most of the variation in human height, for example, because we just don't know," Kruglyak said. "The underlying goal of what we are trying to do is both understand how complicated these patterns are and try to come up with some concrete examples where we can take some traits and nail down most of the variations, as opposed to only finding a small percentage." _SD

Deciphering Genetic Complexity
Simple genetic traits such as eye and hair colour are relatively easy to understand, and trace through generations. More complex traits such as intelligence and the capacity to postpone gratification in order to achieve a greater reward, have a pattern of inheritance that is less well understood. A recently published (in Nature) Princeton study may point the way to better understanding how complex but critically important traits such as intelligence and executive function are transmitted via the genes.

"One of the important insights gained from research enabled by the sequencing of the human genome is that, rather than being obvious, the connections between genes and most traits are very complicated," Kruglyak said. "Our results show, however, that it is possible to identify many of the factors underlying complex traits using straightforward techniques."

The Princeton team's finding could help illuminate the answers to the current difficulties inherent in tying traits to genes, known as the "missing heritability problem," Kruglyak said.
There are some cases, he said, where scientists have identified mutations in single genes that produce a specific trait, such as a susceptibility to cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease.

In most cases, however, scientists believe that large numbers of genes working in concert produce trait variation. Some genes play a major role while others are more "quiet" but still are important. Scientists want to know all of the genes involved in producing a given complex trait, but they have not been able to find these groupings, leading to the "missing" problem.

... "In many cases, the effects of genes are so small that detecting them is extremely difficult," said Ian Ehrenreich, a postdoctoral research fellow who is the first author on the Nature paper. "Under conventional methods, we just don't have the power to identify many of these genes. We knew we had to find a different way."... _SD

In other genetics research, scientists at Uppsala University have developed better ways of identifying genetic variation in active genes.

Researchers at Virginia Tech and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute are developing computer tools to help find small genes that are too easily missed by conventional gene sequencing of microbes.

Huxley's "Brave New World" is coming to reality with the increasing use of "gene swaps" in human eggs -- to prevent the perpetuation of genetic diseases.

The ability to compare genetic sequences for both normal and cancer cells in the same patients can open the door to a better understanding of the vulnerabilities of specific cancers.

Genes are information that is transmitted and instantiated in complex ways. They determine much of who you are and what you can become. The deep and honest study of gene expression is one of the keys to a better future for everyone.

New Economics and Technology Lead A Demographic Reversal

Already, the growth capacity for “mega- cities” like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles may be approaching their limits as the urban megalopolis of cities, suburbs and exurbs become more crowded and expensive.

As huge urbanized regions become less desirable or unaffordable for many businesses and middle-class families, more and more Americans will find their best future in the wide-open spaces that, even in 2050, will still exist across the continent. The beneficiaries will include places as diverse as Fargo and Sioux Falls in the Dakotas to Des Moines, Oklahoma City, Omaha and Kansas City. _NewGeography

NewGeographyMainstream thought insists that the trend toward urbanisation will continue into the foreseeable future. Mainstreamers cannot envision a reversal of that trend -- a departure from the cities back to small towns and countryside. And yet the economics and demographics of urban hyper-centralisation appears to be failing from Greece to Japan to Russia to Spain to Los Angeles.

One of the least anticipated developments in the nation’s 21st-century geography will be the resurgence of the American Heartland, often dismissed by coastal dwellers as “flyover country.”

Yet in the coming 40 years, as America’s population reaches 400 million, the American Heartland particularly the vast region between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi will gain in importance.

To fully appreciate this opportunity, Americans need to see the Heartland as far more than a rural or an agricultural zone. Although food production will remain a crucial component of its economy, high-tech services, communications, energy production, manufacturing and warehouses will serve as the critical levers for new employment and wealth creation.

...The critical sources for the evolving resurgence of the Heartland lie both in new technology and traditional strengths.

The advent of the Internet, which has broken the traditional isolation of rural communities, has facilitated the movement of technology companies, business services and manufacturing firms to the nation’s interior. This will reinforce not so much a movement to remote hamlets but to the growing number of dynamic small cities and towns throughout the Heartland.

The other critical element concerns the traditional role of the Heartland as a producer of critical raw materials. As world competition for food and energy supplies intensifies, a critical primary advantage for the United States in contrast with China, India, Japan and the European Union will lie with the vast natural abundance of its Heartland regions.

New investment will flow back into the Heartland to tap previously difficult-to-access resources such as oil and gas, while new technologies will exploit prodigious natural sources such as wind. _NewGeography

The New Geography article leaves out an extremely important ingredient which will spur this demographic reversal -- the rise of bio-energy. Airheads such as Obama are still promoting large wind energy, but competent thinkers who are thinking about renewables, are looking toward bio-energy. One day soon, the public will wake up to find that biomass is being co-fired with coal, that waste biomass and dedicated biomass are being converted to energy via pyrolysis or gasification, and that biomass is being converted to liquid fuels, plastics, high value chemicals, and nutritious animal feeds.

Such growing bioenergy industries will be based in the heartland, and will provide the significant economic boost and employment that Obama is falsely promising from his "green jobs initiative." But Obama is an airhead, and not likely to ever grow out of his "unintended consequence" destructive phase.

Western populations are growing older, and smaller, thanks in part to urbanisation and the top down economic and bureaucratic structures that have grown up in nations with a focus on the urban. Getting back to the countryside should provide a resurgence of spirit, of industry, and of fertility which are all badly needed.

The dying, union-dependent urbanised states on both coasts and in the rust belt, will either break their addiction to bureaucratic stagnation and allow the return of individual initiative, enterprise, and new business -- or they will continue to die of their mountains of debt that they have no way of repaying.

The American Tea Party is just the early manifestation of the anger that productive America feels toward freeloader America in Washington DC. If the one-party reich controlled by the US Democratic Party carries through with its plans to try to infiltrate and discredit the Tea Party via "dirty tricks", it will discover hidden depths to America's dissatisfaction with its leadership class.

Waiting Out the Apocalypse Underground

WilliamLishmanProject
This ferrocement underground home is constructed of multiple adjoining domes, constructed on a hilltop. First a substantial quantity of earth is removed from the hilltop. The domes are shaped out of rebar, then covered with shotcrete. Then the earth is returned to the hill -- over the now-waterproofed domes, concealing most of the structure.

Building the dome infrastructure of rebar requires some ironworking skills, but allows for considerable creativity.

The image above demonstrates the multi-dome nature of the home, just before covering with earth, and planting with ground-cover.

The interior of the domes receive a great deal of light from the overhead sky-lights, which are designed into the domes.

It is possible to build underground houses which are virtually invisible from most viewpoints above ground. Most humans enjoy plenty of light, and outdoor views. As we learn better ways of providing artificial "full spectrum" diffuse lighting, it becomes more possible to live deeper underground without the windows.

This Swiss design provides plenty of outdoor light and mountain views, but could be made virtually invisible from most ground approaches.

Underground houses are better suited for survival of massive nuclear, biological, or chemical catastrophes -- if advanced preparations are made. Proper air and water filtering and recycling are critical. If residents must stay underground for longer than a few months, the ability to grow food underground becomes more important.

Heating and cooling loads are minimal when living underground, but fuel and power needs for cooking and hot water must be planned for.

BBC coverage of some underground English homes

Monolithic domes -- the premier rapid ferrocement construction method -- can be adapted for underground living.

Pay Your Taxes: The Government Will Care For You

Building America's Future
Small businesses are growing more pessimistic

Ballooning public pensions place states and municipalities at risk across US

Illegal immigration set to explode

Small business as a barometer of future economy

Fear of government grabbing private pension assets

Commercial real estate bust

Obama's evolution: Corporatism comes before socialism

US taxpayers to help bankroll Greece's next bubble and bust

And that is just the good economic news. I'll let you in on the really bad stuff when I think you're strong enough to take it.

After the Breakdown

EnglishRussiaThe interesting thing about these images of a post-apocalyptic future, is how recognisable the cities remain. In the event of a complete breakdown of modern civilisation, how long could we expect these structures to remain standing?

Hellgate
According to The World Without Us and Life After People, many of humanity's best-known manmade landmarks would experience severe degradation after only a few decades.

PandemicDawnIt is the natural course of events for things to fall apart. That is true for physical structures, for biological organisms, and for dynamic processes such as solar systems, stars, galaxies, and universes. Why should humans expect their pitiful cities to last forever?

3 Days to the End of the World: Where Do You Go?

You might want to consider making early reservations to the Doomsday Bunker nearest you. Take a virtual tour through a prototype Doomsday Bunker in the video above. These shelters can supposedly be built to hold up to 4,000 each. A network of dozens of such shelters is said to be planned by California company Vivos.

A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the skeptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground habitation, as NPR's All Tech Considered reports.
The company claims to be a privately-funded venture with no religious affiliations, except perhaps to the gods of commerce. It certainly takes an agnostic view by listing all the possible reasons why you might want to pony up and help build those $10 million bunkers, including predictions by Nostradamus, the Mayans, the Hopi, and the Bible.

...Vivos goes all out by promising a survival shelter stocked with power generation, water wells, filtration systems, sewage disposal, a year's supply of food, security devices and medical equipment.
Of course, you'll need all that if you believe disaster may strike at any moment because of a polar shift, super volcano eruptions, solar flares, nuclear war, and "even the return of Planet X (known as Niburu or Nemesis)," Vivos cheerfully states. _Popsci

It's an idea whose time may have come. To be safe, you may want to reserve space in multiple deluxe Vivos bunkers. Depending on the catastrophe, some of your choices may be downright inaccessible. A look at the early stages of Vivos below:

Sudden Death from Below: Undersea Super-Volcanoes

Located 1,500 km east of Japan, Shatsky Rise is as big as California. This underwater chain represents one of the largest supervolcanoes in the world: the top of Shatsky Rise lies three-and-a-half kilometres below the sea surface, while its base plunges to nearly six kilometres below the surface.

...‘About a dozen supervolcanoes exist on earth – some are found on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Those found on the seafloor are often referred to as ‘large oceanic plateaus,’ Sager adds. _CoalGeology

Supervolcanoes are nothing to sneeze at. Whether sitting in a continent -- such as the Yellowstone supervolcanoe -- or underwater, these massive dynamic geologic structures can radically restructure the shape of the geological and biological landscape.

The great Toba eruption 73,000 years ago on Sumatra deforested central India --3,000 miles away -- and almost drove pre-historic humans to extinction. Supervolcanoes are a very real hazard to large areas of the planet. It is quite possible for billions of humans to die in the global aftermath of a massive supervolcanic eruption -- which could go on for hundreds of years or longer.

Roughly a dozen supervolcanoes currently exist. Some are on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Each has produced several million cubic miles of lava — about three hundred times the volume of all the Great Lakes combined — dwarfing the amount of lava produced by the Hawaiian volcanoes or the Icelandic volcano that erupted recently.

These eruptions have dramatically shaped life on Earth, pumping huge amounts of ash, dust and gas into the atmosphere that have killed off species and altered global climate. Despite their global impact, the cause of the massive eruptions from supervolcanoes at times remains unknown. _LiveScience

“Supervolcanoes” have been blamed for multiple mass extinctions in Earth’s history, but the cause of their massive eruptions is unknown.

Despite their global impact, the eruptions’ origin and triggering mechanisms have remained unexplained. New data obtained during a recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) expedition in the Pacific Ocean may provide clues to unlocking this mystery.

To explore the origins of these seafloor giants, scientists drilled into a large, 145 million-year-old underwater volcanic mountain chain off the coast of Japan.

...“Seafloor supervolcanoes are characterized by the eruption of enormous volumes of lava,” says William Sager of Texas A&M University, who led the expedition with co-chief scientist Takashi Sano of Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. “Studying their formation is critical to understanding the processes of volcanism, and the movement of material from Earth’s interior to its surface.”

About a dozen supervolcanoes exist on Earth; some are on land, while others lie at the bottom of the ocean. Those found on the seafloor are often referred to as large oceanic plateaus.

Current scientific thinking suggests that these supervolcanoes were caused by eruptions over a period of a few million years or less–a rapid pace in geologic time. _WattsupWithThat

Anyone living within a few thousand miles of an erupting super-volcano -- particularly on the downwind side -- may find survival almost impossible. But even people living on the opposite side of the globe from the eruption could find their sunlight and food supplies shut down by the distant eruption. Global climate would cool abruptly for an extended period of time. Outdoor growing seasons -- in the light of an already feeble sun -- would shorten to a period of several weeks.

The civilised communities that survive would be those with ample electrical supplies -- probably nuclear power with access to a lot of fuel -- and the ability to grow food indoors under artificial lighting.

This is true existential risk. Not global warming doom, not peak oil doom, not Doombama dark ages or Islamic Jihadi dark ages doom. The risk from supervolcanoes compares to the risk of a large comet or asteroid collision, or the risk from an abrupt change of solar output. It is even comparable to the risk from an invading alien starfaring civilisation intent on transforming Earth's entire ecology to suit its needs.

One day you're humming along, minding your own business. The next day you're covered by a thousand feet of hot ash. What's a Terran to do?

Five SuperVolcanoes to watch

Closed Minded Investigators Circle Wagons Against Wild Truths

There is always a tension, as [AF: an investigator], between asking open-ended questions that allow an interview subject to explain something and pressing or challenging them on accuracy or details. But if you think you already know the subject, or already have a story angle half-formed in your head, it's easy to overlook the first part. _Atlantic

Pundits, journalists, and investigators and researchers of all types most frequently go wrong when they begin their investigation with a pre-conceived opinion, a pre-fabricated conclusion. This bias is most clear in mainstream climate science, but it is also abundantly clear in just about any mainstream media investigation of a politically charged topic. If the journalist assumes a person is stupid, their stories will display abundant evidence of the person's stupidity. If journalists consider a person brilliant, the story will be built around the "evident" brilliance of the subject. Bias, bigotry, inflexible prejudice. And these people are the gatekeepers of "the truth."

In his new book, How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer cites a research study done by U.C. Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock. Tetlock questioned 284 people who made their living "commenting or offering advice on political and economic trends," asking them to make predictions about future events. Over the course of the study, Tetlock collected quantitative data on over 82,000 predictions, as well as information from follow-up interviews with the subjects about the thought processes they'd used to come to those predictions.

His findings were surprising. Most of Tetlock's questions about the future events were put in the form of specific, multiple choice questions, with three possible answers. But for all their expertise, the pundits' predictions turned out to be correct less than 33% of the time. Which meant, as Lehrer puts it, that a "dart-throwing chimp" would have had a higher rate of success. Tetlock also found that the least accurate predictions were made by the most famous experts in the group.

Why was that? According to Lehrer,

"The central error diagnosed by Tetlock was the sin of certainty, which led the 'experts' to impose a top-down solution on their decision-making processes ... When pundits were convinced that they were right, they ignored any brain areas that implied they might be wrong."

Tetlock himself, Lehrer says, concluded that "The dominant danger [for pundits] remains hubris, the vice of closed-mindedness, of dismissing dissonant possibilities too quickly." _Atlantic

In part, this is the phenomenon of the True Believer.  Humans are social animals and like reassurance that they are considered a valued part of the group.  It is also a manifestation of mental laziness.  It takes effort to change one's mind.  A person's entire life and lifestyle may be overturned by a justified and seemingly simple change of opinion.  In addition, as individuals age, they sink more deeply into the mental architecture they have constructed.

Personal opinions are fortified to protect the individual from the wildness and unpredictable threat "outside."  Stray too far from the safe, warm confines of personal prejudice and cognitive dissonance will swiftly set in.  Most modern humans are unequipped to deal with high levels of cognitive dissonance.  They quickly retreat back to the familiar. (PDF) They circle the bandwagons against the wild and unruly truths that howl in the night.(PDF)

This is our world, a world where college professors indoctrinate rather than educate, where journalists roam as a pack and savage anyone who threatens the dominant social and political memes, where scientists latch onto a theme which is popular with grant agencies and publishers -- and run with it despite all objective reality.

What would you like to do about it?

H/T Chicago Boyz

Debt is the Opium of Bad Governments

Worldmapping_via_kedrosky_via_FinancialArmageddon
The map displays the problem of the Eurozone and most modern nanny states. Some of the countries that are worst off include those with a combination of high debt, high tax rates, high levels of social welfare benefits, and low fertility rates. Countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy. In fact, most of Europe falls into that category. Fortunately, native Europeans have high average IQs. Where there is intelligence, there is hope. Likewise, it is the intelligence of the Japanese people which gives Japan hope.

Out of all the Anglosphere, Australia and New Zealand appear to be the least indebted. Canada has debt, but it is also very rich in natural resources and in intelligent people. The UK is steeped in debt, is drowning in political correctness, and is under a growing siege from fanatical Muslim immigrants. There may be no cure for all of that. The US under Obama is on an accelerated debt growth curve that may well destroy the nation's credit before 2020.

Whenever your government tells you it is out of economic danger, with smooth financial sailing ahead, just look at the map.  Then look at your country's debt curve.

Then brace yourself for making some very hard decisions.

China Bubble Drawing International Attention

Macleans

Billionaire investor George Soros said that there is “undoubtedly” a bubble in Chinese real estate, which could “reverberate” in the world if it bursts. _BusinessWeek

Up to 60% of China's GDP is based upon construction. The Chinese construction and real estate boom continues picking up steam, despite attempts by the Chinese government to calm things down.

To get a really rollicking bubble going, you need three things:

Cheap Money
A Great Story
Big Dreams
Über-bullish commentators (and biased long-only investors) almost always focus on No. 2, the great story, as if it were the eminently justifiable driver of the rise. They rarely acknowledge the importance of factor No. 1, cheap money, as a vital means of greasing the wheels.

And factor No. 3, big dreams, comes as a result of combining 1) and 2) with a childlike faith in the Buzz Lightyear slogan: "To infinity and beyond!"

By the standards of this simple "bubble conditions checklist" - cheap money, great story, big dreams - China has all three in spades. _TaipanPublishingGroup

In times of widespread recession and excessive public debt, large investors look for safe havens. At this time China appears to be one such safe haven, with what seems to be a perpetual motion growth machine.

Interestingly, visions of future growth in China are also fueling another ongoing investment bubble -- in commodities, including oil. Many analysts are convinced that China's growth runup is still in the early stages, and will continue to drive up prices of oil and other commodities. That rosy view contrasts starkly with the views of James Chanos, Marc Faber, and Kenneth Rogoff.

First, here are Mr. Chancellor's 10 criteria for mania:

1. A compelling growth story; 2. Faith in the competence of the authorities; 3. Huge increase in investment; 4. Surge in corruption; 5. Easy money; 6. Fixed currency regime; 7. Rampant credit growth; 8. Moral hazard (a belief that authorities won't let the bubble pop – and have the power to keep it going – so risk is ignored); 9. Financial structures turn precarious; 10. Rapidly rising property prices fuelled by money made in the bubble, which is plowed right back into the bubble. All these conditions are present in China – in spades.

And I'd add one more criterion, a reverse indicator, which emerges at the end of a trend: For example, a book telling us that our own economic system cannot compete with the new autocratic order. In the 1960s it was Russia that would bury us. In the 1980s it was Japan. And now it's China. A “scholar” named Martin Jacques just wrote a book titled, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of the New Global Order . Yeah, right.

By whichever criteria you use, China is a classic mania. Still, you may ask, why should it pop now? _Globe&Mail

One cannot predict exactly when an investment bubble will pop. It has a lot to do with a growing public awareness that the jig is up. Image is everything in the bubble trade.

In China, the government has control of most public sources of information. And the Chinese government still has trillions in hard currency assets, saved from better days in the export markets. For now, Chinese investors are content to stash their money in local stock markets, real estate, and banks.

But if China ever gets around to cleaning up its rotten banks and state-owned enterprises, that job may take a huge chunk out of those hard assets to do right.