Author Archives: Hue White

Science is a perfect ideal surrounded by imperfect servants, by whom I mean the scientists: poor sensory organs, poor tools, and the occasional dishonest creature makes up the corp.  The results are studies with results defying known science, anomalous results, and the occasional out and out fraud.  These problems are not particularly easy to manage, due to various factors, which I take to include both poor logistical tools as well as egotism and narcissism, and, in the commercial realm, a desire for corporate secrecy.

The advent of computers and then the Internet, however, present an opportunity to emplace procedures ameliorating the imperfections of the servants of science.  But first, an example of the problem, courtesy an anonymous psychologist and The Atlantic:

In the last few years, psychologists have become increasingly aware of, and unsettled by, these problems. Some have created an informal movement to draw attention to the “reproducibility crisis” that threatens the credibility of their field. Others have argued that no such crisis exists, and accused critics of being second-stringers and bullies, and of favoring joyless grousing over important science. In the midst of this often acrimonious debate, [Brian] Nosek has always been a level-headed figure, who gained the respect of both sides. As such, the results of the Reproducibility Project, published today in Science, have been hotly anticipated.

They make for grim reading. Although 97 percent of the 100 studies originally reported statistically significant results, just 36 percent of the replications did.

The original publication in Science is here.  Lisa Feldman Barrett, in the New York Times, disagrees with the perception that there may be a crisis occurring:

But the failure to replicate is not a cause for alarm; in fact, it is a normal part of how science works.

Suppose you have two well-designed, carefully run studies, A and B, that investigate the same phenomenon. They perform what appear to be identical experiments, and yet they reach opposite conclusions. Study A produces the predicted phenomenon, whereas Study B does not. We have a failure to replicate.

Does this mean that the phenomenon in question is necessarily illusory? Absolutely not. If the studies were well designed and executed, it is more likely that the phenomenon from Study A is true only under certain conditions. The scientist’s job now is to figure out what those conditions are, in order to form new and better hypotheses to test. …

Psychologists are usually well attuned to the importance of context. In our experiments, we take great pains to avoid any irregularities or distractions that might affect the results. But when it comes to replication, psychologists and their critics often seem to forget the powerful and subtle effects of context. They ask simply, “Did the experiment work or not?” rather than considering a failure to replicate as a valuable scientific clue.

(h/t Richard Soulen)  And, of course, this can be absolutely true for some fields, and false in others.  However, the point is to detect those studies with flaws in design and execution, and to detect them early.  To this goal, Dr. Nosek is now running the Reproducibility Project.  From the Atlantic article:

… would be the first big systematic attempt to answer questions that have been vexing psychologists for years, if not decades. What proportion of results in their field are reliable?

As Professor Barrett points out, this could be an opportunity to discover new information and follow leads to new discoveries.  But replication of results remains an important facet of science, so this project is important in its own right, not only for psychology, but science in general.  And replication can be used as a criticism, as in this article from NewScientist (22 August 2015, paywall), “Suicidal behaviour predicted by blood test showing gene changes,” which claims tentative evidence that suicide can be predicted from a blood test.  Here’s the criticism:

While mortality linked to physiological conditions like cardiac disease has fallen, suicide rates are at an all-time high across all age groups in the US. In the UK, rates have been rising steadily since 2007, and similar trends are seen in other countries. The desire to have psychiatry benefit from biological advances in the same way as the rest of medicine is why the NIMH has changed its approach. But the shift towards detecting biomarkers by neuroimaging or monitoring gene expression has drawn criticism.

“The NIMH is funding biomarker porn,” says James Coyne of University Medical Center in Groningen, the Netherlands. “It’s airbrushed, heavily edited, and you can’t replicate it at home.”

Coyne’s view is shaped by the small sample sizes used in early mental health biomarker research – something that can be problematic for rare conditions.

An allied problem is publication bias, wherein journals preferentially publish papers which fail to falsify their hypothesis, which means we lose access to knowledge about falsified hypotheses.  This has particularly been a problem in the area of drug development, wherein we have not kept good track of what drugs are not applicable to what conditions – arguably more sheer data than what drug does have an effect on what condition.  Towards resolving this is ClinicalTrials.gov, which enables the registration of studies as well as their results.

Then we can talk about fraud.  Scientific American has a review of a book, On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (Princeton University Press, 2010), by David Goodstein, containing this fascinating observation:

Knowing that scientists are highly motivated by status and rewards, that they are no more objective than professionals in other fields, that they can dogmatically defend an idea no less vehemently than ideologues and that they can fall sway to the pull of authority allows us to understand that, in Goodstein’s assessment, “injecting falsehoods into the body of science is rarely, if ever, the purpose of those who perpetrate fraud. They almost always believe that they are injecting a truth into the scientific record.” Goodstein should know because his job as the vice provost of Caltech was to investigate allegations of scientific misconduct. From his investigations Goodstein found three risk factors present in nearly all cases of scientific fraud. The perpetrators, he writes, “1. Were under career pressure; 2. Knew, or thought they knew, what the answer to the problem they were considering would turn out to be if they went to all the trouble of doing the work properly; and 3. Were working in a field where individual experiments are not expected to be precisely reproducible.”

And while scientific fraud is a serious matter, I must cite one that makes me laugh, the Columbia University ‘Miracle’ Study of 2004.  From, appropriately enough, Skeptical Inquirer:

On October 2, 2001, the New York Times reported that researchers at prestigious Columbia University Medical Center in New York had discovered something quite extraordinary (1). Using virtually foolproof scientific methods the researchers had demonstrated that infertile women who were prayed for by Christian prayer groups became pregnant twice as often as those who did not have people praying for them. The study was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine (2). Even the researchers were shocked. The study’s results could only be described as miraculous. This was welcome and wonderful news for a shaken nation.

The upshot?  Bad procedures.  Two authors who backed away and refused to answer questions.  A third who ended up in jail.  Again.

So what?  Don’t we already have “peer-reviewed” journals?  Certainly, but they can only do so much.  From Charles Seife at the L. A. Times:

[Science Magazine] Editor in Chief Marcia McNutt said the magazine was essentially helpless against the depredations of a clever hoaxer: “No peer review process is perfect, and in fact it is very difficult for peer reviewers to detect artful fraud.”

This is, unfortunately, accurate. In a scientific collaboration, a smart grad student can pull the wool over his advisor’s eyes — or vice versa. And if close collaborators aren’t going to catch the problem, it’s no surprise that outside reviewers dragooned into critiquing the research for a journal won’t catch it either. A modern science article rests on a foundation of trust.

So some scientists have feet of clay.  Projects such as the Replication Project function as a way to splash more light onto studies, and whether it’s disinterested scientists performing their duties, or scientists with vendettas, when the subject is out in the light for viewing, it’s just like the encryption community – everything improves.  Using technology to gather up studies in all their details, from data to collection methods to analysis methods to results will certainly help to improve the quality of the studies, IF other scientists are willing to take that information seriously and use it for their own replication attempts.

After all, scientists don’t reinvent the wheel; they stand on the shoulders of those who already did.

Given how the news has crawled all over Kim Davis, the elected county clerk in KY who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, it seems like there’s nothing more to add to the furor. Still, I can’t help wondering if the following line of questioning has been pursued. I imagine her responses as that of a reasonable person who perhaps hasn’t quite followed through the reasoning …

Questioner: Mz. Davis, do you see your elective position as religious; that is, are you a religious official due to having been elected to the position of county clerk?

Mz. Davis: Why, no. The United States, while a Christian country, does not permit religion in government.

Questioner: So, Mz. Davis, when you issue a marriage license to a loving couple, are you blessing, or calling forth the blessing of a divinity, upon this marriage?

Mz. Davis: Of course not.

Questioner: Is it your duty, then, to ascertain that the couples presenting themselves have passed certain legal requirements, such as age, and upon satisfying yourself as to those requirements, to present a State sanctioned civil license of marriage to them?

Mz. Davis: Well, yes, but –

Questioner: So, as we have agreed, there is no presence of divinity, blessing, or any other religious association with this civil matter.

Mz. Davis: Yes, but –

Questioner: Mz. Davis, does religious marriage have a contingency on obtaining a civil license?

Mz. Davis: No!

Questioner: Nor does civil marriage have such a contingency on a religious marriage sanction; they are, in fact, separate and unrelated institutions. Mz. Davis, given the complete lack of religious association with your duties, how can you continue to refuse to issue civil licenses to gay couples?

This line of logical reasoning, illuminating certain facts, should be enough to quiet the storm. Still, I suspect Presidential candidates such as Huckabee will disagree. Western Journalism, provider of the Huckabee link, appears to be somewhat confused (as does the candidate) about how the law works, when they ask,

But more particularly Huckabee wants to know under exactly what law Davis is being commanded to issue marriage licenses to gay couples?

The main question is this: just what “law” did the Supreme Court make with its gay marriage decision? What statute was passed? What law written?

The answer is none.

The answer, of course, is that none is required.  Absent any law denying the application, and assuming all applicable requirements are met (again, age, etc), the application must be granted – the clerk does not have personal discretion in the matter.  Huckabee’s yapping about enabling legislation is just that.

To his credit, fellow GOP Presidential candidate Lindsey Graham has taken the opposite end of the spectrum, courtesy Towleroad:

Sen. Graham issued his comments on Hugh Hewitt’s conservative radio program this Tuesday saying that while he agrees with Davis’ ideals on marriage, she still has to comply with the law of the land:

“The rule of law is the rule of law. We are a rule of law nation.

“I appreciate her conviction, I support traditional marriage, but she’s accepted a job in which she has to apply the law to everyone.”

Sen. Graham ended his statement saying that if Davis doesn’t comply with the law then she needs to resign from her position.

RightWingWatch‘s coverage of the matter is here.

The University of Minnesota is continuing in the tradition of Norman Borlaug in the enhancement of farming output as noted in this report from BTN (Big Ten Network):

[Professor Ian] MacRae and his team are employing unmanned aerial drones to scrutinize vast farm fields in order to find pockets of insect pests. Once they’re detected, insecticides can be deployed in a targeted fashion instead of sprayed indiscriminately. …

“Within five to 10 years, we should be able to associate particular wavelengths of light with insect populations, with weed populations and with disease populations,” MacRae explained. “We’re going to see precision agriculture greatly assisted in a very, very short period of time.”

So farms will be beset by buzzing, big drones, possibly even carrying payloads of poison?  Well, actually not so much buzzing, as reported by NewScientist (10 June 2015, paywall):

The GL-10 is the latest in a series of prototypes from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It is made from carbon fibre and has a wingspan of 3 metres. But its most unusual feature is the large number of engines, with eight on the wings and another two on the tail. One aim of this is to generate efficient electric propulsion, but the project also solves the problem of aircraft noise: several small motors are quieter than a few large ones.

The GL-10 also boasts novel Leading Edge Asynchronous Propeller (LEAP) technology, which prevents the sound from the propellers combining into one loud noise or harmonic.

“Since we have many propellers, we can operate every motor at slightly different rpm [revolutions per minute],” says project controller Mark Moore. “We have a whole bunch of smaller harmonics and can spread them out across the frequencies. We call this frequency-spectrum spreading, and it’s only possible because we have many propellers and very precise digital control of them.”

This spectrum spreading means that the GL-10 is inaudible when it flies overhead at 30 metres. It can take off vertically, making it ideal as an urban parcel courier for payloads of 5 kilograms or less.

A light-weight report such as this doesn’t have time to dwell on the downside of this research, i.e., unforeseen consequences, so I’m left to wonder what ripple impact will work like this have on the ecology as the pests suffer population losses, their predators find food wanting, etc… and unforeseen positive impacts as well.

CNN is reporting the announcement by Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland that she supports the Iran deal means a Presidential veto of legislation rejecting the deal can be sustained:

While majorities of both the GOP-controlled House and Senate are poised to vote against the agreement, supporters of the multinational accord that aims to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons program are also hoping to get the 41 votes needed to filibuster the bill and prevent it from even getting to a final vote in the Senate.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the administration will continue to try and push support for the deal past the 34 votes they now have “until the last moment.”

I wonder if they’re now hoping some Republican members of Congress will decide to sign on to this possibly historic agreement, rather than end up on the wrong side for pure partisan politics.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, having reluctantly decided to accept the agreement as a done deal, are preparing to make the best of it, according to Julian Pecquet at AL Monitor:

King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud’s three-day visit, strategically scheduled just days before Congress votes on the agreement, offers the Saudi leader a powerful platform to insist that the United States help combat Iranian “mischief.” The king is seeking assurances in the fight against Iran’s proxies across the region, as well as with elements of the nuclear deal itself. …

“The agreement must include a specific, strict and sustainable inspection regime of all Iranian sites, including military sites, as well as a mechanism to swiftly re-impose effective sanctions in the event that Iran violates the agreement,” the Saudi Embassy in Washington said after the deal was announced.

Most of the discussion is expected to center on non-nuclear issues, however.

Salman and President Barack Obama, who will meet Sept. 4 at the White House, are expected to further flesh out Washington’s promise of increased military support for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries — including a potential missile defense shield — as discussed during the US-GCC Camp David summit in May. That meeting, which was skipped by four of the top six regional leaders — including Salman — aimed to reassure the Gulf nations of America’s commitment to their security amid the perceived rapprochement with Iran. …

Much of the conversation is expected to focus on military hardware: The Saudis are seeking upgrades to their F-15s along with other advanced weaponry, but Israel is said to have raised concerns during Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s recent visit to the region. Congress may object to such sales if lawmakers deem that they would undermine Israel’s so-called qualitative military edge.

An upgraded military capability cannot make Israel happy.  Perhaps a recognition of Israel’s right to exist and diplomatic ties might be part of the price for a better military?  Excuse me while I indulge in a bit of schadenfreude at the GOP’s expense … the eye bulging would be priceless; but I fear neither Obama nor Secretary of State Kerry is that much of a magician.

Oman is pleased with itself, according to The Maghreb and Orient Courier:

The sultanate’s role in the “historic” agreement signed between great powers (P5+1) and Tehran is possibly the crowning achievement in Oman’s diplomatic record thus far, and grows its reputation as a state that can help resolve the region’s thorniest issues. Omanis are justifiably proud of their government’s successes on the international stage. Newspapers in Muscat carried the headlines: “Oman’s crucial role in Iran deal hailed by US”, “Iran praises Oman’s role in landmark nuclear deal”, and “Oman hopes Iran deal will lead to peace, stability.” But does this deal really improve Oman’s and the region’s security and stability? …

For Oman there is a lot at stake in their efforts to balance regional rivalries. The country’s long term strategy hinges on converting its oil exporting economy into a fully diversified hub of trade, tourism and logistics at the core of the Indian Ocean-Gulf littoral. The success of this plan will depend on whether it can continue to straddle the increasing perilous ground between Saudi-led Arab states, and Iran and its regional allies. The growing polarization in the region is causing many in the Gulf States to begin accusing Oman of siding with the Iranian ‘enemy’. It seems that a George W. Bush-like ‘you’re either with us or against us’ mentality is growing, which makes holding the middle ground increasingly difficult. On the plus side, Oman’s economic and security relations with the West remain exceptionally strong – particularly the US and the UK. But while Oman has consolidated its already good relations with Iran – plans for a trans-Gulf ferry service were quickly pushed forward since the landmark nuclear deal – more work is required to convince its GCC partners of its good intentions and the reasoning behind its neutral stances.

Foreign Policy Journal also gives a bit of history on Oman’s role.

Kuwait appears to be unhappy, according to this report in Middle East Briefing:

The US strategy towards Iran prior to the nuclear deal was that of containment. No one tells us now what will replace this strategy. We only hear this barrage of simplification and flat arguments defending the deal and accusing its critics of war mongering and repeated parroting from the deal supporters of the “blockbuster” question: What is the alternative?

Fine. Time now to ask: What is the alternative to the containment policy with Iran? The expected answer in the current politicized debate is: We are placing Iran in the watch list. There are many problems with this answer. First, Iran exists in a region that has a very rapid crisis tempo. Iran is not Gabon or Liberia. This tempo requires swift responses and clearer categorization. Second, being in the so-called “watch list” is not a strategy. It is the polished name of lacking one. Third, for are all the cheap shots directed towards the critics of the nuclear deal, no official effort to explain the position of the new relations with Iran within a clear regional strategy was ever provided.

They also claim to have foiled an instance of Iranian-backed terrorism:

It appeared as well that the ring was well organized and financed. The sources of finance were Hezbollah, the IRGC and local economic activities (particularly currency exchange and construction businesses owned by members). The targets were designated, researched, photographed, and some dry runs were done. A group of sympathizers and facilitators were organized, some of them in high and sensitive positions. …

Internationally, arresting the terrorist ring comes as a huge embarrassment to Iran just on the heel of signing the nuclear deal. The ring raises doubts about the authenticity of Tehran commitment to fight terrorism or to improve its ties with the GCC. Who can guarantee now that Tehran will not use terrorism internationally as it used to?

A similar claim comes from Saudi Arabia, as reported by AL Monitor:

Intelligence officials were waiting for Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, the man authorities blame for the 1996 bombing of US military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, near the Dhahran air base. The blast killed 19 US Air Force personnel and wounded 372. Mughassil is said to be the head of Saudi Hezbollah, also called Hezbollah al-Hejaz, a group that Saudi authorities accuse of being an Iranian arm in the country.  …

“Mughassil’s arrest is a major under-the-belt hit by the Saudis to Iran; now we are waiting to see the response, if there will be any.”

The Iran deal doesn’t signal the end of aggressive moves on either side.  Speaking of persistence, the GOP is now asking the individual States to implement sanctions and otherwise interfere with commerce with Iran, as reported by AL Monitor:

With hawkish Democrats Bob Casey and Chris Coons all but ensuring opponents won’t have a veto-proof majority in the US Senate, the states are coming under pressure to pass their own sanctions. The Republican attorneys general of Oklahoma and Michigan, Scott Pruitt and Bill Schuette, wrote a letter to their counterparts Sept. 1 urging them to do just that.

“The states certainly have numerous moral and reputational reasons to prohibit investment of public assets into companies doing business with Iran and other countries that sponsor terrorism,” they wrote. “Even if it is true that Iran has relinquished its ambitions for a nuclear weapon and that its deal with President [Barack] Obama will prevent such an acquisition — both of which are highly questionable — Iran engages in a range of other reprehensible activities.”

The letter was accompanied by proposed draft legislation that the states that haven’t yet passed such sanctions are invited to use as a template. States have two main avenues for sanctioning Iran: restricting investments by state retirement plans, and barring state agencies from buying goods and services from blacklisted individuals and entities.

Whether this is infringing on Federal privileges with regard to foreign relations is not entire clear.

The most fragile of species, the California Condor, until recently had been losing significant numbers to electrocution.  NewScientist (22 August 2015, paywall) reports on how conservationists combat this:

Electrical cables and lead poisoning have been killing them off too early. “As they go in to land at a carcass, or to roost for the night, they just don’t see the power lines,” says Bruce Rideout of San Diego Zoo. Their wings can bridge the gap between cables, resulting in electrocution if they touch two lines at once.

So conservationists have come up with a shocking solution. The condors are caught several times a year for monitoring and health screening, when they also receive cable aversion training. Artificial utility poles, placed in large training pens, teach the birds to stay clear of cables by giving them a painful electric shock. Before the training was introduced, 66 per cent of released birds died of electrocution. This has now dropped to 18 per cent (Biological Conservation, doi.org/6tb).

Just a note on this project to say the refactoring has gone smoothly, and while it’s not been tested, I can at least rest easy that it compiles.  In Mythryl, once you have something compiling, you can feel a lot more confident that everything will work out than in, say, C.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) recently caused a stir when he blamed gun violence on heterogeneity while being interviewed on WBAP’s Chris Salcedo Show.  This is courtesy Scott Keyes @ ThinkProgress:

“It has a lot to do with distrust of people. Chris, I have been in lots of societies, we could say like Japan, where they have a homogeneous society, where people are more alike,” Sessions said. He went on to discuss “this thought process that we have to have diversity in America.

Neither Scott nor my original lead on this incident, Hunter @ The Daily Kos, seemed to really zero in on the problem with Rep. Sessions statement.  To my mind, Rep. Sessions has completely forgotten the original purpose of the United States of America: to successfully live cheek to jowl with other people who have differing viewpoints.  This is perhaps the most critical mission of the United States in the minds of the Founders, but Sessions basically appears to have rejected it in favor of having more people that, well, think like he does.

That’s the unstated point of the First Amendment.

I remember when Firefox was a stable little browser.

Now it crashes multiple times a day.

Aggravating.  If I want to move on to Vivaldi, I’ll have to upgrade my Linux box.  I’ve been avoiding that for … YEARS … because the X11 drivers didn’t recognize the graphics cards.  But it may be time.

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The Guardian is reporting that a new study indicates neonicotinoids may be even more dangerous than previously thought:

Three pesticides banned in Europe for their potential to damage bee populations could pose an even greater threat than was thought, according to a new assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa).

Already proscribed for seed treatments and soil applications, the Efsa analysis says that clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam also pose a ‘high risk’ to bees when sprayed on leaves.

The UK is currently facing a legal challenge to an emergency exemption it granted, allowing use of two of the substances, after protests by the National Farmers Union.

But far from supporting the British case, the advisory expert assessment will add to pressure for an extension of the ban to apply to fruit orchards after blooming, and crops gown in greenhouses, Greenpeace says.

Big Ag is not happy:

But industry groups deny any link between the disappearing bees and pesticide use. Syngenta, which manufactures one of the banned substances even threatened to sue Efsa officials involved in the original risk assessment.

Which is unfortunate.  They should be challenging the study on scientific grounds, because we’re talking about the relatively simple arena of science, not the horribly complex area of politics.

(h/t Michael Graham Richard @ Treehugger.com)

The events at Lake Nyos, in Cameroon, Africa, in 1986 are terrifying, as the sudden release of tons of carbon dioxide asphyxiated the local population.  Some died in their sleep, others as they investigated the noise of the gaseous eruption and resultant cloud.  They simply collapsed.

But on the evening of Aug. 21, 1986, farmers living near the lake heard rumbling. At the same time, a frothy spray shot hundreds of feet out of the lake, and a white cloud collected over the water. From the gro­und, the cloud grew to 328 feet (100 meters) tall and flowed across the land. When farmers near the lake left their houses to investigate the noise, they lost consciousness.

The heavy cloud sunk into a valley, which channeled it into settlements. People in the affected areas collapsed in their tracks — at home, on roads or in the field — losing consciousness or dying in a few breaths. In Nyos an­d Kam, the first villages hit by the cloud, everyone but four inhabitants on high ground died.

And a similar situation may exist at Lake Kivu, threatening millions, as reported by The Observer.

Now a slow motion version of a similar problem involving currently sequestered carbon may be present in eastern Siberia.  NewScientist‘s Eli Kintisch reports (15 August 2015, paywall):

The trees at Hellhole – the moniker sticks – were burned a decade ago and could provide an important clue in the debate over the impact of Arctic fire (see diagram). There is no question that warmer temperatures, drier conditions and, possibly, an uptick in lightning are catalysing a rise in blazes across the Arctic. This summer over 9 million hectares of forest in Alaska and Canada have burnt – a record – drawing thousands of firefighters to help.

Fires devour the organic layer of leaf litter and shrubs on the floor of boreal forests and tundra alike. As this layer offers insulation during the summer, burned sites could see an increase in the depth of the soil that thaws in summer, before refreezing in winter. More thawed soil could mean more microbial respiration of ancient Arctic carbon into the atmosphere, eventually turning the boreal forest from a carbon sink into a source.

Not the immediate deaths of millions, as at the lakes – but a large potential addition to the climate change crisis.  But will it happen?

McKenzie Kuhn, a recent college graduate, checks one of a series of funnel-shaped bubble traps she set in the [Siberian] pools days ago. In the anoxic conditions found in the soil beneath the ponds, microbes can create methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The team is now trying to measure emissions from the ponds and determine if they come from the carbon locked in the permafrost.

Back in Cherskiy, preliminary lab tests of the gases emitted by the soils below Hellhole’s ponds show surprisingly high amounts of methane. So by destabilising the soil and creating microponds, the scientists hypothesise, fire may be creating a new fuse on the Arctic carbon bomb.

A great deal of methane, another component of climate change, is currently sequestered in the form of methane hydrates, methane frozen inside of ice.  As the globe warms, there are concerns that these could melt, adding to our woes.  They are found in the depths of the oceans as well as in permafrost.  CommonDreams contributes this report:

Warning that a dramatic “burp” or “pulse” of methane from beneath the fragile permafrost of the Arctic caused by continued global warming would set off a “climate catastrophe,” a new study says that the continued melting is also an economic “time bomb” that could cost the global economy $60 trillion.

Billions upon billions of tons of methane remain stored in the permafrost throughout the Arctic regions, but specific concern has been placed on the enormous reserves that sit locked beneath the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Scientists have repeatedly warned that if these deposits—many frozen in the form of methane hydrates—were released, they would trigger massive feedback loops and dramatically increase the rate of global warming.

The new study confirms these established fears, but also looks at the potential social and economic costs that would follow.

On this thread a reader writes,

Chew on this for awhile, Hue: http://s-f-walker.org.uk/…/Julian_Jaynes_The_Origin_of…

I’ve heard of this but never read it.  Another writes:

Dennett proposed consciousness occurred after everything else years before they “proposed” this. And he was building on experiments from the 80s and earlier. Grumble grumble damn scientists get off my cognitive lawn

Or, Something’s Taken a Chomp Out Of My Tree!

NewScientist (15 August 2015, paywall) notes complaints that Australia is backing off its climate change commitments:

Prime minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday that Australia would aim to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. This is much less than is recommended by the country’s Climate Change Authority.

“This is a responsible and achievable target,” Abbott said. “It is comparable to the targets of other developed countries and allows our economy and jobs to grow strongly.”

But using the same baseline year of 2005, the US aims to cut emissions by 41 per cent by 2030 and the UK by 48 per cent.

The Climate Institute takes note:

“The initial target offer ahead of the Paris climate negotiations in December is a core test of the government’s climate and economic credibility,” said John Connor, CEO of The Climate Institute. “This target fails tests both of scientific credibility and economic responsibility in a world increasingly focused on modernising and cleaning up energy as well as economic systems.”

“This target is bad for the climate and bad for our international competitiveness.” …

“If other countries took the same approach as the government announced today, the world would warm by 3-4°C.”

“The government’s weak target is also bad for the economy. As many other nations continue to step up actions to limit emissions and modernise their economies through clean energy and other investments, this target implies that Australia will be the most pollution intensive developed economy by 2030.”

“This target also means we would still be the highest per capita polluter among developed economies in 2030.”

A lovely bit of public shaming, that.  The official Australian Dept of the Environment page is here.  Earlier in the year, the Department of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet released this report:

Australia’s climate will continue to have high variability. Nevertheless, a verage temperature s are projected to continue to increase and extreme rain events are projected to become more intense. A verage rain fall in southern Australia is projected to decrease.

Australia is taking strong action on climate change. Between 1990 and 2014 the economy nearly doubled in size and our population grew strongly, while greenhouse gas emissions remained broadly the same. Australia’s emissions per capita have reduced by 28 per cent since 1990 and by 20 per cent since 2000 and emissions per unit of gross domestic product have fallen by 52 per cent since 1990 and by 35 per cent since 2000.

The Australian Government is committed to achieving a five per cent reduction on 2000 emissions levels by 2020. This target is equivalent to a reduction of 13 per cent below 2005 emissions levels and a 19 per cent reduction from projected business as usual emissions.

Strong action?  Not everyone agrees.

Climate Action Tracker has a current evaluation of Australia, including a really nice chart, which is not embeddable.  The same page also includes a summation of the world by country, divided into categories.  The USA is rated at the bottom end of Sufficient (to my surprise); Australia is at the top end of Inadequate.  Only one country, Bhutan, is listed as above Sufficient; and certainly not all the countries of the world are listed.

Peter Hartcher of the Syndey Morning Herald has a cynical view of the Australian government:

If the carbon emissions target that the federal government is about to announce is connected to climate science, it’s by coincidence.  …

… this government doesn’t make its big decisions based on science, economics, markets, or any value other than politics. So let’s set aside the pretence that this is really about climate change.

As we know, Tony Abbott once described himself as a “weather vane” on climate change; the winds that blow him about are political.

Otherwise why would he classify coal as good and wind farms as bad? Do rocks and wind turbines have moral qualities?

This is not about an open minded examination of energy markets. Like all of this government’s big decisions, it’s about ideology and politics.

If you want to understand the frenetic claim and counter-claim you’re going to hear on this subject, you’ll find this simple, two-point guide indispensable. The political rubric is:

1. If the argument is decided mainly on climate or environment considerations, Labor wins.

2. If it’s decided mainly on electricity prices, the Coalition wins.

[etc…]

The Prime Minister is of the Coalition, of course.  A quick look at his history certainly seems to show he’s a political creature, through and through, which is hardly what you want to see in government if you see a non-political problem needing resolution by the government.  While he’s made gestures towards science, one must wonder about his sincerity.

It does occur to me that, if we do manage to achieve the goal of < 2° C rise in temperature, and thus nothing too horrible happens, then we’ll be faced with the cries of the deniers that, indeed, nothing has been proven and they were right all along.

Further commentary on this thread, which apparently spills salt on a raw nerve:

Hue, I agree with all of your remarks at the bottom of your first blog post. Proprietary software my ass. How hard is it to add up numbers and do a little cross checking? Nothing proprietary in that, and as open source software has shown for millions of other applications, it’s more than up to the task of just about anything. But your point about the need for speed is best — we don’t even need computers to do voting. There is no hurry. We could safely take 3 months every election to tally the votes. There’s no doubt in my mind that the system is corrupt; this news only makes it more concrete and widespread.

I couldn’t agree more.  Indeed, a three month wait to discover if you’re getting that new job could even kill off a few of the less worthy applicants.  I can’t help but wonder if TV dramas could be built around the idea….

NewScientist (15 August 2015, paywall) publishes one of the most mystifying popular science articles I’ve ever read.  Outside of string theory, of course.  This is on the subject of consciousness, and it’s worth mentioning the title and leader:

Consciousness evolved for the greater good, not just the self

So why did this powerful sense of conscious awareness that we feel on waking evolve? What purpose does it serve?

Wait a moment.  You just told us “… hence conscious awareness has no specific or generic cognitive function.”!

Although our conscious experience feels personal and intimately real to us, we suggest that it is a product of evolution that provides a survival advantage for the wider social group, rather than directly for the individual. We think that consciousness emerged alongside other developments in brain processing that conferred a powerful social evolutionary benefit of communicating our internal thoughts to others.

Which gives the individual a better opportunity to reproduce and carry on the species.

This all seems to be motivated by a certain set of experimental observations:

… measurements of brain activity reveal that muscles and brain areas prepare for an action, such as a reaching out for an object, before we are even aware of our intention to make that movement. As noted by the psychologist Jeffrey Grey and others, consciousness simply occurs too late to affect the outcomes of the mental processes apparently linked to it.

Which does have its fascinating implications, once you’re assured of the validity of the data, which is always primary in science (and way outside of my competency to consider, so I’m willing to stipulate it).  I’m considering the action of a parry in fencing: the attack of your opponent is coming so fast that sometimes I find myself lodging a command to what I conceptualize as the mental machinery responsible for the response to the attack: direct parry vs indirect parry, for example.  It’s rarely even perceptibly a conscious response, just that an attack in this line gives me several choices and this will be the choice; then I depend on reflexes to handle it.

30000 years ago reflexes would have been far more important, and consciousness may not have been fast enough.  That we’re measuring neurological responses anticipating conscious awareness is very interesting, but I’m not sure I see the explanation, as roughly described as it is to a layman, as convincing; there are others, as I darkly sense.  Unless all actions show an anticipatory neurological response!  In that case, it’s a different ballgame….

They finish up with this:

As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche noted, “consciousness is really only a net of communication between human beings…consciousness does not really belong to man’s individual existence but rather to his social or herd nature.” Consciousness therefore provides a powerful evolutionary advantage by allowing shared communication, and extending each individual’s understanding of the world.

I have not read Nietzsche, so the context of his remark eludes me.  Any philosophers care to elucidate his remark?

A reader reminds me of recent historical trends WRT voting:

This is how I know we are doomed.

They’ve been saying election results haven’t been matching exit polls for a few election cycles now.

Also, that whole “Republicans are less likely to answer pollsters” thing has always sounded like a whitewash excuse to me. That’s a sweeping statement about all GOP voters? As if they get a fax in the AM of election day instructing them not to talk to phone pollsters and exit pollsters? Nothing about that make sense. It seems like the number of people who don’t like to talk to pollsters would be evenly distributed among all parties in large enough sample groups.

The other “reason” thrown around for landslide victories in precincts where polling results didn’t predict that was the famous “They put some gay rights initiatives on the ballots, and we know those GOP people are going to turn out in droves just to vote against those.” While everyone was nodding yes to these reasons as making sense, like bobblhead dolls, red flags were going off for me.

Premier Election Solutions, previously Diebold Election Systems, has had controversy swirling about it.  Wikipedia helps us out here:

In August 2003, Walden O’Dell, then the chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for President George W. Bush and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to 100 wealthy and politically inclined friends in the Republican Party, to be held at his home in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio.^[13]

In December 2005, O’Dell resigned following reports that the company was facing securities fraud litigation surrounding charges of insider trading.^[14]

And here, which is a discussion of various (and many!  they sound like a pack of amateurs) security flaws.  Or, perhaps, a machine designed to be easily compromised.  Mother Jones covered Diebold back in 2004:

As I have been working on this project, I noticed some duplication of the BNFs, but with different requirements, and this bothered me.  I felt this was required by production 80,

EncodingDecl   ::=    S ‘encoding’ Eq (‘”‘ EncName ‘”‘ | “‘” EncName “‘” )

The key in this production is that EncName names the code set for the input, implying that you may have to change your transcoding mechanism.  It seemed the most forthright approach was to use the parser to pull off the encoding name, so I duplicated the relevant BNFs and used a separately scoped recursive-descent parser to properly recover the encoding name.

Then I ran into production 28:

doctypedecl   ::=   ‘<! DOCTYPE’ S Name (S ExternalID)? S? (‘[‘ intSubset ‘]’ S?)? ‘>’

which looks rather harmless, until you read this:

Well-formedness constraint: External Subset

The external subset, if any, MUST match the production for extSubset.

I looked at that, and then traced out extSubset a little bit.  I could see it would require a different return value than the general case.  Here’s extSubset:

extSubset   ::=    TextDecl? extSubsetDecl

and if you trace it out, you see a lot of use of other, common, productions.  Common implies I’d have to duplicate them for the new functionality.  That irritated me – inelegant AND (to quote my colleague Chris Johnson) “copies aren’t”.

So I have worked out a refactoring.  The single package, sax, is now two: sax and sax_foundation. sax_foundation will be a generic package, which is to say, it is parameterized, in this case, along with the handlers [noted below], it also accepts a specification of a return value.  sax now manages the parsing effort.  sax_foundation contains the entire BNF and provides parsing entry points for the encoding, the general case (which I think could be conflated with the encoding case), and (anticipated) extSubset.  When sax needs an encoding from the document, it uses an instantiation of sax_foundation which returns a String containing the name; when it needs to execute extSubset, it’ll use an instantiation of sax_foundation that returns the Dtd structure; and in the general case, the return value will be a structure containing the handlers (content, lexical, error, and entity – so far), which is the structure sax itself will return to callers.

I am currently running regression tests to make sure the new structure works at least as well as the old structure.  One batch of problems resulted from splitting sax in two – exceptions went from sax to the inner, hidden sax_foundation, which is not appropriate, so I split the exceptions into an independent package that everyone can access.  The other batch of problems has come from inadvertently losing behavior that was implemented by the now-eliminated duplicate BNFs for EncodingDecl; this has been only a couple.  Once these are cleaned up, regression should be clean.  Then I can implement the link to extSubset.  This will be done using a callback function.  sax will send the callback function, and when it’s called (by production 28) it will invoke a new sax_foundation customized for returning a new Dtd (since that’s what extSubset is all about, as I understand it) and process the extSubset of the new instantiation using a yet to be defined entry point.

The callback function is, essentially, a hack, but not a bad one, since it removed a great deal of duplicated code.
On my TODO list: find (or, reluctantly, construct) a set of XML pages which may be considered to be an official test suite for XML parsers, including expected responses for a SAX-style parser.  Share the knowledge if you happen to know of such a suite!

Also, finding a few huge XML pages will be necessary as I’m interested to see if an internal hack I constructed for scalability has also had a positive effect on performance.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a way to construct a baseline, so this won’t be a professional-grade assessment, but just a “gee-whiz, that went fast”, or not.  This may also require waiting for the release of a new version of Mythryl, as the current version seems to have a problem with handling file I/O in the manner I need.  (Or perhaps I just haven’t figured it out.)

Sadly, there are concerns for the future of Mythryl.  Earlier this year, the primary (and only) compiler developer, Cynbe ru Taren, was afflicted with colorectal cancer.  Today I received news that while the removal of the cancer went well, he now has lung cancer.  He continues to work on the project, but I do not believe he has any fellow developers, so if he goes down, the Mythryl project will probably die with him, which would be a shame.  It has some great potential, and brings into sharp relief the excessive dangers of C & C++; the possibility of using formal methods for verifying code, impossible (or extremely difficult) in other languages, is quite alluring.  If you think you’re a compiler hacker with some sharp skills, you might want to consider getting involved.  Cynbe has done the majority of the lifting (which is to say, translating an academic project into a production-grade compiler), but I’m sure it could still use a lot of work.

A Wichita State mathematician by the name of Beth Clarkson is asking for access to voting records in order to research anomalies noted in summary voting records in Kansas and across the nation.  From The Wichita Eagle:

Beth Clarkson, chief statistician for the university’s National Institute for Aviation Research, filed the open records lawsuit in Sedgwick County District Court as part of her personal quest to find the answer to an unexplained pattern that transcends elections and states. The lawsuit was amended Wednesday to name Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Sedgwick County Elections Commissioner Tabitha Lehman.

Clarkson, a certified quality engineer with a Ph.D. in statistics, said she has analyzed election returns in Kansas and elsewhere over several elections that indicate “a statistically significant” pattern where the percentage of Republican votes increase the larger the size of the precinct.

While it is well-recognized that smaller, rural precincts tend to lean Republican, statisticians have been unable to explain the consistent pattern favoring Republicans that trends upward as the number of votes cast in a precinct or other voting unit goes up. In primaries, the favored candidate appears to always be the Republican establishment candidate, above a tea party challenger. And the upward trend for Republicans occurs once a voting unit reaches roughly 500 votes.

Her request to Kansas for access to the requisite information has been blocked by the Secretary of State, and she is suing for access.

This is very interesting – an attempt to quash the Tea Party faction?  Even more interesting, given the puzzling ascendancy of Governor Walker in Wisconsin, is her final comment for the Eagle’s story:

Clarkson became more interested in the issue after reading a paper written by statisticians Francois Choquette and James Johnson in 2012 of the Republican primary results showing strong statistical evidence of election manipulation in Iowa, New Hampshire, Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Clarkson said she couldn’t believe their findings, so she checked their math and found it was correct and checked their model selection and found it appropriate. Then she pulled additional data from other elections they hadn’t analyzed and found the same pattern.

Clarkson’s blog is here.  Her most recent blog post (disregarding the post saying she has no progress yet on her lawsuit) discusses possible real voting fraud involving voting machines.

My statistical analysis shows patterns indicative of vote manipulation in machines. The manipulation is relatively small, compared with the inherent variability of election results, but it is consistent. These results form a pattern that goes across the nation and back a number of election cycles.

Which pushes me to recall the inappropriateness of using computers for voting, a position I’ve quietly held since they were first introduced.  Here’s my points:

1. People are corruptible, and when they are corrupted, it’s additive.  You have to corrupt a lot of people to get a real effect in any but the smallest of elections.
2. Computers are multiplicative.  Unless you’re using a network of independent computers using varying styles of security and computation, the payback for a successful corruption – even if it’s harder than corrupting people – is so steep that it’s easily worth the extra effort.  This is not about quantity of votes, but patterns of corruption.  Humans are not that hard to catch, but computers … they require specialized mathematicians, a rare breed.
3. Computer software is not open for public inspection.  Proprietary!  I cannot imagine how anyone lets them get away with that.  This is PUBLIC business, not PRIVATE.
4. Speed of counting is not important.  The public may think it is – but it’s not.
5. There are plenty of public spirited citizens to do that sort of work.

(h/t Scout Finch @ The Daily Kos)

TIME has published an article about a group interview of a collection of Trump supporters.  If you’ve found that phenomenon mystifying then this is fascinating:

A flock of two dozen mad-as-hell supporters of Donald Trump agreed to assemble on Monday night in a political consultant’s office to explain their passion for the Republican frontrunner. Gathered in a corporate-looking room with the shades drawn, they railed against Washington politicians who hire consultants, and sang their admiration for the one presidential candidate who promises to go his own way. …

The Donald devotees sang a contrapuntal tune, simultaneously a dirge to national decline and an ode to Trump. They believed Washington politicians and the Republican party had repeatedly misled them, and that the country is going down the tubes. They looked for relief in Trump. …

“We know his goal is to make America great again,” a woman said. “It’s on his hat. And we see it every time it’s on TV. Everything that he’s doing, there’s no doubt why he’s doing it: it’s to make America great again.”

The focus group watched taped instances on a television of Trump’s apparent misogyny, political flip flops and awe-inspiring braggadocio. They watched the Donald say Rosie O’Donnell has a “fat, ugly face.” They saw that Trump once supported a single-payer health system, and they heard him say, “I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.” But the group—which included 23 white people, 3 African-Americans and three Hispanics and consisted of a plurality of college-educated, financially comfortably Donald devotees—was undeterred.

Their belief that government has failed them is, perhaps, unsurprising.  I think this may be an unexpected downside of the subtlety of Obama.  He doesn’t always sing his own praises from the rooftops, and sometimes it’s even counterproductive to do so.  But still, being citizens they have to operate on their knowledge base, so if they don’t know something (and it’s a huge country, I don’t necessarily blame them for not knowing), it’s a problem.  As Steve Benen points out,

In reality, border security has reached unprecedented levels, but Trump backers believe the opposite. In reality, there’s ample evidence that America’s global standing is strong and getting stronger, but Trump backers believe the opposite. In reality, President Obama has run circles around Putin’s Russia, but Trump backers believe the opposite.

(h/t Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog)

Unlike most criticisms of the Iran deal, Lawfare is worth reading through.  First comes Yishai Schwartz, who worries about a possibly poor precedent:

This debate is important, but it also misses the larger point. What happened in the IAEA negotiations with Iran was precedent setting. The IAEA demanded access to an Iranian site in order to resolve questions about weaponization of Iran’s nuclear program. Iran refused, and in large part, the IAEA acquiesced. A set of arrangements was developed–which may or may not be technically sound for each and every one of the IAEA’s purposes (for this, we must follow the debate among experts closely)–which precluded actual IAEA access to the site. …

But what of the long-term, precedential effects? Based on the Parchin agreement, we can already predict what will happen 5, 10, 20 years from now, when Iran once again chooses to explore or pursue weaponization. The IAEA will demand access to a sensitive Iranian site, and Iran will stonewall. And when the time comes to negotiate, Iran will insist that IAEA and international community has already acknowledged it doesn’t really have a right to demand full access to military sites. After all, look at Parchin! And this agreement, rather than Iran’s actual legal obligations under its safeguards agreement and additional protocol, will become the new baseline.

Iranian negotiators have a track record of pocketing what seem at the time like limited and isolated Western concessions, only to argue (successfully) that they are of much larger significance. (This is, for example, what happened when the IAEA accepted that Iran wasn’t really bound by the Additional Protocol or Modified Code 3.1) With Parchin, I worry that we have just handed them another.

In contrast, Cody Poplin criticizes what appears to be a reasonable Congressional response – legislation permitting the President to respond to Iranian transgressions forcefully:

Middle of the road Iranians might just as well see an AUMF as adding sour bellicosity to a deal ostensibly meant to avert conflict—if not also as evidence of bad faith. As for hardliners, a force authorization, however conditional, could hand politically useful cover to officials and clerics eager to cheat on Iran’s side of the deal.

The doubtful efficacy can be paired with this downside, too: A rainy day Iran authorization likely would be a tough nut to crack legislatively. Under Einhorn’s formulation, for example, the president would be required to present “evidence” that Iran had cheated, before any force authorization could kick in. But as previous debates have shown, it’s not obvious what counts as evidence and at what threshold Congress should be convinced. Given the predictable political wrangling, a conditional AUMF thus present a great risk: the worst of all possible outcomes for deterring an Iranian breakout would be one wherein an administration spent significant resources to get a preemptive authorization only to end up failing.

I leave these with no comment.  However, I also received this video in email today:

To which a very simple response is necessary:

We are, after all, the Great Satan.

Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog points to a new column out by GOP pundit Irving Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, suggesting that the GOP field really needs a surprise candidate:

Shouldn’t Republicans be open to doing what Democrats are now considering? That is: Welcoming into the race, even drafting into the race if need be, one or two new and potentially superior candidates? After all, if a new candidate or new candidates didn’t take off, the party would be no worse off, and someone from the current field would prevail. If the October surprise candidate caught fire, it would be all the better for the GOP–whether he ultimately prevailed or forced one of the existing candidates to up his game.

Who could such a mysterious dark horse be? Well, it’s not as if every well-qualified contender is already on the field. Mitch Daniels was probably the most successful Republican governor of recent times, with federal executive experience to boot. Paul Ryan is the intellectual leader of Republicans in the House of Representatives, with national campaign experience. The House also features young but tested leaders like Jim Jordan, Trey Gowdy and Mike Pompeo. There is the leading elected representative of the 9/11 generation who has also been a very impressive freshman senator, Tom Cotton. There could be a saner and sounder version of Trump—another businessman who hasn’t held electoral office. And there are distinguished conservative leaders from outside politics; Justice Samuel Alito and General (ret.) Jack Keane come to mind.

Particularly interesting is the suggestion of Justice Alito, and not only for the question of whether or not a sitting SCOTUS justice could also hold the Presidency, but also why would the GOP base be enamored of him?  Trump is leading the polls, but not because of any intellectual flare – he appeals to the xenophobe, he appeals to the voter who wants a dictatorial leader who’ll do this, that, and the other thing – no matter whether it falls within his responsibility.  Subtlety and nuance are not his forté, nor is relevant experience – despite Trump’s claims that it’s all about management.  Despite his education, he does not come off as an intellectual, but as someone with little impulse control, and a base nature.  He’s willing to point his finger of blame at anyone who’s not a member of the GOP base.

Does Justice Alito (Princeton, Yale Law School) really fall into this category?  Indeed, any of his suggestions?  Until he ventures into “another businessman” territory, which his quite vague, he’s mostly mentioning GOPers with domestic experience – just what the base doesn’t want.  He’s talking about people who might use their judgment to come to a conclusion unacceptable to the base.

But let’s take a step out into left field here.  When I’m wearing my software engineer hat, there”s a certain feeling you get when you’re working in a well-designed system.  It doesn’t just meet the specs, have good performance, and scale well, but every time you’re asked to add something to it, it’s easy – there’s no mad hacking, when you find you need an algorithm to do something, it’s there and easy to use, and the whole thing comes together with an ease and a feeling of rightness because certain principles were followed in the base design.  (Let’s not talk about those principles further as they’re not relevant and I couldn’t enumerate them if they were.)

Let’s pull this idea out of the constricted field of software engineering and into real life, of which politics is a pale reflection.  I suggest, with absolutely no embarrassment, that a leading principle of life and politics should be truth, and its ally, honesty.  The interesting application of these principles is the GOP judgment of President Obama, which, to this independent, appears to be deliberately and dishonestly wretched in its assessments.  In virtually all he has done, the current President has performed at the highest levels and adhered to our best traditions.  Certainly, we can nitpick – why didn’t he prosecute the previous Administration for war crimes, for example?  But in the main, he’s been excellent.

But the GOPer, unless his name is Colin Powell, is obligated to condemn as feeble, or incompetent, or any denigrative adjective of his choice, the work of Obama.  Thus are the orders from on-high.

So, how does the matter of good principles interplay with the sordid behavior of the GOPer?  Think about it: can the GOP candidate for anything deviate from the anti-Obama script?  This is team politics, and now we see the dark side of this phenomenon: you can’t deviate, you can’t dispute what’s gone before.  What do you do?

The Iran Deal is the same as sending the Jews to the ovens.

Medicare needs to be rubbed out because no one likes it.

Paul Ryan’s budget devoid of rational mathematics.

The ACA is resulting in wrack and ruin.

The GOP has to walk on the wild side, because any tick of rationality, of agreeing with political opponents on anything substantive, will get you branded a RINO.  Here’s the thing about pig-headed anti-intellectualism – you eventually discover that the dishonesty you’re indulging in forces you to either recant and get kicked out of this big national party where you have coveted influence – or you can go farther afield as your predictions fall afoul reality.  As Benen notes here, now they’re flirting with the madness of slavery.

All because they put party loyalty, party purity, ahead of simple truth and honesty.  The importance of good principles for life is paramount, folks.  The GOP is becoming an object lesson.  How many can learn from it?

Dave Goulson, a biologist and bumblebee specialist, writing in NewScientist (15 August 2015, paywall) reports on some preliminary results of an European Union (EU) moratorium on neonicotinoid pesticides in the UK and, to a lesser extent, across the EU:

Crops sown in spring 2014, mainly sunflower and maize, were the first not to have the pesticides applied. Across the EU, their yields were higher than the five-year average, in some regions more than 25 per cent higher. …

Debate in the UK has focused on oilseed rape. Here it is mainly autumn-sown, so the first neonicotinoid-free crop wasn’t in the ground until August 2014, and is being harvested now. … it was down 5 per cent overall.

The original European Commission decision is reported here; a BBC report on that decision in 2013 is here.  Goulson also notes how Big Ag participated in the debate over instituting the moratorium:

The UK was in the minority of countries voting against. Perhaps the government was swayed by glossy reports funded by the agrochemical industry, declaring that the ban would slash crop yields and cause huge job losses.

One such document states that if the moratorium went ahead, in five years the European Union could lose at least €17 billion, 50,000 jobs could go, and “more than a million people engaged in arable production… would certainly suffer”. …

Debate in the UK has focused on oilseed rape. Here it is mainly autumn-sown, so the first neonicotinoid-free crop wasn’t in the ground until August 2014, and is being harvested now. However, the UK’s National Farmers Union (NFU), which opposes the ban, pointed to Sweden and said that up to 70 per cent of spring-sown oilseed there had been wiped out by pests. As it turned out, it was down 5 per cent overall.

The NFU also highlighted claims that on some UK farms up to half of the autumn crop was being lost to flea beetles. Recent figures show that overall 3.5 per cent of the sown area was lost. But remember that some crops are lost every year, even with neonicotinoids.

So Big Ag may turn out to be guilty of hyperbole.  But is this the end of the story?  Rebecca Randall, a journalist at  The Genome Literacy Project reported in January of 2015:

Yet, as activists continue to campaign to get neonics banned, news from Europe, where a two-year moratorium went into effect last year, suggests that farmers are unable to control pests without them. Partly in desperation, they are replacing neonics with pesticides that are older, less effective and demonstrably more harmful to humans and social insects, and farm yields are dropping.

The European Commission banned the use of neonics despite the fact that the science community is sharply split as to whether neonics plays a significant role in bee deaths. The causes of CCD and subsequent winter-related problems have since remained a mystery—and a heated controversy. …

But there is no bee crisis, say most mainstream entomologists. Globally, beehive counts have increased by 45 percent in the last 50 years, according to a United Nations report. Neonics are widely used in Australia were there have been no mass bee deaths, and in Western Canada, where bees are thriving. Over the past past two winters, bee losses have moderated considerably throughout Europe and beehives have gone up steadily over the past two decades as the use of neonics has risen.

While many environmental activists, and some scientists, have coalesced around the belief that neonics as a likely culprit, most mainstream entomologists disagreed. May Berenbaum, the renowned University of Illinois entomologist and chairwoman of a major National Academy of Sciences study on the loss of pollinators, has said that she is “extremely dubious” that banning neonics, as many greens are demanding, would have any positive effect.

That article is from January, which may mean it’s been superseded by Goulson’s.  However, there are two issues here: first, is discontinuation of the use of neonicotinoids causing devastation of crops, and, second, are bee colonies recovering?  The second point remains not only unaddressed by Goulson, but may not need addressing in this way.

But The Guardian published this article on Goulson’s research:

A study on which the UK government bases its position that neonicotinoid pesticides do not threaten bees may actually be the first conclusive evidence that they do, according to a leading bee scientist.

Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex, reanalysed a 2013 study on the effect of the world’s most heavily used pesticides on bumblebees by the UK’s Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera).

Fera’s scientists said that bee hives “remained viable and productive in the presence of the neonicotinoid pesticides under these field conditions”. Yet, Goulson said the experiment found that all hives where clothianidin, a common neonicotinoid, was present had reduced numbers of queen bees.

Goulson said: “The conclusions they come to seem to be completely contrary to their own results section.”

“They find that 100% of the time there is a negative relationship between how much pesticides were found in the nest and how well the nest performed, and they go on to conclude that the study shows that there isn’t a significant effect of pesticides on bee colonies. It doesn’t add up.”

The study was never published in a peer-reviewed journal and has been rejected by the EU’s safety authority. Yet the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) cites it on their website as a foundation for its support of the pesticides.

It’s extremely disturbing that the UK is basing a position on an important, scientifically-connected matter on a research paper that has not been published, despite time to do so, and appears to have anomalies – although the authors are not given room for rebuttal in this newspaper article.  However, The Guardian continues:

The lead author on the Fera report left the agency just months after its publication to work for Syngenta – a major producer of neonicotinoids. This lead to suggestions that the government was too close to the pesticide industry.

Gathering this data has its own collection of pitfalls, namely derogations (the partial revocation of a law).  EurActiv.com provides an interview from 2014 with Martin Dermine, a bee activist, on the problems of data gathering:

In 2013, the Commission banned some neonicotinoids because of their suspected harmful effect on bees. One year on, how is this ban working?

The partial ban on neonicotinoids and fipronil was a fantastic victory for the environment, even though we would have liked to see a full ban on these bee-harmful chemicals. From the information we have, the ban is properly applied by member states. Unfortunately, several member states, such as Finland, Romania, Germany, Latvia and Estonia have provided derogations to their farmers to keep using neonicotinoids on certain major crops. This annihilates the benefit of the ban for bees.

What kinds of derogations did the ban leave for the pesticide industry?

Member states provide 120 days derogations for forbidden pesticides on a regular basis, in response to a request from farmers, or the pesticides industry.

European pesticide regulation clearly states that derogations can be given where no alternative exist, but member states do not actually respect this principle. For instance, in 2014, Romania provided a derogation for the use of thiamethoxam on maize, whereas Italy has banned its use since 2008, and has shown that it did not reduce yields. Furthermore, non-toxic alternatives exist on the market.

Adjusting for changes in conditions must be quite difficult for the scientists.

Giving Dave Goulson the final word on a recent UK action from the NewScientist article:

In highlighting losses, the NFU [National Farmers Union] was attempting to garner support for an application to allow UK farmers to ignore the ban. This has now been approved for a limited part of southern England, despite a 400,000-signature petition opposing it. So why was it approved? Getting an answer is hard. The NFU’s case is being kept secret on the grounds that it is “commercially sensitive”.

That means we cannot see why environment secretary Liz Truss decided some farmers could again use chemicals that the European Food Safety Authority says “pose an unacceptable risk to bees”.

The Conservatives are currently in power in the UK, and while they bear scant resemblance to the United States’ GOP, this action does make them appear to be unduly influenced by Big Ag – and the farmers who may not properly value pollinators.  Not that we’d necessarily all die if the bumblebees became a non-factor, but food prices would certainly go up – and perhaps obesity would drop?  Or would we just eat more of the bad food?

Oh, and the title of Goulson’s article?  “Sowing Confusion”.  Yeah, I’m confused, too.

In “New York’s Original Seaport”, by Jason Urbanus (Archaeology, September/October 2015, offline only), we learn that the notorious Aaron Burr, murderer of Alexander Hamilton and former Vice President, founded the Manhattan Company, which was tasked with supplying clean water to lower New York City using a web of buried wooden water mains – hollowed out tree trunks.  In fact, they still run across these disused remnants of the original system today, encountered during repairs.

The Manhattan Company struggled with this task.  But they didn’t go under, as the real purpose of Burr’s company was to become a bank, a difficult proposition at the time due to monopolies.  As Wikipedia makes clear, Burr’s company used a loophole in its charter, granted by the State, that permitted it to use surplus funds for banking transactions.   Opportunistic maneuvers during epidemics permitted the Manhattan Company to survive until 1955.

When it merged with Chase National Bank.

And, today, it’s the earliest of the predecessor institutions for JP Morgan Chase & Co.

The story of Michigan State Representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat, both claiming Republican / Tea Party status, has been making the rounds, generating some baffled condemnation, by which I mean the progressives who despise them seem puzzled.  Here’s an example from Steven Payne @ The Daily Kos plus his commenters, which includes both an explanation of the timeline of events (the two had a love affair, Courser concocted a tale of being caught in a homosexual love affair, for reasons unclear, tried to get an aide to leak it to the press, but the aide refused and the entire sordid mess came to light), and some of Courser’s subsequent explanation.

As of now, neither has resigned their elective post.  The political world, particularly their opponents, the progressive faction of the United States, has had little sympathy for them.  I think this is a mistake.

1. Countrymen.  For all that they espouse a political philosophy much at odds with the progressives, and appears to have a sizable population of folks espousing positions of an outré nature, they are fellow citizens.  Let us not forget the primary causation of nations is the basic urge to band together to survive an hostile world; it becomes a logical conclusion, then, that having sympathy for fellow citizens, for whom we’ve not generated a personal antipathy, is a necessity for building a successful society and nation.  Attempting to co-exist in mutual disgust is not a prescription for a prosperous and peaceful society.  Is such a pattern of behavior taught and practiced by Jesus?  Gandhi?  Then why should we indulge our baser natures in it?
2. Understanding your opponents.  On the other end of the spectrum, engaging in a struggle with another human being almost inevitably proceeds to a more favorable resolution to the conflict when you understand their many important facets.  These include motivations, history, educational slant, fears, ambitions, and the list goes on, as I make no claim to completeness.   The progressives’ understanding of the Tea Party may be boiled down to this sentence: They’re stupid.  This attitude has twin sins associated with it: demonization and ignorance.  For just a taste, keep in mind that Senator Ted Cruz, one of the seemingly most lunatic of the fringe, happens to hold a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School – magna cum laude.

So it’s worth looking at Courser’s remarks, and to view them as sincere in trying to understand him.  Here are some of the things he wrote, all from Payne’s diary on The Daily Kos.

In my life sin had its root and it worked to undo so much and has yet to undo so much more; my life, my reputation, my relationship with my wife and children and my extended family; not to mention my relationships and reputation around the world. This sin in my life has been and will continue to reap its reward.

He clearly speaks in a religious context, mentioning how sin seems to control his life.  We can ask if he has problems with impulse control, is married to the right woman, is addicted to sex or novelty.  He acknowledges the mistakes of his ‘sinning’, and how they negatively affect him; it not only raises the question of why he indulged in this, but also to reflect on our own lives & mistakes over the years.

In every one of these experiences it has been an incredibly humbling to me.

Humbling is an interesting word, as it brings up images of submitting to a greater power, admissions of failure, and that sort of thing.  His discussions with fellow sinners may actually bind him into the community at a different level than us less humble types might experience.

After some discussion of how this affects his family and some sad commentary on his critics, he writes,

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no the evil I do not want to do-this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in that does it.

The should of life, if I may write in fragments.  Learning what one should do in the context of society, in order to survive and prosper, is perhaps one of the great driving forces of human existence.  For most citizens of the United States¹, some form of religion offers a source of should, and whether the source is engaged intelligently or literally, it colors the outlook of the adherent.  Given his religious outpouring, we can understand he looks to the Bible for guidance for a world to which he lacks an intuitive understanding.  That same Bible offers ambiguous guidance on other matters, but to him, as his guide, he tries to apply it.  It is not so important to understand the Biblical portion, but the desperation portion; he dare not dispute with his guide in any portion, for that questions all in a perilous world in which he needs guidance – even if he ignores it.  It would be interesting to hear if he puts the Bible first, above Justice.  I suspect so; but has he considered the question?  The unquestioning injustice of reserving marriage only for heterosexuals must be terrifying, once it is acknowledged.

And, finally, redemption.  A key force in both religion and American life.  It is, in fact, no surprise that he and his lover have chosen not to resign their posts.  The publicity concerning their personal failures has, in effect, immunized them from further leverage; their sin has connected them to their communities in new ways, while permitting their constituents to realize that, in their humiliation, they’re just like themselves.

If this is their first public mistake, then I suspect they may both be re-elected (although Michigan has term limits on state Reps); another moral failing, say enrichment at the public’s expense, might get them booted out, though.

¹ Source: Gallup.