2010 Drought Killed a Lot of Amazon Rainforest Trees

New data gathering method found that 4% of the trees in severely drought affected areas of the Amazon rainforest died in a 2010 drought. That rate is 400% higher than normal. Global warming causing northern forests to warm up and let beetles breed year-round to infest and kill Canadian pine trees isn't the only problem that warmer temperatures cause for forests.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/widespread-devastation-found-in-.html?rss=1

Some scientists say this is a problem for forests in the next few decades rather than in the year 2100. Global warming has the potential to cascade ecosphere issues sooner than the U.S. Government might be prepared for.

Reduce Spending, Return to Clinton Tax Rates & Make a New Dept. of Global Warming Remediation

The U.S. Government ought to try to act like grown-ups more in the sense of being efficient, accountable and effective instead of not so much. Because global warming may become a grave national security threat a new Federal Department should be created to coordinate American response on-the-fly as a realistic way to deal with more forest fires, more drought, more dry Mississippi River channels, desertification of farmland, hurricanes, coastal flooding, population immigration emergencies and so forth.

The Department needn't have a large budget initially. It would do well to have a division of direct attack on global warming causality, one on economic innovation and transition as environmental conditions change, and one to modify the environment directly within an increasingly hot world.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/08/us-usa-stormsandy-aids-idUSBRE8B61AH20121208 President Obama wants $60 billion for storm repairs

That last department would seek to reinforce wild habitat and to create new forms to continue viable agricultural habitat including large scale desalinization of sea water and replanting of areas that have lost their traditional ecospheric compliment of flora and fauna because of climate change.

In the meanwhile balancing the federal budget post-hast with budget cuts where possible and letting the tax schedules return to a responsible level such as existed during the Clinton era in order to run a surplus and pay off the federal debt soon saving a trillion in interest annually in the process should be done. Of course Rush Limbaugh is only for tax cuts and seems to believe that global warming is a hoax. Oh well, he now and then has some fair opinions on other topics.

The Foundational Questions Institute and Points of Cosmology and Philosophy

The December 2012 issue of scientific American has an informative article on the work and essays sponsored by the Foundational Questions Institute. http://www.fqxi.org/

David Tong-a theoretical physicist-wrote an article on the topic of the quanta of the smallest scale as digital or continuous. That's a philosophically interesting topic. Foundational questions have been philosophically pursued since people were able to think. 

Today one wonders not only about mass, but about dimensions and the philosophy of dimensions. Is their are an infinite number. If their is just one source hyper-dimension comparable to a Higgs field is that hyper-dimension infinitely divisible, or how dimensions connect together? How can one dimension be anything besides a dot singularity of infinitely small size? If a dimension fails to expand tied into some field does it remain at a particular one-dimensional size? How would anything with one dimension have direction or size?

Physicists theoretically study mass with math constructs such as appear in 'Calibi-Yau eleven dimensional space' etc.in order to design structures that would account for the mass order and quantum physical structures supporting the observable universe yet that seems an arbitrary and phenomenal selection of dimensions.

A friend of Albert Einstein named Paul Ehrenfrest explained why mass could appear stable and coherent in just three dimensions of space. There seems to be an infinite potential to consider the metaphysics that are possible beyond the physics of the phenomenal Universe (1).

2012 London Chess Classic Moves to Round Six

The 2012 London Chess Classic completed five rounds (there are nine) with many of the best players in the world including the all-time (so far) woman's chess champ Judit Polgar competing for the top prize.

http://www.londonchessclassic.com/classic.standings.htm

There are several top chess competitions each year including blitz matches of as few as five minutes (or watch good players at chess.com battle in three minute matches) and up. Top-ranked Magnus Carlsen is leading so far with Vladimir Kramnik in second and the American Hikaru Nakamura in third. Nakamura defeated the second ranked player in the world Levon Aronian in the first round with and interesting and stifling defense. He has been said to have worked with former world chess champion Garry Kasparov recently and maybe that improved his game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r

Viswanathan Anand of India is also in the running. He won a world chess title this year and is from India where the game was invented. For those that are a little bit far away from playing football yet enjoy following sport standings in the abstract the game of chess is fun to watch. With a little investment of time YouTube chess videos and play at chess.com (free)one can learn chess well enough to understand even simple opening of the Magnus Carlsen variation of the Magnus Smith trap in reply to the Sicilian Defense and the Fisher variation too. 

Fiscal Cliff Zombies Walk the Green Mile

President Obama fresh from a 'We didn't build that' comment on a drone Iran captured (or built themselves) had time to comment on the Republican Existential Greed Party plan to fairly extend and enhance tax cuts for the wealthy in order to help concentrate wealth and let jobs trickle down to China, India and Mexico while accelerating global warming greenhouse gassing in effect  said of the Republoft plan, 'Drop dead'.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323501404578161162667441912.html

Speaker Boehner in the avant guard wing of the Republican Party entertaining ideas of letting millions of Mexican workers flood the nation to help create jobs for Mexicans and votes for Republicans-Republican strategists are sure that poor Mexicans will be grateful to Republicans for letting them in and will vote to concentrate wealth for millionaires and billionaires) said in effect 'Drop Dead' to the President's plan for avoiding the fiscal cliff by letting the rich pay Clinton era tax rates.

The default plan to let the dread Clinton era tax rates return seems nearly unavoidable now as the respective plans appear to be dead men walking. We find this rather interesting. As the only political party in history to have used a nuclear weapon in war, the Democrat Party is not reluctant to go off the deep end.

 image credit White House.gov

China Increases CO2 Pollution to More Than 10 Billion Tons Annually-World Output Up 3.1

An article published Sunday in Nature Climate Change reports planetary CO2 emissions increased 2.6% in 2012 with China being the greatest polluter increasing its emissions to more than 10 billion tons while the U.S.A reduced its emissions yet is still second in rank at 5.9 billion tons. The trend of other countries such as China and Russia to increase their CO2 output along with the developing world presents a gloomy scenario for controlling global climate change and temperature increases. Scientists expect that the higher range of temperature increase scenarios will develop rather than the moderate.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/02/us-climate-emissions-idUSBRE8B10AT20121202

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html

Inn 2011 global carbon dioxide releases increased by 3.1%. Without strident and ecospherically correct U.S. economic leadership toward low-entropy, low carbon production methodical transformation of production infrastructure the Lovelock prophecy of planetary population crash with desertification by emerge one day in the distant future a hundred years or two.

Atheist Acts Against Christians & A Clarification of Relevant Civil Rights Act Elements in Set Theory

A Pennsylvania restaurant named Prudhomme's Lost Cajun Kitchen provided a 10% menu discount to Christians bring in a Church bulletin on Sundays. It's a reasonably way to attract business yet charges were filed by the state after a complaint from an atheist. Recently the decision was found in favor of the complainant.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/john-wolff-lost-cajun-kitchen-discount-churchgoers_n_1661439.html

Following is my opinion about such terms of the civil rights act precluding discrimination.

The issue is simple and can be expressed in set theory terms;

.The Civil right's acts enumerated elements that one may not use as a basis for discrimination (such as discrimination race, color, religion, or national origin) can be regard for-themselves as Universals A, B, C & D. One may not form a set using A, B, C or D as the basis for discrimination positively or negatively. That is, one cannot exclude Christian or others of faith, require them to sit at the back of the bus while non-Christians ride up front an so forth.

The set of elements one uses for offering specials on goods and services may include A, B, C, and D yet not exclude any. If one offers special rates to A, B, C, or D it need must be free to all members of the set. Probably A, B,C, & D must remain universals for themselves in any particular set and cannot be reduced to particulars of the universals A, B, C, or D.

It's alright to form a set to provide special access to goods and services if that set does not include the Universals A, B, C or D in it as test condition disjunctives.

The court probably failed to clarify what valid elements are that can be used to form a set for special business benefits and that didn't help at all, and may have fired up some godless atheists to expand their anti-Christian acts.

The restaurant owner could offer a 20% discount to anyone bringing in a bulletin from a Sunday meeting perhaps, as any organization can meet on a Sunday without violating the Set C.R.A. The restaurant owner probably would like the business of N.A.S.C.A.R. Sunday patrons with a program that showed they attended yet of course he might dispute that they were members of an organization.

If the civil rights act was the basis for a court discrimination against a restaurateur's 10% discount to those with Church bulletins it indicates the court's failure to clarify the range of applicability of relevant civil rights law. Those willing to attract business with sales discounts need plain criteria that will help bring in the maximum number of diners.

If the restaurant had offered a 10% discount to any organizational meeting on Sunday with a bulletin bearing the appropriate date it would have been plain discrimination on the basis of religion to exclude churches. One should be free to offer once-a-week discounts anytime including Sunday.

It was a remarkable change in the constitution of the U.S. body politick when a Sunday discount on veal cutlets, mash potatoes and gravy was prohibited while after abolition Sunday liquor sales blue laws. Atheists can booze and choose what football games to watch Sunday without worrying about paying more for Buffalo wings than Christians.

The intent of the law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of religion was perhaps written to ensure that Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Christian Scientists, Mormons and whatnot would not use sectarianism for housing and job discrimination. It can be wrongly applied when too broadly extended such that it prohibits religious organizations from enjoying equal opportunity with other organizations to receive benefits of a general non-religious based class discount. If private schools can receive research grants then so ought Christian schools.

Some atheists might yet be aghast at the concept that anyone should provide discounts to organizations meeting 'to better the spiritual well-being of mankind'' on Sundays. It might be that atheists feel they contribute nothing to better the human spirit and feel excluded on a religious basis with atheism on the dark side of the spiritual force. Plainly the language used in offering restaurant discounts must constructed carefully in an appetizing way.

Melt from Greenland & Antarctica Increases World Sea Level .95 mm Annually

Scientists found that Greenland and Antarctica's ice sheets are melting (Greenland at a faster pace) and contributing to the rise in sea level. The rate of increase has risen several hundred percent since 1992. There should be a carbon tax and passage of tax credits for alternative energy.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/news/grace20121129.html

Long ago Canada's Banks Island had foot-thick trees growing on it according to petrified wood discoveries. It appears that fossil fuels and cars are driving the world further in that direction with mid-west drought along the way.

The Obama administration will spend another 120 million on cheaper electric battery development though that hasn't worked before when the government spent 2 billion. Passing tax credit legislation for a decade might be a better way to go.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-launches-new-project-to-develop

Obamacare Will Inflate Public Cost of AIDS by Trillions

With medical costs at 400,000 dollars per AIDS patient over a lifetime the homosexual lifestyle bites hard on public budgeting. Obamacare's 'compassionate liberalism' approach to medicine will cost the public trillions unnecessarily at that cost will transfer wealth from the middle class to the powers of concentrated wealth. It would be far less costly to simply expand the V.A. hospital system to include the poor. AIDS patients could be given free AIDS drugs and medical treatment without transferring that cost to private insurers who in turn transfer the cost to the public paying taxes.

The C.D.C. presently estimates the number of people with AIDS in the U.S.A. at about one million and one hundred fifty thousand. That number multiplied by 400,000 dollars is about a half a trillion bucks, and of course there are another 12,000 individuals contracting the disease each new year. It gets to be real money.
Some public illnesses such as HIV are too epidemic and lasting to treat as usual medical phenomena financially. Transferring coverage for AIDS to insurers by force of law as a pre-existing condition probably will cost trillions when generic drugs and government incentives to provide low cost AIDS treatment to pharmaceutical companies could drive the cost way down-and should.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm

U.S. veterans already have a vast and epidemic number of head injuries and P.T.S.D. psych treatments as well as Gulf War disease and a host of other problems that could use a better V.A. hospital system and of course a substantial public hospital system would be a good way to treat large numbers of biological or radiological casualties some day if that ever occurs. It is better to be prepared and with a balanced budget than to be on vacation when disaster strikes.

Another D.O.D. Spending Reform Scenario

The President as the executive chooses to order troops here or there for 90 days (War Powers Act) before requiring Congressional approval (if they actually took their responsibility seriously) and the Department of Defense deploys them.

The D.O.D. should train the Army and Marines to fight a large conventional war (with the new unconventional, emergent weapons systems included) instead of anti-terrorist cell operations. Anti-terrorism wars tasking should fall to S.F. Black Ops in the 50,000 man rapid deployment S.F. BOP for efficiency. A conventional Army or Marines is rather a large target for-itself and attacked as a sitting duck in financially assymetric warfare thereby harming the United States with great cost effectiveness.

Obviously with American reliance on foreign fossil fuels the Bin Ladens of the world have ample spare change to finance terrorist ops now and then to which the states leadership responds with speeches and multi-trillion dollar troop deployments that are as effective as a snowball in hell at making permanent social transformations stop nurturing  terrorism.

The United States cannot become a colonial power enacting the mistakes of the past especially as a temporal occupier. That direction is an egregious historical error and ought to be avoided. The military is no substitute for intelligent civil economic leadership and a good society that others want to emulate. A blunt instrument does not raise I.Q. even if it obliterates some opposition.

Much effort to transform society for the good should be found in global ecospheric restoration concurrent with full employment and enhanced well-being of all American citizens.

Anti-safe haven interdiction efforts can be accomplished with surveillance droids on ground and air with some being as small as a mosquito along with aerial weapons delivery packages. If the governments themselves are corrupt the U.S. cannot simply send a conventional military to do nation makeovers and it ought not conduct aggressive war upon governments it does not regard as 'democratic' because they don't want to have a Wal-Mart society.

Contemporary U.S. politics are largely designed to concentrate wealth with real support from both parties and the is media owned by the rich even if they own both the left and the right broadcasters. The displacing political power of the media means that thousands of individuals never rise to run by acclaim from local radio podcast-broadcasters reaching consensus. That situation presents not even a semblance of democratic, popular nomination or selection of qualified citizens in the Presidential campaigns.

'Lots of Money' can be spent very quickly by the congress and war excuses for dubiously necessary contests are a modern leverage tool for redistribution of wealth to the rich from all taxpayers. Eisenhower warned in his Farewell Address about the 'military-industrial complex'. The economist Lester Thurow described the military-industrial 'maintennance economy' pattern in a (1999?) book-The G.W. Bush administration embodied that non-creative political modus vivendi.

 A profligacy in spending and perennial foreign wars have defeated more than one civilization or nation. Incompetent and corrupt national leadership that fails to develop its economy in an ecospherically useful way as well as its social environment moves toward being an obstruction to democracy, human survival on Earth and Toynbean fin de sicle status.

One wants to have constructive civil rather than military engagement with adverse foreign powers, lend support to regimes experiencing subversive  anti-freedom rebellion movements and develop an excellent and consolidated intelligence gathering capability that would locate actual terrorist dangers to the security of then people of the United States in addition to the problem of egregious deficit spending.

Altruism doesn't require payment-that's why its altruism. Those fighting for their own interests (themselves, profit motive, family, global powers of concentrated wealth, NPR etc) should be paid moderately in a Democratic society. Their pay should be consistent with the best interests of the society. I met a medal of honor winner from EL Campo Texas that was a Green Beret that didn't get paid a lot ('Sgt. Benevidez had a glorious day'). He returned his medal to the Congress because of the way they treat the poor. The late Sgt. Benevidez was a humble auto mechanic-small business auto garage owner.

One cannot purchase freedom from hostile foreign or domestic powers without in effect paying tribute to the victors. A people that requires military substitutes for themselves is one in decline. In the Spanish American war there were far too many volunteers to accept into the Army. In the Vietnam war the Army volunteers that enlisted inn the 1950s fought very well until discharge about 1966 and at low cost. The draft Army didn't do too badly either considering and they weren't paid much either. Before the Bush administration a private e-1 might get just a few hundred dollars a month-and that's an acceptable cost for the nation to shoulder on a longer-term basis.

A permanent high cost military where a 'combat' soldier e-1 on some sort of foreign occupation is paid about 24,000 annually isn't reasonably sustainable. It creates a culture of paying off a mercenary militia that is economically devastating.

My father was a four year world war two veteran that wasn't paid much like the other 20 million Americans that served in uniform from a national population of what-about 140 million? Military training before the end of the cold war in December 1990 when President Gorbachev withdrew 250,000 troops from East Germany during the Reagan years had pay still quite low. Reagan developed a potential military power rather than exploiting that power in protracted-ill-thought out and ineffective military contests of less than total war. That is still not a bad idea. One should put a firewall between special forces (S.F. BOP) rapid response units and escalation by the conventional military by separating the S.F. BOP into its own force. The conventional special forces such as the Seals and Rangers would remain as they are.

The planetary anti-terrorism war so far as the United States goes should be met by the intelligence community and specialized rather than conventional forces.

Congressional Vertigo at the Fiscal Cliff

Because it's there the U.S. government hasn't so far found a way to ford the fiscal cliff regardless of presentation as a vertical or horizontal challenge. A cliff viewed from below is a wall to climb while viewed from above it's the mouse in the elephant's tent. When the nation was on the way up it overcome challenges, and while a decadent establishment is on the top (establishments implicitly become supremist) it is paralyzed with fear of budget cutting vertigo.

The military cost in a personnel pay bloated era is a good example. It could easily use a 25% budget reduction and become more efficient. Since L.B.J. and Brown and Root developed a cozy relationship Texas and military contractors have profited from protracted, expensive foreign wars. In times past though the soldiers weren't paid much unlike today.

The Department of Defense should not deploy the Army or Marines to bizarre locales with dubious national interests. They should be reduced in size and train to fight one large conventional war against China in a decade or two, as they are the realistically single substantial possible general war foe. The United States cannot afford to splurge on a bloated military budget now when it isn't necessary and be broke and incapable of fighting in the future when it may be necessary.

Money diverted from development of the U.S. economy and scientific research to pay for an overpaid military and legions of military contractors weakens the United States in its global economic competition and status. Since so many of the establishment (implicitly supremist) have deemed the United States to be a declining economic power comparatively they seem unconcerned about wasting tax dollars on a presently badly deployed military instead of developing the U.S. economy toward a new era of global high efficiency, advanced tech ecospheric syntegrity with liberty and justice for all citizens.

The Marines should be reduced in size by 25%, as should the Army. The Air Force research budget should increase and the Navy should develop a next generation of ships able to survive the plethora of drone mach assault platforms below and above the surface. A new corps of special force fighters numbering 50,000 should be created as a rapid deployment force able to work anywhere globally needed very swiftly to relieve the oppressed such as they are until a U.N., African, Asian or other interim occupation force arrives for sedentary security.

The vertigo of the budget cutters at cutters seems to preclude the reorganization of anything so that it would increase efficiency. Soldiers can receive lower pay as they used to yet they deserve far better veterans health and hiring services after service. Obamacare should have expanded the V.A. hospital system and included all veterans as well as the poor of the nation for free, quality reliable service.

The poor have 50 state bureaucracies to go through for 'insurance' as they travel around the nation seeking work to deny they are have a domicile in Fargo, Houston or Anchorage where they might seasonally look for a job. Establishments are implicitly supremist and badly serve veterans not uncommonly after their active useful value date stamp term of service has expired.

Proportional tax incentives should be created to employers to hire those without a job for the greatest length of time. Keeping people working and off relief will be necessary in the new economic era ahead. Keeping soldier out of protracted unnecessary troop deployments such as Afghanistan and Iraq will reduce public medical costs for generations as well as public payments to military contractors for luxury deserts and foods in restaurants former palaces of dictators. A little good intelligence is a leavening needed in political leadership to use a military effectively. Quality C.I.A. field operatives are one method of learning of terrorist planners from madrassas to laboratories. Like the chess pieces on a board politicians have the choice to use knights to play a good game or for cracking nuts.

The chiaroscuro political landscape of the nation in a twilight era of alleged decline suffused with a thousand points of starlight and more receding to the beginning of light in the Universe presents the paradox of sweet and sour pork politics, unused rice dishes of invention and hopes for a new ecospheric renewal economic foundation with low entropy, conservation of endangered species, wild habitat and full employment without global warming.

Plainly the Congress is not up to the challenge of fording the fiscal cliff or of finding a way to overcome their own contentedness in material wealth and comfort, security and power. Legislating more of the same fiduciary input with clever legalistic tricks is the congressionally preferred method even if that way leads to more national comparative decline as if taking a stroll on moss covered boulders in rain and cold wind downhill was less difficult.

The uncompetitive broadcast media has saturated the nation with fantasy politics and fantasy economic reality. Chess at chess.com is competitive-the broadcast media is not. Like the Congress it is used to being a silly elite lecturing the public who are not peers of power in any way. That conditioning by the media is permitted by the congress that could reform it if they could reform anything positively and as during the Clinton era it just keeps getting dumber and dumber with concentrated wealth.

A nation or civilization on the rise finds new ways to overcome challenges that a contented society at the top does not. They may be concerned with standing tall and looking good while they crumble as social cookies baked by hostesses of the legendary past of which the recipe is lost. Tomorrow's economic leadership twits can bring a new message to the masses that a ford beyond the terrible cliff at the edge of the world has been found. Those visionaries work simply in faith to transcend the temporal challenges by ignoring them and hoping they go away, they work tirelessly to overcome the perennially emerging establishment of new supremacies in opposition to a healthy, recovering ecosphere, full employment and freedom of religion trusting that God will bring the end game on his own schedule. It is the role of the Congress to find ways to generate a balanced budget and full employment without public debt while the citizens wait on God and take care of the planet that is his footstool, as it were.

Hamas Attack on Israel & Egyptian President's Move Toward Authoritarianism Follows Obama Re-election

Such coincidences make me wonder a little about the under-the-surface motivations for the Muslim Brotherhood's season of organized power enhancement across the Middle East from Syria to Israel, Gaza and Egypt. I guess they might have believed that Mitt Romney would have taken a different stance on the issues than President Obama. N.P.R. reporters have called the Hamas missile attacks those of 'resistance fighters'. Romney might have closed down N.P.R. One can discern which way the cookies crumble even while they are standing tall.

http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.4465801/k.972/Timeline_Terror_Attacks_by_Hamas_Since_Israel8217s_Gaza_Withdrawal.htm

http://www.idfblog.com/facts-figures/rocket-attacks-toward-israel/

Hamas has increased its rocket range to reach most densely populated regions of Israel. With the open border between Gaza and Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood took over the security situation has become more complex for Israel. Not only is Iran a potential nuclear threat-so is Hamas in then future with short hop suitcase nuclear package launched from Gaza to air burst at a thousand feet or so over Tel Aviv if Pakistan, Iran or Korea convey such a device clandestinely to the wicked ones.

One might argue that Israel can't look to the U.S.A. for much help since from some perspectives Republican and Democrat Parties are parties of death. The Democrat party support abortion and partial birth infanticide and the error of homosexual 'marriage' in disregard of biological realism while the Republican Party supports the death of all life on Earth through global warming and species extirpation in their blind quest for concentration of wealth. So both parties are under the authority a little, of Satan.

Yet Satan is inherent in original sin of us all and only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ might humanity be washed and freed from the ignorance of Washington D.C. political elites. Unfortunately there is not a priesthood of believers ecclesiastical structure preponderantly for Christians (and paradoxically the Muslims are closer to that) so most churches resemble a shadow of the commercial and feudal business model that serves commercial priesthoods and their families. That conflict of interest means the non-development of a Christian church that works for all equally well in America.

Israel is then in a tough spot today with a Muslim Brotherhood leader and President of Egypt Morsi taking steps toward theocracy a day or two ago. He is now called 'Pharaoh' by many.Pharaoh will be able to better supply the Gaza strip (the Obama administration must like that name a lot) and informally bring it into the Egyptian annexed status useful for generating a sustainable low level conflict of attrition against Israel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/23/egypt-mohamed-morsi_n_2176978.html?utm_hp_ref=world

Recently I started reading Reston's book 'Defenders of the Faith' about a time in the 16th century when Suleyman the Magnificent and Charles V eyed down one another over the future of Europe. One wonder today if the future of environmentalism and of morality too may not be wrapped up in an equally significant struggle for the Israelites to survive against overwhelming demographics (I think they can). The lawyer President Obama seems to approach political leadership in a reactive lawful way rather than materially inventive son the quantitative easing of macro-social economic and social issues isn't likely to develop through innovation.

It isn't easy to find an inventor President obviously, one could write a book on Reagan & Roosevelt and why they were successful macro-social changers of the way things were and probably all it would accomplish would be to create even more support for dogmatic followers of the way it was already done. One must be cautious about using the idea of change though, for the present Democrat party that seems to mean to make everything as queer as possible and little else. The lawyerly way of following the decadent upper class concerned with getting more wealth on earth concentrated and flooding the U.S.A. with cheap labor that won't vote for them in thanks for letting them in to the U.S.A. to keep wages done for poor citizens isn't going to invent new political reforms of material evolution.

I wish I could find something to be optimistic about in this post. I guess it is that God is good-so that goodness exists even while people are stupid as sin politically speaking.

LUX Dark Matter Detector in S. Dakota Gold Mine May Open February 2013

A new detector of dark matter built deep in a South Dakota Gold mine may go active in February of 2013 since it's construction is done. No one knows what dark matter is though-it could be brown dwarf stars and planets with heavy elements made from baryonic matter and if so those probably won't show up.

http://phys.org/news/2012-11-dark-detector-nearing-sd.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/dark-matter-insights.html

The Large Underground Xenon experiment (LUX) may show the scintillation of incoming gamma rays in liquid xenon gas surrounded by a water shield. The tank in the Gold mine then would show neutrons and weakly interacting massive particles (W.I.M.P.S.) as a secondary product  if WIMPS exist and are the strong bulk of mass.

http://lux.brown.edu/experiment.html

 A number of specially engineered particle detectors have been used for neutrino observatories. neutrinos are difficult to detect because they are nearly without mass and pass right through the Earth and people living on it only rarely colliding with other subatomic particles. The Icecube Neutrino Observatory is located a mile below the surface of Antarctica.


image credit: Danielle Veevea national Science Foundation & Jamie Yang N.S.F.


http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/


image credit: NASA/STSci/Ann Feild 

The mass of the Universe that is visible is believed to account for just 5% the stuff of the Universe with missing 'dark' matter being another 25% and dark energy being the remainder at 70%. Matter and energy are convertible one recalls as Einstein's formula E=MC2 shows.
It is possible that dark matter in such quantity may not exist, and instead, quantum probability entanglements may 'warp' space conformably to criteria of General Relativity.

Unemployment Increases Risk of Heart Attack-Dopers Lght Up in Colorado and Washington

The BBC ran a story reporting that for people in the 50s and 60s unemployment, redundancy and stress increase heart attack risk 25% and up. That isn't a very controversial observation tough-reasonable people are aware of the link between poverty and health insult.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20391529

Perhaps that's a reason why voters in Washington and Colorado amongst other states voted to legalize marijuana -to reduce stress without the physical consequences of alcohol. One can imagine that with raving radio broadcasting lunatic empiricism these days as if even economics and environment were existential phenomenalities one should ignore the option of the electorate to commute to work smoking reefer and arriving in a cloud of blue smoke would cut down on road rage even if they still want a Thomson sub machine gun between the bucket seats just in case.

 http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/colorado-washington-states-legalize-recreational-marijuana/story?id=17652774#.UKvnc2fAu1e

If the broadcast spectrum were reallocated from control by corrupt, prosperous elites that are globalists and government indoctrinating the body politic to a non-democratic form of realpolitik the electorate could have their own podcast-rebroadcast locally opportunities to decide their own political organization and interests letting thousands of political philosophical opinions bloom locally as it should.

That's a better way to go then for the citizenry to just inhale their own soma and to be dopers acquiescent in the idiot control of elites.

Taxing Carbon to Bridge the Fiscal Cliff

There is a good argument for making a carbon tax to help bridge the fiscal cliff. That Bailey Bridge over the January 2nd 2013 chasm could be made with help of a $20 per ton carbon tax that would raise $1.5 trillion over a decade.

At some point energy producers must be made to stand on their own two or more corporate feet and stop dumping carbon into the world atmosphere as if it were a trash bin for greenhouse gases. It is remarkable how little oxygen is in the atmosphere presently -just 20% with nitrogen being the majority at 78%. Carbon dioxide is a fraction of 1% and human dumping of far more than is natural evidently has a substantially adverse effect raising the planetary atmospheric temperature.

Carbon dioxide comprises 0.039445% of the gas of the atmosphere. That is 394.45 parts per million of the volume. If that p.p.m.v. goes to 500. has substantially more effect on atmospheric temperature increase. The oil and gas fossil fuel industry needs to stand up and become accountable for their product's effect on the world's breathable atmosphere and temperature as the Tobacco industry did with some encouragement decades ago. With some support they can take their first steps along the beach of change toward a brighter tomorrow.

Here is the article in Nature on the Carbon tax:

 http://www.nature.com/news/america-s-carbon-compromise-1.11793#mce_temp_url#

Twinkies Bite the Dust

The collapse of Hostess producer of Twinkies and Ho Ho's brings the loss of thousands of jobs and a silent spring without Twinkies. What will the world be like in the New World Order without the wholesome Hostess?

Twinkies were part of the American way of life along with Dr. Pepper Dr. Strangelove, torpedoes that ran straight, hot and true and The Green Monster. Experiencing terrible competition and probably cheap imposter Twinkies made in sweatshops across the border saturating the market, Twinkies and Ho Ho's also faced the unwillingness on its Union Bakers to labor at a lower wage. Extended unemployment benefits may be available of course, and the bakers have the secret of making Twinkies at home to satisfy themselves and their families.

A world without Twinkies may be more politically unstable as workers must pack their lunches without the confidence that they have something good even if the sandwich is plain baloney. Some of the dollar stores and supermarkets have entire sections of pseudo Twinkies in myriad flavors, sizes and color combinations-yet designer pseudo Twinkies haven't the allegiance the champion sponge cake of the 1960s did.

Renter's Amnesty & The Evolution of Capitalist Political Philosophy

Capitalism is supposed to be responsive to supply and demand; an essential premise for the moral good of capitalism is that it best serves the people's interests. Capitalism is not simply intended to be a reflection of the blind forces of  natural evolution for-itself. It was intended by Adam Smith to represent the best way that free citizens of his day could enhance their economic well being. Free trade and capitalism were two sides of the same coin of individual enterprise.

The advantages of free trade internationally were largely those of the British in the late 18th century. Britain was not flooded with cheap Chinese products designed in America. Neither was Britain a land where an ossified petrol fueled transportation infrastructure was overheating the atmosphere with carbon dioxide greenhouse gassing, and it had yet to experience a housing Bubble made with cheap Mexican migrant (often illegal) labor workers putting up pre-fab mini-mansions financed with globally traded mortgage tranched and supported through derivatives. The complexity of an evolutionary approach to capitalism as a phenomenal economic for-itself may outpace rational supply and demand. Consumers may have their demands made for them by the demands of producers of finance packages for cheap, quick and dirty profit leaving unaccountable debt.

The housing Bubble that burst in 2007-8 created a recession that was badly managed by the Bush II and Obama administrations. Little reform developed to change Wall Street procedures. Many of those that profited by creating a housing bubble that collapsed leaving ordinary buyers 'under-the-water' on deflated home value vs home mortgage balance were able to buy up homes at distressed sales prices. Much of the recovery of the U.S. housing market the past year was a result of large purchases of empty homes by concentrated wealth that needs to find renters to fill their homes.

The empty homes may be filled by millions of newly eligible renters and home buyers given legal status through an amnesty program of Senators Graham and Schumer. It does make sense that the ending of Glass-Steagle and home mortgage security for Americans would result in a housing bubble, collapse, acquisition of billions of dollars worth of distressed or lost homes by investors with foreign and/or concentrated wealth followed by an illegal alien amnesty bill to place Mexican renters in the empty  homes Americans lost their shirts trying to buy.

Along with the silliness about an Alaska-Canada gas pipeline and the tar sands Keystones pipeline across environmentally sensitive areas when their are adds boasting that the U.S.A. will surpass Saudi Arabia in oil production because of fracting the housing market bubble and 'This land is Mexican, this land is made for Mexico' singing of the U.S. Government (regarding casual labor along the sun belt) then Obama administration seems to be less than a game changer on U.S. economic development policy. One can hardly wait to see where it goes in the years ahead.

Given the right incentives and criteria for developing a different fuel and transport approach from the energy and transport spectrum capitalism is supposed to serve democratic supply and demand intelligently. With the right governance it ought to be possible to move the center of economic investment effort into environmentally benign transport and energy modes without cramping the economic liberty of any citizen. The Congress ought to start by extending the alternative energy tax credit for a decade this Presidential term, and then work on ending the oil depletion allowance.