You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Howard Zinn was a hero to me. Wise, nuanced and above all else, ethical, Zinn wrote history the way it should be written, unvarnished, accurate and from a point of view imbued with a sense of fairness and justice I have never seen in any other historian's writings. His People's History of the United States is a landmark piece, showing how the US was created from the perspective of the people who actually did the building, filled with prejudice, unenlightened self interest and stupidity while at the same time, showing that the nation created was valid and had real merit. The other quality Zinn had in abundance was the fact the man wrote like an angel.

"After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Zinn published a little piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled “Compassion, Not Vengeance.” Here is the last paragraph of the piece:"

“Our security can only come by using our national wealth, not for guns, planes, and bombs, but for the health and welfare of our people, and for people suffering in other countries. Our first thoughts should be not of vengeance, but of compassion, not of violence, but of healing.”

It doesn't get any better then that.

What the Supremes' Ruling Really Means

""The strength of America," Murray Hill Inc. said, "is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America's great corporations. We're saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?" Murray Hill Inc. added: "It's our democracy. We bought it, we paid for it, and we're going to keep it." Murray Hill Inc., a diversifying corporation in the Washington, D.C. area, has long held an interest in politics and sees corporate candidacy as an "emerging new market."

The campaign's "designated human," Eric Hensal, will help the corporation conform to "antiquated, human only" procedures and sign the necessary voter registration and candidacy paperwork. Hensal is excited by this new opportunity: "We want to get in on the ground floor of the democracy market before the whole store is bought by China." Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland's 8th Congressional District."

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” - George Orwell

The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

– Part II, Chapter IX — The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism

Chinese Water Torture for the Gullible

Boogie Board

Very cool tech. No batteries, no power needed, eliminates paper, $30. Awesome and I like the name as well. Boogie Board - Rock on big boy!

The Loss of Party

The impact of tech on politics cannot be denied in spite of the disastrous decision of the supremes regarding unfettered money flowing into the bloated carcass of American Politics. At long last, the long desired demise of the two party system in the US is happening because the net allows for finer grained political views than Democrat or Republican to be disseminated into the world at little or no cost, a result which causes strategists of both parties to lose sleep at night worrying about lost revenues and influence, a situation yours truly finds to be most beneficial in a political system mired in corruption and incompetence.

"A year after George W. Bush’s chopper swung away from the Capitol and disappeared from sight, voters seem to have put his presidency behind them; they’re no longer willing to blame Republicans alone for high unemployment and rising gas prices, for home foreclosures and tuition hikes. The crises that Bush bequeathed to Democrats have now officially become theirs, and the notion of a great liberal realignment seems as retro as Friendster. A string of Democratic lawmakers, largely from rural and contested states, the kind of places that were supposed to now be more hospitable to Democrats than they were before, recently decided to pursue other careers rather than risk being turned out by wrathful voters. Party leaders who had once hoped to expand their majorities in November are now showing signs of panic as they scramble to stave off the prospect of crippling losses.

Having stormed the Democratic garrison in Massachusetts, Republicans might find this turn of events amusing — if it weren’t for the fact that it has nothing to do with even a hint of a resurgence on their part. The entire story line seems awfully familiar. It was only five years ago that Karl Rove, praised in Washington as a clairvoyant, was predicting his own conservative realignment, premised on a near-biblical exodus from the Democratic Party: a decisive number of black, Latino and elderly voters, persuaded by Bush’s re-forms of Social Security and immigration, were going to abandon the Democrats and enable Republicans to rule Washington for decades to come. That hallelujah chorus lasted for the few months it took for a Republican-dominated Congress to scrap Bush’s second-term agenda, leading to one of the more astonishing political collapses in history. Historians of the last century will note that one party — the Democrats — solidly controlled Congress, with only passing interruptions, for more than six decades, through recessions and wars and other challenges. The Gingrich-Bush-era Republicans, by contrast, managed to hold onto power for only 12 years; should Democrats lose their majorities in 2012 or even 2014, let alone this year, they will have ruled Washington for even less time than that.

The lesson here for strategists in both parties isn’t simply that making self-aggrandizing predictions is a sure way to make yourself look silly (though that wouldn’t be a bad one to take away, either). It’s more that this entire concept of Rooseveltian realignment is a wishful conceit that should be retired. The realigning swing of the pendulum is almost certainly a relic of another age, never to be replicated, or at least not in our lifetimes. One reason is that politics in the television (and now Internet) age are less transactional and more ideological than they were in the long period between the Civil War and civil rights. The old question of what a party can do for you, through patronage or populist economics, has largely been eclipsed by the question of whether a party shares your convictions — about the role of government, the use of force, abortion and stem cells. It’s probably harder to build an enduring majority based on, say, gun rights than it was to do so by doling out local jobs.

Even more consequential, though, is the fast-growing swath of voters who can summon no affinity for either party. As in other aspects of modern American life, brand allegiance in politics is at an all-time low; more than a third of Americans (and more than half of all Massachusetts voters) identify themselves as independents rather than as members of the blue team or the red. The most prevalent ideology of the era seems to be not liberalism nor conservatism so much as anti-incumbency, a reflexive distrust of whoever has power and a constant rallying cry for systemic reform."

It's only a matter of time where the majority of people running for office will run as generic independents with viewpoints nuanced to real personal beliefs and not to party line, a trend seen by Brown winning as a "token" Republican yet did not utter that term on his acceptance speech. Hopefully this independent movement will make it more difficult for the monied interests to funnel cash into campaigns but I am not too sanguine about this desired effect as he who has the cash rules and the supremes made sure that edict is written in stone.

The Next Revolution

The rise of the tablet computer will change everything in terms of how we deal with content. Why? Because true portability and real compute power combined with ease of use and proper form factor will transform computing into a wireless 24/7 connect space of unprecedented pervasiveness. Prior to these devices, nothing truly portable and elegant has come out save that of the smart phone.

Netbooks "kinda" work but one still has to flip out a screen and then type or use a mouse/finger pad to use the device, something not as convenient as reading a book or newspaper while sitting on the john.

With a table, if done right, fingers, stylus, keyboard or multi touch, combined with a cool interface, will enable one to interact with the system with appropriate "softness" like reading a book. If done right, everyone will want one, something Apple wants to happen big time.

As a suggestion, click on The Computing Surface to see the BRT blurb on how I would like to interact with one of these bad boys.

Addendum: I'll pass on iPad Rev 1.0 at this point in time as it doesn't have what I think is needed for this platform to be truly disruptive. Rev 2.0 might be but one never knows do one. :(.

Addendum 2: Touchco (The Computing Surface) was bought by Amazon. The battle for tablets has just begun.

This Sentence is False

This sentence is false or the Liar's Paradox is apropos when considering the Supremes and the abdication of spending limits on campaigns, a decision which, on the face of it, states "Freedom of Speech" is reestablished while in reality, the voice of the people becomes moot. When looking at this egregious act of granting more power to the rich and connected as possible catalyst, one sees eerie parallels to the French Revolution whereby the monarchy could not and would not meet the needs of the bourgeois, the same situation our struggling middle class faces today as seen by recent actions of the banks, government, lobbyists and corporations.

As stated in prior posts, here are some viable reasons for possible violence:

1. The real depression is about to begin as we have no money, debt is going through the roof and the bear market boom, floated by tax payer money and doled out by Wall Street, is running out of steam.
   
2. Outrageous perks continue to be given to the banks even though they, in combination with government, created the crash in the first place (Rubin, Graham, Reagan, Bushes, Clinton & Obama along with Summers, Geithner & Paulson among significant others).
3. The Heath Care debacle whereby Congress enjoys single payer paid by us, for life along with salaries and perks for life (one term does the deed) while the US has none save that of Medicare (paid by us and rightfully so) for seniors.
   

When seen through the eyes of armed, foreclosed and jobless Joe Six Pack, who can no longer feed his family, the stage is set for violent anger to make it's ugly face known. Because of this, if I were a financial type living in Greenwich, CT or related environs, I would begin to pucker up a bit because the clock's ticking and something needs to be done to get this country moving again (Leadership from Obama would help, don't you think?) in the right direction before it's too late.

No Doubt Anymore

One of the most ancient and mysterious of creatures, the nautilus moves through the deep oceans with infinite patience and consummate slowness. Around for over 500 million years, this denizen of the deep, along with all other sea life, is now threatened by CO2, the gas produced in overabundance by man.

"Principal investigator Robert Byrne, a USF seawater physical chemistry professor, said the study leaves no doubt that growing CO2 levels in the atmosphere are exerting major impacts on the world’s oceans.

“If this happens in a piece of ocean as big as a whole ocean basin, then this is a global phenomenon,” Byrne said.

Adding carbon dioxide to seawater makes it more acidic, and each year the world’s oceans absorb about one-third of the atmospheric CO2 produced by human activities...

The results verify earlier model projections that the oceans are becoming more acidic because of the uptake of carbon dioxide released as a result of fossil fuel burning, said Richard Feely, a member of the research team and chief scientist of the cruise and NOAA researcher from the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

The implications for sea life and the world’s food web are serious, Byrne said. When seawater becomes more acidic, lower concentrations of carbonate result. Because the protective shells of sea organisms are made of calcium and carbonate, more acidic waters make it more difficult for many organisms to make their shells and thrive. .

Over the next millennium, the global oceans are expected to absorb approximately 90 percent of the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, says Christopher Sabine, chief scientist for the first leg of the cruise.

"It is now established from models that there is a strong possibility that dissolved carbon dioxide in the ocean surface will double over its pre-industrial value by the middle of this century, with accompanying surface ocean pH decreases that are greater than those experienced during the transition from ice ages to warm ages," Sabine said. "The uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide by the ocean changes the chemistry of the oceans and can potentially have significant impacts on the biological systems in the upper oceans."

“Estimates of future atmospheric and oceanic CO2 concentrations, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios and general circulation models, indicate that by the middle of this century atmospheric CO2 levels could reach more than 500 ppm, and near the end of the century they could be over 800 ppm. Current levels are near 390 ppm, and preindustrial levels were near 280 ppm," Feely said.

Corresponding models for the oceans indicate that surface water pH would drop approximately 0.4 pH units, and the carbonate ion concentration would decrease almost 50 percent by the end of the century. This surface ocean pH would be lower than it has been for more than 20 million years.

Byrne and many other scientists expect that even if substantial reductions are made in the pace at which humans produce carbon dioxide, ocean acidification will continue for hundreds of years to come. "

James Lovelock's' dire prediction looms.

Ignorance is NOT Bliss

"Knowledge is power" - Francis Bacon

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives: - James Madison

"When even one American-who has done nothing wrong-is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth-then all Americans are in peril" - Harry Truman

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed:" Ayn Rand - (1905-1982) Author - Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"

What's really interesting about these statements is the fact being informed is key to being free while being ignorant is key to being a serf no matter what philosophy one may admit to.

"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." - George Orwell

Limits of Knowledge

Just finished a terrific book about Alan Turing and Kurt Godel titled A Madman Dreams of Turning Machines by Janna Levin, a work, acting as catalyst, encourages one to think about computability, incompleteness and uncertainty, three concepts defined by Turing, Godel and Werner Heisenberg, which, in every way imaginable, has changed man's view of reality forever.

Alan Turing, the seminal genius who rightfully can be called the father of computing and Artificial Intelligence, articulated the premise of computability via the Universal Turing Machine, the predecessor to all things digital and AI.



Kurt Godel, the sly, paranoid logician, formally proved truth and provability forever reside in different domains...

"The proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is so simple, and so sneaky, that it is almost embarassing to relate. His basic procedure is as follows:

• Someone introduces Gödel to a UTM, a machine that is supposed to be a Universal Truth Machine, capable of correctly answering any question at all.
• Gödel asks for the program and the circuit design of the UTM. The program may be complicated, but it can only be finitely long. Call the program P(UTM) for Program of the Universal Truth Machine.
• Smiling a little, Gödel writes out the following sentence: "The machine constructed on the basis of the program P(UTM) will never say that this sentence is true." Call this sentence G for Gödel. Note that G is equivalent to: "UTM will never say G is true."
• Now Gödel laughs his high laugh and asks UTM whether G is true or not.
• If UTM says G is true, then "UTM will never say G is true" is false. If "UTM will never say G is true" is false, then G is false (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). So if UTM says G is true, then G is in fact false, and UTM has made a false statement. So UTM will never say that G is true, since UTM makes only true statements.
• We have established that UTM will never say G is true. So "UTM will never say G is true" is in fact a true statement. So G is true (since G = "UTM will never say G is true").
• "I know a truth that UTM can never utter," Gödel says. "I know that G is true. UTM is not truly universal."

As for Werner Heisenberg, his Uncertainty Principle proves that man's ability to truly see all aspects of reality will remain beyond his reach until the end of time.

"In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. This statement has been interpreted in two different ways. According to Heisenberg its meaning is that it is impossible to determine simultaneously both the position and velocity of an electron or any other particle with any great degree of accuracy or certainty."

"One must know one's limitations." - Dirty Harry