Thursday, December 15, 2011
Outer Space ... Politics ...
So, Newt Gingrich is drawing fire for his vision of setting up a lunar base, presumably sometime during the 8 years that he would be President. This lunar base would mine some stuff on the moon for use here on earth (i.e., before 2020). Well, I give Mr. Gingrich credit for thinking big, thinking really high tech. But something about the reality of science, technology and economics often seems to get in the way of those “high frontier” dreams about manned space exploration. Right now, the USA is pretty much out of that business. We just can’t afford it at the moment, and the economy won’t be booming again for quite some time. That mountain of debt that we and the Europeans face won’t go away any time soon.
But if things do somehow turn around in the next 5 years, it would not be impossible for the USA to work toward a return to the moon, with the eventual goal of setting up some sort of small colony for longer-term habitation. Actually, this will probably come off as an international partnership between China, India, Russia and us, assuming that we can all learn to get along well enough to pull off something so complex.
As such, Newt’s dream of a lunar colony really isn’t any more radical than G W Bush’s goal of returning to the moon by the third decade of the new century. It’s just that » continue reading …
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Economics/Business ... Politics ...
I like charts. So I’d like to share a good one that I saw recently regarding world crude oil output. It was part of an interesting and somewhat troubling article on Mr. Gregor’s web site about energy production and standards of living. Here’s my update of his chart, which adds oil prices for comparison purposes (Brent futures in $ per barrel as the green line, use right hand scale on chart).
Mr. Gregor’s bottom line is that energy is the key input — and the key limitation — to how well industrial economies do. Therefore, its ups and downs have observable impacts on the overall wealth and quality of life in these economies. And the USA is a sitting-duck economy as far as energy is concerned. The only thing that has absorbed some of the shock, both here and in Europe, has been the massive amount of government borrowing that has transpired. But that game seems to be just about over. The sovereign debt chickens are coming home to roost in Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland . . . and are not far out from the American shores.
For better or worse, the industrial nations still depend upon oil. There are alternatives including natural gas, nuclear, coal, wind, solar, and other ‘green energy’ sources. But they are all limited » continue reading …
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Philosophy ... Spirituality ...
What’s in a name? We all have names – hi, I’m Jim. There’s more to my name than that, but for starters, call me Ishmael . . . eh, Jim, that is. (Admittedly I’m out of my element when discussing classic authors like Melville.) So names are important. But just what are they, and why do we have them?
Those questions don’t seem all that tough – – unless you want them to be. If you pursue the more difficult issues raised by such questions, you will eventually reach one of those show-stopping queries from philosophy, i.e., just who and what are we, once our names are taken away? This is all Zen stuff, but I like Zen stuff, so let’s follow this a bit further if you don’t mind.
Names. They are necessary for social living, and human survival requires living social. We are hard-wired as a social species, although we’re not “eusocial” like ants and » continue reading …
Monday, December 5, 2011
Current Affairs ... Foreign Relations/World Affairs ...
My ethnic heritage is Polish, very Polish. Three of my grandparents were born and raised there, and the fourth lived there after growing up in White Russia (Belarus). So I don’t exactly enjoy Polish jokes.
But I must admit that sometimes my motherland culture deserves their reputation. Especially when the issue involves tolerance for those who are different. I mean, when you are the butt of derogatory jokes, you might try to be a little more sensitive about the evils of looking down on other groups. But Poles are famous for their intolerance, especially with regard to Jews.
I had hoped that Poland had been purified from anti-Sematism through its experiences with the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s (not to mention » continue reading …
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Health / Nutrition ... Public Policy ...
I previously wrote in favor of using vouchers as a means of reforming the increasingly dysfunctional and economically threatened health care system in America. I feel that a federal voucher system could be fashioned in a way that meets both Republican and Democratic concerns. I.e., employer-provided health insurance would be abolished. Taxpayers (especially corporate taxpayers and rich taxpayers) would instead pay into a pool used to provide an annual voucher to every American, good for so many dollars worth of health care insurance each year (health care spending is presently around $8,000 per person). The annual voucher could be adjusted so that rich people get smaller vouchers and the poor and working class get bigger ones (i.e., worth more $$). This would allow insurers to compete in an open market for voucher customers. The federal government would regulate this competition so as to discourage “creaming”, i.e. trying to attract only young and healthy participants. The government would also require that every policy meets some minimum standard of benefits (e.g., it can’t be a bare-bones “big emergency only” policy).
I’m not the only one that believes that a voucher-based system is the best (although certainly far from a perfect) way to deal with the health care crisis. A recent article by economist Robert Samuelson mapped out the current economic and political dimensions of the crisis. Samuelson came to the same conclusion – vouchers are the best way to get a handle on this distressing situation.
I fully anticipate (along with Samuelson) that such a system would change the nature of health care » continue reading …
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Politics ...
Quick political note here — on why Obama may be in for an uphill battle in his bid to get re-elected. I was listening tonight to the Voice of Russia in America radio station during my drive home from work, and a young fellow named Sam Arrero was talking. Mr. Arrero is a VofRA “capitol correspondent” based in Washington DC, and was discussing with another VofRA announcer the kick-off of Obama’s election campaign. Mr. Arrero noted that he had been a very active volunteer for the Obama campaign in 2008, and said that he “might volunteer again” in 2012.
Might. A hint of ambivalence about Obama on the part of America’s educated youth. Not a good sign for the President, who depended so heavily on youth enthusiasm in 2008.
Also, there’s an interesting cover story in New York Mag about the Occupy movement [originally ‘Occupy Wall Street’, now morphing into ‘Occupy The World’] and what it could mean for Obama » continue reading …
Monday, November 28, 2011
Personal Reflections ... Photo ...
I went up to Ringwood State Park on Saturday for my annual autumn hike. The weather was nice and I had a pretty good day, although my “trail sense” is not what it used to be. I had trouble following one trail (it wasn’t really marked all that well in certain spots) and wound up reversing direction and unintentionally backtracking, more than once. In each instance, I eventually recognized something I had passed previously and knew enough to turn around.
(I also brought a deer tick home, but managed to spot the little sucker before he could dig his way into my hide and transmit a nasty dose of Lyme Disease. Hope that none of his friends tagged along too.)
Being a student of Zen, I would like to turn my hikes into highly spiritual experiences. But they almost never wind up that way. Instead, » continue reading …
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Current Affairs ... Foreign Relations/World Affairs ...
The recent failure of the Congressional “Super Committee” to fulfill its mission of mapping out a future fiscal budgeting course for the USA so as to avoid the kind of sovereign debt crisis that is now bringing Europe to its knees is rather discouraging. At the same time, our seemingly productive economy is sputtering; but even when running well it increasingly fails to distribute its benefits fairly between rich and poor. This all hints, to me anyway, that the American Constitutional model of representative democracy along with our tradition of economic freedom is breaking down; it just isn’t working anymore despite its great success over the past two centuries.
Representational democracy and free markets were never a pretty things to watch, but when the chips were down and America was threatened, the major political parties and corporate leaders always put their immediate partisan interests aside to find solutions to a big threat. Well, there was one major exception – regarding the issue of slavery. Economic and social divisions were pushed to the point of rupture by that one; a block of states seceded, and it took a long and terribly bloody war followed by years of political strife to settle the question. But during the two major world wars and the long cold war that followed them in the 20th Century, the Democrats and Republicans became fairly skilled at finding just enough ground for consensus to protect the nation.
But today, amidst growing premonitions of future economic mayhem, the Democrats and Republicans have decided to stick by their guns » continue reading …
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Photo ...
You may not find much natural beauty in these shots taken out in the Hackensack River meadowlands in Bergen County, NJ. But unless you charge your laptop battery solely on solar or with a bicycle-powered dynamo, this stuff is necessary for you to see pics like this . . . and all the rest of the curious and sundry items existing for your inspection on the big World Wide Web.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Politics ...
A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts about the rise of Rick Perry as a Republican Presidential candidate. I called him “Hurricane Perry”, given the force and bluster by which he came on. I said that Perry seems to have a real chance to do to Romney and the GOP this year what Barack Obama did back in 2007-2008 to Hilary Clinton and the Demorcrats.
It turns out that I was prophetic about Perry, but only in the ultimately prophetic sense. At bottom I was wrong; Rick Perry was not the man to upset the Republican apple cart. But consider the metaphor that I used — Perry like a hurricane. It seemed right at the time. And looking back, it seems even righter.
A hurricane is a temperature and moisture disturbance in the atmosphere that starts out in the Atlantic over equatorial waters, gains its own life as a cyclone of wind and precipitation, » continue reading …
