Faster than a $20 Hooker and At Least Twice as Fun

The X2 is an experimental helicopter being developed by Sikorsky, an American company, at a test-flight centre in Florida. It recently flew at more than 430kph (267mph), according to a report in Spectrum, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. _Economist

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Sikorsky's X2 experimental prototype is being developed in order to bring speed to the commercial helicopter industry. The X2 has already flown faster than the official speed record for helicopters, but not officially.

To make an official attempt on the record, Sikorsky will need to have the flight monitored by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, which compiles airspeed records. But that is unlikely to happen until the X2 is going even faster. Later this year, Sikorsky hopes it will be zipping along at more than 460kph. The company, however, is interested in more than just breaking speed records. It plans to use the technology developed for the X2 in commercial helicopters.

...it uses two counter-rotating rotors that spin around the same axis, one positioned above the other. So in forward flight each rotor can produce an equal amount of lift on each side, thus providing balance. The idea has been around for some time, but it proved difficult to make it work properly.

What has changed are technological advances in aircraft engineering and control systems. Now, vibrations can be reduced using “active control”, which involves placing sensors around the helicopter to detect the onset of vibration and then using force generators on various parts of the frame to vibrate in such a way that they cancel out the original tremors. Advanced computer modelling has also made it possible to design more efficient rotors. A pusher propeller has been fitted at the rear of the X2 to provide extra oomph. According to the engineers, this propeller can also be used to slow the helicopter snappily. And computerised “fly-by-wire” controls allow the X2 to be flown relatively easily.

Sikorsky reckons that future helicopters built using the X2 technology would be extremely versatile machines. They would dash to and from a medical emergency a lot faster. They would also be very agile in flight, which would increase their capabilities in combat. Sikorsky has already produced a simulator so that potential customers can experience what these fast helicopters will be like to fly. Plenty of whirlybird pilots will be keen to get their hands on the real thing. _Economist

It may be some time before ducted fan technology is able to match the new capabilities of the X2. But I have a feeling that VTOL flying is going to become a lot more exciting.

H/T Bruce Hall

Don't Cry for Me, Obamanistas, Zombies, Slaves

An Argentinian Photo Album

When the leader of the world's superpower consciously embarks on a mission to destroy the integrity of his nation's economic and political infrastructure, one should understand the perversely tragic aspects of the situation. Mr. Obama's dreams of conquest over the evils of the colonial western world are near their climax. It is unfortunate that he lacks the insight into his own motivations, and that he fails to see the parallels between his own suicidally quixotic quest, and the many similar futile quests of leftist justice over the past century and more.

20 years after the collapse of Soviet Eastern Europe, and as Chavez' Venezuela falters and Castro is acknowledging the failure of his own revolution, Mr. Obama has just begun to institute his own revolution of destruction against the Great Satan of the Islamists, and the bane of leftists around the world.

Although it is still the world's superpower military hegemon and the economic anchor of the world's economy, the steep upward trajectory of the US government's debt was already a cause of concern even before Mr. Obama was elected. But Obama has increased the acceleration of economic doom by an order of magnitude -- and in so many ways that it is impossible not to suspect that it is an intentional agenda of destruction. The Obama Pelosi regime has made sure that there is no political way out of the quagmire, despite the worst the Tea Party may try to achieve to restore constitutional government.

Obama's plan does amount to an elaborate revolution and bloodless coup against the constitutional political and economic protections put in place over 2 centuries ago. The energy starvation aspects of the Obama Pelosi regime alone are enough to destroy the private sector eventually, but the hidden malignant aspects of Obamacare and the Dodd-Frank act -- among many other new regulations, provisions, and laws -- will accelerate the destruction beyond the comprehension of those who think in simple political and economic terms. And so it goes without end -- an ambitious coup against the "negative aspects" of the US Constitution. Because Mr. Obama's genius cannot be constrained by such an ancient document of restraint.

And so it comes down to insurrection. But a bloodless coup does not require a bloody insurrection to counter it. In fact, Americans should not even want the America that existed before Obama's election -- although Obama Pelosi has made many Americans look back with nostalgia to pre-OP times.

What kind of insurrection will it take to bring about a constitutional government with equal protections under the law and abundant opportunities for expanding the economy?

A comment on a previous article -- which mentioned voluntary alteration of tax compliance by citizens -- contains the beginning of an idea which needs to be expanded and transformed. But governments cannot go on indefinitely spending more than they receive. The government printing press contains the ink of its own destruction, as the Perons of Argentina and other tyrannical populists throughout history have learned to their regret.

More on the peaceful insurrection later. Assuming the Obama zombies allow that option.

The Brain: Wired and Introspective

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The brain contains tens of billions of neurons, and trillions of synaptic connections (plus unknown numbers of other types of connections). Scientists from several universities are collaborating in an attempt to improve our understanding of the brain's "wiring diagram." At its best, it will still be crude compared to the real thing, but it's a start.

Working with $30 million and just half a decade, the Human Connectome Project aims to create a first-of-its-kind map of the brain’s complex circuitry, detailing every connection linking thousands of different regions of the brain.

The team consists of 33 researchers at nine different institutions, including Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Minnesota, the lead universities in the effort and the sites where much of the brain-scanning will take place. Their success will depend in part on another HCP grant to another research consortium headed up by Massachusetts General Hospital and UCLA that will develop advanced, custom brain scanners with higher spatial resolution and increased sensitivity. The funds themselves come from various bodies within the National Institutes of Health.

How big is the project? It’s at least 90 billion neurons big, but that doesn’t even convey the enormity and complexity of the human brain. There are something like 150 trillion synapses – the connections between neurons across which signals pass – that electrical signals must negotiate. These neurons and the connections between them make up the circuitry of the brain, and the HCP aims to create a better picture of that circuitry than we’ve ever had before. _PS

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But brain researchers cannot sit around on their hands until others provide them with a more detailed map of the brain. They must continue to muddle through with what they've got, in trying to understand how the brain creates the world. One interesting aspect of brain function is the variation in accuracy between different persons' judgement of the accuracy of their own educated guesses. Scientists at University College London looked at this question of introspective accuracy recently.

A specific region of the brain appears to be larger in individuals who are good at turning their thoughts inward and reflecting upon their decisions, according to new research published in the journal Science. This act of introspection -- or "thinking about your thinking" -- is a key aspect of human consciousness, though scientists have noted plenty of variation in peoples' abilities to introspect...

...To begin, Fleming and Weil recruited 32 healthy human participants and showed them two screens, each containing six patterned patches. One of the screens, however, contained a single patch that was brighter than all the rest. The researchers asked the participants to identify which screen contained the brighter patch, and then to rate how confident they felt about their final answer. After the experiment, participants' brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

Fleming and the researchers designed the task to be difficult, so that participants were never completely sure if their answer was correct. They reasoned that participants who are good at introspection would be confident after making correct decisions about the patch, and less confident when they were incorrect about the patch. By adjusting the task, the researchers ensured all of the participants' decision-making abilities were on par with each others'—only the participants' knowledge of their own decision-making abilities differed.

"It's like that show, 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'" said Weil. "An introspective contestant will go with his or her final answer when they are quite sure of it, and perhaps phone a friend when they are unsure. But, a contestant who is less introspective would not be as effective at judging how likely their answer is to be correct."

So, although each participant performed equally well at the task, their introspective abilities did vary considerably, the researchers confirmed. By comparing the MRI scans of each participant's brain, they could then identify a correlation between introspective ability and the structure of a small area of the prefrontal cortex. An individual's meta-cognitive, or "higher-thinking," abilities were significantly correlated with the amount of gray matter in the right anterior prefrontal cortex and the structure of neighboring white matter, Rees and his team found.

...The new study will be published in the 17 September issue of the journal Science. Science is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society. _PO

This variation of introspective accuracy and depth is likely to play a crucial role in the development of cultures and civilisations. There should be little question that both environment and genetics play a role in the ultimate complexity of the pre-frontal cortex and other cortical and sub-cortical centers which are involved. Testing the participants additionally for both IQ and executive functions (EF) would almost certainly reveal strong correlations between the three concepts.

Thinkers who develop complex cognitive structures must be able to "hold" multiple thoughts in their heads simultaneously, while weighing the "fitness" of slight variations in the cognitive models. These models must often be of a dynamic nature -- particularly for engineers and scientists of several types.

Popular culture tends to downplay the importance of the mental skills of top-level theorists and explorers of knowledge fields, but these are the people who determine the ongoing prosperity and security of a civilisation over time.

Western civilisation is going through a period of time when generations worth of capital is being skimmed and scavenged by a de facto ruling class, which values political correctness over real world validity -- as a matter of ruling class survival. That is too, too bad for the rest of us, who very much need for our institutions to be under the discipline of real world checks and balances....


Given how badly the ruling class is fucking up, I am mulling over a series of posts on the topic of "peaceful insurrection." You may want to consider what that term might mean. Hint: I am referring to something a bit more determined and forceful than the "Tea Party" type of anti-big-government political movement. Yet still peaceful. How can that be? More later.

Is it Real, Or is it an Elaborate Computer Simulation?

Tim Hunt, Nobel Prize winner in biology, confronts two students in "systems biology" about the difference between "computer simulated biology" and real experimental biology in this video.

There is a very real gap between hands-on experimentalists and those who make their lives in the world of computer models and simulations. This is as true in biology as it is in climate, or in cognitive science. It is too easy for a computer modeler to believe that he has demonstrated something about the real world, when all he has done is generate a hypothetical output which obeys delineated constraints. As complex as the model may be, the real world is far more so. And the complexity of the model does not necessarily accurately reflect real world conditions.

The hope for the future of science lies with those who are cross-trained in both modeling and experimentation. They may be the only ones who will understand how to illuminate the way forward through an increasingly complex jungle of fractal realities.

How Do You Begin to Prepare for Doombama?

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The IMF is worried about an impending social crisis due to massive long-term unemployment in the developed world. The duration of unemployment is skyrocketing, adding hardship upon hardship to societies which were already badly over-stretched by excessive debt.

"The labour market is in dire straits. The Great Recession has left behind a waste land of unemployment," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's chief, at an Oslo jobs summit with the International Labour Federation (ILO)...."the world has not yet escaped a deeper social crisis". He called it a grave error to think the West was safe again after teetering so close to the abyss last year. "We are not safe," he said. _Telegraph

So, if the jobs are gone -- probably permanently -- how does a person prepare for the doom that comes as a result of Obama Pelosi?

If you are thinking that the US deserves whatever doom it gets (which seems to be President Obama's point of view), you may think that the rest of the world will be safe from the fallout. Unfortunately for non-Americans and expats, if the US goes down there will be nothing left to prevent global disorder. (Don't even imagine that a Chinese hegemony will act for the good of anyone except the corrupt Chinese CCP inner circle.)

Those -- including President Obama -- who have longed for the US to receive a "come-uppance" for their entire lives, may well get their wish. Most such persons either voted for Obama or cheered for his election from the sidelines. The celebration was not only misplaced, it was premature. After the world lives through an extended Obama depression and comes out on the other side, anyone who still feels like celebrating will be entitled.

More later.

Women More Easily Blinded by Science?

A study from Michigan State University's Sociology Department has found that women have been more easily conned into believing in "a scientific consensus for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming" and the impending climate death of the Earth, than have men. This, despite the fact that most top rank climate scientists are men, and presumably members of the oppressive patriarchy of old white males.

Once the ClimateGate emails became public knowledge (see here and here), it should have been obvious to most thinking persons that the methods being used by the controlling inner circle of IPCC affiliated climate science were not appropriate, nor were they in keeping with good scientific practises. The use of denial of access to data, pressuring scientific publications not to publish studies critical of the "consensus of the insiders", the denial of tenure to academics skeptical of the catastrophist viewpoint, the willingness to ignore scientific standards of information exchange -- even to the point of breaking national laws of freedom of information -- should have been enough to tip off any thoughtful individual. Clearly something stinks inside the sanctum sanctorum of mainstreamed catastrophist climate science.

Who is more likely to pick up on the huge contradictions inside the rapidly shredding catastrophist camp -- thinking men or thinking women? It is impossible to know without actually checking. Michigan State sociologists have checked, and found that women are not picking up on the discrepancies. Why not?

Why do such women put their trust in authority figures, even when these figures have proven themselves untrustworthy?

More on this topic later.

Bonus: 5 reasons why water vapour feedback may not be positive, [which would destroy virtually all modern climate models, if true.]

AND a PDF study looking at cloud feedback (PDF) [which also has the potential to obliterate the results of most climate models].

An Interesting Look at Japanese Culture via Blood Type

Source: Phlebotomist

Understanding the Belief in Peak Oil: Is The End Near?

Until we explore the entire planet as carefully as we did Oklahoma and Texas, our assessment of global oil reserves will have plenty of room for surprises. _Vaclav Smil

Repent, Sinners, The End is Near!

Deeply held beliefs go beyond evidence and logic. Thus they tend to be unfalsifiable, invulnerable to demonstrable facts or reason.

Take belief in Peak Oil Doom. There are several blurred and shifting definitions of "Peak Oil", but none of them stand up to sustained examination. With any belief -- such as belief in a deity -- as long as one is not pressed for a rigorous definition of exactly what it is one believes in, there is little point to the argument. So what, exactly is this "Peak Oil" that so many people either do or do not "believe in?" Is it:

1. The point at which half the world's oil supply has been extracted and consumed?
2. The point at which oil production is at its historically highest point?
3. The point at which the cost of oil production can only go up?
4. The point where it costs as much to produce the oil as the oil is worth?
5. The point where oil consumption outruns oil production?
6. The point at which old oil fields are depleted faster than new oil field can be found to replace them?
7. The point at which all the cheap oil has been used and only expensive oil is left?
8. None of the above
9. All of the above (including none of the above)

You might point out to the peak oil religionist that "authorities" have been declaring "Peak Oil" since the 1800s or before. Geologists, oil executives, government leaders, spy agencies, military organisations -- a wide array of authorities -- have declared peak oil every few years over the past 140 years or so. There is nothing new about this belief. But every new generation of believers is certain that it is living in "the last days of oil." Their belief is strong -- and unfalsifiable.

You can never really know whether what you have is "true peak oil" or "fool's peak oil" except perhaps in hindsight, and even then you may not live long enough to ever know the truth. Price controls on gasoline, for example, might artificially create supply shortages that last as long as the price controls, but clearly that is only one variety of "political peak oil." It goes away when the price controls are revoked.

Peak Oil believers -- like all religious believers -- rely upon "revealed truth", or argument from authority. Whether a retired geologist, an investment banker, an energy economist, a sleazy con artist, or whatnot -- a believer must have someone in whom he can place his trust. Once a belief is established, it extends tentacles deep beyond ordinary logic into the territory of faith -- which is not subject to reason.

What is the finding and development cost per barrel of oil these days? The figure has varied over the years, going up and down. From 2001:

Thanks to new exploration, drilling, and recovery technology, the worldwide finding and development cost per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) has dramatically declined over the last 20 years, from an average of about $21 in 1979–81 to under $6 in 1997–99 (in 2001 dollars) (9). _EnergyBulletin

A recent Citigroup source says that the finding and development cost has gone up to $18 in 2010, from 2004 when it was but $14. So you see that these costs can fluctuate over time, according to technology and politics. Keep in mind that the Obama dollar is worth less now than it was 30 seconds ago, so all costs in dollars should be standardised.

Another interesting question is the amount of oil that is left in the ground when a well is depleted. As technology improves, we are recovering a higher percentage of the oil -- meaning that we can now often go back to old and "depleted" wells and reap another rich harvest of oil.

At the same time, the recovery rate from world oil fields has increased from about 22% in 1980 to 35% to-day. _Energy Bulletin

By 2030 more than 50 percent of the known oil will be recoverable. Also, by that time the amount of known oil will have grown significantly, and a larger portion of unconventional oils will be commonly produced, bringing the total amount of recoverable reserves to something between 4,500 billion to 5,000 billion barrels of oil. What’s more, a significant part of “new reserves” will not come from new discoveries, but from a new ability to better exploit what we already have. _SciAm

What is the "life index of world reserves?" It is the ratio between proven oil reserves and current production. In other words, about how long can we expect reserves to last? Funny thing about that, the life index of world reserves has been improving -- the opposite of what one might expect in the face of "Peak Oil."

All these factors partly ex-plain why the life-index of world reserves...has constantly improved, passing from 20 years in 1948 to 35 years in 1972 and reaching about 40 years in 2003.

Today, all major sources estimate that proven world oil reserves exceed 1 trillion (10 12 ) barrels, while yearly consumption is about 28 billion barrels (10–13).

Overall, the world retains more than 3 tril-lion barrels of recoverable oil resources (14). _EnergyBulletin

North America has seen about a million exploratory oil wells, whereas the oil rich regions of the Persian Gulf have seen only a thousand or two. [S] The planet has barely been explored or surveyed for hydrocarbons in any significant terms.

What we are looking for here are demonstrable or refutable facts, observations, data. We are not looking for authority figures to put our faith in. That is for religious believers and disciples. The religious faithful argue from revealed authority. The rest of us choose to look at what we can see, touch, and reason with.

For example, the mundane reality that motivates modern oil production has a lot more to do with the development policies of oil dictatorships -- which shut out modern internation oil concerns -- than with how much or how little oil is in the ground.

Critics could note that new oil discov-eries are only replacing one-fourth of what the world consumes every year (fol-lowing a declining trend that began in the mid- 960s), and that increases in re-serves largely derive from upward revi-sions of existing stock. However, the real issue is that neither major producing countries nor publicly traded oil compa-nies are keen to invest money in substan-tial exploration campaigns. The countries richest in oil have minimized their oil in- estments during the last 20 years, main-ly for fear of creating a permanent excess capacity such as that which provoked the crisis in 1986 (when oil prices plummet-ed to below $10/bbl). In fact, countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq (which to-gether hold about 35% of the world’s proven reserves of oil) produce petroleum only from a few old fields, although they have discovered but not developed more than 50 new fields each. Moreover, in countries closed to foreign investments, the technologies and techniques used are, in most cases, obsolete.

Nevertheless, international public oil companies have faced two sets of limits to their expan-sion in the last 20 years. The first is inaccessibility to foreign in- estment in the largest and cheap-est reserves—those in the Persian Gulf. Second are the demands of financial markets, which for years have insisted that compa-nies provide unrealistic, short-term financial returns that are in-consistent with the long-term na-ture of oil investments. This has compelled private operators to reject op-portunities that would normally be deemed economically worthwhile. _EnergyBulletin

We would better understand the political undercurrents behind production fluctuations, if we were more aware of them and took them as seriously as they deserve to be taken. If a country lacks the technical expertise to develop an oil field -- or to retrieve as much oil as possible from that field -- production numbers are artificially depressed for political and bureaucratic reasons. The oil is still there, but you would never know this merely by looking at production figures.

Peak oil disciples and believers reap much secondary gain from their faith. An important bonus is the pride of knowing something that other people don't know -- the end is near. It takes something much more potent than mere logic and data to overcome such an advantage.

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin Energy

Also see: Peak Oil Bites the Dust, which has an interesting discussion in comments after the article.

Are Baboons Running the Environmental Movement?

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Sorry, the title above is unkind -- to baboons. In reality, you would have to remove at least one half a baboon's brain for the primate to be as unintelligent as the average (faux) environmentalist. One of the latest of the host of environmental faux-llies is the organised movement against waste-to-energy gasification plants. Wisconsin legislators are trying to attract a gasification waste-to-energy plant to Milwaukee. But (faux) environmental organisations have banded together to stop them:

Earlier this year, the state Legislature passed a law that would qualify the waste-to-energy system as a renewable energy technology complying with the state’s green-power mandate. At the time, Gov. Jim Doyle said the technology has real potential to help us address the growing need for clean renewable power."

But bill was opposed by environmentalists who objected to the trash-to-energy project and its potential impact on air pollution. Environmental groups that are actively opposing these types of projects in other states have branded them as “incinerators in disguise.”

Josh Morby, a spokesman for Alliance Federated Energy, said that characterization is unfair because no incineration is involved in the plasma gasification process.

Under this technology, the municipal waste is not burned but is instead converted into a syngas that can be used to generate electricity, steam or biofuels. _JSOnline

Gasification -- particularly ultra-hot plasma gasification such as is being planned for Milwaukee -- reduces waste to its component atoms and plasma. Environmentalists may lack the brain power to understand the difference between simple incineration and plasma gasification, but most humans would perceive the distinction fairly quickly.

In New York state, SUNY Cobleskill plans to install a gasification plant on campus as part of a research and training program for the new Environmental and Energy Technology Program. Not a bad idea, given how much garbage is generated at the average institution of higher indoctrination learning. But SUNY plans to turn the gasification program into a 4 year degree! Sorry, SUNY, but while 4 years may be required for a rigorous thermochemical / thermomechanical waste and biomass to energy program, learning to tweak and operate one single gasifier should not take nearly so long.

Tampa Electric will be installing a 250 MW IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle) demonstration plant in partnership with RTI. Not a bad idea. But what genius is forcing them to incorporate CO2 sequestration as part of the demonstration? Don't they know they will lose up to half the generated energy and do no one any good at all by sequestering the plant food otherwise known as CO2? Oh, yes -- the idiots geniuses at Obama - Pelosi's DOE!

And to prove that gasification is nothing if not versatile, companies in Israel, Colorado, and elsewhere are developing solar powered gasification plants, using concentrated sunlight to gasify biomass and waste.

Faux environmentalists, deep down, want to reduce the human population of Earth by at least 90%. You do not expect these neo-Luddites to be looking for solutions to real world problems such as potential energy shortages. No, they oppose every form of energy that might possibly work -- including nuclear, biomass gasification, IGCC for clean coal, shale gas, and so on.

It requires a lot of energy to support heavily sub-specialised civilisations such as those in the developed world. If your goal is to reduce the human population of the planet well below 1 billion members, cutting off the energy supply to civilisation would be one of the more obvious steps. Clearly, these quasi- half-baboons will not hesitate to take that step and any others they feel necessary to reach their goals.

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

Oligodendroglial Progenitor Cells Suddenly Sprout Neurons!

The study identified the new pyramidal neurons in a part of the brain not typically associated with neurogenesis, the piriform cortex. The piriform cortex receives not only olfactory information, but also inputs from regions of the brain that are involved in emotion regulation and memory formation. Because of its privileged access to diverse brain regions, the piriform cortex is capable of tying odor representations to other types of information that are important for a wide range of behaviors. In animals and humans, activation in the piriform cortex is linked to odor memory and the emotional qualities of odors. In rodents, activity in this region is related to sexual behavior. _HND

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Scientists from UC Davis have discovered that neurons are being created from non-neuron progenitor cells in the brains of mice in early adulthood. These new neurons can apparently go on to play an important role in transmitting signals to "widespread" parts of the brain.

"We used to think that the sole destiny of oligodendroglial progenitor cells was to become myelin-forming oligodendroglia," Pleasure said. "Later it was shown that they also can generate other kinds of glial cells as well. We now have demonstrated that these oligodendroglial progenitor cells, which are widely distributed in the brain, and persist throughout life, also give rise to a group of large cerebral cortical neurons. Thus, oligodendroglial progenitor cells are truly multipotent."

The researchers found that precursors of glial cells, called proteolipid promoter-expressing NG2 progenitors (PPEPs, pronounced Pee-peps), give rise to glutamatergic pyramidal neurons, an important type of brain cell that sends long-range excitatory signals. PPEPs belong to a class of glial precursor cells called oligodendroglial progenitor cells (OPCs). These cells have been discovered only recently, and they hold tremendous promise for stem-cell regenerative medicine. They are the largest proliferating population of cells in the mammalian brain and spinal cord, and they could replace or repair injured cells.

“This study shows very definitively that PPEPs generate new neurons, that these new neurons have all the morphological and structural features which suggest that they are functionally integrated into the existing circuitry,” said Fuzheng Guo, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology in the UC Davis School of Medicine.

...The current study follows findings published in 2009 that PPEPs in the immature mouse brain generate neurons in multiple regions, including the hippocampus and piriform cortex, and that these neurons survive into adulthood. They also found that PPEPs produced GABA-ergic interneurons in the immature brain. Prior to that study, scientists had assumed that the general class of glial precursor cells, called oligodendroglial progenitor cells (OPCs), could produce only glial cells, which create insulating sheets that wrap around neuronal projections and ensure speedy and reliable signal transmission. Instead, their results showed that these cells generate all three major cell types in the brain and spinal cord.

“Whether or not OPCs could form new neurons was not at all clear until our prior study,” Pleasure said.

The researchers focused on the piriform cortex in the current study because it was found to be a “hot spot” for PPEPs in the earlier study. The study was conducted using a genetic fate-mapping technique to track the lineage, or cell fates, of OPCs in the young adult brains of genetically-engineered mice. _HND

The study was in mice, but if similar mechanisms are at play in late adolescent and early adult humans, they might explain more of the differences between the adolescent and the adult brain.

We know that pathways of the brain develop over time, and that full maturation and myelinisation does not complete until the mid-twenties or slightly later. Late development of the pre-frontal cortex is probably part of the explanation for emotional and mental maturation in adulthood, but the development in early adulthood of new pathways involved in memory formation, emotional regulation, and sexual behaviours -- as described in the above study -- may provide deeper explanations into human emotional maturation.

Scientists will now have to look more carefully -- cast a wider net -- to try to understand the many nuances of brain development and the origination of new neurons and neuronal pathways. A few new answers, a lot of new questions.

China's Uncertain Economic Future

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Conventional economic wisdom sees China as the economic powerhouse of the future -- driving world economic demand for energy and commodities through most of the 21st century. Persistent annual GDP growth rates near or above 10% have made financial analysts confident that China's economic future is secure -- even if no one else's is.

But if this confidence in the rosy future of China is misplaced, then everything we are being told about the future prices of energy and commodities -- and about the state of the global economy -- is very likely wrong. Which means that the medium term forecast will call for catastrophic storms of a global economic nature. If China's economic resources are being squandered on a construction bubble which skews the economic numbers, consumes a huge portion of the world's commodities for nothing, feeds corruption at the highest levels, and misleads the economic analysts of the world as to the true prospects of China's economy -- we have a big problem.

Recent statistics show that there are about 64 million apartments and houses that have remained empty during the past six months, according to Chinese media reports. On the assumption that each flat serves as a home to a typical Chinese family of three (parents and one child), the vacant properties could accommodate 200 million people, which account for more than 15% of the country’s 1.3 billion population. But instead, they remain empty. This is in part because many Chinese believe that a home is not a real home unless you own the flat.
And so people prefer buying to renting, and as a result, the rental yield is relatively low.

This has fuelled worries that China’s property market is bubbling. Yi Xianrong, a prominent economist, said the numbers are “shocking” and the country’s property market is dangerously overheated. “Many of them are bought by property speculators betting on a constantly rising property market,” he wrote in a commentary to the official newspaper, the People’s Daily. “This is a serious threat to the sustainability of China’s economy.” _FinanceAsia

China's political future rests upon its ability to offer a growing prosperity to its people. If China's economic numbers turn out to be mostly "smoke and mirrors," the people will grow restless. Already a growing number of Chinese within and without the government are calling for meaningful political freedoms to expand.

if the Hu-Wen leadership does not act soon, China is unlikely to see major political reforms for at least the next five years, despite everyone at senior levels agreeing on the desirability of such changes.

What is needed is action now, before pent-up frustrations result in an explosion that cannot be contained. _ChinaPost

China can easily explode in fury if its people were to suddenly wake up to the vast levels of corruption, mismanagement, and destruction of future potential which are manifested at every level of government in China. While everything looks fine on the outside, inside the bamboo prison, it is a cauldron of uncertainty and violent jostling for position.

US President Obama's plan for the US economy appears to be to borrow and spend $trillion dollar deficits into the indefinite future -- assuming the overseas borrowers of US debt will always be standing in line to purchase US securities at any old interest rate. The truth is more ominous than you will likely learn in the media or from most economic analysis in the mainstream. Unless the rest of the world begins to buy China's products as it did up till 2008, China cannot serve as the lender and commodities-buyer of last resort for long.

Artificial inflation of China's GDP numbers via a vast, corrupt construction bubble, can only work for so long. When the dominoes begin to fall, they will create more collateral damage than most people currently understand.

Things Are Going to Get a Lot Worse

Public-sector unions aren't protecting government workers against abuse; they're inflicting abuse on the rest of us -- because private workers pay for all the government jobs by losing their own jobs and with higher taxes. _NYP

Public sector unions are sucking the blood out of the private sector.

Thirty years ago the vast majority of union workers were in the private sector. Public employees in unions reached parity with private sector members by 2009. This was aided in part by campaign contributions from the unions to elect Democratic Party candidates and generous pay packages and retirement plans passed by those same politicians in return.

By 2010, the general public received a series of shocks. The first shock was the jobless recovery of the Great Recession that cost 8 million jobs. Most of the job losses occurred in the private sector yet the majority of the $800 billion Stimulus Bill went to “save and create” public sector employment. The second shock was learning that civil servants earned twice that of private workers. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Federal workers received average pay and benefits of $123,049 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation. The third shock was revelation of incredible retirement plans doled out by politicians since 1999. In 2002, California passed SB 183 that allowed police and safety workers to retire after 30 years on the job with 3% of salary for each year of service, or 90% of their last year’s pay. During the Great Recession, fireman began retiring with $150,000 pensions at age 52 despite a life expectancy approaching 80. In Orange County CA, lifeguards, deemed safety workers, retired with $147,000 annual pensions. The Orange County sheriff, recently convicted of witness tampering, will receive $215,000 annually while in jail. Bob Citron, the Treasurer of Orange County who pushed the county into bankruptcy in the 1990s, receives a pension of $150,000 per year. A tsunami of anger and resentment is building. _NG

$3 trillion pension disaster on the way Will Obama Pelosi bail out their union buddies yet again -- at the private sector's expense?

Pension Tsunami blog

Overpaid government worker blog

Is it time to end tenure for university indoctrinators?

At a time when nearly one in 10 American workers is unemployed, here’s a crew ...who are guaranteed jobs for life, teach only a few hours a week, routinely get entire years off, dump grading duties onto graduate students and produce “research” on subjects like “Rednecks, Queers and Country Music” or “The Whatness of Books.” Or maybe they stop doing research altogether....dropping their workweek to a manageable dozen hours or so, all while making $100,000 or more a year... _NYT

And those are the more responsible of the tenured professors. ;-)

Things are going to get a lot worse, because there are a lot more shoes left to drop.

As US interest rates inevitably rise, every additional $trillion that Obama adds to the national debt will be felt by all but the richest Americans. Eventually even Obama zombies will mutter Obama's name as a curse, like everyone else.

Craig Venter Aims to Replace the Entire Petrochemical Industry

“Designing and building synthetic cells will be the basis of a new industrial revolution,” Dr. Venter says. “The goal is to replace the entire petrochemical industry.” _NYT

NYT

Peak Oil will occur when humans no longer want to bother drilling into the ground to extract dark, gooey, messy liquids to turn into fuels. Instead, humans are slowly but surely developing other, more reliable and sustainable ways to fuel their industrial base and somewhat affluent lifestyles. Dieoff.orgiasts and other members of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement hate to see any alternatives to Peak Oil Doom, or any skepticism to the orthodoxy of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. But humans are innately a problem-solving and skeptical lot.

Craig Venter is one example of an unlikely problem solver. He was a poor student in his youth, and only after living through some harrowing experiences in Vietnam as a military medic was young Venter able to get his head on straight, and decide to do something with his life.

...Dr. Venter has a history of defying skeptics, and many people are betting that he will succeed this time as well. Dr. Walton, in fact, invested personally in Synthetic Genomics, and his venture firm, Oxford Bioscience Partners, recently wanted to sink a hefty sum into the company but was turned down when Dr. Venter found other investors offering better terms.

Exxon Mobil is giving Synthetic Genomics $300 million in research financing to design algae that could be used to produce gasoline and diesel fuel. (The new greenhouse will be used for that research.)

BP has invested in the company itself, turning to Synthetic Genomics to study microbes that might help turn coal deposits into cleaner-burning natural gas. Another investor, the Malaysian conglomerate Genting, wants to improve oil output from its palm tree plantations, working toward what its chief executive calls a “gasoline tree.”

...In the approach toward which Dr. Venter is driving, engineers would specify the entire genetic code of a cell — essentially the software that runs the cell — on computers, making design changes as if on a word processor. They would then press the “print” button, so to speak, and the DNA would be manufactured from its chemical components. The synthetic DNA would then be transplanted into an existing cell, where it would “boot up” and take control of the cell’s operations.

...Synthetic Genomics has about 130 employees. But much of its research, including the development of the synthetic cell, is done at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Synthetic Genomics pays for about 25 of the institute’s roughly 300 researchers, and has rights to their results. The rest of the institute’s funding comes mainly from federal grants and its endowment.... _NYT

Venter seems to love challenges and competitions. He lives to defy skeptics and to defeat rivals. And do you know the odd thing? The world is full of young Venters who have not yet -- and may never -- figured out what they want to do with their lives.

Pelted mercilessly with nightmarish predictions of doom and gloom, and instilled by governmenbt schools and indoctrinating universities with the futility of trying to fight their fate, hundreds of thousands of young Venters never amount to much -- when they might have done, given the right experiences in early life.

From an article published at Al Fin Energy

Khan Academy: Evolving to Define the Future of Education

Khan Academy is a rapidly growing set of online learning videos. Microsoft's Bill Gates has enrolled himself and his son, Rory, in Khan's free online school, heaping praise on Salman Khan's online labour of love.

The above video describes some of Khan's future goals for his ambitious project, and how it may well change the future of education.

Unlike overpriced university programs, Khan omits the indoctrination and focuses strictly on the education. Even better, he makes subjects easier to learn -- even the very difficult subjects such as differential equations. Khan is expanding the number of videos and video courses on a regular basis. And as you can see from the video above, he never stops planning for the future.

Check out Khan Academy and the Khan Academy YouTube Channel to learn something you didn't know before.

Hat tip to News Alert

Bonus!: The following video is a delightful 1 hour 23 minute inside look into the origins and future of Khan Academy, presented by MIT alumnus Salman Khan to the MIT Club of Northern California.

A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste, As Is a Country

CarpeDiem_via_TaxProf

University tuition costs have been rising at least twice as fast as inflation and home prices. A large part of this higher education bubble-bloat is due to an explosive hiring of non-faculty staff members. People such as "sexual orientation counselors" and "diversity co-ordinators" are laughing about the bubble all the way to the bank.

The buyers think what they're buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they're buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn't.

Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble, but I'm afraid it's also sounding a lot like a still-inflating higher education bubble. And despite (or because of) the fact that my day job involves higher education, I think it's better for us to face up to what's going on before the bubble bursts messily." _mjperry_quoting_GlennReynolds

If the housing bubble brought down the economies of the western world, what will happen when the "higher indoctrination bubble" bursts? Overpriced university re-programming has been shifting away from providing a useful education in favour of providing a "consciousness-raising" brainwashing experience -- while simultaneously putting students and families in debt for decades.

This is a far more destructive process than buying an overpriced home and being foreclosed upon. In the case of institutions of higher indoctrination, it is your mind and the minds of your children that have been fore-closed by dogmatic professors and staff.

Get your download of the report on administrative bloat in higher education: the real reason for high costs in higher education. __ PDF Download __This is the report that is creating such a stir in the media and on university campuses.

Bonus: An interactive US map allowing you to examine the condition of K-12 education state-by-state. via_Jay P Greene

PLUS on the state of US K-12 Ed: 7 MB PDF report card on K-12 American Education via_Jay P Greene

Here is more coverage from US media on administrative bloat and rising tuition costs in US higher indoctrination:

Op-eds
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Baltimore Sun
Indianapolis Star
AOLNews
News
Dallas Morning News
Indianapolis Star
USA Today
Chronicle of Higher Education
Arizona Republic
Arizona Daily Star
Sunshine News
Phoenix Business Journal
AZ Daily Sun
Arizona Capitol Times
Inside Higher Ed
Modesto Bee
Time
Kiplinger’s
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Baylor Lariat
Columnists / Editorials
The Economist
Forbes
Arizona Republic
Dallas Morning News
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Denver Post
Dallas Morning News
Selected Blogs
Instavision
National Association of Scholars
Instapundit
Cato@Liberty
Phi Beta Cons
Reason Foundation — Nick Gillespie
Reason Foundation — Lisa Snell
George W. Bush Institute
Pelican Institute
MacIver Institute
Nevada Policy Research Institute
The Five Year Party
Carolina Journal
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
The Volokh Conspiracy
Minding the Campus
And here is our rebuttal to ASU’s statement attacking the report.  The rebuttal works for most of the issues raised by other universities as well:
Our Rebuttal_JayPGreene

The Impending Cult of the Great Green Global Suicide

James Lee, devoted member of the CGGGS (cult of the great green global suicide) committed suicide by SWAT at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.   Mr. Lee was strongly motivated by Al Gore and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. More on the story from Wired:

According to a message on the savetheplanetprotest.com website believed run by Lee, the suspect demanded that the Discovery Channel broadcast its “commitment to save the planet.”

Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

_Wired

Salon has more on the story, suggesting that Mr. Lee is a solitary, deranged gunman who took Thomas Malthus just a bit too seriously. But if Mr. Lee were, in truth, as solitary as some would have us believe, why are there so many voices on the wires and airwaves who sound just like Mr. Lee?

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is dedicated to the extinction of the human race -- or perhaps only those members of the race who do not whole-heartedly ascribe to the tenets of the VHEM religion. Some members and fellow travelers of VHEM are walking and talking within visual, auditory, or internet range of you at this very moment. When will they take the next step?

Of course there may be some who suggest that the current government of the United States is displaying some sympathies with the VHEM -- through its energy policies. Al Fin himself has occasionally described the Obama Pelosi energy policy as a form of energy starvation, or economic suicide. The way the O - P regime has dragged its feet on development of energy resources of all types -- except for ineffectual and corrupt big wind and solar -- is a sure tipoff that harder times are ahead, unless significant changes in the regime occur soon.

Not that top politicians or bureaucrats have any intention of killing themselves. No, they intend for you to be the victim of their policies. As for themselves? They anticipate sailing through their self-made disasters virtually untouched.

The fantasies of leftists have taken on macabre and disturbing overtones as of late. Mr. Lee's suicide by SWAT is but one of the unsettling directions such fantasies can turn. Expect more occurrences of leftist inspired eco-terrorism in the not-so-distant future.

Somewhere, in a jail cell not so far away, the Unabomber is giggling.

More (5Sep10):

The essence of progressivism, of which environmentalism has become an appendage, is the faith that all will be well once we have concentrated enough power in Washington and have concentrated enough Washington power in the executive branch and have concentrated enough "experts" in that branch. Hence the Environmental Protection Agency proposes to do what the elected representatives of the rubes refuse to do in limiting greenhouse gases. Mead says of today's environmental movement:

"It proposes big economic and social interventions and denies that unintended consequences and new information could vitiate the power of its recommendations. It knows what is good for us, and its knowledge is backed up by the awesome power and majesty of the peer review process. The political, cultural, business and scientific establishments stand firmly behind global warming today -- just as they once stood firmly behind Robert Moses, urban renewal and big dams. They tell us it's a sin to question the consensus, the sign of bad moral character to doubt. Bambi, look in the mirror. You will see Godzilla looking back." _WaPo

Ray Kurzweil's Singularity Idiocracy University?

SingularityHub

Ray Kurzweil's Singularity University just wrapped up its second year's special summer session. The emphasis this year was on "a dozen more ways to help a billion people," according to Singularity Hub, which covered the session. In other words, an institution supposedly devoted to "the sinularity" was hijacked -- at least for this year -- to serve as a hard-flogged nag of the "appropriate technology" movement. The appropriate technology movement receives many billions of dollars a year from governments and foundations, and is already an important part of the curricula of hundreds of colleges and universities worldwide. So why did the Singularity University -- the only institution of its kind -- allow itself to be 'jacked by a worldwide monster movement which by all accounts is already over-funded and over-expensed by career bureaucrats and other rent-seekers?

Because the problems are so huge? Not really. Of course, the problems of the third world are certainly huge and in need of solutions. But the professional "problem-solvers" and "do-gooders" of the appropriate technology movement -- at least the bureaucratic part of the teams -- do not necessarily want to solve the problems at all. As long as the problems exist, these bureaucrats have lucrative careers in a high status, benevolent, and philanthropic occupation.

They have no reason to fear that the problems of the third world will suddenly fade away, or otherwise be solved by do-gooding appropriate technologists. The problems of the third world are institutionalised in a secure location, as well hidden as it is possible to hide a thing.

The endemic problem of the third world is corruption. If you do not change the corruption, you will not solve any problems other than to accelerate the growth rates of highly-dependent, non-productive populations of corrupt third world nations.

But the corruption cannot be changed as long as it is the nature of the people to accept this high level of corruption in their leadership. In general, there are three sorts of populations which accept high levels of corruption in their leaders:

1. populations living under dictatorships such as North Korea's and Iran's;
2. populations which are unable to create a large enough middle class and social mobility to dynamically bridge the gap between the very rich and the very poor; and
3. populations living in essential anarchy, without any rule of law

Some nations pass through conditions of dictatorship or anarchy, on the way to something better and less corrupt. But other nations and populations reside in a state of poverty and corruption virtually all of their existence -- regardless of how many NGOs, government aid programs, philanthropic gifts, appropriate technology programs, Peace Corps visits, or other benefits it may have received. Haiti is a good example. The continent of Africa contains several others. Asia and Latin America have other examples that may be a bit more complex.

The basic problem of the perpetually impoverished parts of the third world centers around the population substrate of those nations. What can the people accomplish under the very best of circumstances? How many top-rate people in the sciences, the professions, the trades, and other crucial occupations can these populations supply? To put it bluntly, "How can we expect these populations to climb out of their deep holes as long as their average population IQ is below 85?"

This summer's session of the Singularity University was not about the Singularity, by all accounts (provided by SingularityHub). Instead, it was about the Idiocracy, the perpetually corrupt and impoverished parts of the world that cannot be transformed from the outside, regardless of the best intentions.

There is nothing wrong with appropriate technology, or in trying to improve basic health and living conditions of persons in abject poverty and misery. It is appropriate that churches, charities, philanthropists, and other well wishers devote a portion of their time and resources to helping such people, if they can. But that is not what the singularity is about.

The singularity, as described by Kurzweil, is a mind-blowingly fast transition from a world where we can at least fool ourselves into thinking that we can keep up with important events and developments, to a world where all pretense of keeping up with the advances must be abandoned.

Whether such a world comes about as a result of highly advanced machine intelligences, or as a result of more intelligent humans learning to network their intelligences together (and with sub-intelligent but very fast machines), the end result of change too cheap to meter is the same.

There are millions of people and institutions in the affluent world working to improve the conditions of the third world, but only one Singularity University. We cannot afford to jump on anyone's bandwagon -- even the bandwagon of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and similar well-meaning philanthropic organisations -- if we expect to get past the Idiocratic bottleneck which threatens almost all societies at this time.

20,000 Genes Under the Brain: Genes->Brain->Man

This image from a gene chip shows the activity of thousands of genes from tissue taken from a section of the hippocampus. Each spot denotes activity from a separate, single gene; the brighter the spot, the more active that gene is in the tissue sample tested.

_SciAm

An online interactive atlas of the human brain can show the activity of over 20,000 genes. Genes make the brain -- in conjunction with the environment. The brain makes the man. If we can observe the ongoing interplay of brain genes with environment, we will have a much clearer concept of why certain brains (men) behave the way they do.

Scientists can now determine where in the brain genes that encode specific proteins are active—including proteins that are affected by medications. Such information may help predict a drug’s benefits and side effects.

Using the atlas, researchers can zoom in on brain structures thought to be altered in mental disorders such as schizophrenia to find the molecular footprint of these diseases.
The atlas may provide molecular clues to memory, attention, motor coordination, hunger, and perhaps emotions such as happiness or anxiety.

Scientists have long sought to understand the biological basis of thought. In the second century A.D., physician and philosopher Claudius Galen held that the brain was a gland that secreted fluids to the body via the nerves—a view that went unchallenged for centuries. In the late 1800s clinical researchers tied specific brain areas to dedicated functions by correlating anatomical abnormalities in the brain after death with behavioral or cognitive impairments. French surgeon Pierre Paul Broca, for example, found that a region on the brain’s left side controls speech. In the first half of the 20th century, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield mapped the brain’s functions by electrically stimulating different places in conscious patients during neurosurgery, triggering vivid memories, localized body sensations, or movement of an arm or toe.

In recent years new noninvasive ways of viewing the human brain in action have helped neuroscientists trace the anatomy of thought and behavior. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, for instance, researchers can see which areas of the brain “light up” when people perform simple movements such as lifting a finger or more complex mental leaps such as recognizing someone or making a moral judgment. These images reveal not only how the brain is divided functionally but also how the different areas work together while people go about their daily activities. Some investigators are using the technology in an attempt to detect lies and even to predict what kinds of items people will buy; others are seeking to understand the brain alterations that occur in disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, autism and dementia. _SciAm

To assess gene expression in each small bit of tissue, researchers expose its RNA to a gene chip, or DNA microarray. These small devices are coated with clusters of identical DNA molecules, called probes, within separate areas. Each probe binds to the RNA of a specific gene—the one that contains a complementary set of chemical units, or bases. In a DNA molecule, the base adenine (A) sticks to thymine (T), and guanine (G) pairs with cytosine (C). Thus, the sequence that would bind to the strand illustrated above is (from top to bottom): T, C, C, T, G, C, A. In this way, a chip records which genes are active, and to what extent they are active, in the tissue sample

._SciAm

We will need to be able to detect brain-gene activity without chopping up the brain first, of course. Most people -- except perhaps for conscientious members of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, perhaps -- would balk at volunteering for a brain-gene map, if they knew their brains would have to be removed and sliced into sheets.

Jobs are Scarce Unless You Know Where to Look

FreakingNews

Since Obama Pelosi was put in place, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. The private sector is shriveling before our eyes. Obama has been particularly hard on construction, manufacturing, business startups, the financial sector, the energy sector, and any part of the economy not dominated by labour unions, environmental lobbies, or trial lawyers. The outlook under the current regime continues to be bleak into the indefinite future.

Vanishing of jobs will plague the rest of this decade and more. Meaningful employment is no longer guaranteed to dutiful, studious members of the middle class in the Western world. College education, which was hugely expanded after World War II and sold as a basic right, is doing a poor job of preparing young people for life outside of a narrow band of the professional class. _Chronicle

Government is hiring. And if you want to pick and choose for the best federal jobs, insiders put the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the top of the list.

Ordinarily, the government doesn't create wealth, but can certainly regulate those who do. The Obama Pelosi regime has decided to go against tradition, and try to grow wealth by hiring as many government regulators as possible.

So if you can find the right government job, you should be set for life, right? Well, no. You should have thought of that 30 years ago, so that you could be retiring to a life of ease in your early to middle 50s -- with a yearly income that might make many retired millionaires envious.

No, if you are just now getting into government work, you'd better be prepared for some very rude awakenings over the next decade or two. Today's private sector is not what it used to be. There is only so much flogging and ravaging that it can take from an overgrown government sector and overblown government pensions, benefits and mandated entitlements, taxes, and regulations. Things fall apart. Expect it, and prepare for it.

Most Fatal Addiction for Society? Addiction to Government

In a totalitarian society, all social functions are performed by government agencies and bureaucracies. Individual initiative and entrepreneurship do not exist -- there is no place for independent thought or action under totalitarian regimes. So what happens when totalitarian countries go cold turkey, and dump their dictatorships and replace them with choice? Most of the formerly totalitarian countries shrink rapidly -- perhaps eventually to nothing. Like a drug addict who does not know what to do without his drug.

America was once rich in independent thought and action, prosperous in entrepreneurship and economic activity. But as government has taken over progressively more of the functions of society, independent initiative inevitably atrophies and dies.

A direct result of increasing dependence on government is that the self-reliance that was such a fundamental aspect of the American culture for generations has been eroding. And that value of self-reliance was a major driver of our entrepreneurial nature as Americans. _CSM

People who make their lives in government are not likely to understand what drives entrepreneurial activity. So they are unlikely to institute policies which encourage the economic activity which is the lifeblood of a prosperous nation.

Contrary to President Obama's view, the crucial factor for improving life in every society has been private enterprise, individuals who seek to uplift their lives and those of others. Entrepreneurship is neither created nor nurtured by government, nor reserved to the privileged; it springs from individuals and can be found even in the poorest communities in countries worldwide. _IBD

One of the most recent examples of government destruction of the private sector and private enterprise is the Dodd-Frank Act, which was hailed by Obama Pelosi as the salvation of the US economy.

...the worst thing about the CFPB is not the costs it will impose on the economy, the innovation it will stifle, or the small businesses it will eliminate. The worst thing about this agency is that it will operate independently, without any control by the Fed, Congress, or the president....Moreover, all this power is concentrated in a single person, the director of the CFPB. Even the Fed, with all its independence, is ultimately governed by a board with a bipartisan membership. The establishment of an agency with this scope of authority, under the direction of a single person removable only for cause, outside the control of Congress or the president, is an unprecedented and--I might say--an irresponsible act, which Congress will eventually come to regret. _AEI

A fatal flaw in the legislation, certainly. But only one of many fatal flaws contained within the Dodd-Frank Act -- and the Dodd-Frank Act is only one of many fatally flawed acts of recent government, which strip the private sector of independence and make every economic enterprise from top to bottom hopelessly dependent upon government agency and caprice.

You should be able to understand why the hard times are only beginning for the US, and the parts of the world that have been dependent upon the US in some way or another -- which is almost the entire world. Any thoughts you may have had about a "return to normal", or any type of normal economic recovery should be flushed down the pipes by reality.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.