Surprise! James Randi "Skeptical" About AGW

James Randi, known as The Amazing Randi, is a long-time stage magician and professional skeptic / investigator. So it should not have been surprising to anyone to find out that James Randi is also skeptical about the quasi-religion known as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. You could see the little heads of true believers exploding all over Randi's website, in the comments section at the above link. People who pride themselves on their skepticism of religion, the supernatural, and much else, were simply unwilling to accept Randi's simple and honest expression of skepticism over catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.

Some leftist bloggers went particularly ballistic over Randi's independent expression of his reticence to believe in the carbon hysteria that is so fashionable among leftists. To any reasonable person, it is not Randi's problem that so many of the AGW faithful are totally closed-minded to alternative ideas, hypotheses, and points of view. Yet, Randi felt it necessary to explain himself to the intolerant cloned minds, in a separate post.

It is remarkable when a man who has made a career of skepticism, debunking delusions and exposing illusions, should be attacked so reflexively by quasi-religious believers in pseudo-science when he very tentatively expresses a few mild doubts over the "A" in "AGW." Obviously the "Z's" have no insight into their own beliefs and emotional reactions.

Science is not about belief, or having faith in authority. Science is about doing everything you can to disprove a hypothesis -- to falsify theories. The dogmas of modern climate science have never been subjected to the open process of testing and falsification that honest sciences must face. Climate science was adopted by big politics much too early in its lifetime, and was sheltered from normal testing and validation.

Climate science was a baby bird that did not have to crack open its own shell, in other words. It is a deformed weakling, as a result. But a politically protected deformed weakling all the same.

I salute James Randi for having the courage to speak out honestly and clearly in the current atmosphere of carbon hysteria and jihad. Climate McCarthyism is the norm in leftist circles -- whether academic, media, environmental, or political circles. Randi should have known what to expect. Now he does.

More: Some incisive comments from Lubos Motl

Final Score: Singapore 103 Jamaica 72

Image SourceIQ score, that is. An average difference of 31 IQ points between residents of Singapore and residents of Jamaica. A difference of two full standard deviations. So. When comparing the economic output of Jamaicans with Singaporians, you might expect that the IQ difference would play a role. You might if you were intelligent yourself. But if you were a journalist constrained by mainstream rules of political correctness, you might be smarter to play dumb. (via OneSTDV)

.....we can contrast Jamaica and Singapore. Both are relatively tiny states, with under 5 million residents apiece. Upon Singapore’s independence in 1965—three years after Jamaica’s own establishment as a nation—the two nations were about equal in wealth: the gross domestic product (in 2006 U.S. dollars) was $2,850 per person in Jamaica, slightly higher than Singapore’s $2,650. Both nations had a centrally located port, a tradition of British colonial rule, and governments with a strong capitalist orientation. (Jamaica, in addition, had plentiful natural resources and a robust tourist industry.) But four decades later, their standing was dramatically different: Singapore had climbed to a per capita GDP of $31,400 (2006 data, in current dollars), while Jamaica’s figure was only $4,800.

What accounts for the amazing difference in growth rates? _Jamaica vs. Singapore_via OneSTDV

The article makes some good points about the importance of enlightened governmental economic policy toward private enterprise and entrepreneurial activity. That is certainly a factor, but since the per capita GDP of Singapore is 6 times the per capita GDP of Jamaica, it is likely that more than one explanation can fit the data.

When looking at IQ vs the wealth of nations, it becomes clear that the average population IQ of a nation can be an important co-determinant of national economic output. Starting at an IQ of 70, every 10 point rise in average IQ might add as much as or more than $10,000 to a nations' per capita GDP -- assuming a relatively business-friendly government.

A high IQ country can lose its high per capita GDP by letting its average population IQ drop.  Consider immigration:

While the vast majority of young adult children of immigrants experience upward economic and social mobility, a new study finds that a significant minority are suffering from lower levels of education, lower incomes, higher birth rates and higher levels of incarceration. Furthermore, it is the U.S.-born children of Mexican, Haitian and West Indian immigrants who experience these problems in the largest proportions.


The study, led by sociologists Rubén G. Rumbaut of UC Irvine and Alejandro Portes of Princeton University, appears online this week in the Migration Information Source. The largest and longest-running study of children of immigrants yet conducted....


Differences in arrest and incarceration rates are also noteworthy, particularly among second-generation, U.S.-born, males. While only 10 percent of second-generation immigrant males in the survey had been incarcerated, that figure jumped to 20 percent among West Indian and Mexican American youths. _Eurekalert_via_HBDBooks

If a country encourages immigration of low IQ populations with high fertility rates -- particularly when the higher IQ native population has very low fertility rates -- the overall population average IQ will tend to decrease. Poverty, crime, and civil turmoil tend to increase.

Political correctness is the opiate of the masses, in this situation. Just pretend the problem does not exist. The problem will not go away, of course. It will certainly grow worse. But at least you can feel self-righteous on the way down.

Getting a "Feel" for Brain Codes

Conscious awareness and memories are "coded" by the brain. Understanding the brain's code will open the door to powerful new technologies of virtual reality, education, and of course interrogation and indoctrination. Anyone who wants to face the future with a clear mind of his own making, must understand these rapidly unfolding discoveries. The study in question at the Medical College of Georgia was performed on mice using classical behavioural conditioning techniques to create a unique and artificial memory that could be identified and elicited on command.

In the memory center of the brain, they used 128 electrodes capable of monitoring a handful of neurons each to simultaneously record the conversations of 200 to 300 neurons as mice learned to associate a certain tone with a mild foot shock 20 seconds later.

A computational algorithm translated the neuronal chatter into a discernable and dynamic activity pattern that provided scientists a trace or picture of what the memory looked like as it was formed and recalled.

"By listening to the neuronal activity we were able to decipher the real-time dynamic pattern and the meaning of those conversations so this is really satisfying," said Dr. Tsien, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology.

The trace changed slightly each time it was recalled -- likely as the mood or situation of the rodent changed -- but still remained recognizable as a specific memory.

The scientists later correlated retrieval of the memory with the mice's actions, such as freezing upon hearing the tone or returning to the chamber where the foot shock occurred. They found the traces tightly correlated with memory scores: the mice that had lower scores predictably had a fainter trace and those with stronger traces had better behavioral performance, such as freezing in anticipation of a shock. "At the behavioral level he is just frozen, but with this technique of decoding the real-time memory, it will tell you exactly what he is thinking," Dr. Tsien said. _SD

The memory in question is a painful one, and it itself is composed of multiple component parts. What the scientists are attempting to do is to create a "Rosetta Stone" of memory and consciousness.

With humans, this process should be easier (and even faster), using subjective, real-time recall. Nerve network probes of finer resolution are needed, capable of monitoring the entire cortex. Multi-modal observations will capture a richer array of the phenomenon of conscious and unconscious memory.

Technological and ethical constraints remain, but the theoretical framework of the research seems to be growing clearer for some neuroscientists at least.

Within the Al Fin Research Institutes, a great deal of wrangling has gone on between Al Fin Neuroscientists, Al Fin Cognitive Scientists, and Al Fin Engineers on this very question. But Al Fin himself has been quite clear on this issue all along: consciousness is not algorithmic. It is rhythmic, with multiple harmonies and counterpoints. The more types of mental images involved, and the more deeply suffused with emotional tonal shading, the more memorable and intensely experienced.

Recognising and categorising simple memories and sensations / perceptions is a necessary first step. Learning this code is a challenge that holds a large prize. The politician who reaches the tape first may be in place to become "world emperor for life," if he plays his cards right.

The rest of us just need to understand the direction big money and big power is tending. Our natural and acquired "contrarian instincts" will serve us well as long as we stay informed and aware.

More:  Interesting article on synesthesia, a "natural form of augmented reality" .

Too Late for Europe to Save Herself

With approximately 52 million Muslims now residing in Europe, most experts believe that the European demographics are challenged. In my opinion, it is too late for Europe to save itself. The radical component of this aforesaid group is increasing dramatically, and they do not conform to the host society. They would prefer that the host society adapt to their laws and customs.

Does this mean that although Europe is lost, everywhere else in the west is safe? Hardly.

Using Quebec as an example, the Muslim community in that province has grown and exploded since the last census taking, and their increase in permitted immigration there has swelled by more than 140% within the last decade. If ever they get the opportunity to propagate here as they have in Europe, over 52 million we will become a minority people within mere decades. Unfortunately, our government has done little to prevent them from settling here in large numbers, and they are enjoying the freedom we offer.

...As far as Sharia Law is concerned, we are already witnessing the consequences of allowing them even a limited amount of freedom in that area in England, Belgium and Denmark. Sharia requires its followers to engage in Jihad through whatever means possible, and if not for any other reason, that should be enough for us to have Sharia Law banned in this country.

Sharia explicitly calls for the use of violent techniques that are designed to create fear amongst the so-called infidels, and whoever stands in the way of a potential Muslim theocracy would be easily eliminated. The suppression and brutalization of women and persecution of our gay society must never be permitted to take hold here. All we have to do is take a drive through Detroit, and see what Sharia Law has done there. Such immoral practices of religious justice stems from the Qur’an itself, and it is cruel. Their oppressive and barbaric laws can contribute nothing to the betterment of our society, or for that matter, even theirs. __DarkLessonsEurabia

The US has its own "deathlands", where viral Islam devastates the land and population unopposed.

A few months ago, I drove through a sector of Michigan called Dearborn. I stopped at a red light and took advantage of the brief interlude to survey my surroundings. I could have sworn that I was back in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. The men were walking a few steps in front of the women, as was customary, while the women all covered in dark shades of burkas’ and hijabs trailed a fair distance behind pushing baby strollers. That on its own was proof enough for me that Sharia Law was observed.


However, there were other indicators as well. The Sharia courts in Detroit and surrounding areas are authorized to settle family disputes without the consent of the US courts, and use shaming tactics as a tool for punishment. That is also legal. They have their own religious policing unit that operate independently from the local authorities, and recently, so-called ‘infidel residents’ have stated that they do believe that “honour killings” are carried out, and the bodies disposed of in secluded areas of the state that are not easy to get to by the state authorities. _DarkLessons

Islam is a primitive religion that thrives among populations of low intelligence. The average intelligence of muslims outside North America is close to 85 -- about the same average intelligence as African Americans in the US. High intelligence countries such as in Europe, North America, and Oceania should think long and hard before importing large numbers of significantly lower intelligence populations. Particularly low intelligence peoples raised from birth into a fanatical and dysfunctional totalitarian ideology such as Islam.

For Europe, it is too late. Too many rapidly procreating muslims were imported too quickly for any chance of adjustment or assimilation. Europe is doomed. What about Canada? Australia? The US? If the people wake up, some of those countries might be saved from the coming bloody wars of attempted religious conquest by Islamo-zombie fundamentalists. What about your hometown?

Cross-posted at abu al-fin

Sexy Ms. Andy Android, Suggestive of Coming Things

Coming things, as in "things" that come. Andy is as suggestive as a hip thrust, rapid shallow breathing, and a moaning response to G-spot stimulation. A product of "First Androids" of Germany, Andy Android may eventually put Real Dolls manufacturer "Abyss" out of abyssness.

But can more realistic sex dolls like Andy Android help us live longer? Perhaps, if they can give us more orgasms -- stronger orgasms -- than we would be experiencing otherwise.

Orgasms reduce stress, insomnia, heart attacks, migraines, depression, addictions, aches, pains, menstrual cramps, endometriosis, type-2 diabetes, cervical & urinary tract infections, and risk of prostate cancer, plus they improve the immune system, heart rate, blood pressure, brain chemistry, skin health, pelvic floor strength, and they clean out carcinogenic toxins....


Are Sexbots icky? Are humans pathetic if we don't just mate with each other? Truth is, we're already mostly "solo" when it comes to orgasms. "Masturbation," noted Hungarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, "is the primary sexual activity... in the 19th century it was a disease, in the 20th it's a cure." Sure, we generally prefer sex with live partners, but the desired one is often unavailable or inadequate. Sexbots will never have headaches, fatigue, impotence, premature ejaculation, pubic lice, disinterest, menstrual blood, jock strap itch, yeast infections, genital warts, AIDS/HIV, herpes, silly expectations, or inhibiting phobias.


......"First Android" in Germany offers male & female models that breathe, are warm, and have heartbeats that thump louder with sex. In Toronto, inventor Le Trung has fashioned "Aiko" -- he claims she's not for sex, but she can have an orgasm, her name translates as "love child" and her measurements are 32" 23" 33". Japan has Repliee Q1 Expo, who flutters her eyelids and moves her hands. Male sex robots are lagging in development, but... vibrator sales are buzzing, dildo sales point skyward, and my prediction is that male Sexbot sales will rival female in the upcoming years.


More predictions: ... Sexbots that shower after we use them and put themselves back in the closet. Sexbots available in hotels, cruise ships, vacation homes, and convalescent hospitals. Sexbot booths in liquor stores that wipe out corner prostitution. Sexbots that are delicious when you lick them. Sexbot Packages for sorority parties, military camps, prisons. Parents buy their adolescent children Sexbots for Christmas to assist them in their passage through puberty. Gyms offer soundproof chambers where you work out with 15 minutes of XTreme Sexbot Cardio. Sexbots that can tell you ten million jokes, because laughing also adds years to your life. .... _HPlusMag

Sex androids are here, but much better ones are coming -- or will be coming soon.  Perhaps in your bedroom......or office, if you dare, you pervert!.   ;-)

Cross posted to Al Fin, You Sexy Thing!

Africa’s Increasing Importance in the Great Geopolitical Game

 Guest Article by Fawzia Sheikh

China’s completion of an historic natural gas pipeline with Kazakhstan bypassing Russia this week tightens the Asian behemoth’s grip on energy resources needed to fuel a burgeoning economy, a desire also forcing it on a quest for oil and gas wealth in other corners of the globe.

China is not alone in this scramble for energy security. Hungry for oil and gas, world powers like Russia and the United States are also relying on different strategies to grab resource treasures but their efforts have raised questions about conflicts down the road.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration describes China as the second largest energy consumer behind the United States. Taking advantage of the world’s financial crisis, the Asian powerhouse has tapped currency reserves to invest in both Russia and Central Asia, helping to construct power plants and other domestic infrastructure in return for long-term oil and gas supplies, said Ben Montalbano, a senior research analyst at the Washington-based Energy Policy Research Foundation.

Lacking energy reserves, China has been “working hard to lock in” investments in Africa, Central Asia and Venezuela, Montalbano told OilPrice.com. The country has also sought natural gas to satisfy increasing consumption and built many liquefied natural gas receiving terminals over the last year, he added.

“Cut off from African natural resources . . . China’s growth stops,” warned Peter Pham, director of the Africa Project at the New York-based National Committee on American Foreign Policy and an associate professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

This intensive bid for energy, however, has caused friction with the world community. Under an investment strategy in Africa, China “wins over very easily governing elites but doesn’t necessarily win over the populace,” Pham charged.

Chinese state-owned companies tend not to invest in exploration but prefer to offer “inducements,” he said. China’s offer of multibillion-dollar credit facilities to Angola was pivotal for the African nation to get “off the hook” from negotiating with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to meet “serious reform and certain conditions” before the organizations granted such facilities, he argued. China then bought stakes from the Angolan state oil company, he said.

China, moreover, has helped the Khartoum government to evade United Nations sanctions by assisting in the building of at least three weapons factories in Sudan, he said.

Not to be outdone, Russia has returned to Africa in “considerable force” pursuing natural resources in part to recover its “great power status,” said Pham. Russian firms are trying to “lock in partnerships” with resource producers to form, for example, the “stream of a natural gas OPEC,” he said.

Russia holds the world's largest natural gas reserves and the eighth largest oil reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Next year, its federal budget will be nearly 50 percent derived from oil and gas exports, emphasizing a reliance on gas exports to “feed the budget,” Montalbano of the Energy Policy Research Foundation told OilPrice.com. To some extent, China and Russia have worked together in the oil and gas domain. Earlier this year, China announced a $25-billion loan to Russian firms in return for a 20-year supply of crude oil.

Russia is not the “behemoth of financial reserves” it was two years ago and has a “fairly weak” banking system and industry, Montalbano maintained. While the country is discussing certain projects with Iran and potentially with Iraq, it is mainly concerned with opening up huge Arctic gas fields because its existing fields are declining, he noted.

Russia and other northern countries have increasingly turned to the melting Arctic but the region is “still up for delineation,” said Boyko Nitzov, director of the Eurasia Energy Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “The Arctic is still fairly off limits for large-scale production of oil and gas” and difficult to access especially during the winter, Nitzov explained.

For American oil companies, an over-reliance on the Middle East for energy needs has shifted its attention to Africa, a major energy supplier over the last several years edging out the Persian Gulf in energy imports to the United States, Pham explained. U.S. firms tend to forge production-sharing agreements or explore resource development, but lack carte blanche in their pursuit of oil riches in places like Africa due to U.S. government sanctions and public pressure, he said. This puts the United States at “a slight  disadvantage” relative to Russia and China, he added.

Competition for energy assets will probably not lead to open conflict but rather to increasing political tension, predicted Africa expert Pham. Leading African organizations, Europe and the United States never recognized Guinea’s military coup last year, which led to a subsequent massacre of opposition members. Yet China signed a deal with the military junta, risking a perception as a “rogue operator in the single-minded pursuit of resources,” he warned.

Although Russia and China, meanwhile, have both benefited from joint oil and gas investments, making conflict doubtful in the forseeable future, “10, 20 years down the road, who knows,” Montalbano added.

This article was written by Fawzia Sheikh of OilPrice.com who focus on Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, Oil Prices and Geopolitics. To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com

Al Fin's comment: Very interesting article. The Russians will be in a difficult situation if the Arctic does not melt according to the official IPCC's global warming schedule. According to most recent ice observations, things are cooling off in the Arctic rather than warming.

Life: Isn't That Like Magic?

To human minds, the molecular mechanisms of life are very much like magic.  Things happen so quickly on the molecular level -- and so far out of human sight -- that by the time we understand what is happening we are often thrown completely off our stride.

We know that an animal's genome changes over time, but we have little idea how animals change and evolve.  Indiana University and University of New Hampshire biologists have made some important discoveries regarding evolution driven by intron formation inside genetic sequences.   Introns are non-coding DNA sequences "inside" genes, that make up much of DNA in cells.   As different introns are inserted into genes of a species, members of the species may begin behaving differently -- genetically speaking.  This discovery could prove extremely important.

Speaking of introns, the cell needs to "edit out" all the mRNA that does not code for a gene's protein, in order to translate only the gene's "message" into protein (not the intron's).   Tel Aviv University researchers have made some pivotal discoveries in how RNA is edited, based upon the way it is transcribed from the DNA.  Their work may have important implications for cancer research as well as basic research in gene expression.

Johns Hopkins University scientists have learned more about particular epigenetic processes that seem to play a special part in an organism's ability to adapt to its environment, in evolution.   The research looks at patterms of methylation of genes, which can have the effect of "randomizing" the organism's response to the environment for different members of the same species -- for example, modifying size, shape, strength, skin tone, disease resistance, etc.   Another way of modifying (in fact, randomizing) gene expression -- methylation, epigenetics.

Korean researchers have learned more about a "growth regulationg" micro-RNA in fruit flies, miR-8, which plays a significant role in determining the animal's size.  Humans have a similar micro-RNA referred to as miR-200, which seems to affect a person's size and weight via affects on insulin.   Yet another gene expression modifier -- micro RNA.

Baylor College of Medicine researchers are looking into "master gene" Math1 , which seems to help coordinate the different nerve centers for hearing, balance, proprioception (position and orientation of body parts), and interoception (the detection of internal body states such as a full bladder).  It has a lot to do with why you can get up in the middle of the night -- half asleep -- and navigate to the bathroom and back, without causing injury to yourself and damage to your household.   Can you believe it?  A gene that controls and coordinates conscious / unconscious behaviour?

McGill University scientists are looking at a protein that influences DNA shape  and gene expression -- helicase protein translation initiator DHX29.  This protein is important in regulating protein synthesis, and cell proliferation.  It is associated with cancer cell growth -- the less DHX29, the less cancer cell growth.  Yet another form of gene expression:  helicase protein translation initiators.

UCSD researchers in La Jolla are studying how atypical anti-psychotic drugs such as olanzepine and clozapine are able to improve a schizophrenic's cognitive function enough to sometimes go back to work and be productive.  Using ingenious bio-sensor "sniffers" they call CNiFERs, they were able to determine that atypical anti-psychotics have a strong blocking effect on the M1 (muscarinic 1) acetylcholine receptor in rats.  They hope to modify their CNiFERs to "spy on" other receptors in pursuing this important research in cell signaling.

You may begin to understand that there is no separation between the molecular / genetic level and the organismic / behavioural level of animals.  That is why it is so important for us to understand the molecular nature of the animal -- because it underlies everything else.

Cancer Screening Achieves Frightening Sensitivity

Yale researchers have devised nano-sensors capable of detecting and measuring minute levels of cancer biomarkers in whole blood. Detection down to the concentration of picograms per milliliter -- with 10% "accuracy" -- are claimed. That is said to be equivalent to detecting a single grain of salt within a large swimming pool.

Their findings, which appear December 13 in the advanced online publication of Nature Nanotechnology, could dramatically simplify the way physicians test for biomarkers of cancer and other diseases.

The team—led by Mark Reed, Yale's Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering & Applied Science, and Tarek Fahmy, an associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering—used nanowire sensors to detect and measure concentrations of two specific biomarkers: one for prostate cancer and the other for breast cancer.

"Nanosensors have been around for the past decade, but they only worked in controlled, laboratory settings," Reed said. "This is the first time we've been able to use them with whole blood, which is a complicated solution containing proteins and ions and other things that affect detection."

To overcome the challenge of whole blood detection, the researchers developed a novel device that acts as a filter, catching the biomarkers—in this case, antigens specific to prostate and breast cancer—on a chip while washing away the rest of the blood. Creating a buildup of the antigens on the chip allows for detection down to extremely small concentrations, on the order of picograms per milliliter, with 10 percent accuracy. This is the equivalent of being able to detect the concentration of a single grain of salt dissolved in a large swimming pool. _Eurekalert

Now the question is: what do you do with someone when you detect a cancer biomarker at extreme low concentrations? Of course you can do other blood tests, multiple types of scans, xrays, biopsies, etc. to try to confirm and localise the malignancy. But at extreme low levels of biomarker there is a good chance that you will not be able to find any other evidence of disease. Then what?

Then you watch the patient more closely than you would have watched them otherwise. Serial biomarker testing using nano-sensors may prove to be the best way of following such "low-positive" patients. It will take time to incorporate such sensitive tests into clinical practise.

National Health Services may elect not to use such sensitive screening tests at all (or very selectively), due to the likely added expense of monitoring and confirming low-positive tests. Private insurance companies -- if any still exist in a few years -- will have no choice but to use whatever the standard of care is decided to be. Government run programs can do what they want, since a dead patient generates no further expenses ( so long as you cannot sue the government).

Once genetic screening tests are more readily available at the clinic level, along with nano-sensors for cancer, infectious agents, toxins, etc etc, the practise of primary care medicine is likely to change.

Transgenic Brain Cell Transplants: Rat Brain or Mouse Brain?

Researchers in Bangalore destroyed neurons in the subiculum (inferior hippocampus) of 48 adult rats. Half the 48 rats were then given fluorescent protein-tagged transplants of hippocampal cells from neonatal mice, the other half were kept as controls. 

Two months later, the scientists measured how well both the transplant and non-transplant rats learned and remembered, using two well-established maze tests of spatial learning. The rats given cell transplants had recovered completely: On both mazes, they performed as well as those rats which had not had their subiculums damaged. The rats without transplants did not recover: They had many problems learning their way through the mazes.


After studying behavior, the scientists examined what happened in the brain. Under the microscope, it appeared that the transplanted cells had settled mainly in a sub-area of the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus. There, the transplants appeared to promote the secretion of two types of growth factors, namely brain-derived neurotrophic factor and fibroblast growth factor, which boost the growth and survival of the cells that give rise to neurons. In the hippocampi of rats with cell transplants, the expression of brain-derived growth factor went up threefold.


It is significant that transplants can provide more neural growth factors in the hippocampus, because the formation of new neurons there may be critical for cognitive function. _ScienceDaily

One can easily imagine storing cultures of immature neurons for just that purpose -- to replace damaged neurons in more mature animals.   There is good reason to hope that damage from many types of brain trauma, tumour, infection, and neurodegeneration will be reversed by timely transplatation of tissue-banked immature neural cells.

But the transgenic nature of the experiment is also intriguing.  The transplanted rat brains contained functioning rat neurons and functioning mouse neurons.  Imagine expanding the experiment step by step, adding more and more mouse neurons to replace rat neurons that had been destroyed.  At what point does the rat begin thinking and acting more like a mouse?

Or consider the use of neonatal monkey neurons transplanted to damaged area of brain in adult humans.   As one transplants into larger and larger volumes of damaged tissue, when does the adult human begin behaving like a monkey -- perhaps a juvenile monkey?

No, I am not attempting to explain the behaviour of the current US Congress, or the delegates to the Copenhagen climate conference.   The neural transplant therapies I describe reside in the future.  But as a thought experiment, it does call up images "The Island of Dr. Moreau."  Brain cells from different animal sources might very well lead to different behaviours by human recipients.

Realistically, induced pluripotent cells from the patient herself, would more likely be used in such therapies of the future.  Signs are encouraging that many types of damage, disease, and degeneration can be at least partially reversed.  We may well be on the verge of a cascading biosingularity.  Stay tuned.

A Journey Through Time and Temperature

A graphic journey through hundreds of thousands of years of global temperatures, as represented by ice core isotopes (deuterium and Oxygen 18). Notice the cycles, and how the "alarming" hockey stick tends to shrink in importance as we gain a wider historical perspective. Unprecedented? Hardly.

Learning the history of things is important, if you are smart, curious, and honest. If you are a psychological neotenate and academic lobotomate -- in other words a modern zombie product of popular culture and political correctness -- just go back to sleep!

via WattsupWithThat? At WUWT you can find links to several versions of J. Storrs Hall's graphic series of official research data, including a YouTube version.

The Collapse of Global Trade: A Deleveraged World

...the decline in trade was far larger than the quite small drop in global economic output. It turns out that many aspects of globalization were overleveraged. Exports, currency trading, and cross-border investment were fueled by debt and credit. In the United States, consumption of imports was stoked by borrowing and the booming housing market. _Deglobalization

The world economy is deleveraging. Huge freighters and oil tankers are sitting idle. Exporting countries such as China are sitting on a huge manufacturing overcapacity. Importing countries are slowly realising that they can manufacture many products better, faster, and cheaper themselves.

Businesses have learned in the past two years that the longer the supply chain, the more possibilities there are for disruptions—from flu viruses, geopolitical disturbances, and spikes in energy prices. While China is still the world's factory, in an age of volatile demand, some companies have realized that manufacturing closer to home is more efficient, even if production costs are higher. In March U.S. Block Windows, an acrylic block window manufacturer based in Pensacola, Fla., bought competitor Hy-lite, a division of Fortune Brands. Hy-Lite was outsourcing the molding of acrylic blocks to China. "It became very evident to us, that we could do it cheaper in-house, because we had the facilities, and we were operating at less than capacity," said Roger Murphy, president of U.S. Block Windows. More significantly, manufacturing in China had its downsides. U.S. Block Windows ships orders within four days of receipt. But the lead time in production from China was 12 to 16 weeks. In a period where it's difficult to forecast demand far out into the future, "it's very difficult to match those two things up," said Murphy. In September, U.S. Block Windows moved Hy-Lite's molding work from China to Florida.

...In the months after September 2008, pretty much every metric that testified to the growing interconnectedness of the global economy collapsed. Between April 2008 and April 2009, foreign currency trading volumes in London were down 25 percent.... _Deglobalization

The world is reacting to the global credit deleveraging in the same way as the US housing market, business startup market, and jobs market -- it is hunkering down and focusing on the local, and the immediate.

Much of the world is beginning to contemplate the massive collapse that would inevitably follow a much-discussed US government default on its sovereign debt. The 25% drop in trading volumes would suddenly change to 70% or more. Importing countries would make do with local products instead of imports. But exporting countries would find themselves suddenly short of cash. For Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, China, etc. that spells massive civil unrest.

As the US congress prepares to raise its debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion, the rest of the world -- particularly lenders to the US -- are getting the jitters. The global trading community has already suffered some large jolts. It is just starting to understand the devastating impact that wide-scale carbon regulations will have. Now it has to think about a US default that would bring the entire house of cards down on itself.

Eliminating Billions of People to Salve Qualms of Pseudo-Science

Canadian Diane Frances and China's Zhao Baige are agreed that over 3 billion humans must be eliminated from planet Earth, to save the planet.

This is a common thread among leftist environmentalists and green enthusiasts: eliminate up to 90% of the human population (or more) in order to make the planet more "sustainable." At this time, CO2 hysteria is a convenient justification for these calls to quasi-genocide. But any cause would do.

No one knows what a sustainable population for this planet might be. 50 years ago in the time of the Club of Rome's ambitious proclamations, it was expected that the Earth would have been destroyed long before now. Billions dead from starvation, disease, scarcity.... It was expected to have happened in the 80s and 90s. By now, we were supposed to be living in a post-oil, post-industrial, post-commercial devastation.

It is all laid out at Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, dieoff.org and similar websites. The hopeful denizens of doom dwell daily upon their decades-obsolete predictions of devastation Earth. They pore over every news report in search of confirmation for their '60s and '70s era prognostications of doom. And of course, they cannot help but find such confirmation -- even if they have to change the definition of what "confirmation" is.

To see such absurd bottom dwelling of doom publishing at Canada's Financial Post does constitute a bit of a surprise. It is as if instead of living in "The Matrix", we are living in "The Consensus", an idiocratic mob mentality that no one is allowed to question. How do such things happen?

If one sets out to dumb down a population, and is willing to take the many years and decades required to do it right, one can eventually create an idiocracy "from the top down." It does require a dedicated, large-scale movement, but if the organisation and financing is there, it is not as difficult as most people might think. Particularly if the population is not especially bright to begin with.

Have you ever imagined a world such as is being recommended by Canada's Financial Post and China's China Daily? A world where every household produces only one child? A world without uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, and cousins? How does one go about convincing all parents to have only one child?

It might be easy in countries such as China or Canada. In fact, Canada's fertility rate -- even without a one-child policy -- is dipping dangerously close to 1 birth per mother. The same is true for Japan, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Greece. In third world countries -- where virtually all of the population growth is occurring these days -- fuggidabowdet!

In other words, developed countries already have fertility rates below 2 -- sometimes very close to 1 -- without encouragement from the anti-natalist gestapo. Affluence and hedonistic lifestyles are generally enough to encourage most women of advanced nations to put a lid on child-bearing. Without affluence and hedonism, the third world is likely to never reduce its fertility rates to these levels.

But you can always send in the blue hatted peacekeepers to enforce your anti-natalist policies in Africa, Muslim Asia, and elsewhere in the third world. What would you accomplish? Fomenting revolution, insurrection, mayhem, starvation, disease, and widespread death. Well, wasn't that what you wanted all along? No doubt.

Excuse the rest of us if we disagree with both your objectives and your underlying rationale.

Postscript: It is the welfare-based nations with the lowest birthrates who will experience the severe effects of shrinking population the soonest. Pension and health care entitlements are ballooning under welfare-state policies. But huge welfare and pension entitlements require a lot of young taxpayers to fund them. If no babies are being born to keep those young taxpayers coming, entitlement debt will completely capsize these welfare economies.

Cell Cycle Controller Chemical Combats Cancer

There are many types of cancer preying upon the human population, and nearly as many different therapeutic approaches to mitigating malignancies. But what if one drug could cure them all? Cancers do share similar features: relatively rapid cell division, and undifferentiated histologic features. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found a drug that "arrests" the cell cycle in malignant cells -- preventing them from multiplying. The effect was proven with human breast cancer tissue that had been implanted into mice.

Prof. Malka Cohen-Armon of TAU's Sackler School of Medicine found that the stroke drug –– a member of a family of phenanthridine derivatives developed by an American drug company –– worked to kill cancer in mice which had been implanted with human breast cancer cells.

"Not only did the drug kill the cancer, but when we investigated normal cells, we discovered that they'd reacted as though they hadn't come in contact with the drug," says Prof. Cohen-Armon. "This is the result we were hoping for. If human trials go well, we could have an entirely new class of drugs in our hands for the fight against cancer."

Stopping the deadly cycle of cancer cell growth

The immediate results of the study were only one of the promising findings in her research, she notes. The team also discovered a molecular mechanism in the cell cycle that can be arrested only in human cancer cells. This cell cycle arrest, they report, causes the cancer cells to die without affecting normal human cells.

"We've found a molecular triggering mechanism in cancer cells that, when set off, causes the cancer cells to die ― they just stop multiplying and die within 48 to 72 hours. Normal, healthy body cells are only temporarily arrested by the same mechanism ― they overcome this cell cycle arrest within 12 hours and continue to proliferate in the presence of the drug as normal un-treated cells," says Prof. Cohen-Armon. "All the human cancer cells we tested seemed to succumb to this compound."

She adds that, even if this particular drug doesn't reach the market to fight against cancer, an entirely new class of drugs might be built around mechanism the team has revealed.

Different strokes

The stroke drug was initially developed to prevent nerve cell death during inflammation and tissue damage in the brain after stroke. However, in pre-clinical studies, American researchers found that these compounds didn't work as well as they'd hoped. Today they are used only for research purposes in laboratory settings.

"The compound we used," says Prof. Cohen-Armon, "presented no traces of toxicity in mice. With this compound, we were able to show how one of the many molecular mechanisms regulating the cell cycle can be targeted, and the proliferation of cancer cells halted." The team is currently working to identify all the regulatory mechanisms involved in this specific process and hope that, in better understanding the science, they might point the way to a new class of anti-cancer drugs. _MachinesLikeUs

Selective killing of cancer cells, while leaving normal cells unharmed, is the holy grail of all cancer therapists and researchers. If the TAU researchers have truly discovered a mechanism of arresting the growth of cancer cells selectively, and killing them without causing harm to the host organism, they may be quite close to finding a "cure-all" for cancer. Most types, anyway.

This is how the future slips up, almost unannounced. Such revolutions are hardly ever trumpeted on approach, but rather acknowledged belatedly in hindsight. Meanwhile, the world's leaders prance around Copenhagen as if what they were doing actually meant anything. Life in an idiocracy.

Want to Learn? Avoid School!

Most schools do everything but allow kids to experience life. If kids want to learn about what goes on in the real world, they have to go out into the real world, play some role in it, and have that motivate learning. Errors in learning by doing bring out questions, and questions bring out answers.

What kids learn in high school or college is antilearning....The problem is that schools want everyone to be in lockstep: everyone has to learn this on this day and that on that day. School is a wonderful baby-sitter. It lets the parents go to work and keeps the kids from killing each other.

Learning takes place outside of school, not in school, and kids who want to know something have to find out for themselves by asking questions, by finding sources of material, and by discounting anything they learned in school as being irrelevant. _Roger Schank Chapter 9 "ThirdCulture"

I disagree with Dr. Schank about one thing: school is not a wonderful baby-sitter. Kids do indeed kill each other in schools. They also get each other addicted to drugs and delinquency. Kids (often with help from teachers) get each other knocked up, dumbed down, stoned, and socialised into an infantile group psychological neoteny. Kids succeed despite school, when they succeed at all.

University schools of education -- where schoolteachers are trained -- are little more than indoctrination centers for politically correct mind-melting and reagglutination. The average IQ of schoolteachers is less than 110. For African Americans, that is almost 2 standard deviations above the mean for AAs, but for Euro-Americans it is less than 1 standard deviation above the mean for EAs. In other words, a significant number of non-black school children will be more intelligent than most of their teachers -- often much more intelligent.

Government schools spend large sums of money on special education -- educating students with learning deficits and developmental disorders. But these state schools spend very little on educating gifted students, the future innovators and leaders of society.

If one were the parent of a gifted child -- but could not afford to send the child to a private school equipped to provide an accelerated education -- it might be better to give the child a library card and a general "curriculum" for reading, rather than to send them to government school. Of course that isn't practical for very young children, or for children of an age where the parent might be sent to jail for taking that approach.

Such a parent may be forced to send their children to government schools. But they must be prepared to provide extra-curricular compensatory training and guidance in self-directed reading, research, and learning. The real learning will take place away from school.

Most schools are scams of one type or another. Such is true all the way to university graduate levels. Exceptions to that rule would include "hard" engineering, "hard" sciences, medical and dental schools, and a few other fact, skill, and research oriented areas. Law school is half scam and half value, so take it for what it is worth.

A library card and an internet connection can give you far better value, educationally speaking, than most schools. But everyone needs some guidance. "Great Books", "Harvard Classics", etc etc . The brain must be fed some grist for the mill. It needs high value content -- factual and rhetorical.

Practical learning can be a bit harder to come by, although it shouldn't have to be. There is a lot of work to be done in that area by those who want to see a more competent population and workforce.

The Al Fin website provides a "basic reading" section at the top of the sidebar. Almost all links are to online books and papers that are freely available for download. But Al Fin also wants to provide a curriculum of sorts. A variable curriculum that could be plugged into at various points for virtually any stage of life.

We actually do live in an Idiocracy. That needs to be changed.

400,000 Year History of Climate for Dummies

Don't miss this pictorial presentation of global climate history by JStorrsHall For a bit of background on how temperatures are derived from ice cores (using isotopes -- not CO2 in air bubbles) from up to many thousands of years ago, see here.

Briefly: In a warmer year, more sea water evaporates which causes a relative excess of deuterium (and O18) in the atmospheric water vapour. Rain and snowfall deposits this excess deuterium. If that year's precipitation is trapped in ice over many years (as in Greenland or Antarctica), scientists can take ice cores hundreds or thousands of years later, and determine the approximate relative temperatures over time.

The Vostok core is one of the most famous ice cores in climate research.

The record presented by Jouzel et al. (1987), based on data in a 2083-meter ice core from the Russian Vostok station in central east Antarctica, was the first such record to span a full glacial-interglacial cycle. Drilling continued at Vostok until January 1998, reaching a depth of 3623 m, and a corresponding time of ~420 kyr BP. More recently, a 740-kyr deuterium record has been extracted from an ice core taken at Dome C (EPICA Community Members, 2004). Deuterium fractions were determined in meltwater from 55-cm long sections of the ice core the surface down to the bottom of the core. _ORNL

The ice core graphs that J Storrs Hall displays illustrate a panoramic perspective of relative temperatures over time spans from hundreds of years to hundreds of thousands of years. Once you have taken a look at the series of graphs of ice deuterium over time scales from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years, you will begin to understand the global political climate campaign a bit better.

Other types of isotopic analyses can be used for re-assessing the climate record from tree rings and sediments. Such analyses may bring climate science back from the brink of disaster to scientific respectability.

The ongoing circus that is Copenhagen is a reflection of modern human's tendency to look away from the evidence. Money-grubbing dictators of the third world are salivating at the prospects of wealth redistribution from advanced nations to undeveloped dictatorships -- one of the main pillars of the Copenhagen "agreement."

If you are like most people, you have no idea what is being contemplated for your future. Time to wake up.

Update: Here is another fantastic chart-filled look at real temperature trends -- this time in Australia over the past 130 years or so. Honestly, my friends, for truly curious, intelligent, and open-minded persons, it is becoming almost impossible to believe in the dogma of carbon catastrophe.

Unfortunately it is carbon hysteria that is being drummed into the heads of almost all schoolchildren from pre-school thru university. What should be done to the people responsible for this scandal? Nothing good.

Trusting the Government in an Idiocracy

Do you believe what you are told -- by government spokespersons, by media mouthpieces, by academics and pundits? It is easier that way. Just accept what you are told -- do not question.

Take what we were told about US employment conditions:

TrimTabs employment analysis, which uses real-time daily income tax deposits from all U.S. taxpayers to compute employment growth, estimated that the U.S. economy shed 255,000 jobs in November. This past month’s results were an improvement of only 10.2% from the 284,000 jobs lost in October.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ]BLS) reported that the U.S. economy lost an astonishingly better than expected 11,000 jobs in November. In addition, the BLS revised their September and October results down a whopping 203,000 jobs, resulting in a 45% improvement over their preliminary results.
Something is not right in Kansas! Either the BLS results are wrong, our results are in error, or the truth lies somewhere in the middle. _SeekingAlpha

Top Ten Reasons to Dismiss Last Friday's Unemployment Report

The Real State of the US Labor Market

Unemployment Duration on the Rise

Why the Friday Unemployment Report Was Total Bunk

Massive Mountain of Debt Will Kill Us

When a complex economy begins to unravel, the early responses to the crisis determine how long and deep the damage will penetrate. If a nation is under the control of green rookies -- like the Obama / Pelosi reich -- most of the decision made will be wrong. The people will suffer until the mismanagement at the top is removed, and the system is allowed to recover.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and be ready to exploit any opportunity that may open. Remember: Historically, gold has maintained its value better than other investments -- particularly during truly horrific economic crises.

Artificial Intelligence to Receive a Make-Over

The field of artificial-intelligence research (AI), founded more than 50 years ago, seems to many researchers to have spent much of that time wandering in the wilderness, swapping hugely ambitious goals for a relatively modest set of actual accomplishments. Now, some of the pioneers of the field, joined by later generations of thinkers, are gearing up for a massive “do-over” of the whole idea.

This time, they are determined to get it right — and, with the advantages of hindsight, experience, the rapid growth of new technologies and insights from the new field of computational neuroscience, they think they have a good shot at it. _MachinesLikeUs

As brilliant as many computer scientists and electrical engineers may be, they tend not to have a clue as to how the brain does what it does. Jeff Hawkins of Numenta is one of the few exceptions -- an electronics tech whiz who has taken the time to learn a lot about the brain.

Now, a multi-disciplinary team at MIT is determined to make up for the past 50 years of myopic approaches to AI. They plan to approach the problem with a new set of assumptions based upon more validated notions of brain, intelligence, consciousness, and mind.

there are three specific areas — having to do with the mind, memory, and the body — where AI research has become stuck, and each of these will be addressed in specific ways by the new project

The first of these areas, he says, is the nature of the mind: “how do you model thought?” In AI research to date, he says, “what’s been missing is an ecology of models, a system that can solve problems in many ways,” as the mind does.

Part of this difficulty comes from the very nature of the human mind, evolved over billions of years as a complex mix of different functions and systems. “The pieces are very disparate; they’re not necessarily built in a compatible way,” Gershenfeld says. “There’s a similar pattern in AI research. There are lots of pieces that work well to solve some particular problem, and people have tried to fit everything into one of these.” Instead, he says, what’s needed are ways to “make systems made up of lots of pieces” that work together like the different elements of the mind. “Instead of searching for silver bullets, we’re looking at a range of models, trying to integrate them and aggregate them,” he says.

The second area of focus is memory. Much work in AI has tried to impose an artificial consistency of systems and rules on the messy, complex nature of human thought and memory. “It’s now possible to accumulate the whole life experience of a person, and then reason using these data sets which are full of ambiguities and inconsistencies. That’s how we function — we don’t reason with precise truths,” he says. Computers need to learn “ways to reason that work with, rather than avoid, ambiguity and inconsistency.”

And the third focus of the new research has to do with what they describe as “body”: “Computer science and physical science diverged decades ago,” Gershenfeld says. Computers are programmed by writing a sequence of lines of code, but “the mind doesn’t work that way. In the mind, everything happens everywhere all the time.” A new approach to programming, called RALA (for reconfigurable asynchronous logic automata) attempts to “re-implement all of computer science on a base that looks like physics,” he says, representing computations “in a way that has physical units of time and space, so the description of the system aligns with the system it represents.” This could lead to making computers that “run with the fine-grained parallelism the brain uses,” he says.

...Harvard (and former MIT) cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says that it’s that kind of big picture thinking that has been sorely lacking in AI research in recent years. Since the 1980s, he says “there was far more focus on getting software products to market, regardless of whether they instantiated interesting principles of intelligent systems that could also illuminate the human mind. This was a real shame, in my mind, because cognitive psychologists (my people) are largely atheoretical lab nerds, linguists are narrowly focused on their own theoretical paradigms, and philosophers of mind are largely uninterested in mechanism.

“The fading of theoretical AI has led to a paucity of theory in the sciences of mind,” Pinker says. “I hope that this new movement brings it back.”

Boyden agrees that the time is ripe for revisiting these big questions, because there have been so many advances in the various fields that contribute to artificial intelligence. “Certainly the ability to image the neurological system and to perturb the neurological system has made great advances in the last few years. And computers have advanced so much — there are supercomputers for a few thousand dollars now that can do a trillion operations per second.” _MachinesLikeUs

One of the biggest problems in AI, according to Al Fin cognitive scientists, is that the personalities of the researchers themselves tends to get in the way of clear thinking about the underlying problem.

The central problems of AI reside within a nearly unapproachable sphere of integrated to interacting chained energies. Ranging from the sub-atomic to the sociological in scale, no one individual is capable of encompassing the sphere. But it is the multi-level mapping of these energies from the electron to the neuron to the cortex / sub-cortex / entire brain / mine / and body that is currently so vague and ill defined.

What do we want from AI? We really do not need humanoid robots walking around getting in our way. The MIT teams first project sounds reasonable:

One of the projects being developed by the group is a form of assistive technology they call a brain co-processor. This system, also referred to as a cognitive assistive system, would initially be aimed at people suffering from cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. The concept is that it would monitor people’s activities and brain functions, determine when they needed help, and provide exactly the right bit of helpful information — for example, the name of a person who just entered the room, and information about when the patient last saw that person — at just the right time.

Such a device would be a useful form of brain-compatible AI, and a stepping-stone to more powerful devices capable of thinking on their own. The ability to create such an intermediate device would also serve as an assessment of progress in brain / mind compatible AI.

US Employment Looking Good? Don't Be an Idiot

Small companies historically begin hiring first in a recovery. But this time many economists expect any pickup to be belated and weak. One big reason is the credit crunch's outsize impact on entrepreneurs.

...Cuts in workers' hours are also helping shrink small-company paychecks. When demand picks up, entrepreneurs will pile more work on existing workers rather than hire. "I think you'll see a jobless recovery," says Alter.

One reason could be business owners like Daniel W. Glier, president of Glier's Meats, an 18-person, $3 million sausage maker in Covington, Ky. He's keeping headcount down by restoring some workers' hours that got cut earlier this year. He's also using temps so that if he has to let them go, his unemployment insurance premiums won't rise. "I'm not going to stick my neck out right now and hire people," he says.

The weak recovery is a concern, too. The optimism index compiled by the National Federation of Independent Business has edged up from its March nadir. But at 89.1, the index has been below 90 for six straight quarters. In the 1980-82 recession, it fell below 90 only once. _Business Week

Small businesses are not hiring new workers -- other than seasonal temporary workers. Only government seems to be hiring these days. But how much more of a burden can the sagging US dollar support in terms of a ballooning government payroll and government debt?

Overall, non-farm payroll employment went down by 11,000 in November. The 68,000 jobs that were lost in manufacturing and construction were almost compensated for by the 58,000 jobs gained in the service sector. Essentially, skilled workers who were losing jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors were taking unskilled jobs in the service sector. _SeekingAlpha

The US remains mired in deep unemployment. Despite the "unemployment rate" dropping from 10.2% to 10.0%, fewer Americans are employed now than were employed at the beginning of November.

# The civilian labor force shrunk by 98,000 in November. The “not in the labor force” group rose by 291,000 in November. To the extent that not all of these individuals voluntarily left the labor force during the month, it is obvious that a large number of “discouraged workers” are included in this statistic. Of the total number of people not in the labor force, the BLS estimates that approximately 5.6 million want a job but are not included in the official unemployment statistic because they have not actively seeking a job.
# Broader measures of unemployment, such as U-6 continue to show very high levels of labor force under-utilization. U-6, which includes marginally attached workers as well as those employed part time due to difficulty finding full time employment, fell to a seasonally adjusted 17.2% in November from 17.5% in October. _SeekingAlpha

The real US unemployment rate is much closer to 20% than to 10%. But you will not be informed of that sad news on any of the Official Obama Zombie News Outlets (OOZNOs). With that many people out of work, the "unhappiness factor" is bound to rise -- despite any number of government job hires, giveaways, bailouts, and symbolic gestures.

The current US Congress and executive branch are truly living in a different world than the average American. Government workers are now making more money on average than private workers, they have better pension guarantees, better benefits packages, and when Obamacabre national health insurance is enacted, government workers will have much better health insurance than will be available to private citizens.

Is it any wonder Mr. Obama suddenly wants to spend some time in Copenhagen? Wanna get away?

Great Geopolitical Battle Over Energy Transit Routes

Guest article by Philip de Leon


As we all live in the present, it is very hard to fully assess the future implications of decisions supported or made by political and business leaders. An extraordinary game of geo-strategy is under way to lock in long-term agreements, notably in the energy sector. At a global level, the transit routes of future oil & gas pipelines become the object of a power struggle involving not only the suppliers and end-users but also the transit countries. Intensive courtships are under way where a ménage à trois, or more, may be the best option to prevent any country from being in a dominating position to rule a region and exercise political or economic pressure.

Let’s take a practical example and look at some of the dynamics behind the Nabucco pipeline and at the different interests involved.

Nabucco and the competing projects

Nabucco is a 3,300 km natural gas pipeline going East to West, with a capacity of 31 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year that would reduce Europe’s dependency on gas supplied by Russia. It will go from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. That project would be in direct competition with the Russian-endorsed South Stream pipeline, with a capacity of 63 bcm per year, that would start from Russia and end in Austria but with two prongs: one via Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy, and one via Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia. Nabucco’s estimated cost is about €8 billion with a completion date of 2014 while south Stream’s estimated cost is from €19 to €24 billion with a completion date of 2015. South Stream was launched in 2007 when Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev was then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom, Russia's largest company and the world's largest gas producer.


Nabucco and the supplier countries

Formidable battles have been taking place between the Nabucco and South Stream backers to sign supply agreements, not only to guarantee that the much needed gas will be made available - as underutilizing the pipelines is not a viable option - but also to secure a political and financial will for the projects. Gazprom is engaged in a battle to preempt gas supplies and to keep European countries from what it considers as a Russian natural chasse guardée such as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, though both countries have pledged to supply Nabucco as they understand their vulnerability by not having several export routes.

The courtship is ongoing and in October 2009, Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom, personally went to Baku, Azerbaijan to sign a long-term natural gas purchase and sale contract with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). Following the signature, Miller made a statement, which gives a good insight on what is at stake: ”Russia and Azerbaijan have a common border and have already been connected by the unified infrastructure. This enabled Gazprom to propose the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic the most attractive commercial terms and conditions of gas purchase. Our partnership is logically consistent and fully meets our mutual interests. I am confident that in the coming years the volume of Azerbaijani gas supplied to Russia will increase.”

This statement and contract are interesting because the agreement provides for a supply of 500 million cubic meters starting in January 2010, with potential increases depending on Azerbaijan’s export potential. This comes at a time when Gazprom has interrupted its deliveries of gas from Turkmenistan since April 2009, arguing a lesser demand from Europe. A few days after being in Azerbaijan, Miller was meeting with the President of Turkmenistan but no decision was reached regarding resumption of gas imports from Turkmenistan.


Who is holding whom by the tail?

The dynamics around Nabucco when looked at closely highlights a web of sweet deals corresponding to a complex reality of entangled needs.

Russia has very aggressively pursued locked-in supply agreements for extensive periods of time. The initial idea is that getting a deal in first could work towards keeping other players out. That approach did not end up creating exclusive relationships as countries such Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan appear to have enough supplies to satisfy multiple parties. Pricing agreements were also locked in for specified periods of time but the tumble in world energy prices put Gazprom in a dire situation: Gazprom is reported to have been paying $375.50 per thousand cubic meters (tcm) for Turkmen gas while only paying $217/tcm for Kazakhstani gas and $210/tcm for Uzbek gas. An “unfortunate” explosion in April 2009 that the Turkmens blame on Russia hit the pipeline connecting the two countries and deliveries have stopped. Gazprom stated it had not intention to resume purchasing Turkmen gas in 2009. Turkmenistan is said to be losing $1 billion/month over this issue. With Turkmenistan, Gazprom has a 25-year sale and purchase agreement Turkmenneftegaz signed in 2003. Prices were locked below world market prices, at less than half the price Europe was paying for its gas. Subsequent price increases were negotiated but in exchange for the promise of higher delivery volumes with 60 bcm of gas in 2007, 60-70 bcm in 2008 and subsequently export up to 80 bcm annually through 2028.

Needless to say that Turkmenistan’s announcement in July 2009 of its willingness to provide gas to Nabucco does not come as a surprise in this context. Similarly the completion in October 2009 of $400 million 188-km section in Turkmenistan of a 7,000 km natural gas pipeline that will reach China is an important step towards diversification. The Turkmen government stated: “Getting gas supplies to China will mark another important milestone in the successful implementation of Turkmenistan's strategy of diversifying energy export routes to world markets.”

Turkmenistan has been assiduously courted because of it immense gas reserves. In 2008 the oil advisory firm Gaffney Cline & Associates (GCA) conducted a study on the South Yolotan-Osman field and determined that that field alone was the fifth largest in the world, with an estimated 4 trillion to 14 trillion cubic meters of gas. That good new was tampered in October 2009 when reports surfaced that GCA may have been misled (see article: “Turmen Gas – Caveat Emptor” http://www.oilprice.com/article-turkmen-gas-caveat-emptor.html In any event, the potential of Turkmenistan should not be underestimated.


Nabucco and the transit countries

Several Eastern European countries have been turning their back to Russia and have joined the European Union, espousing the EU’s energy security objectives to reduce its dependency on Russia gas. The January 2009 showdown between Russia and Ukraine, which resulted on the gas supply to be cut to most of Europe in the midst of winter, could only serve as a wake-up call for the need to diversify energy routes. Bulgaria - which has the ambition to become an international gas hub and that is a party to both the Nabucco and South Stream projects - will benefit from that situation, notably by increasing its bargaining position to negotiate better energy agreements with Russia. It could, among other things, threaten to raise transit fees. Ukraine is using this threat against Russia and in September 2009, Gazprom expected Ukraine to increase gas transit fees by up to 58% in 2010. The stakes are high as transit fees represent a bonanza. While visiting Bulgaria in 2007, Vladimir Putin estimated that Bulgaria could earn up to $2.5 billion per year in transit fees alone.


Russia: just another shrewd player but…

One may think that Russia pockets the difference from rates below market prices, but the reality is that Russia uses the discounted gas for its own domestic needs. It also has been using it to supply Ukraine under very favorable terms, and Ukraine has been very vocal in resisting Russia’s attempts to raise prices. Note must be made that Ukraine imports the bulk of its natural gas from Turkmenistan via Russia. Countries like Russia and Ukraine have been resisting passing on price increases to end-users to avoid social unrest and have been struggling to keep non-competitive industries afloat. One way of doing so is by keeping the cost of energy low. The adverse effect is that Ukraine is one of the most energy inefficient countries in Europe.

A point must be made that Russia should not just be perceived as a natural bully but more as a wounded bear. Russia, like any country, is looking after its own interests and is not always subtle about it, even more so as it feels that everyone is ganging against her, rightfully or not. Russia is also confronted with its own economic reality, most notably the over reliance of its economy and state budget on oil & gas revenues. Efforts to diversify the economy have failed to generate visible results. It is therefore essential for Russia to secure a guaranteed income flow from the sale of it oil and gas, and from the oil and gas of its neighbors, that it buys to resale at a profit or that it routes through its extensive pipeline network for a fee. But things change: sourcing oil and gas from or routing it via Russia is no longer the only option.

… a new transportation mode is emerging

As the gas pipeline battles are under way, a new trend is emerging which is the transition towards Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). That transportation mode of natural gas through seaborne tankers will open new markets, alleviate the dependency of some countries on existing pipeline routes, and reduce the number of players able to impact proper delivery and pricing.


This article was written by Philip H. de Leon for OilPrice.com - Who offer free information and analysis on Energy and Commodities. The site has sections devoted to Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, Oil prices and Geopolitics. To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com

Putting the I Back Into Imagination and Imaging

Curiosity and imagination are inextricably tied to each other. When our curiosity is aroused, we begin to imagine how things might be -- and how they might be different than they are. Cascading emotions triggered by our imaginings raise our curiosity even higher -- or sometimes shut our curiosity down in fear and anxiety.

Imagination calls upon "mental images", which may be visual, auditory, otherwise sensory, or emotional in nature. Mental images call upon much of the same brain real estate that is utilised when we perceive sights, sounds, tastes . . . or emotionally-tinged situations.

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess the maximal degree of shared neural processing in visual mental imagery and visual perception. Participants either visualized or saw faint drawings of simple objects, and then judged specific aspects of the drawings (which could only be evaluated properly if they used the correct stimulus). The results document that visual imagery and visual perception draw on most of the same neural machinery. _Ganis, Thompson, Kosslyn 2004 CognitiveBrainResearch

Mental images "connect up" with a wide array of sensory, motor, cognitive, and emotional centers of the brain. Understanding the broad nature of connectiveness of mental imagery should give a hint to the power of image and imagination.

Brain studies now reveal that thoughts produce the same mental instructions as actions. Mental imagery impacts many cognitive processes in the brain: motor control, attention, perception, planning, and memory. So the brain is getting trained for actual performance during visualization. _SeeingIsBelieving

Mental imagery has been used by world class athletes for over 50 years. Even golf champion Tiger Woods has used mental imagery for decades (although he probably didn't see that 9 iron coming). Imagery is also useful in rehabilitation from stroke and brain surgery.

Recent research in Lausanne, Switzerland suggests that mental imagery can improve our perceptual skills. In other words, if we train ourselves to "see" ambivalent visual phenomenon more precisely -- using our imagination with a bit of (non-visual) feedback -- we can actually learn to perceive such phenomena more precisely. A tricky concept to put into practise, no doubt. But highly suggestive nonetheless.

So -- how would we go about putting the I back into imagination and imaging? What I mean by that is how do we compensate for generations of neglect by governmental institutions of education, to train individuals in constructive, creative, and productive imagination and imagery? We have spawned generations of low-curiosity graduates, who instinctively appeal to authority rather than puzzling a situation out for themselves. Their imaginative facilities are atrophied -- except in regard to popular topics within a very superficial zeitgeist. The events occurring underneath the very foundations of their existences go undetected, in their dull-witted and incurious ignorance. All of this obliviousness occurs within minds of high and low IQ alike.

Why?

Education is currently dominated by highly verbal indoctrinists, professors in university schools of education caught in the ambiguous verbal slipstream of meaning. Modern philosophies of pedagogy are prone to fad and fashion, lacking basic grounding in any meaningful or sustainable reality. A society built upon graduates of such educational theories will be prone to the type of failure that leads to authoritarianism and totalitarianism. This is precisely what has been happening throughout the western world.

Visual images tend to be more permanent and lasting than verbal "imagery." Visual images often contain their own "falsifiability" criteria. Consider the ice age cave paintings found in southwestern Europe. One can easily identify the objects represented, and can judge the level of accuracy in representation, tens of thousands of years later. Those paintings predate any evidence of written language by tens of millenia.

Just as painted imagery predates printed language, so did mental imagery precede verbal thought. That is true evolutionarily and it is true in individual human development. Our brains may have evolutionary advantages that allow us to use language, but images and non-verbal imagination came first.

It is important to understand how human minds are built -- more sophisticated and artifactual tools are built upon the simpler and more natural structures of "thought." Language is built upon image, in a sense. Even verbal thought is based upon imagery -- often emotion-loaded imagery. (of course, skillful language conjures emotional images just as emotional images can trigger involuntary verbal utterances) Basic language metaphors are built of images of various types. More complex language constructs are built of basic language metaphors.

What is imagery built upon? Emotions? Well, they certainly work together. Curiosity is an emotion, after all. And curiosity uses imagery and is also triggered and stimulated by imagery. If a child is deprived of both curiosity and imagination, he is doubly damned by the frivolous gods of pedagogy and neglectful sprites of parenting.

Imagery is built upon pre-verbal, pre-image metaphor. More on that later.

It is enough to understand that our kludgy consciousness is built from lower level spare parts, all the way down to the turtles. (from there, it's turtles all the way down...) Some levels are accessible and trainable, and some are not. We are neglecting much of what is trainable.

The point is, that the "play pedagogy" that permeates Montessori education and also is used in executive function training programs for young children, is a form of training of imagination and imaging. It is an approach that boys are desperate for, and that could also benefit girls immensely.

Uh-oh! By stating that boys might benefit more from training in visual imagination, I have alienated leftist and feminist curriculum designers. There is, after all, an undeclared "war on boys" happening. No matter how desperate the condition of boys in education becomes, they must not be favoured in any way -- not even a little!

That, too, is beside the point. There are other types of images than visual images. Training in many of those forms of images would benefit girls more than boys, on average. But curriculum designers themselves lack imagination. They never learned to use imagery themselves, so of course they would never think to design a curriculum to help children learn these vital skills.

It is a blindspot for leftists, largely due to the focus on the "I" in imagination and imagery. Think about it, and you may see what I mean. But the rest of us can act without their permission, can't we?

Addendum: Imagination, Mental Imagery, Consciousness and Cognition, is the best one-stop information source on this general topic, according to Al Fin cognitive scientists. The author is Nigel J.T. Thomas, PhD.