36% Of Climate Related Scientists Say "Comply With Kyoto"

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis - Forbes:

This will get a LOT less coverage than the "97% of Scientist agree" on AGW!

Surveys and Science are like "Lutherans and eelpout" .. Huh? If 100% of scientists think that space is expanding at a fixed rate (which they pretty much did) and data shows that it is expanding at an accelerating rate, then, until the next data, 100% of scientists were WRONG! Pretty much all of them thought that  space was Static as well prior to  Edwin Hubble showing it was expanding!

Science is driven by data, surveys are driven by opinion.

It's probably WORSE for AGW that what the survey shows. Experiments have now been done where you put the survey taker in a PET scanner which is pretty much a lie detector that actually works! Ask people a question like "Blacks are inherently better basketball players than whites", which 90%+ will answer NO!!! Because they have been socialized to KNOW that is what they SHOUD answer, but nearly all of them (including blacks) are LYING!

No doubt a goodly number of climate related scientists are NOT going to answer this one in the socially acceptable "wrong way" ... even though is was supposed to be anonymous, many could lose their jobs for being a "denier".

The electrical power exec at the meeting I was at this AM was VERY uncomfortable with AGW being questioned in the room, and made basically a "statement of faith" that "they had children, cared about the planet, and this was a settled area in the industry that was not useful to discuss!".







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Moyers Endorses Cruz!

Ted Cruz believes in nothing: The fundamentalist charlatan craves power above all else - Salon.com:



Well, actually he HATES HIM ... but in my book, that is a STRONG endorsement of the guy! If Bill Moyers hates your guts, you have to be a pretty decent sort.



I covered a little Moyers here ... he is a very noxious sanctimonious lefty that thinks BO isn't quite far enough left. He probably doesn't think BS is either ... I'm sure he would find a way to get left of MARX!



If you are a Christian, Moyers hates you. If you are a Christian and win a political office, you ought to be stamped out by any means possible!



Craves POWER? Dear God ... if Moyers had his way, I'd be suffering some medieval torture for questioning his eminence's holy writ!



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EPA Dictatorship Loses 5-4

Supreme Court blocks Obama carbon emissions plan | Reuters:

I happened to be at a meeting this AM which had an electric power industry executive at it.

They pointed out:

1. They invested 10's of millions of dollars removing 90% of the emissions from their coal plants under the assurance that would suffice for decades. They borrowed money and set rates based on those promises. Now they are being told that is not good enough and they have to close the coal fired plants. 
2. Every utility has to have a plan that shows how they can cover 110% of known peak demand (that is why new peaks are EXPENSIVE). 8% of solar capacity and 14% of wind capacity can be counted in that plan. So 22% renewable, 78% standard. Those coal plants MUST be replaced with natural gas turbines -- that is the ONLY way to keep the grid running. 
3. Our grid is becoming more vulnerable. Less local generation, more power coming from longer and longer distances. 

Solar doesn't work at night, it works less on cloudy days. The wind varies -- thus the 22%. Batteries are a LONG way from being an assist.

NPR was pretty dejected this AM about 5 members of the SCOTUS still not willing to go full dictatorial powers to the president. They feel it is a "national emergency" ... like a war ... this is the biggest problem of our time! No time to be hanging on tired old words in tired old documents, LET THE PRESIDENT ACT!

Why are nations pretty much required to end up as centrally run dictatorships without rule of law limiting government?

See the problem above on investment in "clean coal" and what happens when that investment is suddenly declared "not good enough" in a shorter time than was assured. Private business MUST make ENFORCEABLE contracts and make decisions on that basis! With rule of law, so must government -- but not now (at least not until a justice dies or they manage to turn one).

Why do we see reductions in investment, innovation and growth? How hard is it to see that maintaining any rule of law on this issue is one heartbeat away from being overturned?

The left cares NOTHING for "precedence" -- in fact they HATE IT! One SCOTUS justice dies, BO appoints another, and dictatorship wins on this issue!

Why would anyone invest in making existing energy sources cleaner or innovations that are "less than perfect" (whatever that is ... non-polluting, risk free, cheap, invisible, safe .... theoretical solutions can be VERY good!)

If we lived in a country with a written and REAL Constitution and separation of powers, we would not be having this discussion! ... but that is no longer where we live.

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Flashback, 2007 Type Bias

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/02/19/too-many-chiefs

Ran into this in a waiting room -- sometimes it is good to see what good old bias and hatred for W looked like in the "good old days" of 2007, especially when we get to hear now how great a president BO really has been and how any "decent people" ought to be thinking they will miss him dearly! This article was MILD compared to MANY, but it is the ubiquity of throwing in a couple of gratuitous shots at poor old W when there was no earthly reason he had to be mentioned if the article was REALLY about "presidents in general".

To say nothing of the incumbent (W in 2007), of whom, perhaps, the less said the better.

Hardy har har.

Who will be on them? Why, Presidents, of course—all of them, in the order they served, scoundrels and heroes alike. Someday, like a bad penny, a George W. Bush dollar will turn up. Heads you lose.

What was the purpose of this column? Well, strangely, in 2008, the New Yorker was really sick of "presidents". Hmm ... Wonder if there was something more specific about that "sickness" ...

Here is the question thus raised: at this chastening juncture in our repub-lic’s history, wouldn’t everyone welcome a moratorium on Presidential glorifi-cation? Isn’t the United States a little too President-ridden, much as post-medieval Spain was a little too priest-ridden? Our capital city groans under the weight of obelisks, equestrian statues, and grandiose temples fit for the gods but devoted to the winners of Presidential elections. “Presidential historians” populate the greenrooms of our cable-news networks. Presidential suites sit atop Vegas hotels. Presidential libraries gobble up ever-growing swathes of urban and, as the unhappy faculty of Southern Methodist University recently learned, campus real estate. Time to throttle down.

Color me skeptical, but my "strong guess" is that when it comes to honoring BO, it will be time to "Throttle Up"! Can you even IMAGINE the New Yorker being concerned about the location or the cost of his presidential library? I REALLY think it ought to go at Cornell because there are only a couple of people that remember him being there -- won't it be great when only a couple of people remember having been president?

Somebody Needs to Break That Finger Off

Hillary Clinton unleashes Bill Clinton on Bernie Sanders as once-friendly primary turns ugly - Washington Times:

I don't have to listen to the slime-ball, I don't have to read what spews from his lips, but it is hard to un-see pictures. If Bill Cosby raped any women, at least they don't need to see him on TV all the time
wagging his finger like the sanctimonious weasel Slick!
If I were better at video effects, I'd have Chuck Norris walk in, grab the finger, put "The Stain" on his knees and then just break it off ... show it to him and say "apology accepted".

For "realism", Chuck could disarm a couple SS guys on the way in and let them live because "they were just doing their duty -- but so was he!"

Ok, I'm better now ...

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The Feeling of What Happens : Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciouness

http://www.amazon.com/The-Feeling-What-Happens-Consciousness/dp/0156010755

The wide ranging book by Antonio Damasio takes a shot at explaining the "there, there" of being human --- consciousness.

One of his definition shots is: "Consciousness as we commonly think of it, from it's basic levels to its most complex, is the unified mental pattern that brings together the object and the self".

Another is: "...the presence of you is the feeling of what happens when your being is modified by the act of apprehending something. The presence never quits, from the moment of awakening to the moment sleep begins. The presence must be there or there is no you."

We all pretty much echo SCOTUS Potter Stewart with the "I know it when I see it" relative to obscenity in his case, but relative to consciousness here. I'm fairly sure one of the marks of autism (which Damasio doesn't mention)  is that many autistic people can't recognize others as conscious, and sometimes the consciousness of autistic people is compared to being possibly similar to that of some animals. (One of the people making this comparison was Temple Grandin, a PHD who is autistic ...)

He talks of two kinds of consciousness "core and extended". Core is "the feeling", extended is all your biography, knowledge, and creativity. Your "higher functions". The core consciousness seems to be largely a brain stem phenomenon heavily connected to your emotions and "body loop" (mental image of your body / connection to body).

I really like how he uses real known mental conditions to talk about specifically what brain injuries will affect core and extended consciousness and how.  I believe in "spirit", and also believe that consciousness (especially core) is where "matter meets spirit". My personal view is that we will eventually find some "quantum biological effects", possibly in a specific area of the brain stem that are the link to the non-physical.

Back to the book ... "Life needs a boundary. I believe that life and consciousness , when they eventually appeared in evolution, were first and foremost about life, and the life urge within a boundary. To a great extent they still are."

"The life urge"? -- pretty close to "The Force" of Star Wars fame, or even "the animating spirit".

My reading seems to be getting feverish here, and I'm behind in blogging what I've read lately -- "the creative urge" seems to be driving me. Where might that come from? Same place as the "life urge" I'd guess, or as I'm also in Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra", perhaps "the will to power" has a similar origin?

"Time Reborn" was about figuring out "what's out there" ... but the "mechanism" (if you are a strict materialist) that we are using (running on?) to theorize, develop equations, run experiments, etc is human consciousness ... "the feeling of knowing" ... "the life urge".

Sit in a quiet place, Relax and take a couple deep breaths. Now, focus ONLY on your breathing -- gently. It's not a contest, there is no "right or wrong". You will likely have "intruding thoughts" -- you may actually get frustrated. What is getting in the way of YOU, and your attempt at simple relaxed focus on your breath is your mind -- your "ego". Your "busy brain" -- the Zen folks call it your monkey-brain.

My view is that the "you" that is observing your breathing is "core consciousness", and the distractions are coming from your "extended consciousness".  I believe that the connection to the infinite is from your core consciousness -- and that the extended is what wants to take over the ship and convince you that you and everything "out there" is a bunch of "stuff" ... and so are you. If it can't succeed in convincing you, it will work very hard to distract.

I'm definitely of two minds on this issue! ;-)

It's a worthy book -- it is well reviewed and has a lot of secular accolades. I sometimes look at books like this and the "Time Reborn" book as a NY Street game of "hide the spirit" -- see,  no spirit under this shell ... switch, switch ... oh, "life force"? "emergent"? "Principle of Sufficient Reason"?  ... nah,  "Pay no attention to that spirit behind the curtain"!

Young Earth Warmists

Climate Change, the Long View | Power Line:

Mostly just posting to have these charts in one place for future reference.

This has been well covered in this Blog, but sometimes a little repetition is good, a little repetition is good ... Marco Rubio ;-)

Young Earth Creationists tend to put the age of the earth at 6-10K years.

Compared to them, our current warmists are like fruit flies compared to elephants! In order to reach their "scientific conclusions", they restrict their data to AT MOST 155-160 years (1860 to now), and in many cases MUCH less ... like "since 1979" for satellite data.

The linked article is short and has three excellent charts to give a little perspective. A scientist would take 160 years of climate data next to 100's of thousands of years ( I find the "billions" to be spurious, no real climate data available on those ranges) is far MORE laughable than your typical scientist likes to consider Young Earth Creation!

They want to show a "trend" on a couple hundred year scale when they have data from thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years to answer for?

Here is the last 10K years of climate data, in GENERAL it has been getting warmer, seas have been rising and C02 levels have been getting higher that whole time. That is what it means to be in one of the 5 "interglacials" in the last 500K years. If you wanted to point out something "scientific" rather than political, the fact that the peaks of warmth seem to be getting lower and the length of the cold periods getting longer MIGHT give a bit of a pause if you also looked at the 500K data.

The following chart is the last 500K data of Vostok data ... the fact that the last 10K shows that while it HAS been getting warmer since the "little ice age", we are only in a "warm period" relative to that cool period ... which is why "climate scientists" talk "avg temp vs baseline" ... the "baseline" is 1981 - 2010.  (Gee, I wonder why they picked THAT?)

At least Young Earth Creationists COMPLETELY admit that they are acting with religion in mind -- but hey, at least it is an OLD religion! The Climate Faith is at best only been holding worship services since 1980!

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Gay Healthcare

It’s almost over for Hillary: This election is a mass insurrection against a rigged system - Salon.com:

Remember the "Vote No!" campaign on the marriage amendment in MN? We were assured over and over that "Nobody has any plans to make gay "marriage" legal in MN, that is simply a lie created by fearful and bigoted people".

They made gay "marriage" legal the year after the amendment failed. One of the advantages that evil has is that there are NO RESTRICTIONS on the methods you can use to win -- when there is no such thing as truth, what would a lie be?

Similarly, BOcare was "not socialized medicine", and "If you liked your healthcare, you could keep it". What it is is WEALTH TRANSFER!

Here we have a quote from this fine article:

As for the notion that voters can’t see that paying $1,000 in taxes beats paying $5,000 in health insurance premiums, it is an insult to the American people.

Note, this is AFTER those of us who managed to work long and hard to get some tiny chance of few years of a decent retirement have ALREADY suffered INCREASES in healthcare costs on the order of $5-$10K!!!!  BOcare has already increased our out of pocket costs by 5-10 TIMES, although a lot of that is due to it sitting in accounts as "pre-spent". Having been or currently being a "maker" vs a "taker" in the US is like being a Christian in a country that recently went Islamic -- you are getting a lot of raw deals, but there isn't any choice, and it only looks to get worse in the future. 

"American people" for Salon are the 50-60%  of Americans that already pay at most $1K in taxes TOTAL. In fact, the bottom 40% of the country already gets more than HALF of their income FROM the government!

So where do we go from here?

Twenty years on, Hillary still sees the world through the rose-colored glasses of that ’90s consensus. Not Bernie. He sees that in 2016 rising tides don’t even lift most boats, that growth comes at a steep price when it comes at all, and that new technology cost more jobs than it creates. He understands that when jobs flow to countries with weak governments and low wages, the American middle class can’t get a raise. He sees that public-private partnership meant pay-to-play politics, and that the whole system runs not on innovation but corruption. My guess is the middle class sees what he sees and wants what he wants: a revolution. If he can continue to drive the debate, they may get one.

Ah, "Revolution" ... ah, to WHAT?

Well, the Reagan - 2006 growth wasn't good enough! The "consensus" in the '90s wasn't right. Technology isn't the answer. "Public-private partnership" doesn't work. SO??

Well, it would seem to me that the "only choice" that folks like Salon can see is complete Socialism ... or Fascism. Either government takeover of the means of production, or leave the capital ostensively in the hands of "private", but completely regulate it and 100% state what salaries, benefits, "profits", etc are. So much for "partnerships" -- it would seem that FORCE is the "only answer".

Why is it again that anyone is supposed to somehow "trust" the left? They avow no morals, they claim that truth does not even exist.

Pretty much everything in this country seems to be heading to be as fecund as a gay "marriage"! 

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Leaving America, Third Year of BO Record!

Record Number of U.S. Citizens, Green-Card Holders Cut Ties With U.S. in 2015 - WSJ:

I wrote on this back in 2013 ... we have a lot of people LEAVING the US. While the people entering tend to be poor with a high demand for public services, low education and a high risk for criminal activity, the ones leaving are the inverse -- wealthy, healthy, with a lot of skills.

But, they are being robbed by an entity called "The US Government",  and it will tax them as long as they have citizenship -- they don't even have to live here.

So, they are renouncing their citizenship in record numbers.

One could call it "The BO effect" -- people that have an option are voting with their feet.

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Lindsey Graham Defines Politician!

Lindsey Graham: Ted Cruz worse than Barack Obama - CNNPolitics.com:

Lindsey Graham is a politicians politician -- arrogant, corrupt and especially shifty. I consider him a poster child for why we desperately need SMALLER GOVERNMENT!

How does one ever trust anyone that talks like this ...

Asked why his fellow senators are reputed to have such a distaste for Cruz, Graham accused the winner of the Iowa GOP caucuses of being an "opportunist" to his core -- one who "gets ahead at our expense" and will "run down other Republicans" to advance his own ambitions.

So while running down a fellow Republican you complain that the other guy runs down Republicans!

Sounds about right. Pretty much the definition of "politician"!

We have lost a LOT since Reagan's "11th commandment", "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican!"

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Rubio Repeats to ROBO-U

Chris Christie’s suicide mission may make this a good night for Trump and Kasich [With Comment by John] | Power Line:

When I heard about the Rubio programed response failing into repeat mode last night, I was reminded of the old 70's SciFi movie "Westworld"  that had the marvelous line "Nothing can go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ..."

If the Democrats were writing the script, I don't think any of them would be smart enough to come up with having the bright, good looking, current leading establishment candidate utter basically : “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing, He knows exactly what he’s doing." MULTIPLE TIMES!

Yes, yes, I certainly get his point ... I in fact agree and have blogged on it a number of times. If you look at BO's past, his books, his associates and supporters, he **IS** accomplishing exactly what he has declared he wanted to do since before he wrote the "Dreams" book. Which is basically make CERTAIN the the US is NOT an "exceptional nation" by the time he leaves office.

In modern politics however, being "correct" often not very important, but looking stupid,  for a Republican it can easily be terminal!

He basically is the R equivalent of BO in some ways -- looks good, talks well as as long as it is read from a script, and it is very true, he has never run anything, or accomplished much of anything.

It is REALLY starting to look like the Republicans are going to screw this up -- it seems that Cruz can at least be made out to be "unlikeable, spooky, etc", Rubio is shallow and inexperienced, Trump is  ... well, Trump, we have talked a lot about him.

What could go wrong?






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Cruz, Rubio, TP Zeitgeist

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio Made History. Didn’t You Hear? - The New York Times:

Here we have the obvious being stated directly and openly by The New York Times:

With Senator Ted Cruz taking nearly 28 percent of the vote and Senator Marco Rubio getting 23 percent, each vastly surpassed the results for any other Latino candidate in any previous United States presidential contest. 

How is that not being celebrated as historic or at least worth a headline for a day or two? 

The answer is not that complicated: Neither Mr. Cruz nor Mr. Rubio meets conventional expectations of how Latino politicians are supposed to behave.

The phrase that flashes before brain is "the banality of evil" ... how natural it is for evil, in the form of oppressive groupthink, "just the way things are", "everyone thinks this way", or  "how else could it be"? Becomes as natural as the air we breathe.

"The Party" (TP-D) controls the definitions, the categories, the "zeitgeist"-- the spirit of the age, intellectual fashion, the school of thought.

Classical Liberalism -- the kind that valued independence of thought, rule of law, and economic freedom was the opposition of single party rule. The kind of rule that defines how people MUST think to even be identified as part of their own racial group.

Take Ben Carson -- one would be hard pressed to hear anything about his blackness, and indeed, like Cruz and Rubio, TP does not consider him to be black. Part of being black is voting TP and ascribing to the TP position on issues ... the zeitgeist. Bill Cosby lost his blackness when he dared comment that blacks needed to have some level of decent public behavior after riots like Ferguson. He was thus labeled an "Uncle Tom" and so lost the immunity that had allowed him to treat women like Bill Clinton has for decades with impunity.

TP decides! For the bulk of the population they decide much of "normal thought" every day  -- they ARE the "zeitgeist", so what they say and do on a daily basis is "just the way things are".

America was intended to be a country with freedom of speech and thought and diversity of IDEAS! As TP so calmly and "chillingly" (if you are not a sheep) points out, even the vaunted "diversity" today is ONLY "diversity as defined by TP"!

You think Rubio and Cruz are Hispanic and Cosby and Carson are Black? TP is in charge of that definition as they are of ALL definitions. TP defines what is black or white, good or evil, intelligent or backward, and the vast majority of your fellow citizens are VERY comfortable with that power being held by TP.

In fact, so are you and I unless we make CONSCIOUS effort to FORCE ourselves to look at reality outside the confines of the  TP controlled environment!

This is the way that freedom ends. All categories are subsumed to being only "Of the Party" or it's enemy! Racial, ethnic, geographical, religious, social, intellectual, family, gender and class distinctions become merely  "are they a member of THE PARTY, or are they not"? The party defines and administers all the old categories, which are only recognized and defined in relation to TP.

Are you "Hispanic"? TP decides. "Educated"? Whatever TP chooses is the answer. Is your group one that deserves special treatment in hiring, education or government largesse, or are you in a group that is "bitter, hateful, lagging, racist" or otherwise to be sanctioned, controlled and maligned in the daily news and scolded by BO?

The banality ... the "common feeling", the "resignation to what MUST be right because it is EVERYWHERE" ... this is where the Gulag and the Gas Chamber become a barely noticed element of "the way things are".

Evil always hides best in plain sight. True evil is always dressed up as "the good". It is in fact SO GOOD that any disagreement with it is by it's very nature "evil" -- don't worry. TP is happy to inform you of EVERYTHING ... your race, your religion, your intelligence and yes, most importantly, your MORALITY.

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Magic Spells and Tribute To Barbarians

Blog: DC government will pay criminals not to commit crimes:

Our nations capital has decided that some sort of a program that pays some people not to commit crime is a good thing to try. The linked article likens it to the ancient practice of paying off barbarians to not attack your city ... paying "protection money" to the Mob might be an even better example.

The part about things like this that always impresses me is the general liberal government idea that economic incentives are a sort of black magic spell that if the proper incantations are used, can accomplish anything you like.

Thus, raising taxes on cigarettes is a proven way to reduce consumption, where taxing corporations at the highest levels in the world is not supposed to act as an incentive for them to keep profits off-shore, or even move to a less onerous tax climate as many have done.

Providing all manner of subsidies for not working we are assured has no effect on anyone trying to get a job  -- raising taxes on working people has no disincentive effect. It is all in the incantation!

One can envision a DC social worker meeting with a "client"....

Social Worker: "Bob, thanks for coming in, we need to go over your yearly benefits package. I see here that you are an able 35 year old presently unemployed, is that still the case?"

Bob: "Yes, it is, but I'm looking real hard for a job!"

Social Worker: "I understand completely! We raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, require all employers to provide two weeks paid vacation, 6 weeks of family leave, health benefits, free child care and provide a federally mandated and tracked worker advisory group that meets 1 hour a week on the clock to give employees a voice in the business, yet hiring has gone DOWN!" We are doing all we can do, and I understand you are as well! It is often difficult to understand the job market!

We will continue to provide your subsidized apartment, cell phone, internet and cable TV along with $400 a month in Food Stamps and $1,000 a month in federal support payment.

I see here you have a criminal record.

Bob: "I was framed".

Social Worker: "No doubt racially motivated! This year we have a new program where you can receive up to $9,000 a year for attending a couple of classes if you promise to not commit any violent offenses during the year."

Bob: "I dunno, my schedule is pretty busy ... how much class we talkin here, I never did like school much!

Social Worker: "Couple of hours, very flexible schedule,  ... no tests. We understand that you have a life, and that takes priority with us! "

Bob: "I guess I could maybe do that ... so, if I would be framed again, would I have to give the money back?"

Social Worker: "Not if you spend it directly -- not a good plan to build up any savings account or anything, I'm sure you are avoiding that."

Bob: "Yeah, I like to keep any extra funds stashed in weed, whiskey or bling if you catch my drift.!"

Social Worker: "Thanks for stopping by Bob. Be sure to call me if you have any problems ... oh, I almost forgot. This is an election year. If you would like to vote in November, we can pick you up, and there is normally a small token of appreciation for our clients, OR, if you would rather, you can sign your absentee form here today and we can handle it for you.

Bob: "Say, two years ago I got a couple bottles of Malt and a carton of smokes!".

Social Worker: "Bob, I'm sure that was a gift from an appreciative campaign worker on the bus! There is no reason that you can't sign your absentee here today and still help out with the fall vote -- there is no identification required at the polls, and I'm sure there will be appreciation from the campaigns again in the fall.

We do have a program where I can provide you a Hillary button that has a small sticker on the back which many of the liquor stores in the area are providing a VERY significant one time discount on if you catch my drift".

Bob: "Yeah, I'll sign it ... the rich guys have it all rigged, I'm glad to see that we are getting a little something for all the work we do! .... See ya round Dawwwg !

Social Worker: "Thanks again Bob"


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Time Reborn: From The Crisis In Physics to the Future of the Universe

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Reborn-Crisis-Physics-Universe/dp/0544245598

Perhaps one of the best cases I'll ever see of someone passionately trying to escape from shadow of God and going to ANY lengths in an attempt to create a "completely new way of thought" in order to imagine that he is free from any transcendent concepts.

I had to go back and review my blog on "Reason And Analysis", because in many ways this book was more "attempted philosophy" than physics.

Smolin tells us what is bothering him on page 11:

There is a cheapness at the core of any claim that our universe is ultimately explained by another more perfect world standing apart from everything we perceive. If we succumb to that claim, we render the boundary between science and mysticism porous.  

Our desire for transcendence is at root a religious aspiration. The yearning to be liberated from death and from the pain and limitations of our lives is the fuel of religions and mysticism. Does the seeking of mathematical knowledge make one a kind of a priest with special access to an extraordinary form of knowledge? Should we simply recognize mathematics for the religious activity it is? 

He wants to explain the universe ONLY in terms of itself, and does a good job of pointing out how the incredible correlation of mathematics to the observable world in Newtonian Physics, Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and the fact that all those "models" are timeless -- in that the formulas work in any place and time and are even reversible in time, is a "cop out". WHY!!! Why do they work? Why THESE particular formulas and initial values? He must know WHY!

The standard model just assumes "it is" -- and this obviously smacks WAY too much of "god" to Smolin. So, he goes for the "other great idea" -- Darwin. "Natural" Selection -- we MUST have had a LOT of universes, so therefore, each black hole is creating yet another universe, and the fact that we see a lot of black holes in our universe "must mean" that there is "natural selection" of universes and the fact that we have a "large number" of black holes "must mean" that we are in an "adaptive universe".

Evolution (of universes) requires time ... "real time", not "relative time", so he especially hates the ideas of relative space-time, "the block universe" and the multiverse. I go into those here a bit if you have not been suitably exposed

A lot of his thinking is based Leibniz's "Principle of Sufficient Reason" ... Everything must have a reason (cause).  Smolin wants to go farther, and make the "cause" be randomness -- as in Darwin, "lots and lots of random tries" and EVENTUALLY you get ANYTHING, including in this case, the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe. Although Smolin no longer finds the "laws" to be "laws", but rather "precedents" that may well be "evolving" from our "current approximations".

My nasty brain wonders if the Principle of Sufficient Reason would be required to have a reason? Smolin apparently chooses to be nicer to himself than that.

He is not however so kind to non-believers in Global Warming, religious people, etc. He finds that:

"If our civilization is to thrive, it would be helpful to base our decision making on a coherent view of the world, in which to, to begin with, there is consilience between the natural and social sciences. The  reality of time can be the foundation of this new consilience, in which the future is open and novelty is possible on every scale from the fundamental laws of physics to the organization of economics and ecologies. " 

Oh, "consilience" ... all the knowledge of the universe fitting together and us understanding the implications for "ultimate meaning" ... whole book on it covered here. "Coherence" is a great idea, but while you are in the process of throwing out the standard model of physics for a new evolutionary "precedence model", it seems possible that there may be a "slight delay" in achieving such a "coherent / consilient" view!

I looked up Smolin on the web ... he is 60, so I'm thinking he is having a midlife crisis. In the epilog you get insightful quotes like "The problem of consciousness is an aspect of what the world really is. We don't know what a rock really is, or an atom, or an electron ..." ... so therefore, understanding MUST be "about relationships" ... oh, and "Consciousness, whatever it is, is an aspect of the intrinsic essence of brains". Hmmmm

He sums it up with "the only certainty is that we will know more in the future".

Well, assuming that we survive the scourge of Global Warming, there aren't any monster natural disasters, rogue gravity waves, epidemics, etc, we will LIKELY have "more data", but is that really "knowledge"? I'd argue that prior to Einstein and certainly prior to Quantum Mechanics, many people at least THOUGHT they "knew more".  Is consciousness being an intrinsic essence of brains somehow supposed to guide us to "a better world"? Oh, and what would "better" be? (hint ... science has no ideas)

I enjoyed his descriptions of the standard model of Physics. I think they were in some ways better because he was trying to be critical of  rather than just explaining. Ultimately though, it comes down to one of two basic beliefs as covered in the "Reason and Analysis" link:

1). "Something" (God) created what we see with order, timeless and laws DISCOVERABLE BY US -- and that "something" is the "root" ... the causeless cause.

2). OR, the "root" is chaos -- there "just was" a lot of "chaotic stuff", for "no reason". The "wind of time" kept blowing over that junkyard of "stuff" and EVENTUALLY, it just "happened" to arrive at  the 747 universe where I'm typing this.

What Smolin (and some others) add to #2 is that EVERYTHING is RANDOM -- including the laws of physics, the relation of matter / energy, the speed of light, "the wind of time", EVERYTHING!!!

On top of that entirely random EVERYTHING -- including "pre-universe", he adds the faith statement that (due to randomness we assume) that "everything MUST have a REASON" (oh, and randomly developed consciousnesses of unknown character is able to discern those reasons! Tidy!)

But, hey, people that believe in God, math, laws of physics, etc are "cheap mystical priests".

Some guys handle their midlife crisis by buying a convertible and chasing a younger women I'm told ... in a completely random universe, perhaps ????

Minnesota Vice -- Enemy Combatant, Criminal, or Aspiring War Criminal?

Alleged ISIL recruits from Twin Cities argue for 'combatant immunity' - StarTribune.com:

We have heard since the early 2000's that "Terrorism" as in "War On" were non-sense terms, and that these matters ought be handled has simple criminal proceedings.

Definitions are always a giant problem for the left, and strangely enough the Star Trib seems to have joined with BO in reviving the ancient term "Levant" as in "ISIL", ceding at least linguistically the entire Eastern Mediterranean to Islamic State ... covered here.

W was of course all wrong to indicate that we are at war with those that want to establish a Caliphate intended to expand to control the entire planet. Strangely though, the people that are fighting US are VERY clear what they are and what it is they want to accomplish!

Five Twin Cities men accused of plotting to go to fight alongside ISIL in Syria are asking a federal judge to drop murder conspiracy charges on grounds that they have “combatant immunity” under both common and international law. 

They say combatants are immune from criminal prosecutions for acts of war, including murder, against military targets.

Huh? THEY claim that they are "combatants" in a war, and as such have "combatant immunity"! No doubt BO will help us all out and tell us they are NOT "Islamic, combatants, etc" ... when it comes to gender, all are free to declare their own at whatever point they desire, however when it comes to someone declaring what religion they are or what type of violent activity they are engaged in, we must wait for the proper emanation from BO! I thought the prosecutor said it best ...

“They are, if they must be categorized within the international law of armed conflict, best categorized as aspiring war criminals,” the prosecution said.

'via Blog this'