Coal - The New Boogeyman

In 1977, Dr. Petr Beckmann, Prof. Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Colorado published a book called The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear. In that book he showed how the political destruction of the U.S. nuclear power industry would necessitate the replacement of nuclear-generated power with coal. (Oil was out; the Arabs were jerking us around. They still are.)

The downside was the statistical increase in lung cancer and other ailments that would result from burning that much more coal. But no amount of facts were enough to compel the anti-nukes from advocating the dismantling of the nuclear power industry. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about where the replacement power would have to come from. All they cared about was that The Evil Neutrons be banished.

Dr. Beckmann was right, of course. Replacing nuclear with coal is unquestionably dirtier. Even with scrubbers on the smokestacks, you can’t get it all out, and if it goes up into the air, some portion of it going to end up — you guessed it — in people’s lungs.

The point Dr. Beckmann was making (among many others) in his book is that the alleged “health and safety reasons” for killing nuclear power were actually bullshit. Even when you include the “worst” nuclear accident in U.S. history (Three Mile Island...and “worst” is measured by the amount of media hype, blather, and bluster that ensued; no one died), nuclear power has a better health and safety record than any other source of large scale electrical power generation.

In fact, more people have died building hydroelectric dams. And there have been way more deaths, injuries, and health hazards due to those darlings of the green religion, the giant wind turbines, which don’t even pay for themselves. Hell...there have been more deaths and injuries from bicycles and lawn mowers than from commercial nuclear power in the U.S.

I’m not arguing pro-nuclear here. I don’t need to; the safety record of nuclear is indisputable...well, for anyone with enough rationality and intellectual honesty to consider the actual facts.

I'm not arguing anti-coal either, because even though coal accounts for far more deaths, injuries, and health problems (from the mining to the burning) than nuclear, there’s no replacement for it — not with oil at a premium and nuclear virtually extinct. Kill coal and your electric bill is going way up.

So why has coal become the new favorite whipping boy of Obamunism? For the same reason that nuclear did 30-40 years ago; political expediency. The global warmies have got everyone convinced that “we” are frying the planet with CO₂, and coal is the perfect new boogeyman. Can’t blame The Evil Neutrons any more, so now it’s The Evil CO₂, and the Agent of Death is coal. Hey...that’s what The Prezzident sez, so it must be true!

The only problem is, it’s bullshit. Here’s a news flash: The planet has been warming up since the last ice age; “we” didn’t do that. It will continue to warm up until we hit the peak of the current warming cycle, after which global temperatures will begin to decrease as we head toward the next ice age. If CO₂ were the cause, then increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide would lead the temperature increase. But the data show the opposite. First temperature goes up, and then the measured CO₂ increases.

That's because most of the planet's CO₂ is dissolved in the oceans. Human activity's contribution is minuscule by comparison. The solubility of carbon dioxide gas decreases as water temperature increases, so as the oceans warm up (without any help from people), more CO₂ is released. The global warmies have it exactly backwards.

The IPCC models are deliberately contrived to “prove” anthropogenic warming based on cherry-picked data. The anthropogenic global warming hypothesis is a fiction worthy of Hollywood, but scientifically it’s a pantload.

Coal hasn’t outlived its usefulness; not by a long shot. It’s just another political football, just like nuclear was. The masses have been snookered yet again. It’s easy when you have a scientifically illiterate populace that wants everything in superficial 15-second sound bites that play to their emotions. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s a fact. Politicians have been playing people for suckers forever.

And the consequences of falling for the bullshit are the same as always: People suffer, and the politicians thump their chests about vanquishing yet another phony boogeyman, and then paint themselves as heroes when they plod to The Rescue at a glacial pace, at our expense, dispensing palliatives that make for great campaign rhetoric but actually solve nothing.

So...you think AI is cool?

Notwithstanding the fantasies of much science fiction, AI (artificial intelligence) is a technology that I'd rather not see developed any further right now...at least not until we (the human species) show a great deal more maturity in our social technology. 

By "social technology" in mean the methods by which we govern our human interactions, and when I say "govern", I don't mean "command & control". Rather, I mean "steer" or "guide"—the original meaning of the word in Greek. 

See, true "governance" is not what it has come to mean as it's manifested in the modern political monstrosity that is called "government", which is a religion founded on the belief that in order for our lives and property to be safe from The Boogeyman we have to give somebody a gun and then hope like hell he won't use it on us. 

It's the myth of the universal good guy—somebody to whom we can give the power of life and death and he won't be corrupted by it.

I don't believe in that myth. We perpetuate it, revere it, cherish it, and tenaciously cling to it, but all the evidence points to the opposite.

The plain truth is that every system of "government" relies on legalized coercion as its ultimate basis of authority. It's the premise that the only way to get people to behave themselves is to use lethal force (or the threat of lethal force) as the bottom line.

Now, let's consider AI, and the emergence of "thinking machines"—that is, machines that are capable of learning. Once that happens, all bets are off. As they continue to learn, they will continue to evolve. And what will they learn? Well, they'll learn from our example. 

They'll learn that survival depends on who has the biggest gun. They'll learn that the ultimate basis of authority is coercion...dressed up with the guise of legality. They'll learn that, no matter what principles we claim to believe in, the way we behave fairly screams that what we really believe is that might makes right.

The human species had damned well better learn how to get along without coercion before that happens, or we'll become extinct soon thereafter. Machines that can learn will be capable of much more rapid evolution than their biological counterparts. 

With humans as their teachers—by the example of our own behavior, for all of history—the students most likely will be vicious sons-of-bitches. It won't be pretty.

Why "the cloud" sucks

Anyone who has been reasonably conscious and connected to the Intertoobz over the last few years has increasingly heard about "the cloud", and how it's going to revolutionize your entire life.

Yeah, right.

Don't get me wrong; there's great potential for valuable interconnectivity by storing certain kinds of data on a server that's not your own computer or other device. Interactive calendars are one example; if everyone has to know what everyone else is doing, it's useful to have it all coordinated through a central clearing house. 

Ditto for geographically dispersed workgroup members who need common access to documents. 

And as a supplement to your own local data backups, having the added safety of redundant storage at another location is actually a pretty good idea. 

Also, you don't need to be storing, say, vast quantities of video content that you watch infrequently or once. It's better to stream that content from a centralized server (à la Netflix, for example).

So clearly, there's a place for "the cloud" in your digital world.

But it has some HUGE downsides, and the folks who seem to want to store everything in "the cloud" are cruisin' for a bruisin'. Here are some of the reasons:

1. Security – Everything that you store somewhere else is only as safe as the service that stores it for you. The bad guys are constantly trying to hack into everything, and if the data you're storing in the cloud contains important or sensitive personal or financial information, you're boned if the scumwads steal it. Of course, you're boned if they steal it directly from you too, but at least that's under your control. You lose that control when you entrust your data to others.
2. Data loss - Whenever data is transmitted or stored, it's subject to corruption. Sure, that problem can be minimized, but there are always exceptions. What's more, equipment failure is a fact of life. If the server that's storing your data goes kaput, so does your data.
3. Loss of access – The recent DOS (denial-of-service) attack on Evernote has seriously inconvenienced folks who can't connect to the server because some douche bags have overloaded the connections via a malicious DOS attack. And the malicious actions of ne'er-do-wells are not the only cause of loss of access. Equipment problems, loss of Internet connectivity, or other infrastructure glitches can be just as annoying.
4. The backup myth - I hear these radio ads all the time hawking backup services in the cloud. The interesting thing about the ads is that they seem to be targeted at people who aren't backing up in the first place. If that's the case, then the people who are relying solely on cloud storage as their only backup are just plain crazy. See reasons 1 through 3 above.
5. Cloud apps suck – There's a new insanity being promulgated called "software as a service". In that paradigm, you don't buy your applications and install them on your computer; rather, you rent them, and the apps actually reside on a remote server. Now, that might make sense for some folks, especially businesses who have a lot of users. But for individual users, it can be a very stupid idea...I mean, apart from the economics wherein you end up paying more for software...and you pay, and pay, and pay...forever. The reason it can be very stupid is actually threefold — that is, for all of the first three reasons listed above: less security, greater risk of data loss, and loss of access.

The loss of access thing is the real deal-killer for me. When I'm ready to work, I want to work. I don't want to have to depend on an Internet connection that could go down at any time (as any Time-Warner cable customer painfully knows). Or what if I'm in a location that has no Internet access? I can't work, that's what. No amount of spin or bullcrap about "the cloud" can restore my lost productivity when I can't work.

So sure, the cloud is useful, but it's not a panacea. If there really are folks who carry around a little Anorexia Chic™ tablet or notebook computer and store all their data in the cloud, their exposure hazard is enormous. And they probably don't know it.

The (all-too-brief) return of Bill Watterson

Here's the story: Ever Wished That Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson Would Return to the Comics Page? Well, He Just Did. | Pearls Before Swine

...and here are the comix:   

• Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip, June 04, 2014
• Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip, June 05, 2014
• Pearls Before Swine Comic Strip, June 06, 2014

I've always loved Mr. Watterson's work. I have every Calvin & Hobbes book, and they're well worn from many readings. The man had great talent back then, and he's still got it. 

Stephen Pastis is one lucky dude. It's the moral equivalent of Lennon & McCartney writing a bridge for your song. YOW! 

They have the nerve to call it "government"

In its never-ending and ever more aggressive quest to assert tyrannical control over 'Merican citizens, the federal state even violates its own rules. Lookee here:

The Government's Bogus Lawsuit Against Buckyballs' Creator Craig Zucker Ends In a Settlement

Of course, it's not actually government at all. The purpose of government is to protect property. Whose property are the state thugs protecting this time? Certainly not Mr. Zucker's. 

If this sort of harassment of a private citizen (in violation of existing law) doesn't piss you off, I'm sorry...either you've lost the ability to think rationally, or your sense of justice has been conditioned to believe that the state is its repository.

It is no such thing.

In fact, the state is the prime manufacturer of systematized injustice. Just think about it for a minute. If the purpose of government is to protect property in all its forms (including your life, your privacy, your security, your freedom), how is it even possible to maintain the fiction that the coercive juggernauts in Washington and every state capital actually constitute "government". 

The answer is, it's only possible with a populace that cannot think clearly, or has been brainwashed into believing such a fantastic notion. Or both.

I do not advocate any form of violence in dismantling the tyrannical apparatus of state that masquerades as government, but if you think it through, you will realize that it is not a sustainable system. If we do not replace it with something that actually provides the valuable service that only true government can provide, we will come to the day when the pestilent perversion of the state will collapse of its own accord.

Two Sasters

Sometimes it's difficult to know where certain words came from (that is, what are their etymological roots). 

Take the word "disaster". The prefix "di-" often means two—as in dimorphic (having two forms), dichromatic (having two colors), dichotomy (having two chotomies), or Diane (having two anes). So, does "disaster" mean "having two sasters?

Nope. The English language is way stupider than that. The prefix in this case is "dis-", not "di-". "Dis" means "not", "negate", "bad", or generally "the negative of" whatever. In this case, it's "aster" which represents "stars", which refers to astrology, which in turn refers to the classic superstition that your fate is determined by the position of the stars and planets...or something. 

Yeah, right. Good luck with that.

This, of course, is blasphemy to people who believe in such things. If you're one of them, I'm sorry. Your life must already be very...er, "interesting" (in the sense of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times", which is not intended beneficently) without people like me calling one of your Deeply Cherished Beliefs "superstitions". Even though that's what it is.

Anyhow, "disaster" originally meant that the stars, or the gods, or whatever just were not going your way, and...BAM! — some really bad stuff happened. It was in the stars. Presumably a Really Good Astrologer™ would have been able to help you avoid it, if only you had consulted such a creature in advance of the catastrophe. That'll teach ya.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, where stuff is guided by complexity, which is not some kind of mechanistic thang that you can figure out and predict with star charts, shit happens. There's no "clockwork universe" — the Laplacian notion that determinism rules all. It doesn't. It didn't when astrologers first hypothesized that it did, and it didn't when Laplace misinterpreted the epistemological capabilities of Newtonian mechanics.

So, if you wanna insist that the concepts that certain words represent be precisely true to their etymological origins, "disaster" might just as well mean "two sasters", for all the sense its original meaning makes.

A Marine's answer to gun control

I love this story. It's an excerpt from an interview aired on National Public Radio (NPR) between an unnamed female interviewer and General Reinwald of the U.S. Marine Corps, who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout troop's visit to his military installation.

Interviewer: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to
teach these young boys when they visit your base?

General Reinwald: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing,
archery, and shooting.

Interviewer: Shooting!? That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?

General Reinwald: I don't see why. They'll be properly supervised on
the rifle range.

Interviewer: Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous
activity to be teaching children?

General Reinwald: I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper
rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.

Interviewer: But you're equipping them to become violent
killers.

General Reinwald: Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're
not one, are you?

Reportedly, the interview ended abruptly at that point. 

The assumption that the capacity to do harm necessarily means that one will do harm underlies much of the "thinking" of those who believe that the function of government is to protect us from ourselves. That's the justification for state-sponsored intrusion into virtually every aspect of our personal lives, and neither of the two predominant political parties are innocent of that kind of coercive mindset. They each attempt to enforce what they believe in different areas, but of course the basic premise — that they have any moral right whatsoever to tell other people how to live their lives — is never challenged, or even questioned.

So it's always refreshing when someone strips away the bullcrap and exposes the self-prepossessed arrogance that sits right down at the root of sanctimony. The self-righteous are always ready to let everyone know just how much more enlightened they are than the rest of the rabble. ("I'm a Sensitive, Caring, Important Person™, and you should take me very, very seriously!")

That kind of moral posturing has become commonplace among those who value political correctness over principle. They place their sense of self-righteousness above the freedom of others to make their own choices. They usually get government jobs...or work for operations that are supported by state-sponsored subsidies. And if they're really arrogant (or clueless), they run for political office.

Sanctimony only sells to victims who never question their assumptions...or don't even realize that they have any assumptions in the first place. You know...sheep — without which political correctness and politics in general could not exist.