Two Watershed Events In Human History

Posted: 12/28/2014

Geography Or Climate As Destiny

At the end of 2014, two articles about history caught my attention. Both were dealing with momentous events in human history in which large bodies of water were involved. Both articles presented scientific evidence that these events took place in a way similar to how we learnt about them.

1. “The Science of the Red Sea's Parting/It is physically and scientifically possible for a body of water to part” (It is about Moses and the Red Sea)
2. “Geologic evidence supports historic accounts of the great "Kamikaze" of 1274 and 1281” (It’s about the two famous Kamikaze tsunamis that saved Japan from being invaded by China’s then ruling Mongols)

Just imagine these events had not taken place, i.e. the Red Sea did not part or the Kamikazes did not occur?

Eleanor Roosevelt Had A Hand Gun Carry Permit In New York State

Posted: 12/28/2014

Trigger

Just read “Eleanor Roosevelt Had a Carry Permit, So Why Can't You?”. Unfortunately, the article is moot on why Eleanor Roosevelt had such a permit and how she related to guns and their use. What did Eleanor Roosevelt think about the 2nd Amendment?

Pictures Say More Than 1,000 Words

Is this really Eleanor Roosevelt without Photoshop? (just kidding)

Who doctored this permit? (just kidding)

Movie Review: The Wolf Of Wall Street

Posted: 12/28/2014

Trigger

Just watched this movie of 2013 with Leonardo DiCaprio as main actor and Martin Scorsese as director. Usually, I do not write Hollywood movie reviews on my blog.

This movie did not win any Oscar, but it was nominated in several categories like best actor and best director. On the IMDB website it is rated as 8.3 on a scale of 10 by about 488,000 users as of 12/28/2014.

The real man behind this movie, Mr. Jordan Belfort, wrote a memoir on which this movie is based, but Wikipedia notes “The truthfulness of Belfort's book and the film is a controversial subject.”.

Review

This movie has a length of 180 minutes, this is about 90 minutes to long. This movie is so repetitive and shallow. It is close to being a soft porno. DiCaprio’s performance was excellent throughout the movie.

More disturbing are the over and over used cliches or stereotypes of stockbrokers or stock traders as sleaze bags, oversexed (sex multiple times a day in the office and elsewhere, surrounded by nude women almost anywhere and anytime), constantly cocaine snorting and seriously drug  addicted. In this respect this movie is way over the top.

Churchill Ordered French Navy Vessels To Surrender Or Be Destroyed

Posted:

Trigger

Just saw this great history documentary on PBS Churchill's Deadly Decision (Unfortunately, it expires on 12/31/2014). Again my question, why does PBS expire such great videos. Do not taxpayers and viewers make those videos possible? Why are these videos not posted on YouTube?

This documentary portrays Winston Churchill in his first few months as the new prime minister in 1940 having to make a tragic and consequential decision. The video contains great footage and shows how the pressure build up quickly within weeks to make such a decision and under what circumstances.

This documentary also shows how reluctant U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress was to come to the military aid of United Kingdom in the face of the Nazi threat.

Piqued My Interest

I am not a history buff in general and certainly not about World War II. However, I believe, I am fairly knowledgeable about key events, persons etc. of WW II.

But that Winston Churchill in 1940 had ordered the surrender or destruction of all critical French Navy vessels was either really unknown to me or I had already forgotten this event. Perhaps, because Churchill is such a towering figure, this controversial decision by him is perhaps not much talked about.

Brief Paraphrased Story

The German war machine quickly overran Belgium and France. France, the ally of the UK, quickly caved in and the French government collaborated with the Nazis. The second most powerful fleet of navy vessels in Europe besides UK and Germany, i.e. the French Navy, were about to be taken over by the Nazis.

In a speech to Parliament, Churchill repeated that the French armistice with Germany was a betrayal of the Allied agreement that forbade each country from surrendering to the Germans without notifying its allies.

To make a long story short, Churchill issued an ultimatum to French navy officers; British navy ships attacked French navy ships in Algeria (see Attack on Mers-el-Kébir), where almost 1,300 French sailors died.

Documentary Implied Churchill’s Culpability

For some reason, the documentary suggested that Churchill went too far and had significant numbers of Allied soldiers killed. Point in case according to the documentary, then chief French Admiral Darlan had promised to Churchill that no French navy vessels would fall into the hands of Nazis. Further, the documentary shows that Darlan’s promise was executed when the Nazis invaded southern France. French officers and sailors sabotaged French navy ships mooring in ports of southern France before German soldiers arrived.

The documentary also suggested that U.S. President Roosevelt was informed about the British operation and that he approved of it including the destruction of French navy vessels.

The documentary omitted to inform the viewer that it was not just Admiral Darlan, but a member of the Vichy government and a close confidant of General Petain, i.e. French Navy Minister Admiral Darlan. Thus, it was probably difficult to ascertain what role the French minister would play and whether he would carry out his promise. Churchill or anyone else in his position could not have relied on the word of one allied general, who could have been killed or replaced at any time.

New York Times Sympathizes With Terrorists

Posted: 12/27/2014

Trigger

Just read this opinion article by the New York Times Editorial Board titled “ Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses”. It this the last gasp of a dying and once vaunted media empire?

In this article, the NYT rehashed without any qualification a lot of the same baloney, which I will not repeat here. In short, the NYT wants to prosecute about everybody of the former George W. Bush administration.

One can only hope that one day we learn how many of the about 19 members of the NYT Editorial Board actually supported this opinion or who spoke out against it.

The Editorial Board Is No Emile Zola

When Emile Zola his famous J’Accuse article in which he forcefully defended Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jewish officer Dreyfuss who was indeed an innocent man.

KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) and other detainees of the CIA who were subjected to aggressive/harsh interrogation were certainly not innocent.

Multiple Acts Of War

The NYT Editorial Board in its grand naivety completely and conveniently ignores the fact of 9/11/2001, Madrid (3/11/2004)/Bali (10/12/2002)/London (7/7/2005 & 6/29/2007)/Mumbai (11/26/2008) bombings and other similar, but foiled attacks.

Nobody knew how many more such attacks were planned or imminent to be carried out. Who wants to be the next victim of such senseless attacks, anybody of the Editorial Board?

Multiple Attacks Before 9/11

The NYT Editorial Board is willfully blind to the fact that 9/11 had a history of serious attacks on U.S. citizens and others across the world. For brevity sake, I will not list them here.

Had the former and overly popular U.S. President Clinton not ignored the rising danger of militant Islamism, e.g. had he captured Bin Laden etc. … Perhaps, he and his wife were too influenced by the NYT.

Fanatical Killers And Unlawful Combatants

Does the NYT Editorial Board really understand who these human beings are that we are dealing with?

What moral relativism is the NYT Editorial Board applying here to compare members of the U.S. government or its agencies with unlawful combatants who obey no laws or rules whatsoever?

A New Totalitarian Ideology

Have the naive members of the NYT Editorial Board realized that militant, fanatical islam or Islamism represents an emerging totalitarian, hegemonistic ideology as bad or worse than those of the last century. Actually, Islamism goes at least as far back to the 1950s (see e.g. Sayyid Qutb) Like those totalitarian ideologies of the recent past, Islamism enjoys powerful and financially well off supporters.

Does the NYT Editorial Board perhaps suggest we wait until this fairly new totalitarian ideology becomes a global threat and menace like the Western countries waited for decades until Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain were ready to take on the world?

One can also suspect that Islamism is being supported to keep the West on its toes.

What Is Torture?

I am personally very tired of hearing this word torture so frequently used to describe with the U.S. government’s treatment of detainees suspected of terrorism.

Who is behind this nasty propaganda? Putin the Terrible? China? Iran? Who are the fellow travellers?

The above NYT article bases its demand on “These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law [18 U.S. Code § 2340, 2340A], which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.” First of all these cited laws apply primarily during peace time not during military conflict.

One can have a debate of what constitutes torture? Is e.g. sleep deprivation or waterboarding as reported by the U.S. Senate committee really torture and so on? On the other hand, it appears that serious mistreatments possibly have occurred, which should be further investigated on a case by case basis.

Torture does not equal torture! There is huge difference when one considers circumstances and motives. Contrast aggressive/harsh interrogations that were applied to specific individuals to prevent further mass murder with a dictator or his relatives (e.g. Saddam Hussein and his sons, Fidel Castro or and his brother) torture innocent, unarmed dissidents in their dungeons and often inflict permanent physical damages or death.

Truth Drug

Unfortunately, as far as I know, we do not yet have a truth drug that could be applied to suspects of serious crimes. Would applying truth drugs to suspects of mass murder be considered torture as well?

Absolutely yes,  according to the federal law cited by the NYT Editorial Board (see above or the article [18 U.S. Code § 2340, 2340A]). I would add that this federal law goes way overboard with its definition of torture as far as truth drugs are concerned.

Hot Recent Science & Technology Articles (5)

Posted: 12/27/2014

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/multiferroic-memory0device-promises-lowpower-instanton-computing

http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/imaging/custom-cardiology-a-virtual-heart-for-every-patient#

http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/imaging/how-the-ford-motor-co-invented-the-squid

http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/183

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/12/asteroid-impacts-may-have-formed-life-s-building-blocks

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/12/3d-map-dna-reveals-hidden-loops-allow-genes-work-together

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/12/17/how-exercise-changes-our-dna

Hot Recent Science & Technology Articles (4)

Posted: 12/27/2014

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/530876/this-phone-app-knows-if-youre-depressed/ (time to reitire quacks (pardon I mean psychologists and psychiatrists)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weak-nuclear-force-shown-to-give-asymmetry-to-biochemistry-of-life/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-has-water-older-than-the-sun/

http://www.faz.net/frankfurter-allgemeine-zeitung/chemische-evolution-ein-ungewoehnliches-organisches-molekuele-im-zentrum-der-milchstrasse-aufgespuert-13180976.html

http://phys.org/news/2014-10-gene-discovery-weight-gain-high-sugar.html

http://phys.org/news/2014-10-uw-fusion-reactor-concept-cheaper.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-epstein-barr-virus-wears-chain-mail

http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/10/updated-are-old-secrets-behind-lockheeds-new-fusion-machine

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141028114714.htm

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/wireless/darpa-builds-first-terahertz-amplifier

MIT Technology Review Favors Renewable Energy

Posted: 12/24/2014

Trigger

Just read “Can Japan Recapture Its Solar Power?” written by a contributing editor of MIT Technology Review. Not only is the Scientific American, but also the IEEE Spectrum and here the MIT Technology Review left leaning and biased towards environmentalism.

A salient excerpt from the above article: “Overnight, Japan has become the world’s hottest solar market: in less than two years after Fukushima melted down, the country more than doubled its solar generating capacity. ”

The Gist Of The Article

It’s time for renewable energy (especially solar power) in Japan post Fukushima nuclear power plant accident according to the author. Mandated and guaranteed for 20 years high feed-in tariffs of 35 cents per kw are just right to bring this about. The author casts no doubt about this measure. On the contrary, he suggests that the nuclear power industry has for decades received unfair benefits.

The author argues for more competition and deregulation in the energy markets of Japan, which I support.

Renewable Energy And Natural Disasters

Has it ever occured to this author that renewable energy is as prone if not more so than nuclear power plants to enormous natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanoes.

Does the author ever mention that solar power is not so environmentally friendly at all beginning with the production of photovoltaic cells?

New Travesty Of Data Protection In The European Union

Posted: 12/24/2014

Trigger

Just read this German article “Auch für private Überwachungskameras gilt der Datenschutz Wer an seinem Haus zum Schutz vor Einbrechern eine Kamera anbringt, muss sich sehr genau mit dem Datenschutz auseinandersetzen. Denn eine grundsätzliche Ausnahme gibt es nicht - hat der Europäische Gerichtshof in Luxemburg nun entschieden.” This article is about a recent judgment by the European Union Court of Justice (link to press release dated 12/11/2014; Case C-212/13).

Please read the comments as well by readers of the above article! Readers have overwhelmingly expressed how absurd this judgment is and how it defies common sense!

Brief Background

A homeowner installed surveillance cameras around his property after he and his families suffered several attacks on their property. Next time, these cameras caught the perpetrators in the act. The homeowner handed the videotapes over to the police, which apprehended the criminals.

Criminals claimed it was illegal under European data protection laws to shoot these videos without their consent. The appropriate data protection authority of that country agreed and fined the homeowner for illegally taping the event, because one of the cameras also filmed a “public footpath”.

Common Sense

Clearly, these surveillance cameras in this case served primarily the purpose of passive self-defense from bodily harm or property damage. There was apparently no indication of any kind that the homeowner used the video footage for any other purpose. One would think that such self-defense would trump excessive data protection laws.

If you read the press release of the EU Court of Justice you begin to think these judges are far removed from any reality.

The Ocean Plastic Pollution Scare

Posted: 12/24/2014

Trigger

The publisher of the Science Journal posted this piece of news this week based on this PLOS article with the frightening title “Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea”.

The first sentence of the above news article reads “More than 5 trillion plastic particles weighing 268,940 tons are estimated to be floating in Earth’s oceans. ”

0.7 KG Of Plastic Are Floating On Average On Each Square Kilometer Of Ocean Surface

This should have been the headline. Sounds very different from 269,000 tons total.

If you do not believe me here is my source for ocean surface area from NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. The number is 361,900,000 km2.

Doubts About The Estimate

On the other hand, 0.7 Kg of plastic per each square kilometer of ocean surface may sound little, but appears to be too high to be true. I have serious doubts about this estimate of 269,000 tons total.

In the above article, the researchers mention “Plastics Europe, a trade organization representing plastic producers and manufactures, reported that 288 million tons of plastic were produced worldwide in 2012 [41]. Our estimate of the global weight of plastic pollution on the sea surface, from all size classes combined, is only 0.1% of the world annual production.” (emphasis added). Perhaps, that was the plausibility check these researchers used. Do we have any estimates as to how much plastic ends up in the oceans per year? Perhaps, the estimate is low relative to total annual production, but it is high to how much plastic actually ends up in our oceans.

We also learn little about natural degradation of plastic from UV radiation or activity of microorganisms.

A Fairly Simple Engineering Problem

Given today’s technologies it should be easy and fairly cheap to scoop up this pollution from the Ocean surfaces. So what is the big deal in the end?

What Has Humanity Learnt From 20 Years Of Global Warming Scare

Posted: 12/24/2014 Updated: 12/24/2014

Trigger

American Scientific just published this article titled “What Have Climate Scientists Learned from 20-Year Fight with Deniers?”. Incredible to what levels this once popular magazine is stooping. This article is so biased and one-sided that is beyond belief!

The above article is almost exclusively about leading Global Warming climatologist Benjamin D. Santer, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and and former researcher at the infamous University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.

My Rejoinder

Humanity has learnt a lot in those past 20 years about deeply biased ideologues posing as scientists; about scientists, whose superstition and myopic views are absolutely incredible; about scientists, who would do almost anything including intimidation or silencing of other scientists, fraud and deception for money and fame.

Obama Pushes Net Neutrality

Posted: 11/11/2014

Within Days Of The Mid-Term Elections

The 2014 mid-term elections just passed and within days U.S. President Obama has the audacity to announces his initiative to declare the Internet to be treated like a public utility. This arrogant moron in the White House is truly incredible.

Government Power & Control

He is asking a Soviet style, big government agency, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to apply this net neutrality nonsense. To apply big government control over the Internet as if it was a 100 year old technology would be really stupid. The Chinese, Brazilians, Indians and others are laughing!

Perhaps The Dumbest President Since World War II

U.S. President George W. Bush was said not to be too smart, but the current U.S. President beats G. W. Bush hands down in terms of low IQ.

I have previously blogged here about net neutrality and several times about the current U.S. President.

Please Resign!

Secure your legacy by resigning, Mr. President! Do We The People a favor, please!

U.S. Metric Conversion Act Of 1975

Posted: 11/10/2014

In 1975, then U.S. President Gerald Ford signed such an Act of the U.S. Congress into law. Perhaps, this was one of this president’s greatest contributions to fame.

However, the people of the world are still waiting for the U.S. to really adopt the metric system. Will I witness this to happen in my lifetime?

It has always boggled my mind that the U.S. has clung for over 200 years to a system of measurement so akin the the British Imperial (measurement) System. What an irony of history. Supposedly, Thomas Jefferson liked the foot as a unit of length (source).

Old Adobe Mission Scottsdale AZ

Posted: 11/8/2014

We have recently visited this very simple, basic, but wonderful small Catholic church in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona.

It has apparently served well several generations of immigrants from Mexico and further south.

Here is a relief painting on the altar front showing the Last Supper:

There is a lady leaning over Jesus’s right shoulder. Who is she? Maria Magdalene?

This church also has a number of beautiful stained windows.

The U.S. President Writes Letters To Iranian Theocrat

Posted: 11/6/2014

Just read “Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State Presidential Correspondence With Ayatollah Stresses Shared U.S.-Iranian Interests in Combating Insurgents, Urges Progress on Nuclear Talks”.

It is incredible how naive or foolish this U.S. President is. Or is this just weird Realpolitik?

To cooperate with this fanatical, religious dictatorship to fight other religious fanatics is insane.