2014 « The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Sunday, April 6, 2014

◊ The Caboose: End of the Train, But Not (Yet) of the Word

Society ...

There was an interesting comment on the Bloomberg web site this past week in an article about the US Supreme Court’s decision allowing rich political donors to give campaign contributions to as many incumbent or wannabe Congressional representatives and senators as they want, despite previous restrictions under the Federal Election Campaign Law of 1971. The previous cap on how much can be given to any one candidate remains ($2,600 per candidate); but the campaign contribution law also had a provision limiting the total amount that any person can give to all federal-level candidates in a year to $123,200. The decision in this case (McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, brought against the government by an Alabama businessman and GOP official), “deal[s] a fresh blow to efforts to curb the role of money in American politics” according to Bloomberg. The Court vote was a close one, though, at 5 to 4.

As to the interesting comment in the article: Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributers and a longtime Republican fundraiser, felt that the Court’s decision was good because it strengthens the political parties. Well, that isn’t very surprising given that Mr. Van Dongen is a Republican and stands to benefit from the decision. But Mr. Van Dongen also said that “[c]ampaign-finance reforms and Citizens United have weakened the party committees such that they are often the caboose of contribution-consideration sequencing,”

Again, the meaning of Mr. Van Dongen’s words aren’t all that interesting – i.e. that the national Republican and Democratic parties had previously lost power and influence because of the individual donation limits and the Supreme Court’s recent » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:46 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, April 3, 2014

◊ Global Warming or Global Freezing?

Current Affairs ... Public Policy ... Science ...

Does it make any sense to talk about an ice age at a time when global warming makes all the headlines? According to the patterns of cold and warm eras over the past million years or so of earth history, we may be due for an new ice age. The general pattern for the past few million years of earth history has been 100,000 years of ice age followed by 12,000 years of temperate climate (an “interglacial” period).

We have been in an “interglacial” now for about that number of years, and thus could be due for the start of a new ice age. There are patterns called “Milankovich cycles” that are thought by some to trigger the warm and cold spells; these cycles involve the overall tilt of the earth relative to the sun (which varies over a 41,000 year period), the shape of the earth’s orbit (which changes over a period of 100,000 years) and the Earth’s ‘spin wobble’ (which varies the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years). Arguably our planet is re-entering a tilt / orbit / wobble combo where cold, dry conditions become the norm; the warm inter-glacial periods that we are used to have been more of an exception to the general rule of an ice-ball planet.

Recall that in the 1970s, the climate change articles were talking about the prospect of global cooling, along with the threats to human existence that it would pose. There were global cooling articles in both Time and Newsweek in the mid-70s. (However, that trend may have been driven by media bias for » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:23 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, March 30, 2014

◊ Awaiting A New Season

Photo ...

Another winter, a long and tough winter, is finally over here in NJ. But spring, with all her glory (yes, spring is very pleasant even in New Jersey), has not truly kicked-in yet. We’re in-between seasons. When the clouds grow dark, we no longer worry about shoveling snow. Almost all of the snowpack has melted. But the trees are still bare, and the brown grass and leaves from last autumn haven’t been replaced yet by fresh green shoots.

You can get the sense of it in this picture taken earlier today. A rain puddle reflects the gray clouds, looking not much different from a January and February sky; and the reflected bare trees await their new green buds. A half-rotted leaf from one of those trees remains, awaiting its ultimate assignment as mulch for a new season of growth. The stage is set for another season of renewal, but for now, the damp chill remains.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:27 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, March 27, 2014

◊ Brains Battling It Out in the Void: Carroll, Craig and Boltzmann

Philosophy ... Science ... Society ...

Back in 2008, I got interested in the idea of “Boltzmann Brains” after reading an article about them in the NY Times. That article explained the concept and examined the philosophic implications, but really didn’t get down to the political nitty-gritty behind it all. Boltzmann Brains turn out to be a battlefield of hubris, a battle between smart people who become really dumb about just how smart they really are. This is something that has gone on since the days of the ancient Greeks, when the first “intellectuals” (as we think of them) came on the scene and fell in love with the exquisite fabric of thought that they wove about themselves and their followers.

I wrote a blog about Boltzmann Brains after reading that article, a compendium of my own rambling thoughts and reflections on the subject. I was trying to find reasons why the idea (and it’s only an idea, there is no evidence whatsoever of even one “Boltzmann Brain” floating out in space) means anything at all. But only recently did I discover why Boltzmanns Brains are truly relevant — and it’s not because of the subtle ontological and epistemological ramifications that Dennis Overbye of the Times and I focused on.

Boltzmanns Brains are something more than an interesting intellectual theory based on the implications of modern science and cosmology; they are “mortar shells” in an ongoing battle » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:16 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, March 22, 2014

◊ Flight 370, the Ukraine, Gravity Waves — quite a week

Current Affairs ...

Just a few thoughts and comments on the world events of the past week. Well, I’ll start out with some non-thoughts about to the disappearance of Flight 370. I’m a born analyst and I’ve posted my theories on many a mystery on these pages. But that situation seems to defy all common sense.

To review: the latest satellite debris photos and the final “ping” data received from the 777 by the monitoring satellite indicate that the plane went down in the southern Indian Ocean, between Australia and Antarctica. And yet, the last military radar info indicted that the plane was flying on a north-west heading, after crossing the Malaysia peninsula on a due-west diversion from its normal south to north path to Beijing. This doesn’t look like a terrorist plot, since no credible group is taking credit. Even if it was a bungled attempt, say to crash the plane into an Indian city, most terror groups would still take “second prize” credit for bringing down a big commercial airliner. It would still be a “trophy” and an act of heroism in the sick world of terrorism. But blank silence on that account.

And yet, blank silence from the 777 flight too, even though the plane was well within aviation radio range when it went thru all the course deviations. If there were smoke from a fire (say from the lithium batteries in the cargo bay), or a hi-jacking going on, you would have expected » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:35 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, March 20, 2014

◊ Greek Mayhem and Greek Memories

Personal Reflections ... Society ...

If you’re tired of reading about the crazy winter weather of early 2014 and about Flight 370, or about Crimea or Beyonce or Ashley Judd or Johnny Weir or Phil Jackson and the Knicks, there’s an interesting article in The Atlantic about fraternity life in the 21st Century (“The Dark Power of Fraternities” by Caitlin Flanagan).

I wasn’t aware of the bad things that have been going on at the frat houses over the past decade or two. I’ve been out of college for almost 40 years now, and during my undergrad years I had almost nothing to do with fraternities. (More on that “almost” qualification in a moment).

There were a handful of frats at my engineering school, and like all frats they offered their members more beer, partying and sexual adventure than the average schlug got. But most of us average schlugs were still » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:49 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, March 13, 2014

◊ Obamacare In a Tailspin?

Current Affairs ... Politics ... Public Policy ...

Megan McArdle, an economic policy writer for Bloomberg, has published a series of articles over the past few months expressing doubt about the long-term viability of Obamacare. Ms. McArdle acknowledges that the Affordable Care Act of 2009 has had some positive effects. However, she has her doubts as to whether the government-private hybrid system that the ACA maps out can attain its lofty goal of providing affordable health care to the vast majority of American households, given the many complex problems that it has encountered and the many compromises that have been made by the Administration in the roll-out. Oh, and also the hostile political environment that the GOP and the general public have created for the ACA. It ain’t easy to radically re-design and re-arrange 16% of the American economy (and a terribly complex segment of that economy, one involving life-and-death issues affecting nearly everyone) within 5 years, especially when about 55% of the adult population is against it.

Up to now, I haven’t taken Ms. McArdle all that seriously. A lot of other writers, such as the redoubtably liberal Paul Krugman, are arguing that teething pains are to be expected and that a lot of major government initiatives (including the 2006 Romney health care reforms in Massachusetts) seemed very messy at first but eventually kicked-in and accomplished their major goals. But Ms. McArdle’s review of a recent poll released by the McKinsey consulting company is causing me to have my own doubts. In a nutshell, only 10% of uninsured adults using the new insurance exchanges (mostly thru the troubled federal web site and the various individual state care sites) have bought it by end of Feb, 2014. Most of the purchases that have been made through the exchanges are by those who already had insurance. The biggest issue appears to be high costs, even net of the subsidy that the ACA provides to lower-income households.

Another recent survey by Gallup gives a more optimistic view. An NPR article notes that this survey shows that the uninsured rate has fallen significantly in the » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 2:48 pm Read Comments (4) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, March 9, 2014

◊ Time for a Cold War 2?

Current Affairs ... Foreign Relations/World Affairs ... History ...

Ah, the poor Ukraine. Three of my grandparents hailed from Poland, growing up not far from the Ukraine border. The fourth was from Belarus, just to the north. They all came to America about 100 years ago. It’s nice to see that Poland has escaped domination and gotten itself on its feet as a modernizing Western nation. Belarus is still a mess, but it’s a mostly stable mess, having accepted second-rate status as a Russian satellite nation. But the Ukraine – – it just can’t seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be another Poland or another Belarus. And the Russians have made it eminently clear that they will make it as difficult as possible for the Ukrainians to escape their dominance and work more closely with the European community. Several years ago I wrote a post noting the Orange Revolution in Kiev. The same issues were in play back then, and 5 years later, they are still way up in the air. This one is not going to get resolved anytime soon.

The big question for the USA is just how to approach this situation. Should we channel our inner Winston Churchill (as the British themselves are no longer able to; Great Britain is now just another Euro nation, not the declining but still world-dominating force that it was in the late 1930’s . . . the USA of today has inherited this role, including the downward trend) and get tough with Putin? Well, unlike the days of Churchill and the rise of Hitler, the Russians still have enough nuclear weapons remaining to basically put an end to our civilization. So we need to approach this with much caution.

Another part of this big question is, just how dangerous is Putin and modern Russia? Is Putin another Hitler? Does he have plans for the world, plans that we and a lot of others may not like? And even if he does, can he do as much damage » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:13 am Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, February 22, 2014

◊ Winter Street Sculpture

Personal Reflections ... Photo ...

Just a few days ago I posted some photos showing the gritty side of winter. Which is mostly what anyone living or working in an urban environment experiences. But sometimes quite by surprise, winter will show you a bit of breathtaking beauty. This morning I walked over to the local post office to mail my tax forms. My usual February ritual. The last few days have been a bit warmer by day, but still below freezing at night. So all the snow melts just enough to freeze up and slicken most every walking surface by sunrise. I slipped and barely caught myself several times today, cursing all the more this dreaded winter season.

But just before I got home, I saw something on the sidewalk that struck me as a work of art. At first I thought that it was man-made, given that my town is brimming with artsy people who would somehow figure out how to etch a fancy pattern in the sidewalk just for the sake of it. But no, on closer look, whatever I saw was clearly made of ice on flat piece of slate.

So I went inside and got my camera and went back to find this impromptu bit of natural ice sculpture, half expecting that I wouldn’t find it as it was just an illusion that would quickly melt away. Sort of like that line in the Pink Floyd song, “I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now . . .” But no, surprisingly enough it was there in plain sight, just begging for a photo shoot. No one else was in the area, so I got down on my knees and took some shots.

Next is a detailed close-up shot, to help share my wonderment » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:18 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

◊ On Scapegoating the ‘Levantines’

Religion ... Society ...

I came across some interesting observations recently about organized religion and it alleged antagonism towards the ancient myth of the “hero’s journey”. These observations are contained in a book called “Seeking Truth, Living With Doubt” by Steven Fortney and Marshall Onellion; a collaboration between a Buddhist high school teacher and an agnostic condensed matter physicist. Somewhere in the middle of the book, chapter 7 to be exact, the authors discuss the relationship of the “individual’s heroic journey” to the institutions of science, art, mysticism and institutional religion. They review the ancient theme of the hero who leaves his home turf for a long-term road trip in search of truth, beauty and meaning; i.e. your basic Joseph Campbell stuff. The classic example of course is Homer’s Odyssey, but as Campbell points out, the hero’s journey is a theme that runs throughout the course of human history, showing up in many different ways in different civilizations, in different eras both modern and ancient.

These fellows feel that art, science and mystical spiritualities (Buddhism, most notably) are generally good things for human-kind. Not surprisingly, they portray these institutions as being mostly favorable and supportive of the individual’s journey. But as to organized religion . . . well, they basically find that religious institutions, especially the “Levantine faiths” (i.e. Christianity, Judaism and Islam), are responsible for most of the pig-headedness and closed-mindedness in the world, both yesterday, today and presumably tomorrow. So obviously the traditional religions are not open very receptive to someone, however inspired she or he might be, who goes off on his or her own in search of wisdom. According to Fortney and Onellion, the fathers of the church, temple and mosque stubbornly assert that they have a lock on wisdom, and thus any attempt to gain wisdom outside of their standard doctrines and teachings is dangerous and deluded, an infidelity and heresy.

Here’s a taste of what Fortney and Onellion have to say on this: “The Levantine faiths disavow the individual journey as » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 1:30 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

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