Monthly Archives: July 2015

Behavioral economics mixes the rationality of economics with the semi-rationality of the human brain. This Harvard Magazine article by Cara Feinberg covers the work of Professor Sendhil Mullainathan, who works on studies of how scarcity affects the mind:

In 2008, Mullainathan joined Eldar Shafir, Tod professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton, to write a book exploring these questions. Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (2013) presented years of findings from the fields of psychology and economics, as well as new empirical research of their own. Based on their analysis of the data, they sought to show that, just as food had possessed the minds of the starving volunteers in Minnesota, scarcity steals mental capacity wherever it occurs—from the hungry, to the lonely, to the time-strapped, to the poor. …

“To put it crudely,” he explains, “poverty—no matter who you are—can make you dumber.”To prove it, they planned to administer Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests (essentially IQ tests that measure skills without requiring experience or expertise) to their subjects. Just before taking the test, subjects were asked to consider a hypothetical scenario:

Imagine you’ve got car trouble and repairs cost $300. Your auto insurance will cover half the cost. You need to decide whether to go ahead and get the car fixed,or take a chance and hope that it lasts for a while longer. How would you make this decision? Financially, would it be easy or hard?

Using self-reported household income, the researchers split the subjects into groups of “rich” and “poor.” When they tallied their scores on the Raven’s Matrices, there was no statistically significant difference in the groups’ performance.

But in a second version of the test, researchers raised the price tag for the repairs to $3,000. Although rich people’s test scores showed no significant difference, the poor people’s scores dropped the equivalent of about 14 IQ points: the difference between the categories of “superior” and “average” intelligence—or more pointedly, from “average” to “borderline deficient.” That’s a greater deficit than subjects in sleep studies typically show after staying awake for 24 hours, Mullainathan and Shafir highlight. “Simply raising monetary concerns for the poor,” they explain, “erodes cognitive performance even more than being seriously sleep deprived.” …

Scientists spend vast resources developing medications, water-purifying technologies, financial products, and social services designed to help people in need, he explains. But getting people to use these technologies also requires understanding the psychology of the people using them. Policymakers, he says, must make this type of research a priority.

Great article. It would seem like good policy to use these findings when building programs to help the poor.  But I have to consider this: sometimes these policies implement changes in the way these folks run their lives, and this may be resented.  Regardless of the fascination of these findings, their implementation will be difficult simply because most folks like to run their lives their way.

And apparently scarcity is not a particular synonym for poverty – a scarcity of time can also affect you, causing poor time management decisions to be made when the condition becomes chronic.

… with a scale of approximately 1:10²⁰⁰⁰.

Just a guess.

Here it is.

(h/t NewScientist 4 July 2015)

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not entirely happy with the nuclear deal, reports AL Monitor‘s Arash Karami in an interview with the IRGC’s head, Mohammad Ali Jafari:

“For me, as a military official, what is more important than anything else … is the protection and promotion of Iran’s defensive abilities.”

On the agreement that the Security Council voted on, Jafari said, “Some points included in the draft [are] clearly contrary to and a violation of the red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran, specifically of Iran’s arms capabilities and will never be accepted by us.” He continued, “Any resolution that contradicts our country’s red lines, there is no validity, and we are hopeful that the [UN Security Council] does not waste its time to pass a draft like this.”

Jafari did not say that how he or the IRGC would oppose the aspects of the nuclear deal that he objects to.

While the IRGC does not have a formal responsibility to sign or repudiate the deal, they remain a major force in Iranian political life and could scuttle the agreement.

In Israel, a political opponent of current Prime Minister Netanyahu, former Labor Party Minister Ephraim Sneh, happens to agree with his opponent that this is a bad deal, in another AL Monitor interview:

It is full of holes. First of all, the inspection protocols are very problematic, because they give the Iranians 24 days to prepare. That’s enough time to hide and conceal what they have been doing. After all, they are masters of deception. They’ve spent years deceiving the entire world, so they don’t need more than 24 hours to hide any accumulated evidence. In other words, the inspections aren’t real inspections.

Second, the nuclear project was not dismantled. It was put on hold. It was frozen, and anything frozen can be unfrozen. The Iranians don’t see their strategy in terms of winning the next elections. They look at it in generational and historical terms. They consider domination of the region and of the entire world for that matter as a historic objective, rather than some concrete objective in the here and now. In that sense, another 10 or 15 years is not a lot of time.

The third thing is that the clause regarding the restoration of punitive measures will become impractical in the new reality that will emerge the moment sanctions are lifted. Why? Because who will be the first people to go running to Tehran to do business there? Large corporations. Once they have contractual ties with the Revolutionary Guards or some proxy for the Revolutionary Guards, their government will not take any steps against Iran, because doing so would involve money and jobs. It would involve economic interests. That is why that whole argument is untrustworthy.

Masters of deception, eh?  This argument has the ring of speciousness about it, no doubt due to the hyperbolic rhetoric.  They may be devious, but the West has decades of monitoring experience – and a very bloody history of our own.

The second argument has a similar rhetorical problem – dominate the world?  Secondly, he ignores the very important fact that knowledge is dependent on the scientists.  A frozen nuclear project will, in fact, and if you’ll pardon the pun, decay as the scientists stop working on it and go on to other things, retire, and die.  Even the physical infrastructure will decay.  There is more to unfreezing a high-tech project than simply snapping your fingers.

The third argument is also dubious, although somewhat less so.  But I do feel that Iran will be protectionist, so the number of large corporations with large investments will initially be close to zero; as time passes, this will become less true, but we’ll have gained experience with the Iranians, and they with us.  I think we can hope as the two sides settle into the agreement, they will each appreciate the positives of a peaceful relationship, and the negatives of slinging nuclear explosives at each other.

Nonetheless, Sneh knows a lot more about his corner of the world than do I.

Longtime Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has this to say, as reported by the Daily Star of Lebanon:

“The nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is the result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq… and the corpses of the Syrian people,” the party chief said in his weekly column in Al-Anbaa online newspaper. “It was signed with the blood of the hundreds of thousands who fell in [the process] of paving of the road for the agreement.”

However, the report goes on to say Lebanese officials welcome the deal.  AL Monitor brings more flavor to Jumblatt’s statement:

For Jumblatt, the nuclear deal between Iran and the West is akin to Sykes-Picot of 100 years ago that intended to carve the Ottoman-Arab lands with the decision of two Western colonial powers, the United Kingdom and France. The deal now reached between the West led by the United States and non-Arab Iran might have a similar effect on the Middle Eastern chessboard.

Wikipedia enlightens us as to Sykes–Picot:

The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and France,^[1] with the assent of Russia, defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916.^[2] The agreement was concluded on 16 May 1916.^[3]

The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence.^[4] The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks exposed the agreement, “the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted.”^[5]

But this time around the Turks may not be so happy:

The first Turkish official reaction to the nuclear deal reached in Vienna on July 14 came from Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He said, “Iran should be constructive, attaching importance to political dialogue. … Particularly, it [Iran] should reconsider its role in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.”

The spirit of his words obviously reflected the uneasiness of Turkey from the potential of Iran re-emerging as an international political actor that may overshadow its ambitious western neighbor.

“Constructive” and “attaching importance to political dialogue” can easily be interpreted as “talk to us, talk to Turkey, so we could feel as important ourselves.” As for the second part of his reaction, Cavusoglu means, “Turkey and Iran are pitted against each other from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, in Mesopotamia and the Levant. An Iran strengthened by the West will further undermine Turkey’s regional standing.”

Treehugger‘s Michael Graham Richard is jubilant:

This week [the Sierra Club is] celebrating a new milestone: The 200th U.S. coal plant retirement announcement since 2010. This is a huge deal, because in 2010 there were 535 coal plants in the country, so this is almost 40% of the fleet that is going away (and while it’s not always the biggest power plants that are retired, it’s usually the oldest and dirtiest ones).

Always good to hear, as coal plants are dirty power sources, emitting mercury along with the better known climate change gasses.  Nuclear power plants have declined slightly recently as reported by the government:

Four reactors were taken out of service in 2013: the Crystal River plant in Florida with one reactor in February; the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin with one reactor in April; and the San Onofre plant in California with two reactors in June.  The Vermont Yankee plant in Vermont, with a single reactor, was taken out of service in December 2014.

The World Nuclear Association reports others are on the way, but economic headwinds make progress slow:

Despite a near halt in new construction of more than 30 years, US reliance on nuclear power has grown. In 1980, nuclear plants produced 251 billion kWh, accounting for 11% of the country’s electricity generation. In 2008, that output had risen to 809 billion kWh and nearly 20% of electricity, providing more than 30% of the electricity generated from nuclear power worldwide. Much of the increase came from the 47 reactors, all approved for construction before 1977, that came on line in the late 1970s and 1980s, more than doubling US nuclear generation capacity. The US nuclear industry has also achieved remarkable gains in power plant utilisation through improved refuelling, maintenance and safety systems at existing plants.

While there are plans for a number of new reactors (see section on Preparing for new build below), no more than four new units will come on line by 2020. Since about 2010 the prospect of low natural gas prices continuing for several years has dampened plans for new nuclear capacity.

Traditional hydroelectricity, aka dams, is also declining, as noted by American Rivers:

How many dams actually produce power?

FERC regulates approximately 2,300 hydroelectric producing dams. In addition, there are approximately 240 federal dams that produce hydroelectric power. Thus, there are a total of approximately 2,540 hydropower dams. …

Why are some dams being removed?

There has been a growing movement to remove dams where the costs – including environmental, safety, and socio-cultural impacts – outweigh the benefits – including hydropower, flood control, irrigation, or recreation – or where the dam no longer serves any useful purpose. The goal of removal can be multi-faceted, including restoring flows for fish and wildlife, reinstating the natural sediment and nutrient flow, eliminating safety risks, restoring opportunities for recreation, and saving taxpayer money. …

How many dams have been removed to date?

Currently, American Rivers is aware of almost 1,150 dams that have been removed over the past 100 years in this country. We are still in the process of gathering this data, so that figure continues to increase as more information becomes available. You can view an interactive map of all known U.S. dam removals.

HydroWorld.com provides several case studies of dam decommissioning here.  However, non-traditional hydropower may be growing.  One example is Lucid Energy, which provides systems for harvesting energy from surplus pressure present in city water mains:

Driven by the demand for reliable, cost-effective electricity, water- and energy-intensive industries, municipalities and agricultural irrigation districts worldwide can deploy our in-pipe hydropower system to generate millions of megawatt hours of renewable electricity from the water already flowing through their pipelines – without interrupting flow.

LucidPipe can operate across a wide range of flow conditions, volumes and velocities. The unique lift-based vertical axis spherical turbine design generates electricity by extracting excess head pressure from large diameter (24”-96”), gravity-fed water pipelines and effluent streams. To maximize electricity generation, several LucidPipe systems can be rapidly and easily installed into a single pipeline,* allowing operations to continue normally.

(h/t Discover Magazine July/August 2015)

Naturally, solar and wind are supplying more energy needs.  For example, and full disclosure, I do have an investment in these folks, SolarCity (along with Xcel Power of Minnesota) is now providing a new approach to solar energy: community solar gardens.

SolarCity’s new community solar program will develop a series of up to one-hundred 1MW(AC) community solar installations, or “gardens,” in Wright and Sherburne counties. SolarCity will then invite renters, low-income housing residents, schools, and others in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to enter subscriber agreements to purchase the solar power the gardens produce at a rate of 13 cents per kWh. For up to 25 years, Xcel Energy will credit the subscribers at a rate of 14.7 cents per kWh of electricity that is purchased from SolarCity through a solar garden subscriber agreement. The anticipated 11.5 percent savings will be immediate for subscribers, who will remain Xcel Energy customers.

SolarCity will develop, operate and own the gardens and expects to hire local installation and operations personnel to build the projects. The company plans to reserve the majority of the gardens’ residential allocations in order to give some of the 600,000 apartment renters in Minnesota [1] access to affordable solar power. Community solar can also appeal to homeowners who have heavily shaded or north-facing roofs or those who do not want to make an up-front financial investment in a rooftop system.

(h/t The Motley Fool‘s Justin Loiseau)

As important as environmentalist organizations have been, corporations themselves also often see the light.  While the political class remain bitterly divided on the importance of the environment, firms are beginning to move to preserve customers and, in point of fact, their very existence.  Politicians often seem to exist in their own little worlds, but companies butt up against reality every day – and some are beginning to make positive moves.

A mother responds to this thread:

While unwilling to pay for a subscription to the on-line periodical, I was able to read more by Michel Odent from other sources.

My thoughts about the article(s) are that caring for children, not just birthing them, rely on very basic behaviors and response.  When my child speaks, from his first sounds, my mind focused on his sounds, ignoring all other input.  We call it the “parental mind-wipe” at our house.  As his voice deepens with approaching maturity, the condition occurs less.  While not having read many Odent articles, my guess is that “traditional” roles for men at the time of birthing would be concentrated on keeping the birthing tent/hut safe from predators seeking the easy meal of a newborn or the exhausted mother.

This culture of censored behaviors may be giving rise to outlandish behaviors as a response to the constraints placed on normal feelings. When stressed people feel that the only safe way to experience their stresses and transitions is to medicate or wound themselves, we have stepped backward in evolution.

It does seem like every negative emotion might be a candidate for medication.  Mourning, for example.

My Arts Editor and I were discussing government system efficiency today.  The classic example, in my mind, is the Italian fascists: They made the trains run on time.  My Arts Editor insisted this made them efficient, and that having a single guy making decisions makes for efficient decisions, regardless of their moral achievements, or lack thereof.  I disagreed.

As a software engineer, I’ve been asked more than a few times to optimize a solution to a problem, and after a while you become aware that you must develop a philosophy of efficiency, which essentially asks the question what is efficiency?  Even in software this can be a question of importance: sure, I can make this activity go fast – but do you have concerns about scalability? About the impact on other processes on the computer?  Etc.  A narrow definition of the meaning of efficiency may lead to unanticipated consequences.  Because efficiency is generally considered a positive concept, there can be a blinder effect in which efficiency is pursued with little to no regard to the impact it may have on others

My response to the assertion that the Italian Fascists were efficient governors is to ask, what does it mean to govern?  What is the purpose of government?  To my mind, it’s self-perpetuation – the goal of government is to provide a society with the peace, stability, and stimulation necessary to induce the population to reproduce with enough surviving children to have a viable next generation.  (If someone asks about Art, or God, or whatever, my catch-all answer is “stimulation”.)

With a purpose of government, we can then talk about its efficiency, which is to say, how well does this system of government fulfill the general purpose of government?  There are a few points to keep in mind:

1. As populations change and, arguably, mature or evolve, expectations of the government may change as well.  Monarchies have lasted for centuries; today they are nearly extinct.
2. Technology greatly impacts the expectations of the populace.  As the population finds it has more free time, its expectations change.

Now we can talk about specific performance.  The Italian Fascists held power 1922 – 1945 (Mussolini was ousted in 1943, but the Party soldiered onward), at the end of which the Allies, with the aid of various insurgency groups defeated the Fascists.  One might comment that outside forces can hardly be considered fair, but the Italians had the not inconsiderable force of the German (Fascist) war machine on their side (Japanese aid was, on the other hand, inconsiderable).  Or one might argue that it is the responsibility of government to navigate the shoals of the outside world.

Mussolini had taken naked control of the government in 1925, and he and his Party exercised arbitrary control from then on.  He may, indeed, had a hand in making the trains run on time, but I must ask at what cost to the rest of the country?  And while I cannot supply an answer to the specific question, we may ask the general question, and answer it: did the arbitrary power wielded by Mussolini bring wealth and happiness to the Italians?

The Italians shot him to death.  He brought them War, aggression (the failed invasion of Ethiopia), and defeat.

The problem of efficient government is discovering a way to making everyone happy while keeping the tigers at bay, while being flexible enough to change as required.  Government can generate electricity very efficiently – at the expense of pollution.  Or we can put solar cells on everyone’s roof, which will not be in the least aesthetically pleasing – but might let us decommission most of our power plants.  Is that efficiency?

I think perhaps the best approach is terminological: the Italian Fascists may have come up with an efficient process, but in the end they were inefficient at the game of government.  Sometimes, in order to preserve a governmental system that provides a stable society that self-perpetuates, it’s necessary to sacrifice certain efficiencies.

Response from the Arts Editor:
I can’t take exception to the intent of the sentiments expressed above, but I question the terminology. I think my esteemed colleague is confusing “efficient” and “effective”. To be efficient, one only has to complete one’s tasks with alacrity, using the minimum amount of effort that is needed to accomplish one’s goal. Generally speaking, the larger the committee, the less efficient they are at completing their tasks, since everyone gets to have their say. It follows then, that a dictator is the most efficient decision maker, because his is the only voice in his process that matters. But while the decision-making process of a despot may make for a high level of efficiency, the decisions made may not be effective. They may, indeed, make a whole lot of folks angry enough to overthrow the dictator in question. And while a coup by the masses may indeed be very effective, I surmise that the event itself wouldn’t be too efficient.

Obstetrician Michel Odent suggests that we’re moving further and further away from natural childbirth because we’re simply too bright:

So thinking too much hinders birth?
Yes. The neocortex is highly developed in humans ‐ it allows us to do mathematics, use language, answer questions… It is the thinking brain. But in some situations, neocortical activity can suppress vital activity in our primitive brain. A woman in labour needs to be protected against all possible stimulation of her thinking brain, because giving birth is the business of primitive brain structures. It is a reduction of neocortical activity that makes birth possible in humans. …

From what we know about childbirth before the Neolithic revolution, it seems that women knew to protect themselves against neocortical stimulation – they would isolate themselves to give birth. Today, labouring women are culturally conditioned to think that they are unable to give birth by themselves, that a partner or an expert must be there. The problem is, they are unable to “let go” with others watching them.

So the result?

It has become culturally unacceptable to create the conditions that encourage a fast and easy birth, so right now it is impossible to balance the two. So we have to consider the implications: for how long can we go on not using such a key physiological function? We understand – particularly in the age of epigenetics – that when physiological functions are underused they can become weaker from generation to generation. I cannot see how we can stop this process. The most probable result is a future in which most people are born by caesarean section.

And if doctors become unavailable?  Will we even be able to have a “normal” birth?

If you’re in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area of Minnesota and enjoy experimental theater, I encourage you to consider the upcoming Minnesota Fringe Festival.  I and my lovely Arts Editor will be taking in a number of shows, depending on our stamina and schedules.  Our past experiences have ranged from execrable to amazed; perhaps yours will as well.

An analysis of the Iran Deal comes to us courtesy Max Fisher @ Vox, featuring Aaron Stein, a non-proliferation expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).  His summation?

It exceeds or is directly in line with everything in the US fact sheet that was put out [in April]. I thought the US fact sheet was a great deal, and I think this is a good deal.

When I say that, I mean that it’s a very good nonproliferation deal. If you want it to focus on the problems with Iran running around in Iraq or Syria, this deal is not for you. If you are focused on the nuclear issue specifically, it’s a very good deal.

It’s a good, non-technical interview which seems to interpret the deal on its own terms, rather than through the lens of ideology.  Then again, RUSI is a British organization and thus doesn’t have an American ideological axe to grind, a facet which I find quite valuable.  Without a credible conservative American organization critiquing the deal, it makes me slightly suspicious of the liberal/Democrat response on the issue – what’s to keep them honest?  (And look at the cynicism the situation forces me to project.  Sad situation.)

AL Monitor‘s Bijan Khajehpour reports on the effect the deal may have on Iranian industry:

There is no doubt that post-sanctions developments will lead to a positive economic outlook in Iran. Despite the positive developments, unemployment will remain a major challenge for the Iranian government, so dedicated efforts must be made to create jobs and generate economic momentum. Although a number of nuances and legal processes will shape the new relationship between international companies and Iran, the Iranian economy nonetheless faces a new, unprecedented situation: Iran has invested heavily in industrial capacity to compensate for the gaps created by the sanctions, but post sanctions, these industries will have to operate in a completely different environment. On the one hand, their interactions with international trading partners will be free of previous limitations, but on the other hand, they will face international competition in Iran.

President Rouhani will have to manage this signal achievement carefully:

All in all, the opening of the Iranian market that could follow the lifting of sanctions will produce opportunities as well as threats for Iranian industry. Considering that unemployment has been President Hassan Rouhani’s main priority, and that a negative impact on domestic industry will affect the job market, the government needs to develop a set of policies to protect local industry while also allowing international businesses to re-enter the vast Iranian market.

AL Monitor also notes this may be the end of a popular Iranian chant:

[Iranian analyst and Tehran University professor Sadegh Zibakalam said], “July 14, 2015, is the beginning of the end of ‘Death to America.’ This day will be recorded as the end of ‘Death to the West.’” Zibakalam is no stranger to controversy and has even questioned Iran’s hostile position against Israel. The “Death to America” chant in Iran is often heard at state functions such as rallies or Tehran Friday prayers that are organized by hard-liners. In October 2013, with President Hassan Rouhani in power and promises of better relations with the world, an Asr-e Iran article suggested changing the “Death to America” chant to “Death to Arrogance,” given that the term “arrogance” is a religious one and does not specify a particular country. The author argued that “Death to America” was never originally a chant of the revolution and only came about as a result of geopolitical events after it. In fact, Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had once asked Iran’s media to suspend airing the “Death to America” chant, though this ban was never applied.

It also notes that not all the institutes of Iran are celebrating the deal:

The two most hard-line newspapers, Kayhan and Vatan-e Emrooz, did not share any of the celebratory mood of the Reformist ones. Vatan-e Emrooz’ top story was headlined “Awaiting Implementation,” a far cry from its sensational headlines that often go viral on social media for their shock factor. Kayhan’s top story, “Opposite narratives of one agreement,” read that the fact sheet released by Iran was a “win-loss in favor of Iran,” and that the fact sheet released by the West shows differences. The article, however, praised the hard work of the “faithful and brave” negotiation team.

Which circles back to an observation of Mr. Stein:

Now this is the leap of faith: if this [conversion of fuel with the help of the West] becomes the basis for what will become Iran’s future nuclear program, that you have a very small enrichment program, operating in perpetuity, that can basically just be a fig leaf allowing Iran to say it’s kept its enrichment program. Even though it’s completely minuscule in size, very well-monitored, and nothing really to call home about.

Mr. Stein is only one expert; I look forward to the analysis of other experts.  This does not include faux analysts who can’t be bothered to actually read the agreement.  Only intellectually honest need apply.

The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.¹

In Washington, money flows like a river. It rushes everywhere, sweeping along as much as it can and threatening to drown anything – or anyone – that gets in its way.

Money for campaigns and PACs. Money to hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Money for PR firms and trade associations. Money for think tanks to give the cover of respectability for genuinely ugly ideas.

And there’s another pot of money – the money that keeps the revolving door spinning. It’s about big bonuses that Wall Street banks pay their executives to spend a little time running our government and about the big payoffs that these banks offer when people leave government and head to Wall Street.²

I’d hate to be an American Catholic working for any lobbying firm in Washington.  Or a Catholic member of the government.  Or a Catholic wannabe candidate for anything in D.C.

Just sayin’.

Oh, OK.  Even us non-Catholics should read his words and wonder.

————-

¹ Pope Francis, Bolivian speech.
² Senator Elizabeth Warren, fund-raising letter.

Steven Benen at MaddowBlog comments on the press conference Obama ran concerning the Iran deal:

And then Obama did something I’ve never seen him – or really, any president – do. From the transcript:

“All right. Have we exhausted Iran questions here? I think there’s a helicopter that’s coming. But I really am enjoying this Iran debate.
“Topics that may not have been touched upon, criticisms that you’ve heard that I did not answer…. I just want to make sure that we’re not leaving any stones un-turned here.”

It’s really worth watching the video of this portion, because I’ve never seen anything like it at a White House press conference. In effect, Obama wanted to hear every possible criticism – from Republicans, from Israeli officials, from the media, anyone – of the Iran deal so that he could explain, in detail, why those criticisms are wrong. …

It conveyed an amazing level of confidence in the diplomatic agreement. Obama made it clear that no matter what anyone asked, argued, or complained, he knew this deal is stronger than anything its (or his) critics could come up with.

I suspect historians are going to look at the performance of President Obama and put him in the same category as Jesse Owens, Jim Brown, and George Washington Carver (and many others) – a man who realized that he faced more critical judgments and harsher (and irrational) criticisms than a white person might in the same situation, and found a way to exceed expectations.  From the mundane – an Administration practically free of scandal – to dealing with the emergencies of the day, from Republican leftovers to, perhaps, the Iran nuclear deal – he has been more than competent.  While the evaluation of the Iran deal by experts remains to be well-publicized (or I’m too busy to look), history may label him as superb.

Or, as Andrew Sullivan is wont to say with regard to Obama’s opponents, “Meep Meep, motherfuckers.”

Right here.

(h/t Dbug @ The Daily Kos)

Most warm and happy salutations to the coldest little probe in the Solar System, New Horizons!  Here we see it examining some lovely beachfront property….

The deal was announced today.  Laura Rozen of AL Monitor reports on the reactions of the negotiating teams:

But American, European and Iranian diplomats rallied after a couple hours of sleep to express the hope that the nuclear agreement announced July 14 would not only be durable in reassuring the international community that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapons capability, but that the successful nuclear negotiations could help open a new chapter in relations between Iran and the international community after a tense decade fraught with hostility and mistrust. …

Both Iran and the United States were at pains to show that the parameters of the final deal — whose formal name is the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — met their security demands, while rejecting accusations from domestic political critics that they had made excessive concessions to the other side.

It’ll be interesting to see the reaction of the professional Iranian politicians over the coming weeks.  The Tehran Times has a barebones report:

Rouhani also said Iran sought four objectives in the nuclear talks and all of them have been achieved.

The first objective was to continue its nuclear activities, the second was to remove “wrong and cruel” sanctions, the third was to annul all the “illegal” the sanctions resolutions in the UN Security, and the fourth was to remove Iran’s nuclear dossier from the agenda of UN Security Council, Rouhani said in a televised speech.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani stated that 12 years of illusions and disinformation about Iran’s nuclear activities came to an end and now a new chapter has been opened in Iran’s relations with the world.

He also said all through the process of nuclear talks Iran was insisting that a “win-lose” agreement will not last and that only a “win-win” agreement will be long lasting.

The president also said that under the nuclear agreement Iran will have six thousands centrifuges that five thousands of which will operate in the Natanz facility and more than a thousand in Fordo.

An accompanying opinion piece:

The Iranians with an ancient civilization are now proud of their country which succeeded to bring the tough and even hostile talks with great powers to a happy and prosperous end.

The settlement of the nuclear dispute between Iran and the West at a time that some countries in the Middle East are burning in the fire of barbaric violence and terrorism was really heartening and promising.

It shows that highly complicated issues like the Iran nuclear issue are resolvable if the sides show respect to each other’s rights and concerns and also show sincerity.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is not happy, reports AL Monitor‘s Akiva Eldar:

The whole world speaks of a historical agreement with Iran, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks today, July 14, of a “historical mistake for the world.” Netanyahu used this same terminology many times in the past.

On July 12, the prime minister of a state the size of New Jersey, tiny Israel, announced, “We will not accept” the surrender to Iran by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, and also the leadership of the European Union’s 28 members. At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu accused the world powers of capitulating to Iran and ignoring its incessant calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.

Mr. Eldar is not happy with the Prime Minister, who personally lead the diplomatic effort to defeat any deal:

The defeat in the campaign to foil the Iranian plot to destroy Israel, as Netanyahu claims, will bear his name. The man who chose to personally lead one of the most difficult and intricate diplomatic missions that Israel has undertaken since its inception — if not the most difficult and intricate of them all — will bear sole responsibility for its failure. But we will all pay the price for the deep erosion in the estimation of Israel’s international influence and of the wisdom of its leaders.

The sanctions removal are only the most well-known change for Iran once the deal is implemented; they also will have access to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), reports AL Monitor‘s Paul J. Saunders:

Established in 2001, the SCO became possible only after Russian-Chinese border agreements in 1991 and 1994 that resolved the disputes underlying the 1969 Soviet-Chinese border war. Originally intended to manage technical cross-border issues, the SCO increasingly took on a geopolitical role during the US and NATO war in Afghanistan. At its 2005 summit, the SCO’s members — Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — signed a declaration calling on “members of the anti-terrorist coalition [fighting in Afghanistan] to set a final timeline for their temporary use” of military bases in Central Asia — a delicate way to suggest that the United States and its allies should leave.

… its deeper involvement in the Middle East could have important political implications. First, if regional states perceive the SCO as a political alternative to alignment with (and dependence on) the United States and the West that avoids reliance on a single country — and includes major players such as China, India and Russia — the SCO could provide greater diplomatic flexibility to some Middle East governments. Second, if Iran becomes a full member of the group not long after it gets out from under sanctions, it could strengthen Tehran’s international political cover in pursuing its regional agenda.

On the home front, Politico reports on GOP reaction:

It will be days before Congress receives the full nuclear agreement with Iran and all of its classified annexes for review, but hawkish GOP lawmakers immediately began picking apart the final deal reached early Tuesday as “dangerous” and a “possible death sentence for Israel.”

Congressional Republicans have been warning President Barack Obama against a deal with Tehran for months, telling him to simply walk away as the negotiations dragged on past initial deadlines. But in the wee hours Tuesday, the administration announced a final deal to scale back Iran’s nuclear program and ease strict economic sanctions, so GOP critics’ job has shifted to building support in Congress to scuttle the deal by blocking Obama’s ability to lift those sanctions.

Politico also has a description of the complex agreement here.  Daniel Larison at The American Conservative has this to say about the conservative politicians:

The WSJ report summarizes the contents of the deal:

At the heart of the agreement between Iran and the six powers—the U.S., U.K., Russia, China, Germany and France—is Tehran’s acceptance of strict limits on its nuclear activities for 10 years. These are supposed to ensure that the country remains a minimum of 12 months away from amassing enough nuclear fuel for a bomb. After the 10-year period, those constraints will ease in the subsequent five years.

This will limit Iran’s nuclear program more effectively than a decade of sanctions and coercive methods ever did, and it makes Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon much less likely than any other available course of action. The alternatives that Iran hawks have been proposing for the last two years–ending negotiations, more sanctions, threatening or taking military action–would have left Iran’s program under fewer constraints and would have pushed Iran towards building nuclear weapons. It is important to remember that the loudest, shrillest opponents of this deal would have made a nuclear-armed Iran more likely if they had their way. So when the hard-liners start their inevitable cries of “appeasement” and “surrender” start, keep in mind that their “solution” would have failed and backfired as usual. If the deal is implemented fully, this should take the nuclear issue with Iran off the agenda for at least the next decade and possibly much longer than that.

The Grapes of Wrath

But here’s the thing.  Remember when Mitch McConnell vowed to do everything necessary to defeat President Obama at every turn, on every initiative?  To this independent, that vow appears to have included intellectually dishonest assertions concerning the ACA, Libya, and a number of other initiatives pushed by Obama.

And they have been wrong nearly every time.

So let’s just step up to the plate here (it being the day for the All-Star game, after all), and finish hitting the ball: The GOP, because of its short-sighted concern about the calamity of a center-right politician winning the Presidential election, rather than a far-right fringe candidate, has managed to lose the trust of nearly every independent voter in the USA.  And this is damn near treasonous: this country doesn’t need to be dominated by either party; it benefits far more from tough, but honest debate on all topics.  And once the debate is closed, then we should close ranks.

Not attempt to butt into Presidential business by writing idiotic letters to our rivals.  Or deny the best findings of science when it doesn’t play nice with ideology.  In other words, govern, dammit.  Fill those empty judicial seats.  Tell your corporate sponsors to go away because you’re running a government, not a company.

So when I think about reading the analyses of the deal to be published by the GOP Senators, all I can think is, They’re pre-written, pre-judged, and predicated on defeating Obama.  Debate on the merits?  They have been so consistent in their opposition, so ridiculous in their reasoning, so intemperate in their words, and so … consistently … wrong, that I no longer think they know what a debate on the merits might be.  Instead, it’s all about being partisan.

And that is a disservice to this country.

Speaking of elephants and political boundaries, it turns out that ivory contains DNA, and elephant DNA varies with respect to location, as explained in this 2007 NewScientist report:

A DNA test that reveals where ivory has come from has been used to pinpoint the geographic origins of hundreds of tusks seized from poachers, providing law enforcement agencies with valuable clues.

The test was developed in 2004 through a comparison of elephant DNA from different regions. Theoretically, it can pinpoint the origin of a particular sample to between 500 and 1000 kilometres.

Now, the DNA test has survived its first genuine challenge. It revealed that a huge sample of 532 tusks – seized in Singapore in 2002 but originally shipped from Malawi – came mainly from Zambia, not from multiple locations as originally suspected.

The recent ivory crush thus represents a loss of evidence for tracing exactly where the ivory is poached – i.e., where the elephants are killed.  A recent NewScientist report (27 June 2015) details the potential loss:

Their analysis reveals that since 2006, almost all the seized ivory has come from just two places: Tanzania – which has lost 60 per cent of its elephants over the past five years – and an area of western Africa spanning parts of Gabon, the Republic of the Congo and Cameroon (Science, doi.org/5h6).

“We were very surprised to find that the ivory came from just two locations in Africa,” Wasser said. “It means we can target these areas for law enforcement.”

The DNA information has already been useful in targeting poachers and smugglers, and to unravel trafficking networks, says William Clark of Interpol. “Every tusk should be sampled.”

Another way to locate corruption in Africa.

What is the purpose of the crush action?  The Ninety Six Elephants site explains:

 In the fall of 2013, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pulverized six tons of ivory, rendering trinkets it had confiscated into shards no bigger than a dime. A few months later, China did the same. And these nations are not alone—countries like Kenya, Gabon, and the Philippines have all crushed or burned from their stockpiles. A number of others have scheduled such an action for the near future.

What’s the point of all the crushing and burning? These events send a clear message to traffickers around the world that the trade in ivory won’t be tolerated.

Curious about the possibility of the economic consequences of crushing the ivory in the presence of a black market, to wit, reducing supply => increases prices => increases motivation to kill more elephants, I tracked down the Wildlife Conservation Society’s response on HuffPo:

Much of the commentary around these destructions has been favorable, but some people have suggested that ridding ourselves of ivory might be harmful for elephant conservation by reducing the supply and thus stimulating prices (a key driver of elephant poaching).

A recent misleading headline commenting on Malawi’s destruction of ivory stockpiles (since postponed) read: “One of the Poorest Countries in the World Is About to Burn $7.6M Worth of Ivory.” This misunderstanding is widespread, with some commentators erroneously suggesting that countries are foolish to burn such valuable national assets. Such criticism ignores two facts about confiscated ivory.

First, because it is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to sell seized ivory, it should not be compared to other confiscated consumer goods or to legal ivory from legitimate channels

This strikes me as a non sequitur.  On the other hand, the crushing of the ivory really has an effect if it was previously available to the trade.  As it was stockpiled, one may presume it was unavailable; however, coming to a binary conclusion is probably improper as the existence of stockpiled ivory may influence the activities of traffickers – i.e., attempts to obtain that ivory, through licit (change the laws) or illicit means may affect the price of available black market ivory.  The money saved by no longer having to safeguard the illegal ivory may well outweigh the cost in dead elephants, since the latter may be quite low, depending on how the now-lost ivory had been valued by the black market, factoring in the possibility of acquiring it.

Second, in assigning commercial value to poached and trafficked ivory, we may forget to calculate the social and ecological worth of living elephants for Africa.

The primary benefit in eliminating confiscated ivory is to prevent this material from re-entering the illegal trade and further stimulating trafficking, which has been a significant problem across Africa and Asia. If not destroyed, stockpiles must be secured in perpetuity. This is very expensive, logistically challenging, and often dangerous to those guarding them.

Destroying this ivory sends a strong signal that governments will not tolerate trafficking and associated poaching. The awareness-raising value of stockpile destructions can be even more effective if the government destroying the ivory uses the occasion to announce new effective trafficking deterrents, including actions to fully prosecute criminals (particularly kingpins and major traffickers), significant fines, long jail sentences, and asset seizures.

I fear that, absent studies proving otherwise, I find this assertion that “strong messages” are being sent to be a bunch of hooey.  The black market is already illicit; there’s little reason to believe anyone is paying any attention when the real focus is the greed for the ivory.

From Neil Freeman.

(h/t David Nir @ The Daily Kos)

One of the premier future victims of climate change, besides, ya know, OURSELVES, has been corals, those bizarre marine invertebrates which collectively form reefs by secreting calcium carbonate.  Most live in symbiosis with dinoflagellates, exchanging safety for energy derived from photosynthesis.  Coral bleaching, according to NOAA, occurs when

Warmer water temperatures can result in coral bleaching. When water is too warm, corals will expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white. This is called coral bleaching. When a coral bleaches, it is not dead. Corals can survive a bleaching event, but they are under more stress and are subject to mortality.

In 2005, the U.S. lost half of its coral reefs in the Caribbean in one year due to a massive bleaching event. The warm waters centered around the northern Antilles near the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico expanded southward. Comparison of satellite data from the previous 20 years confirmed that thermal stress from the 2005 event was greater than the previous 20 years combined.

Acidification is important as it affects the ability of coral to build a form of calcium carbonate called aragonite.

Back in 2000 NewScientist (paywall) summarized coral reef research in connection with climate change:

The team manipulated carbonate concentrations by regularly adding acid to the water to recreate the effect of increased CO₂. For the first two years of the project, the team held the carbonate concentration near the low level predicted for 2050, which is 30 per cent lower than today’s ocean concentrations. The following year they increased it to the current level, and the next year raised it beyond pre-industrial levels.

To determine calcification rates, they measured how much carbonate and calcium were removed from the water between acid additions. The reef showed no sign of acclimatising to lower carbonate concentrations, says team leader Chris Langdon of Columbia University, and their results suggest that the decrease in coral growth between 1880 and 2065 will be about 40 per cent. “That’s an enormous hit on shallow marine ecosystems,” says Buddemeier.

“It was quite surprising to see that it was so strong,” says Langdon. Previous projections were lower. But the idea that rising levels of CO2 would have such a heavy impact on corals is well supported in the geological record, he says. At least twice in Earth’s history, levels are thought to have risen even higher than those predicted for the end of this century. During those times large reefs were nonexistent and whole coral families became extinct.

Just this April came this note from Ove Hoegh-Guldberg in NewScientist:

Once, it might have taken the extra ocean warming of an El Niño to cause bleaching, but we’re now getting to the point where even regular temperatures are getting high enough. When we predicted this in 1999, I became a pariah. People were saying “No, that’s not possible.” But it’s coming true – no one’s been able to knock that idea off. And I think that 20 years from now, every summer will be too hot for corals: they will disappear as dominant members of tropical reef systems by 2040-2050. It’s hard to argue it any other way.

But now NewScientist‘s Michael Slezak (20 June 2015) reports on a new discovery – some corals survive these newly stressful situations.  Some of the surprise is due to using poorly chosen proxies for reality:

As carbon dioxide is pushed into the oceans, it forms an acid. This causes a subtle change in chemistry that lowers the water’s saturation in aragonite, a form of calcium carbonate that corals use to grow and build reefs. Above a saturation state of 1, aragonite begins to precipitate out of the water and can be used to form shells. For years, coral biologists have used this measure as a proxy for estimating reef growth rates. Oceans are currently at an aragonite saturation state of around 3.8. Early experiments suggested corals would stop building reefs when the saturation state dropped below 2.5.

Recently, that crucial level has been put in doubt by people looking more closely at how corals build reefs. “All those alarming predictions were based on just the chemistry,” says Adina Paytan at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

So after some research, there’s a tentative push to update the predictions:

Overall, the team found that acidification had about half the impact on coral reef building than previously thought. They calculate that under the worst climate change scenario, with a rampant rise of greenhouse gas emissions, reef-building will slow by between 15 and 35 per cent by 2100, depending on the coral species. Studies by Alexander Venn at the Scientific Centre of Monaco came to similar conclusions. “Ocean acidification doesn’t help, but it’s not by itself a major problem,” says McCulloch.

In an ironic twist, when McCulloch plugged in the added effect of ocean warming, the story got even better. “Corals in warmer temperatures tend to calcify faster,” he says. “Warming helps the process if it’s not stressful.” His conclusion: coral reef building rates won’t change as CO₂ emissions rise this century. Not one bit.

But don’t sit back comfortably in your chair:

And there’s still the other impact of climate change. When things get too hot, the algae that live in symbiosis with corals – lending them their vibrant colours and a ready supply of energy-rich sugars – move out, leaving the reefs looking pale and ghostly. Low-level coral bleaching isn’t uncommon or irreversible. But when temperatures rise rapidly, these algal battery packs move out for too long and the corals die.

And these results are not yet fully accepted by the marine biology community – such as Hoegh-Guldberg.  However, keep in mind that corals are living organisms, with DNA that mutates – meaning genes coding for phenotype features useful to survival in the new environment can be passed on.  So if corals die, it doesn’t mean they all die – or can’t come back:

Of all the world’s reefs, those in the Seychelles were worst affected by the 1998 bleaching, says Nicholas Graham at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. He and his colleagues gathered data from 21 coral reefs around the Seychelles during the 17 years following the El Niño. At first it was near-total destruction. More than 90 per cent of the coral was gone, a state of affairs that was largely unchanged for a full decade. Nine of the 21 reefs were taken over by seaweed and, in Graham’s words, are as good as lost. In 2006, his team published a gloomy report on the reef’s outlook whose pessimistic conclusions have often been cited in reports about corals and climate change.

But between 2005 and 2011, something remarkable happened: coral cover returned almost completely on every other reef. Hard coral had covered 28 per cent of the area before the bleaching; by 2011 it was back up to 23 per cent. Graham says the reefs are on a clear path to a full recovery. Similar findings have been coming in from reefs all over the world.

A useful reminder that if climate change overwhelms humanity, it doesn’t mean a dead world – just a world without humanity.  Other organisms will adapt and continue.

Here’s a lovely picture of a detail of San Miguel Arcángel at the Archaeological Conservancy site.

“If you are attacked by a crocodile there is nothing you can do but accept your ultimate fate as water-lily fertiliser.”

– Carlos Magdalena, horticulturist, water lily researcher.

(NewScientist 20 June 2015, paywall)

The recent tussle over the Civil War, the Confederacy, and the meaning of that tragic era, as noted by Virally Suppressed @ The Daily Kos, reminds me of a greater, ongoing conundrum in American education.  First, a couple of definitions:

1. Information will be defined as logical assertions divorced from their true or false value;
2. True and false values are determined by the best understanding of reality.  (Note that given the connections of government to public schools, and the ban on the favoring of one religion over another in the US Constitution, it would be disingenuous to claim that any given religious text has priority in the understanding of reality.  Science has, as its primary mission, the study of reality; given its many successes, and in accordance with American meritocracy, it is accorded the priority for understanding reality.)

These let us admit that textbooks are full of information without implicitly endorsing the individual components of that information as being true or false.

So the conundrum is simply this: who gets to fill these textbooks with information?  How can we certain that the textbooks contain true information?  American primary education is typically controlled by local school boards, which are responsible for the selection of the textbooks to be used in the classes.  They may also be responsible for meeting standards set by the State and, in some cases, standards set by the court system following lawsuits by various agencies and individuals.

At this juncture, it’s useful to remind the reader that the system of creating textbooks is hardly cost-free, neither in terms of intellectual effort, or creation of the tangible product; creation must be followed by a cross-check, and in cases where information is not, or cannot be, rigorously presented and analyzed, opinions will inevitably intrude into the process.  The fact of cost skews any “market” that may exist, as does the question of how true any given textbook might be, possible discount deals offered by publishers, and other rigors of the marketplace.

Thus, these textbooks are actually supplied by a limited number of publishers.  Decades ago, I recall reading reports concerning the attempted capture of textbook publishers in Texas, the leader by virtue of the size of the state market, by anti-evolutionary theory forces, and the conflict apparently continues, as a 2003 report from the National Center for Science Education indicates.  Entitled “Evolution: Still Deep in the Heart of Textbooks,” it notes,

As the adoption process for biology textbooks began in early 2003, the ranks of those vocally opposed to evolution education swelled. For decades, Mel and Norma Gabler’s Educational Research Analysts — “a conservative Christian organization that reviews public school textbooks submitted for adoption in Texas” which places “scientific flaws in arguments for evolution” at the top of its list of concerns (http://members.aol.com/TxtbkRevws/about.htm) — has urged the Texas Board of Education to minimize evolution and even to include creationism in the textbooks adopted for use in the state (see, for example, RNCSE 1999 Jan/Feb; 19 [1]: 10). In 2003, the Gablers were joined by a host of homegrown creationists as well as by the Discovery Institute, the institutional home of “intelligent design”, in seeking to undermine the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks under consideration.

While evolutionary theory faces no serious disputes within the scientific community, it clearly has its opponents external to the community, and they are not shy in attempting to capture the publishing step of education.  Problems of this sort are not limited to inconvenient science, either.  In the somewhat less rigorous area of history, an article from The Washington Post, entitled “Americans believe false things about the Civil War because even our textbooks bow to the apologists,” covers the problem of the Civil War:

So thoroughly did this mythology take hold that our textbooks still stand history on its head and say secession was for, rather than against, states’ rights. Publishers mystify secession because they don’t want to offend Southern school districts and thereby lose sales. Consider this passage from “The American Journey,” probably the largest textbook ever foisted on middle school students and perhaps the best-selling U.S. history textbook:

The South Secedes

Lincoln and the Republicans had promised not to disturb slavery where it already existed. Nevertheless, many people in the South mistrusted the party, fearing that the Republican government would not protect Southern rights and liberties. On December 20, 1860, the South’s long-standing threat to leave the Union became a reality when South Carolina held a special convention and voted to secede.

The section reads as if slavery was not the reason for secession. Instead, the rationale is completely vague: White Southerners feared for their “rights and liberties.” On the next page, the authors are more precise: White Southerners claimed that since “the national government” had been derelict ” — by refusing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and by denying the Southern states equal rights in the territories — the states were justified in leaving the Union.”

The article points out the seceding states each declared their motivation for leaving the Union was to preserve slavery, but the history books obscure this fact with, instead, concerns about state rights.

Given the costs of producing textbooks, and the limited offerings necessarily available, how do we ensure true, full facts are contained in these books?

Some might advocate a governmental approach, i.e., all facts in this textbook are government-approved.  This almost makes sense for primary schools, as nearly all information in such schools should be of a basic nature, and not controversial – which is not to say they are all, in actuality, true, but they are generally accepted as true.  The nature of the human condition requires all knowledge to be contingent, and we should be aware of this.

However, by assigning to a political institution this decision, the entire question of what belongs in textbooks, and what are true facts, becomes an exercise in politics.  For even the most casual observer of the American political process at the State and Federal levels, we know that will result in the committees in charge becoming coveted positions, subject to the most violent of political passions and conflicts.  If the questions is assigned to a bureaucracy, then either decisions will happen at the speed of a glacier, or just a few individuals will become responsible, and the possibility they will be untrained in the specialties in question, or maintain positions outside the mainstream with regard to those subjects, will be substantially non-zero.

Texas uses a State Board of Education, as explained by the New York Review of Books:

… and the peculiarities of its system of government, in which the State Board of Education is selected in elections that are practically devoid of voters, and wealthy donors can chip in unlimited amounts of money to help their favorites win.

The vulnerability of this system to manipulation by individuals holding opinions at wide variance with the current perceptions of reality should be obvious.  As Texas and Texas publishers have undue influence over the industry of educational materials, they are certainly the most important of all States in their manner of selecting textbooks.  The article goes on to cover the many eccentricities involved in this most important of processes.

Do I cover all important issues here?  No.  Open Source textbooks may be the answer – or they may become part of the problem.  Here is a link to a Utah project, which is interesting but dismaying in that it compares test score results of kids using open source vs kids using traditional textbooks; I should prefer an analysis of the content of the books and how relevant scholars evaluate the books.

To my engineering mind, there does not appear to be that useful solution which we can implement and forget, just continual battle with those who so violently disagree with established knowledge models that they will do anything to interject their views into the mainstream.  I hope someone smarter than I comes along with a better solution.

(h/t Hunter @ The Daily Kos)

And in the category of strangely useful software:

Now even computers are going to be critical of how we look: algorithms are getting into style. New software judges outfits from a photograph and offers tips to make them look even more chic. …

To teach the software about fashion, Urtasun’s team showed it thousands of pictures from Chictopia, a popular style website. The more positive votes left by other users, the more “fashionable” the software perceived the look to be.

It also noted other information about the photo, such as the user’s geographic location, the date they had posted it, the background of the picture, and written descriptions of the clothing.

The resulting software uses this information to categorise outfits and make suggestions based on what was successful for others in similar situations – for example, to add black boots or try something in pastel. The team plans to hone the results further by showing it a more diverse array of photos from other sources.

The next step being the creation of the latest fashion trend by an algorithm?

(NewScientist 20 June 2015, paywall)

(Random thought on four hours of sleep: are algorithms the souls of computers?)

NewScientist (20 June 2015, paywall) reports on an owl-based innovation in wind turbines:

… the team made its own wings by taking an aerofoil and adding a number of fins that trail across and off the edge of the surface. The fins replicate the owl’s evenly spaced bristles, and also disrupt surface pressure on the aerofoil, reducing the sound waves it produces. …

The best-performing fins cut noise by a factor of 10 compared with finless aerofoils. The team will present the work at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference in Dallas, Texas, later this month.

We’re back.  We saw four plays (in three days) in Stratford, ON, at the Festival, and then made out leisurely way to Traverse City, MI, to visit with Deb’s family.

Beyond the single review posted for Possible Worlds, we were not compelled by the plays in Stratford.  The productions were, of course, excellent, but the plays themselves did not really draw you in.

Pericles, our lone actual Shakespeare play, seems a gigantic contrivance to amaze the audience with the possibilities of coincidence.

Oedipus Rex must be moving from Classic to Ancient at this point: a play so far from its cultural mores that, to make sense of the true horror it must convey, modern audiences must thoroughly disable their sense of incredulity.  And while I’m certain there are multiple essays on a number of its facets, I’m equally certain they’ve all been done by a thousand theatre students; I have nothing insightful to add.

The Physicists, while intriguing and unpredictable, also felt dated – it’s a Cold War farce.  And would it be worth a second viewing?

During the trip I finished The Outer Limits of Reason – last referenced here.  I also read in their entirety Niven and Lerner’s Fleet of Worlds and Thomas King‘s The Inconvenient Indian – the latter caused me periodic bouts of outrage and then depression.  While I wouldn’t class him with Twain, as does one blurb, his remark that every single war and treaty between the North American Indians and the Europeans was about Land, Land, Land certainly rang true (which for no particular reason reminds me that Heinlein said the same thing in Starship Troopers).  Definitely recommended.

And my thanks to Chris for blogging in my absence!