500 ft Personal Seastead: "Streets of Monaco" for US$ 1 Billion

Forbes
On the top deck you will notice replicas of the Monte Carlo Casino, Hotel de Paris, Cafe de Paris, La Rascasse, and Loews Hotel, as well as a fully functional go-kart miniature Monaco Grand Prix track.

Other extravagant bells and whistles include multiple swimming pools, a swim-in Jacuzzi bar, a multi-use court for tennis and basketball, a ‘dance hall’, a spa with a hair salon, and enough space to accommodate 16 guests and 70 staff. And don’t forget the submarine and helipad. _Forbes

"The Streets of Monaco" does not appear to be designed for the open seas. Of course, if she is fast enough, she can stay out of the way of the larger storms using state of the art communications.

The yacht may never be built, but every time large and unconventional boat designs are engineered, there is the potential for innovation -- which can then be borrowed for use in more practical seasteads. This yacht is designed to accomodate roughly 85 people (guests plus crew). As a working seastead, similar sized boats could accomodate many more in reasonable comfort -- as long as luxury is not required.

The true breakthroughs in seastead engineering for deepwater living are likely to come from the oil & gas industry, as marine and petroleum engineers look to deeper and deeper waters for new energy jackpots.

Peak Oil: Meet 10,000 Gal/Acre Algal Diesel Made at $1.25/gal

Cost of the firm’s [Photon8] algal based diesel fuel is said to be $1.25/gal which permits retail pricing at or below petroleum diesel without subsidies.

Photon8 has demonstrated photobioreactor production rate equal to 1.5 gal/square meter/yr and is on its way to an expected rate of 22,000 gal per 2.5 acre/yr then to best economic units of 5 acres. It believes further development may bring it close to 10,000 gal/acre/yr as a basis for planning large production systems, according to Brad Bartilson, President & CEO, Photon, Inc, Brownsville, TX. _Ai-Online_via_BiofuelsDigest

Photon8 is a new Texas algal fuels startup, based on technology developed at UT Brownsville. The company utilises "genetically enhanced" algae, and intends to produce a "drop-in" diesel fuel which requires no blending with petro-diesel. Photon 8 claims a number of unique technologies with patents pending.

Brad Bartilson is the president and CEO of Photon8 and seems to at least talk a very good game.

Brad Bartilson, Photon8’s president and CEO, says the Traveling Wave Tube technology boosts algae growth by 500 percent, representing a major advance in the profitable conversion of algae to biofuel — "profitable" being the key word...

...He invented his own patent-pending "photo-bio reactor" in order to slash production costs. Now, Traveling Wave Tube promises to cut costs further by dispensing with limits normally imposed on algae-to-biofuel production during "degassing" and the addition of carbon to the algae. In a nutshell, algae "broth" is exposed to sunlight in order to produce oily "lipids" — the more the better. The lipids are harvested for biodiesel production.

...Photon8 has discovered how to coax more lipids out of individual algae cells through genetic manipulation...Photon8’s team has figured out a short cut, Bartilson says.

"If you’re in production what you care about is how much oil (the cells) produce a day." he says. "Now we have confirmation that these cells are producing lipids at twice the rate of a wild cell."

Despite the breakthroughs, Bartilson finds himself struggling against a perception in the algae-biofuel industry that some problems are insurmountable — including the ones Photon8 claims to have surmounted.

"It’s so frustrating for me," he says. "I feel like were fighting town hall to some extent. Those that came out first are now being looked at as the ‘forefathers.’ The mantra from these folks is nobody has solved the confounding issues — (they say) we don’t have algae that can produce at the rate we need, and second there is no growth system that can have profitability. We have those, so we have to make believers." _BrownsvilleHerald

One of the UTB professors who has been involved in the underlying academic research is Tamara Pease. Dr. Pease appears to have an eye on some critical issues involved in the production of photosynthetic organisms to fuels -- both on an immediate time scale and on a geologic time scale.

Something tells me that Dr. Pease would be reluctant to make the same claims about Photon8's "mutant algae" that Mr. Bartilson is making. It is much easier to talk about breakthroughs and "10,000 gallons an acre production" than it is to actually produce an algal based diesel-equivalent that is cost-competitive with petro-diesel.

All the same, if Photon8 can bring their fuel to market within the next 10 years, Al Fin energy analysts will be quite impressed.

More algal energy news: OriginOil is focusing more narrowly on its algae extraction process -- moving toward a continuous separation process called "Live Extraction" which preserves the viability of the algae cells after "milking", for further lipids production.
OriginOil is a a better established company than Photon8, but in a wide-open field such as algal fuels -- still in its infancy -- it is far too early to predict ultimate winners and losers.

OriginOil Extracts Oil from Algae Timelapse from OriginOil on Vimeo.

Taken from an earlier posting at Al Fin Energy

Extreme Yoga: When You Learn to Bend So Far You Can Kiss Your . . . . Self Good-Bye

Economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch say one key to a jobs recovery is an improvement in housing -- because so much job creation is driven by new businesses that have in recent years been financed in part by home equity borrowing.

This sort of job creation has been missing the last couple years, thanks to the housing crash. If U.S. house prices embark as expected on a new decline, the long-awaited hiring renaissance could be put on hold yet again. _Fortune

Image Source

... a disproportionate amount of job creation comes from new business start-ups, which of course typically at least start small. Start-ups account for just 3% of overall employment but 20% of new jobs in any given year, according to Meyer.

When that engine sputters – as it has in recent years, with tight credit and consumer belt-tightening – it robs the economy of one of its driving forces.

..."We have bad news for an awful lot of people, but it's a Goldilocks economy for stocks," said Keith Springer, a financial adviser in Sacramento. "The Fed is trying to create a bubble of artificial demand to create the wealth effect. It doesn't do much for jobs, but for now it's pretty good at driving stock prices." _Fortune

At the low end of the housing problem, the US is experiencing an epidemic of homelessness. With a steady growth of structural unemployment, fewer people are able to maintain mortgage payments -- or even to make rent payments.

US housing is in fact on life support. This is the 53d month of housing value declines in the US -- exceeding the number during the great depression of the 1930s.

There is nothing in either President Obama's or Paul Krugman's bag of big government tricks which can possibly turn this economic farce around. While Obama's allies continue to hope for another Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11 attack in order to improve the president's poll numbers, the real economy (not the stock market) and real people continue to suffer in ever larger numbers.

Financial Armageddon
One day you will wake up to find that 100% of US tax revenues are going to pay interest on the national debt. If you have waited until that day to begin preparations, you will need to begin practising your extreme yoga immediately ;-).

And to imagine, the situation in Europe is actually worse than in the US. The rest of the world actually still needs Europe and the US as export markets -- despite all the excessive protestations to the contrary. Interesting times.

14Jan11 More: Mish provides a very interesting look at the extreme contortions undergone by Obama and the Fed in claiming to have created or saved millions of jobs, and having reduced the "unemployment rate." The reality is certainly not the same as what you are being told by your president-for-life.

Poor, Bare, Forked Animals Begin to Decipher Epigenome

NIH
The epigenome is the system of genome modifiers that guide gene expression. Epigenetics determines whether a cell will be a brain cell or a liver cell, even though both cells possess the same genome. Some preliminary results are beginning to come in from the US NIH's modENCODE program.

Sarah C.R. Elgin, PhD, the Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, who led the Washington University lab that is part of one of the modENCODE teams offers an explanation.

“We learned many things from the Human Genome Project,” Elgin says, “but of course it didn’t answer every question we had!

“Including one of the oldest: We all start life as a single cell. That cell divides into many cells, each of which carries the same DNA. So why are we poor, bare, forked creatures, as Shakespeare [Al Fin: Lear ActIII SceneIV] put it, instead of ever-expanding balls of identical cells?

“This work,” says Elgin, “will help us learn the answer to this question and to many others. It will help us to put meat on the bones of the DNA sequences.” _WUNewsroom

Wikipedia

The epigenetic code that determines whether genes are silenced or expressed consists of chemical modifications to the DNA, to “tails” that hang off the histones, or other packaging proteins.

“ENCODE and modENCODE are much more complicated projects than the Human Genome Project,” Elgin says, “because the DNA sequence is pretty much the same in every cell type, whereas the chromatin structure is different in every cell type. In fact we believe it is the chromatin structure that differentiates one cell type from another.

“That means we can’t just do one genome for the organism. We have to do every different cell type to get a complete picture of the organism, and that’s a daunting prospect.” _WU

The research relies upon the most advanced bio-research and computing technologies. The amount of data generated is staggering, and far beyond what an unaided human could organise and comprehend.

But this is the beginning of the true meat of genetics. Sure, they are looking at worms and fruit flies now. But humans and all human symbionts and parasites are on the list to be comprehensively studied. The knowledge to be gained will provide unimaginable benefits.

Vitriolic Language from Left Meant to Instigate Civil War?

It is difficult to understand the deluge of vitriol and hatred pouring out of US leftist media outlets, lefty blogs, and US Democratic Party politicians following the tragic killings and woundings which occurred in Tucson last week. Much of the outrageous language appears geared to trigger a stereotypical rage in the reader. It is as if these "leaders" and "journalists" want to instigate the very type of violence which they are pretending to decry.

During the George W. Bush presidency journalists, celebrities, opposition politicians, bloggers, and leftists of all stripes used incendiary language in discussing the idea that the president or vice president might (hopefully in their minds) be assassinated. Many of the very same "indignant leftists" who are opportunistically raising the threat of violence, were busy joking and talking about the possible assassinations of Bush and Cheney. The American left is a sick and putric cesspool of hatred, and has been for decades now.

In a sensitive and incisively worded video, Sarah Palin responds to the cynical and engineered outcry from the left. Predictably, the leftists -- caught in their contemptible misbehaviour and abuse of public trust -- are reacting to the video with howls of stiffly postured indignation.

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

Palin's use of the term "blood libel" has proven particularly controversial, although it is quite understated in the way it was used in the video. Indeed, considering how Palin herself has been treated by the left, her tone on the video and elsewhere in public and professional life has been quite temperate.

Leftists have been poised for any possible incident which they could use for purposes of stirring up their lunatic fringe. Unfortunately, they jumped the gun on the Tucson tragedy, before any facts were in. And now they are committed to following it through to the bitter end.

Palin's video appears to be professionally produced, and was released in a very timely manner -- just before President Obama's trip to Tucson. The former governor's incisive video, along with the term "blood libel", appears to have forced the unhinged echo chorus on the left to "double down" on their public idiocy.

We can only hope that the Tucson wounded will recover as fully as possible, and that the family and friends of those who died will somehow find a positive meaning in their loss.

But on the political front, the insanity from the left appears to be deepening and broadening in a most astounding and sickening manner.

H/T News Alert

Charles Murray on Amy Chua's Style of Tiger Mother Parenting

Charles Murray has two daughters by his first wife -- a Thai Buddhist woman, whom he met when she instructed him in the Thai language, in preparation for Peace Corps work in Thailand. Apparently, Murray's wife used a very similar child-raising approach to Chua's Tiger Mother approach.

...the mother of my first two children was half Thai and all Chinese, and it was all so familiar. The subject heading of the email attaching the Chua article to my elder two daughters was “Bring back memories?”

My own archetypal memory is when my eldest daughter, then perhaps eight years old, came home with her first Maryland standardized test scores, showing that she was at the 99th percentile in reading and the 93rd percentile in math. Her mother’s first words—the very first—were “What’s wrong with the math?”

Both children turned out great and love their mother dearly. _CharlesMurray

Asian - American children tend to do well in North American school systems, and in general achieve significantly higher than other ethnic groups. There are genetic reasons for the differences, but it is quite likely that parenting also plays a part in higher achievement.

...large numbers of talented children everywhere would profit from Chua’s approach, and instead are frittering away their gifts—they’re nice kids, not brats, but they are also self-indulgent and inclined to make excuses for themselves. There are also large numbers of children who are not especially talented, but would do a lot better in school if their parents applied the same intense home supplements to their classroom work.

But genes play a big role in whether you can demand that your child get an A in advanced calculus or make first seat in the violin section of the orchestra. With that in mind, let’s contemplate the genes being fed into those Chua children who are doing so well....

....Guess what. Amy Chua has really smart kids. They would be really smart if she had put them up for adoption at birth with the squishiest postmodern parents. They would not have turned out exactly the same under their softer tutelage, but they would probably be getting into Harvard and Princeton as well. Similarly, if Amy Chua had adopted two children at birth who turned out to have measured childhood IQs at the 20th percentile, she would have struggled to get them through high school, no matter how fiercely she battled for them.

Accepting both truths—parenting does matter, but genes constrain possibilities—seems peculiarly hard for some parents and almost every policy maker to accept. _Charles Murray

It is fortunate for Chua that she did not make a point of differences in average Northeast Asian IQ compared to most Europeans, Asians, Africans, and other indigenous groups. She is apparently persona non grata to millions of people across the western world already -- for daring to question western parenting! Imagine if she had questioned western genetic potential!

Children need competence in many adult skills -- for their own self-confidence and to enlarge their future options in life. Modern western parents are neglecting these needs of their children. Why blame Chua for that?

Big Money in Climate Change: Who Gives, Who Gets

The amount of money being spent on climate change research this year is astounding. I urge you to read the document yourself. Here is the question to take away: what are we getting for the billions of dollars we've spent? When 2011 is over will we look back at the published research and be satisfied with how our billions have been spent? This type of spending has occurred for some time, and what do we have to show for it? Multiple federal agencies having multi-hundred million dollar budgets in the same (controversial) field is wasteful. Let's make sure 2011 is the last year these budgets increase. _ClimateQuotes_via_TomNelson

Tom Nelson from ClimateQuotes
Climate Change is a big money complex. The US government alone spends roughly $4 billion a year to finance climate research and initiatives. That level of spending leaves all private US entities in the dust by a factor of roughly 1,000. In North America, the US federal government controls climate change spending.

The big winner in the climate change money train is the National Science Foundation. They are requesting $1.616 billion dollars. They want $766 million dollars for the Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Program. This is a 15.9% increase from their last budget. They also need another $370 million for the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) an increase of 16%. The say they also need another $480 million for Atmospheric Sciences an increase of 8.1% and Earth Sciences up 8.7%. Oh, and not to be left out we need $955 million for the Geosciences Directorate, an increase of 7.4%. That’s a mighty hefty sum of money to dig into if you’re doing climate change research. _EnergyTribune

A 15.9% increase from last year's budget? They must have found some very, very urgent issues that need their attention. Certainly things are getting desperate for the NSF to be requesting so much more money to study this issue -- right in the middle of a long-term economic downturn?

The second largest request for money in 2011 comes from the Department of Energy. They say they need $627 million dollars for things like funding for renewable energy. The request represents a whopping 37% increase from last year! They want a 12% increase for energy efficiency programs. They want to eliminate $2.7 billion dollars of subsidies for industries that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. A 37% increase? I thought we were broke. _ET

OMG! A 37% increase for the DOE for climate change related programs. Certainly we are on the razor's edge, one whisker's breadth from total oblivion?

For 2011 NASA wants $438 million dollars to study climate change, an increase of 14%. NASA’s total Earth Sciences budget request is actually $1.8 billion dollars. Some $809 million of that is for satellites, some of which are specifically put in orbit to study climate change. It is difficult to separate out which ones are for climate monitoring and which ones are not so I won’t include this number in the over all climate change money train, but make no mistake about it, a significant percentage of the $809 million is exclusively for climate change satellites. _ET

NASA doesn't have the time for space exploration, now that climate change is so much better at ripping budget funds out of tight fisted congresspersons. No, NASA is all climate change, all the time, now.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is looking for $437 million dollars for climate research. This is an increase of 21.4% from the previous budget. This includes funds for regional and national assessments of climate change including ocean acidification. Once again, another meaty bag of money to tap into for researchers who have nice cars and big houses and need to keep up the payments. All aboard the money train!

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is also interested in tapping into the climate change vault. They say they need $244 million in 2011. Of this total, $171 million is for the Climate Change Adaptation Initiative. This program identifies areas and species that are most vulnerable to climate change and implements coping strategies. Another $73 million is needed for The New Energy Frontier Initiative. The goal of this program is to increase solar, wind and geothermal energy capacity. Interesting that solar and wind power don’t actually make any money without this government funding.

Wow! This list just goes on and on, no wonder we have a $14 trillion dollar deficit!

But wait! as the say on TV there’s more. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants there share of the pot of gold. They need $169 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of 1%. Do you really believe that next year greenhouse gases will be reduced by EPA spending $169 million dollars? I would bet the ranch that greenhouse gases will continue to increase next year and the year after that and the year after that despite EPA spending millions of dollars. It’s a complete waste of $169 million dollars.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is any government agency that does not get some climate change funding! The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants $338 million dollars for climate change programs. They want $159 million dollars for climate change research, up a whopping 42%. They also want another $179 million for renewable energy, an increase of 41%! The USDA’s climate change efforts are supposed to help farmer and land owners adapt to the impacts of climate change. _ET

The popular message we get from the idiots in the media and the echo chorus of circular jerkulars, is that big oil and big coal is funding a vast network of climate change deniers. The reality is that institutions such as the US government outspend more neutral and anti-catastrophe entities by about 1,000 to 1.

Smart people tend to be skeptical people. But virtually the full weight of government, journalism, academia, and the entertainment media is pushing the public to accept uncritically the orthodox dogma of anthropogenic climate catastrophe. From the first grade of school -- if not earlier -- children are indoctrinated into the cult of carbon hysteria by their teachers, as if the fate of the world depended on the little tykes adopting a boundless attitude of carbon hysteria. And from there it only gets worse. Paid for by your government, of course, which means you.

Ever since ClimateGate, more smart people have peeled off from the mass of unthinking drones. But the government-financed, media amplified message of catastrophe continues to blare at full volume over virtually every media outlet.

And the energy starvation! The suffocating regulations, prohibitions, taxes, and penalties! The choking off of new business and new sources of employment! It continues to get worse -- all financed from the top.

The people receiving these big money budgets and grants understand that everything depends upon their continued findings of "climate catastrophe." Anyone who falls off-message will be cut off, demonised, and left for dead -- figuratively speaking.

Washington DC is increasingly the place to be if you want to prosper in the US -- at least now, in the days of Obama. DC is the chokepoint, literally.

Now the race is on, between the ability of Americans to comprehend the enormous suicidal scam being pulled, and the ongoing processes which are turning the US into an Idiocracy. Precautions may be called for. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Source

Climate Change in the FY 2011 Budget (PDF)

What? Meditate??? Have You Lost Your Mind!!??!

People meditate for many reasons, but most commonly to relax and feel at peace. Your personal peace, harmony, and clear-headedness are a serious threat to most of the powerful special interests in modern society. To the ruling classes, you are simply "a member of the herd," and need to obey orders and respond in a knee-jerk manner to commands from above.

Sometimes we need to "lose our minds" -- at least small parts of them, for brief periods of time. Other times we are able to achieve peace by finding parts of ourselves that we have subconsciously "lost" out of self-protection.

Peace of mind is achievable, but it is not a permanent condition. Wise people take advantage of different strategies for different situations. Only you can determine what kinds of meditation work for you. Here are some that Al Fin uses:

Yawning:

The process of yawning activates multiple neuro-chemical substances, including dopamine, which sets in motion a chain of reaction of other neurochemical substances. The result is that areas of the brain that contribute to improved memory, conscious control, temperature control, joy, sensuality and social activities, is activated.

"Conscious yawning" may take a little practise, but given how contagious yawning seems to be, most persons can bring themselves to yawn reasonably easily.

Stretching and relaxing when accompanied by deep steady breathing, can be as effective as traditional "tensing and letting-go" step-by-step relaxation of the body. Start at your toes and work up.

Movement Meditations

Dancing

Be totally in the dance, because division can exist only if you are not totally in it. If you are standing aside and looking at your own dance, the division will remain: you are the dancer and you are dancing. Then dancing is just an act, something you are doing; it is not your being. So get involved totally, be merged in it.

Walking

Walking Meditation is a wonderful initiation for beginners into the art of Meditation. It is easy to practice, and enhances both physical, mental and spiritual well-being. It is especially effective for those who find it difficult to sit still for long periods of time. Some people enjoy practicing in a beautiful outdoor setting, like a park. Others prefer to practice indoors, due to poor weather, or desire for privacy.

Walking Meditation should generally be practiced for between 15 minutes to 1 hour. A 20 minute walking meditation can also be used as a break between two 20 minute sitting meditations, allowing 1 hour of meditation without placing undue demands on the practitioner.

Tai Chi:

In the early 1970's my Tai Chi Chuan master, Cheng Man-Ch'ing, was asked if he meditated. His answer was that he did Tai Chi Chuan. When pressed if he did seated meditation, he answered that he did not. He stated that Tai Chi Chuan was all the meditation that he ever needed. While I never again heard Professor Cheng mention meditation as such, he would occasionally tell us to keep our minds empty of thought during our practice of Tai Chi Chuan. To keep one's mind empty, you will recall, is by definition, yin meditation.

Conscious Emoting

Laughing:

Breathing is one of the few bodily functions which, within limits, can be controlled both consciously and unconsciously. Conscious attention to breathing is common in many forms of meditation, specifically anapana. In music, breath is used to play wind and brass musical instruments and many aerophones. Laughter, physically, is simply repeated sharp breaths.

Crying

If you have ever had a good howling session, you know that once it passes, you feel elated, refreshed and powerful or totally relaxed and calm. While crying is thought to be an experience of pain and discomfort, the release that is felt afterwards actually makes it into a positive. Too often, people are scared of their emotions and will do anything they can to escape the possibility of losing control.

You probably know something that will bring you to tears. A certain song, a particular memory, a photograph, a scene from a book, a letter . . . looking in the mirror ;-)

Gratitude:

To develop an attitude of gratitude creates contentment, true happiness and bliss. Gratitude makes us feel good and meditation helps us to a state of deep relaxation and contemplation.

Gratitude is one of the "softening" emotions. Being on-guard all day against a wide range of perceived threats can make us oblivious to much of what is going on around us and inside us. We need to find places where it is safe to let down our guards.

Sentic Cycles were useful cycles of emotional experience discovered by neuroscientist / musician Manfred Clynes. The sentic cycler is to experience the following in sequence, repeating as necessary:

No emotion
Anger
Hate
Grief
Love
Sexual Desire
Joy
Reverence

Tapes and kits are available to assist in practise, but Al Fin discovered that it is possible to experience the benefits of sentic cycles without the tapes or kits, just by internally emoting the cycle as needed. It can even be combined with walking.

The key to the cycles is the early strong experiencing of negative emotion, then easing into an intense grief -- which acts as a very effective "pivot" into the positive emotions.

Actors often go through emoting exercises prior to a performance, which helps them to express themselves more cleanly and persuasively on the stage.

Al Fin's favourite meditation is tantra, with a willing and accomplished partner. But since such partners can be difficult to find, you may want to become good at the underlying practise on your own.

To understand tantra meditation, you need to be aware of three main ingredients for consideration: Mantra, Meditation and full body cosmic orgasms. Mistakenly, many people are under the misconception that deliberation in tantra meditation involves performing a sexual act, but this is usually not the case.

...Through the use of breath work, visualizations, mantras, music and sacred geometry the energy and effectiveness is amplified. It is also believed that performing group tantra meditation sessions increases the effectiveness, as everyone's energy works together as a reflection to unlock the kundalini for the whole group.

Al Fin learned another intriguing form of group meditation, providing more intellectual rewards than emotional or physical payoffs, while visiting the late philosopher, inventor, and author John David Garcia at his home in Oregon. Garcia called his technique "autopoiesis." It is a form of amplification of creative problem - solving which utilises multiple male-female pairs seated opposite, but touching. Using counter-intuitive methods of guided visualisation, it was possible to generate some remarkably creative ideas which would not normally be accessible to the participants. It takes practise, and cooperation among participants.

The number of ways individuals might successfully achieve meditative rejuvenation is almost endless. No religious or quasi-religious paraphernalia is necessary. The ability to consciously let go is generally helpful, although some forms of meditation involve "holding on" as hard as one can until fatigue forces relaxation of the "grip."

Most persons fail to understand how much of their life is lived unconsciously, in a quasi-automatic trance. That is the default state, which few people ever truly escape. The many forms of meditation have evolved -- or been discovered -- to help persons to "wake up" out of the trance, at least for a little while.

The idea is to find one or a few approaches which feel natural to you, and which can be adapted for use at various times and in differenc situations. But do be careful about meditating while driving or operating hazardous machinery . . .

Amy Chua's Tiger Mother Parenting 2, With Photographs

Amy Chua in WSJ
In photographs, Amy Chua's daughters appear happy and confident. If you read Amy Chua's article in the Wall Street Journal, you will find that the apparent confidence and self esteem did not come easily. It required much work and much time devoted to achieving competence. Remember Al Fin's cardinal rule of child-raising? First competence, then self-esteem naturally follows.

...even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.

... In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way. Instead, the vast majority of the Chinese mothers said that they believe their children can be "the best" students, that "academic achievement reflects successful parenting," and that if children did not excel at school then there was "a problem" and parents "were not doing their job." Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams. _WSJ

...nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up. But if done properly, the Chinese strategy produces a virtuous circle. Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America. Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it's math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.

...Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

...Here's a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style.

Lulu was about 7, still playing two instruments, and working on a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" by the French composer Jacques Ibert. The piece is really cute—you can just imagine a little donkey ambling along a country road with its master—but it's also incredibly difficult for young players because the two hands have to keep schizophrenically different rhythms.

Lulu couldn't do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over. But whenever we tried putting the hands together, one always morphed into the other, and everything fell apart. Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.

"Get back to the piano now," I ordered.

"You can't make me."

"Oh yes, I can."

Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu's dollhouse to the car and told her I'd donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn't have "The Little White Donkey" perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, "I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?" I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she still kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn't do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.

Jed took me aside. He told me to stop insulting Lulu—which I wasn't even doing, I was just motivating her—and that he didn't think threatening Lulu was helpful. Also, he said, maybe Lulu really just couldn't do the technique—perhaps she didn't have the coordination yet—had I considered that possibility?

"You just don't believe in her," I accused.

"That's ridiculous," Jed said scornfully. "Of course I do."

"Sophia could play the piece when she was this age."

"But Lulu and Sophia are different people," Jed pointed out.

"Oh no, not this," I said, rolling my eyes. "Everyone is special in their special own way," I mimicked sarcastically. "Even losers are special in their own special way. Well don't worry, you don't have to lift a finger. I'm willing to put in as long as it takes, and I'm happy to be the one hated. And you can be the one they adore because you make them pancakes and take them to Yankees games."

I rolled up my sleeves and went back to Lulu. I used every weapon and tactic I could think of. We worked right through dinner into the night, and I wouldn't let Lulu get up, not for water, not even to go to the bathroom. The house became a war zone, and I lost my voice yelling, but still there seemed to be only negative progress, and even I began to have doubts.

Then, out of the blue, Lulu did it. Her hands suddenly came together—her right and left hands each doing their own imperturbable thing—just like that.

Lulu realized it the same time I did. I held my breath. She tried it tentatively again. Then she played it more confidently and faster, and still the rhythm held. A moment later, she was beaming.

"Mommy, look—it's easy!" After that, she wanted to play the piece over and over and wouldn't leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up. When she performed "The Little White Donkey" at a recital a few weeks later, parents came up to me and said, "What a perfect piece for Lulu—it's so spunky and so her."

Even Jed gave me credit for that one. Western parents worry a lot about their children's self-esteem. But as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child's self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there's nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn't.

_WSJ

The point is not that every parent should raise her child like a Chinese Tiger Mother. The point is that "conventional wisdom" in parenting is not only not-wise, it is full of shit. Self esteem is a desirable result of competence, not an end in itself. Modern western societies are raising incompetent lifelong adolescents -- but they have great self-esteem. At least until they catch on to how they've been shortchanged.

Not every child is the same. Some will respond better to coercion than others. Some will find their strength early and follow it eagerly, with minimal encouragement. But some structure is almost certainly necessary in the early, formative years. Some skills almost always have to be drilled repeatedly, at first.

Amy Chua: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Al Fin: Amy Chua's Tiger Mother Parenting Part 1

Opposing Totalitarian Islam: Resisting Eurabian Nightmare

For Europeans, Europe is becoming an expensive retirement home for a shrinking demographic. For third world muslim immigrants, Europe is a wealthy world of never-ending welfare payments and first-class obstetrical wards. Muhammad is becoming the most popular name for boys in newborn nurseries, grammar schools, and prisons across Europe. Third world immigrants and their children appear to be inheriting Europe from far meeker and far more anti-natalist Europeans.

Small pockets of pro-European and anti-IslamoTotalitarian resistance have arisen in various parts of the dying continent. German Thilo Sarrazin is one European courageous enough to stand up and brave the ire of the politically correct ruling classes of Europe. Sarrazin's book has sold well in Europe, and has been a wakeup call to concerned Europeans who had sensed the impending end of European liberalism, but had not been able to put words to the building sense of dread they had been feeling.

Dutchman Geert Wilders is another European willing to risk everything to save at least a small part of Europe's future for the European demographic. Wilders has recently been put on trial by a corrupt and dishonest Netherlands court for speaking the truth about totalitarian Islam's threat to Europe. When the corrupt and illegal behind-the-scenes byplay of the court became known, a re-trial was ordered.

In Germany, a new voice for free Europe is beginning to speak out. Rene Stadtkewitz has abandoned Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Party to form a new political party in Germany -- the new Freedom Party. Stadtkewitz has been encouraged by the pro-European actions of Wilders and Sarrazin, and hopes to turn Germany away from the suicidal demographic path along which its leaders are taking it.

The party is still small, but it is growing, particularly in Berlin and the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It welcomed its 1,000th member in December. There are plans to form state organizations in the coming months, and a central party office is in the works. Stadtkewitz would like to see his party headquarters located in downtown Berlin, in its political center, but for now the party meets in Reinickendorf, an outlying district in the city's northwest.

The party's future will be shaped next year, when Berlin holds its parliamentary elections. "That will be the deciding moment. If we don't manage to get into the parliament, the party will be all but dead," says Stadtkewitz. But he also says that he expects to capture "significantly more than five percent of the vote."

He would like to have a strong figure to lead the campaign, a prominent face. But he will probably end up having to assume that role himself. Stadtkewitz wants to hire a coach to show him how to write statements, how to get into the news and how to score points as a guest on talk shows. "I have to become tougher, clearer and more trenchant. I also have to provoke. Just like Wilders."

Geert Wilders, the hero of the European anti-Islam movement, is Stadtkewitz's role model, even though he would never admit it. Nevertheless, he is already benefiting from Wilders' contacts. Stadtkewitz is now part of a European movement. In December, it took him to Israel, together with Heinz-Christian Strache, the chairman of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), Belgian politician Filip Dewinter of the similarly oriented Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang Party, and Kent Ekeroth of the national and anti-Islamic Sweden Democrats. _Spiegel

The leaders of the EU have unleashed the Eurabian nightmare on the continent. The people are just beginning to respond, and it is unclear what the outcome of this particular battle against totalitarian Islam will be. However the people of Europe choose, we should hope that they do not choose the path that leads to being smothered under the soft pillows of their state-run nursing homes, by legions of young pro-natalist third world attendants named Muhammad.

Using Near Space as a Waystation to Orbit

Skycat via Brian Wang
The Lockheed P791 can provide an observational platform at 20,000 feet for 3 week time periods. It is similar to the Skycat hybrid aircraft, which due to its buoyancy is able to take off and land vertically and saves 75% of fuel costs over conventional aircraft.

Lockheed P791 via Brian Wang
At 20,000 feet, you would need a well-insulated pressurised cabin to survive. But who wants to stay at low altitudes like 20,000 feet for only 3 weeks, when they could be living high at 50,000 feet?

Flying City for 5,000 ResidentsStratospheric flying cities provide a novel living environment for scientists or adventurous vacationers willing to accept a bit more risk for more excitement.

High altitude stations such as the JP Aerospace Stratostation (or Dark Sky Station) will provide permanently manned transfer stations for those going farther up and out.

JP Aerospace Dark Sky Station PDF

JP Aerospace is developing the technology to fly a balloon or more accurately, their relative, the airship directly to orbit.

Flying an airship directly from the ground to orbit is not practical. An airship large enough to reach orbit would not survive the winds near the surface of the Earth. Conversely, an airship that could fly from the ground to upper atmosphere would not be light enough to reach space. The resulting configuration is a three-part architecture for using lighter-than-air vehicles to reach space.

The first part is an atmospheric airship. It will travel from the surface of the Earth to 140,000 feet. The vehicle is operated by a crew of three and can be configured for cargo or passengers. This airship is a hybrid vehicle using a combination of buoyancy and aerodynamic lift to fly. It is driven by propellers designed to operate in near vacuum.

The second part of the architecture is a suborbital space station. This is a permanent, crewed facility parked at 140,000 feet. These facilities, called Dark Sky Stations (DSS), act as the way stations to space. The DSS is the destination of the atmospheric airship and the departure port for the orbital airship. Initially, the DSS will be the construction facility for the large orbital vehicle.

The third part of the architecture is an airship/dynamic vehicle that flies directly to orbit. In order to utilize the few molecules of gas at extreme altitudes, this craft is big. The initial test vehicle is 6,000 feet (over a mile) long. The airship uses buoyancy to climb to 200,000 feet. From there it uses electric propulsion to slowly accelerate. As it accelerate it dynamically climbs. Over several days it reaches orbital velocity. _JPAerospace PDF

The large orbital airship pictured above is over 1 mile long, and takes several days to reach orbital velocity after departing the Dark Sky Station with its payload.

Other approaches to space which pass through "near space" include the space elevator, an inflatable space tower, Josh Hall's 100 km tall space pier (pictured above), the highly imaginative "Bridge to Space" described in Mike Comb's fictional account, suborbital flights, and sub-orbital ++, among other ideas.

Most of the same competencies and precautions required to survive in orbital space are also required for life in the stratosphere. Precautions against very low atmospheric pressure and high radiation levels will be mandatory. Only competent persons need apply for working positions.

One advantage of a stratospheric habitat is that a person in an insulated pressure suit (with a parachute) can simply jump away from the structure for an invigorating free fall to the surface, with a fair to good possiblity of survival. Attempting the same thing from an orbiting habitat without a re-entry pod would certainly be fatal.

Humans have been slow to establish a permanent presence in space. There are many reasons for this hesitancy -- including economic costs and health risks -- but eventually these barely advanced apes will find a way to answer the siren's call, and thus safeguard the future of the race -- or whatever it is to evolve into.

Weather-Making: Thunderstorms In Place of Desalinators

The Metro System scientists used ionisers to produce negatively charged particles ....

They have a natural tendency to attach to tiny specks of dust which are ever-present in the atmosphere in the desert-regions.

These are then carried up from the emitters by convection - upward currents of air generated by the heat release from sunlight as it hits the ground.

Once the dust particles reach the right height for cloud formation, the charges will attract water molecules floating in the air which then start to condense around them.

If there is sufficient moisture in the air, it induces billions of droplets to form which finally means cloud and rain. _DailyMail

DailyMail
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have been fiddling with Abu Dhabi's weather. Using the negative-ion generators pictured above, the scientists have been successful in creating rainfal and thunderstorms in the Arabian summer months of July and August -- when rain rarely falls naturally.

Last June Metro Systems built five ionising sites each with 20 emitters which can send trillions of cloud-forming ions into the atmosphere.

Over four summer months the emitters were switched on when the required atmospheric level of humidity reached 30 per cent or more.

While the country's weather experts predicted no clouds or rain in the Al Ain region, rain fell on FIFTY-TWO occasions.

The project was monitored by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, one of the world's major centres for atmospheric physics.

Professor Hartmut Grassl, a former institute director, said: There are many applications. One is getting water into a dry area.

'Maybe this is a most important point for mankind.'

...Building an ionising system is about £7 million while a desalination plant would be £850 million and costs a lot more to run.

Some scientists are treating the results in Al Ain with caution because Abu Dhabi is a coastal state and can experience natural summer rainfall triggered by air picking up moisture from the warm ocean before dropping it on land.

But the number of times it rained in the region so soon after the ionisers were switched on has encouraged researchers.

Professor Peter Wilderer witnessed the experiments first hand and is backing the breakthrough. _DailyMail

Local and regional control of weather and climate has long been a goal of visionaries and utopians. An entire arsenal of weather devices will be needed, for dealing with the extremes of any season. In this case, the ability to trigger rainfall can substitute for more expensive desalination plants -- for freshwater. In other situations, seasonal weather might be modified to create ideal growing seasons for highly valued crops.

In this modern age of global warming cooling climate change, it's best to be prepared for anything.

Guest Article: 20 Educational Alternative Medicine Blogs

20 Incredibly Educational Alternative Medicine BlogsSource: Masters in Health Care

"Alternative medicine" is a broad term that encompasses healing methods that aren’t considered "normal." Although they may not have been proven to work as efficiently as treatments using conventional medicine, there are numerous people who swear by their effectiveness, giving hope to others who wish to find new potential solutions for their health problems. If you’re interested in alternative medicine and want to discover more information about its different treatments, peruse the 20 incredibly educational blogs listed below.

General Alternative Medicine

Blogs dedicated to all-things alternative medicine, holistic health and even acupuncture.

1. Alternative Medicine Zone: Everything is covered on the Alternative Medicine Blog. It’s a great place to find general advice and information pertaining to alternative medicine, herbal medicine, natural remedies, or whatever works for you.
2. Alternative Medicine Blog: Cathy Wong, author of the Alternative Medicine Blog, is a licensed naturopathic doctor and an American College of Nutrition-certified nutrition specialist who has a decade of experience with alternative medicine. Her opinions on the subject have appeared in numerous health magazines, such as First For Women and Men’s Health.
3. Natural Holistic Health: Natural Holistic Health is where you can "learn how to keep you and your family healthy safely and holistically." It’s a particularly good source of information about ADHD, as the blog devotes an entire section to the disorder’s natural treatments.
4. World Acupuncture: Alan focuses on "practical skills, clinically relevant theory and treatment outcomes using clinically potent Japanese Acupuncture and Moxibustion."

Traditional Chinese Medicine

The Chinese have been renowned for their traditional medicine practices, which are only considered "alternative" in the West.

5. Chinese Medicine News: Studies and research on traditional Chinese medicine are reported on Chinese Medicine News. Recently, the blog has expanded to include news of studies relating to dietary and other breakthroughs.
6. Deepest Health: Deepest Health explores the topic of Chinese Medicine. Practitioners, students and novices who visit the blog will find directories that’ll enable them to find information tailored to their needs.
7. Acupuncture & TCM Blog: The Acupuncture & TCM Blog covers a wide range of topics relating to acupuncture and traditional Chinese Medicine, including the benefits of Eucommia Bark and acupuncture when it comes to back pain.
8. Traditional Chinese Medicine Resource Center: The TCM Resource Center features news, TCM theory and other beneficial content. For example, posts cover everything from acupuncture’s effect on depression to the ancient Chinese practice of cupping.

Herbal Medicine

Herbs can possess amazing medicinal properties that complement conventional medicine.

9. Cathy’s Natural Remedies: Cathy, a retired Canadian school teacher living in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, shares her immense knowledge of natural remedies.
10. A Journey Into Herbal & Natural Healing: Herbalist Tania Tyler comes from a family of healers, so she has dedicated much of her life to studying herbal and natural healing. She has taught several workshops on the topic and her recipes and writings have been published.
11. The Herbal Advisor: Numerous healing herbs are covered by The Herbal Advisor, including Garlic, Oil of Oregano and Burdock. Remedies for everything from an upset stomach to ADHD are explored.
12. Ayurvedic Talk: The Indian system of medicine, Ayurveda, consists of herbal remedies and additional treatments such as yoga and massage. Ayurvedic Talk discusses these topics in order to encourage a healthy life.

Homeopathy

Homeopathic treatments use substances that cause symptoms in small doses to cure the same symptoms.

13. Homeopathy Works: Joette Calabrese is an expert when it comes to homeopathy, having practiced it for 13 years and studied it for 24 years. Her advocacy for the practice comes from the results she has seen.
14. Homeopathy Resource: Homeopathy Resource’s mission is to provide "accurate information on homeopathy, homeopaths and homeopathic organizations." Readers can gain insight into the effectiveness of treatments by browsing through the studies posted on the blog.
15. Hmedicine Homeopathic Medicine Blog: Find homeopathic remedies for illnesses such as the cold and flu, or discover which conditions can’t be treated with them, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Homeopathy medicine and weight loss is a popular topic on Hmedicine.
16. Homeopathy – Safe Medicine: Another homeopathy blog chock-full of information. A recent post highlights the finding that the remedy Sabal Serrulata has a positive impact on cancer cells.
17. Homeopathy Blog: The Homeopathy Blog has been posting excerpts from 50 Reasons For Being a Homeopath, a book consisting of 50 letters authored by homeopathic doctor J. Compton Burnett during the late 19th century.

Naturopathy

Naturopathy relies on natural remedies and the body’s ability to heal.

18. Naturopathic View of Human Life: Sushma Shan, a licensed and registered doctor of naturopathy, blogs about the topic and the ways it can be beneficial to your health. She addresses treatments for arthritis, vitiligo and even acne.
19. Naturopathy Brisbane: Lisa Freebury’s belief in the power of herbal and alternative medicine inspired her to become a naturopath. She’s constantly learning, currently completing her Bachelor of Health Science in Nutritional Medicine to add to her Bachelor of Health Science in Naturopathy.
20. Discovering Naturopathy….a Student’s Perspective: A student of naturopathic medicine documents his thoughts and insights, while sharing resources for students and patients. Readers can even learn about the history of naturopathy.

Thanks to Masters in Health Care, an online source for information on obtaining masters in health care degrees online.

The Al Fin Institutes take no official position on alternative medicine approaches. Many of these approaches might qualify as placebos, while still offering some benefit. Other alternative approaches to health care may contain seeds of effectiveness which cannot be generally obtained via mainstream medical care. Indeed, many of the most vexing problems for busy medical practitioners involve maladies, disorders, and conditions for which orthodox medicine offers virtually no help at all.

Certainly anyone contemplating going off-grid, cruising the high seas, going Galt, or otherwise isolating themselves from most of the amenities of civilisation, would be wise to familiarise himself with a wide array of remedies -- conventional AND unconventional.

Sun Agrees with Oceans: A Cooler Earth

Knox et Douglass IJG Vol 1 #3 PDF
According to an Internationl Journal of Geosciences paper (PDF), ocean temperatures from Argos floats show a recent cooling between 2003-2008 (via NCMediaWatch). It is difficult for the planet to warm when most of its significant thermal mass is cooling.

In summary, we find that estimates of the recent (2003–2008) OHC rates of change are preponderantly negative. This does not support the existence of either a large positive radiative imbalance or a “missing energy.” _IntJlGeosci PDF

More on ocean cooling from Roy Spencer

WattsUpWithThatOn the solar front, the sun has experienced another sudden drop in activity recently. More from WUWT:

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) produced their monthly solar cycle progression update yesterday. The news is not encouraging. We’ve had a drop in solar activity again in December, The sunspot count is lower, but the really worrisome thing is the Ap geomagnetic index. The solar dynamo has now dropped to magnetic activity levels last seen in late 2009. Readers may recall this post from December 23rd: Solar Geomagnetic Ap Index Hits Zero which was a bit unusual this far into cycle 24. _WUWT

As this September 2010 Science Now article states: "...something peculiar has been happening."

Flashback to a 2008 warning: Sunspots May Vanish by 2015

Let's hope not. Most humans enjoy experiencing at least one warm season per year. If the planet endures many years without a summer, humans will run out of food -- as will most other animals.

Hedge Funds Help Set Table for Next Financial Apocalypse

Mish
Lest anyone forget, hedge funds played a large part in the unprecedented loss of wealth that occurred in the financial crash of 2008-2009. And now, like tragic brain injury cases incapable of learning anything new, hedge fund operators are setting the stage for a repeat performance.

A lot of financial observors think that these institutional investors -- who are betting other people's pension money, university endowments, etc etc -- are making a big mistake. Many sophisticated investors are betting on a significant downturn. Some observors even see the next ten years as the decline and fall of the American empire.

Over 1.5 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and the count for 2011 is expected to be higher -- perhaps much higher. Wages, employment, and non-government related startups in the US have been declining steadily, and the ongoing housing collapse reflects this decline.

And rather than working constructively to make America friendlier to business and markets, the Obama regime has been spending most of its time and resources on making government bigger and more corrupt, and on starving US industry of its energy supplies using the great climate hoax as a pretense.

Waiting in the wings is the potential for cascading bond defaults by US States and European nations. If that happens, the great 2008-2009 wealth destruction will look like a pleasant holiday in comparison.

Union Boss: "Screw the Workers! We're In It for the Power"

How Big Unions Exercise Power

1. By getting friendly legislators, judges, and bureaucrats elected and appointed
2. By lobbying legislators and bureaucrats for favourable legislation and regulations
3. By well-timed work stoppages and slowdowns to influence public sentiment
4. By the use of violent attacks and threats of violence against political enemies
5. By using political influence to immunise union activists from arrest and prosecution
6. By using allies within organised crime as "force multipliers"

and so on . . .

Source: Breitbart_via_NewsAlert
When unions invade the public sector, they corrupt every aspect of government. No longer is government looking out for the people. Instead, the primary purpose of government is to protect special interests -- primary among them being public sector unions.

Unionised public sector workers can refuse to clear snow-clogged streets. They can refuse to answer distress calls for assistance. They can refuse to provide care to anyone they choose. They can do all this because the mechanisms which might protect the public from arbitrary abuse of power by unionised public workers against the public depend upon action by other unionised public workers -- or by the abusive public workers themselves.

At the same time that citizens in western countries grow older and less able to take care of every critical aspect of their lives, governments are growing increasingly unionised AND influenced by public sector unions. Public sector union members have different health care policies and different pension plans than everyone else. Why should they care if everyone else has to suffer from union abuse of power?

More: US States Begin to Fight Back for Sake of Survival

Unions Cry Crocodile Tears in Fear of Retribution, Beg for Mercy with Knife at Throat of Taxpayers

A Video Worth Watching from Time's Man of the Year 2010

Note: Since I posted the NASA Ames video, someone has pulled permission for both embedding and public viewing. But here is the "60 Minutes" interview filmed just after the achievement of creating a strain of mycoplasma mycoides. I'll leave the locked video here for now -- just in case the owners come to their senses.

J. Craig Venter on Synthetic Biology at NASA Ames from Ben Howard on Vimeo.

Craig Venter is Time's Man of the Year for 2010 for his team's "plug and play" creation of the first synthetic cell, Mycoplasma mycoides. This "minimal cell", a parasitic organism which can only live inside other living cells, is meant as a starting point for the creation of microscopic factory-cells.

The aim of the Venter team was.....to build a prototype for a microscopic production line. Back in May, here is what the team had to say in Science:

If the methods described here can be generalised, design, synthesis, assembly and transplantation of synthetic chromosomes will no longer be a barrier to the progress of synthetic biology … the approach we have developed should be applicable to the synthesis and transplantation of more novel genomes as genome design progresses.

So, if a microorganism could be engineered to include genes that direct the cell to do a number of functions, it would be possible to use this cell for a range of industrial tasks, such as making proteins or carbohydrates or any compounds to order, depending on demand. Theoretically, it might be possible to make biofuels, vaccines, drugs, foodstuffs and anything else genetic engineers can program the new genomes to produce.

What Venter's team really set out to do, and achieved, was show it's possible to build the world's smallest production line, inside the world's smallest factory.

Venter was not so much playing God, but following in the tradition of the great industrial pioneers of last century. He's closer to a latter day Henry Ford - the man who in the 1910s developed the production line that eventually put a car in almost every home in the Western world and became the de novo engineering tool for the mass production of everything from ice cream to tweezers.

What happens next depends on how Venter and others working in this new field can tool up this tiny production line. _Cosmos

"Synthetic Biology" is a far more clever and descriptive term than "metabolic engineering." The word "synthetic" does double duty, since not only are new biological factories to be synthetically generated, but these biological factories are to be used to synthesise valuable chemicals, materials, fuels, and drugs.

We are seeing the preface to the first chapter of a multi-volume work. Much more to come.

Climate Models Flying Blind, Deaf, Dumb

Wired
Top leaders of the US and the EU are prepared to send their respective economies into a fatal tailspin on the basis of climate pseudo-science. Obama and his fellow cargo-cultists across the pond are willing to destroy the futures of their nations on the claims and declarations of climate modelers whose models omit the most salient movers of climate.

Clouds and water vapour, for example, may be the most crucial determinants of how the climate adapts to genuine climate forcings -- yet climate modelers haven't a clue how to deal with these crucial factors.

Another important factor -- black carbon soot -- is likely the primary determinant of melting of the Arctic ice and high latitude northern glaciers besides winds and currents, yet climate models have not been savvy about modeling this crucial driver of melting.

Just as crucial in the overall scheme of climate is the changing sun, and how the oceans react to changing solar activity. Models haven't a clue what to do with it.

Certainly recent winters are much colder with more snowfall than modelers have been predicting. And what's more, a recent paper claims that there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature changes.

Finally, there is dust. Climate models seem to miss larger dust particles called "silts" altogether. How can they expect to get anything right when they keep missing the most important drivers of climate, and emphasise things like CO2 which may actually be confounders, or "pseudo-drivers?"

Kok’s theory suggests that dust storms produce two to eight times more silt-sized particles than climatologists previously thought. Neglecting the boost in particles suggests that climate models, and even short-term weather models for dusty regions, are somewhat off. Until climate scientists better understand how dust changes over time, however, Kok said it’s tough to gauge the effects. _Wired

Dust, soot, clouds, ocean cycles, cyclic solar activity, water vapour, and more. Climate models even do a poor job with aerosols, as recent analyses are discovering. If climate models over-emphasise CO2 and under-emphasise the real drivers of climate, what are they good for -- other than providing a basis for huge bureaucracies, carbon taxes, cap and trade, and the strangulation of energy supplies and industry for the US and the EU?

Remember, if energy supplies are choked off, the underlying economy gets strangled. Startups and new technologies go elsewhere. Job prospects shrivel and die. Ever more people are unable to make mortgage payments or get away from dependency on government.

That seems to be what Obama and leaders of the EU want for their constituencies. But what do the people want? More debilitating cargo-cult pseudoscience from their witch-doctors in chief, or a fair chance to succeed in the world?