CONGRESS HAS ABROGATED THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES

There seem to be many (all or nearly all are Republicans) who are unhappy with the Supreme Court for their decisions on Obamacare and Gay Marriage.  Some have even called for the elimination of the Supreme Court!  You don't hear such cries when the Court makes a decision that they like, of course, such as on citizen's United.*  The thing is that congress could (in theory) act on these matters, cut, since they don't, they push to have these matters decided by the Court.  They have only themselves to blame if the court decides in a manner that displeases them.

Actually as some commentators have mentioned, these politicians yelling so loud now are secretly happy to have these issues taken off the table.  Is it no wonder that congress is viewed so unfavorably by the public?  In the meantime, recent polls suggest that Obama's ratings that he is doing a good job have risen to 50%* and even higher for his handling of the economy (52%).**  I wondered when the public would wise up that the economy is doing pretty well.

* I consider this one of the all-time bad decisions by the Supreme Court (that companies are people) and presume that some year it will be fixed.
* http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/30/politics/obama-approval-rating-cnn-poll/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/obamas-approval-rating-grows-to-50-percent/article/2567295

13 THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE (Book Review) - III

Chapter 9: DEATH  I hadn't realized that the subject of death was so fraught with lack of understanding.  Certainly we know when something is dead, though through modern technology we can keep a person breathing and the body not decaying.  But the chapter is not about defining death, but why do we die at all?  By changing a gene, scientists have been able to extend markedly the lives of worms, fruit flies, and mice, for example.  As the median age of people gradually extends, the ultimate age pretty much stays the same.  There are an increasing number of centenarians, but very, very few live to 110, for example.

But I wonder for how long we want to extend a person's life in the first place.  Scientists do so much to keep us alive, but, when we get old, we are told we cost too much.  In my generation, the Depleted Generation of the Great Depression and WW-II have been rushed into retirement by our children, the Baby Boomers.  Because there are so few of us,* we should be easy to take care of, but we have been skipped, and the politicians have jumped over us to the Baby Boomers.


Chapter 12: The Placebo Effect and Chapter 13: HOMEOPATHY  I actually went to a well known homeopathic physician (an MD) for a couple of years.  He would give me a small vial of small round sugar pills into which one drop of some disease was placed and then the vial shaken violently.  when I quesdtioned his nurse about the drop being absorbed by the top sugar pills, she replied that the doctor says the "essence permeates."  They didn't seem to do me any harm, and I probably didn't consume them after the beginning.  If they had any value it was in a Placebo Effect (the subject of the previous chapter).

The most interesting story on the placebo effect was that some people were given a placebo buut told it was a medicine that would alleviate their problem  Perhaps that the patients improved is not a surprise, but then, without telling the patients, they changed the sugar pills into a drug that counteracted the effect of the supposed drug that was to alleviate their problem and the patient gradually got worse again!

I have no doubt that a proper mental attitude can cure many ills.  In fact isn't this the basis of Christian Science that "disease is an err of the mortal mind" that can be corrected by prayer?**

Prominently mentioned in this chapter is Rustum Roy,*** an India Indian, who would occasionally give talks at the Geophysical Laboratory that I would attend.  I don't remember talking to him directly, however.

CONCLUSION  This is a fascinating book and well worth reading in its entirety.  The book is written for the laymen though those with no science aptitude may find it difficult at times.




* This Depleted Generation of 15 years has never had a president, for example.  John Kerry was the last attempt.  True Bernie Sanders is a member, having been born in 1942, but is he a real possibility for president?  I doubt it.
 ** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustum_Roy

13 THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE (Book Review) - II

Fritz Zwiki, a Swiss though born in Bulgaria,* knew my wife, from Latvia, through the International Students Association, who was the periodical librarian and thought the world of him.  I had thought he discovered the Super Nova; however, I was to learn that it was the greater frequency of them that he discovered.*  When I arrived at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), I was told that the famous astronomer Fred Hoyle was giving a talk at the Physics Building so I went.  At the end Richard Fineman,** also of Caltech, made some sort of statement that I have forgotten that ended with, "Isn't that so, Fritz?"  To which Zwiki replied, "That is the sort of drivel I have come to expect of Hoyle of late."  Zwicki was hostile to anyone whom he thought was a competitor but was very nice to all the support personnel.  One day he came to my office with a fossil (I guess I was the only person around) and asked me what it was. After examining it, I had to tell him I didn't know (I did know 200 fossils).  He said, "Are you a Geologist?" I answered  that I was.  Then he said, "Do you think you are a good geologist/"  I said I thought so.  Of course then came, "Then why don't you know what this fossil is?"  So I had to tell him that there were thousands of fossil names and that I could identify 200 which I thought was a lot.  Actually Zwicki and I became sort of friendly as I guess he decided I was no competition for him, but I steered clear of the topic of astrophysics.

I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory and in my investigations I used a piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer at the near-by Department of Terrestrial Magnetism that I thought had the most romantic name of a laboratory that I ever heard of.  It gave visions of someone standing in a room with his hands on a huge lever which, at some appointed time, he would pull and reverse the magnetism of the world.  In actual fact no terrestrial magnetism was done there (I believe there never had been either), at least while I was around and for decades after.  Well I would run across Vera Rubin,*** perhaps best known for her work on Dark Matter and the Rotation Problem. Now and then I would talk to her and found her to be a very approachable, sweet, middle-aged lady.  Of the three pepole covered here, I probably knew Vera Rubin the best.  In addition to her science, she has three sons and a daughter, all of whom got Ph.D.s (two in geology, my major), and is also a remarkably efficient and good cook.  A wonder woman indeed.

Richard Fineman, the darling of the students, whom I heard give his famous talk in 1959 called "There is plenty of room at the bottom"**** about things like there are plenty of atoms on the head of a pin to put the Encyclopedia Britannica.  He worked on the Manhattan Project as a young scientist and shared a Nobel Prize on quantum electrodynamics.**  Like Zwicky, I would talk to him occasionally at the International Students Association (name approximate) but not about physics.  I wouldn't say I was one of Fineman's friends, though I did have some personal acquaintance with him.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation
** https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Richard_Feynman
 *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom

13 THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE (Book Review) -Part I

This fine book: "13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries Of Our Time" by Michael Brooks contains 13 chapters, acknowledgements, Notes and Sources, and an Index.

Chapter 1: The Missing Universe referring to the only 4% of the universe we can account for.
Chapter 2: "The Pioneer Anomaly" refers to the two spacecraft that have now left the solar system and are
     mysteriously veering off course flouting the laws of physics.*
Chapter 3: "Varying Constants: that are Destabilizing our view of the
     Universe.
Chapter 4: "Cold Fusion" Nuclear Energy without the drama.
Chapter 5: "Life" Are you more than just a bag of chemicals.
Chapter 6: "Viking" NASA scientists found evidence for life on Mars, then they changed their minds.
Chapter 7: "The Wow! Signal" Has ET already been in touch?
Chapter 8: "A Giant Virus" It's a freak that could rewrite the story of
     life.
Chapter 9: "Death" Evolution's problem with self-destruction.
Chapter 10: "Sex" There are better ways to reproduce.
Chapter 11: "Free Will" Your decisions are not your own.
Chapter 12: "The Placebo Effect"  Who's being deceived.
Chapter 13: "Homeopathy" It's patently absurd, so why won't it go
     away.

The entire book was interesting, but I particularly liked Chapter's 1, 2, 9 and 13.

Something that made chapters 1 and 2 interesting to me is that I actually knew several of the people mentioned such as Vera Rubin of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, and the curmudgeonly Fritz Zwiki of the California Institute of Technology (or Caltech where I was a graduate student) .  And then there was the handsome Nobel Prize winner Richard Fineman, also of Caltech.

Part II of this review concerns people mentioned in the book that I knew.**  Part III concerns The Placebo Effect and Homeopathy ***.

* Material enclosed in italics are direct quotes from the titles of the chapters.
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/13-things-that-dont-make-sense-book_27.html
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/13-things-that-dont-make-sense-book_29.html

CLINTON FOUNDATION - LIES BEGIN

As I recently pointed out, Carl Rove developed a political strategy of attacking a candidate at their strength.*  In doing this, they destroyed the value of military decorations.  Now Republicans are out to destroy the value of the Clinton Foundation.  Christopher Ruddy, a conservative, has tried to stem this attack, but it continues.**  Recently Carly Fiorina's PAC has spread the lie that only 6% of the Clinton donations go to charity.*** Of course they really know better, but anything goes in politics, right?

FactCheck.org says "Fiorina is simply wrong."  "Watchdog CharityWatch, a project of the American Institute of Philanthropy, gave the Clinton Foundation an "A" rating."**  Undeterred, Fox news spread the same lie.**

So let the lies begin even though it will harm charitable work.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/attack-your-opponents-strength.html
** http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-foundation-cash-controversy/2015/04/27/id/640856/
***http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-foundation-factcheck-org-donations/2015/06/19/id/651411/?ns_mail_uid=80800736&ns_mail_job=1625153_06202015&s=al&dkt_nbr=i2yezutp

OBAMA OUTDID REAGAN ON EMPLOYMENT

Much has been made of the poor recovery in jobs; however, President Obama actually has outdone the sainted President Reagan:*


Bob Deitrick: ”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President.  So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’ 
“As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.
“President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did.  At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year.  So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.
“We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015.  A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”

Note: Obama in blue and Reagan in red.

* http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/

GUNS AND ILLEGAL TERRORISTS IN AMERICA

There are those who claim that terrorists are streaming in across our southern border along with illegal Hispanics.  But where are all these terrorists?  The "underwear bomber" was flying in.  Even the 9/11 terrorists were in the country legally or at least had entered the country legally.  Other examples are the the Boston Bombers, the failed NY City bombing, and the VPI massacre.  All in this country legally.

But nearly all the terrorists in this country are home grown beginning with McVey and the Oklahoma City bombing, and including Columbine High School, Aurora movie theater, and the latest Charleston, SC, massacre. Speaking of the latest one, the terrorist is a felon who could not legally buy a gun.  Did he steal one?  No, his father gave him a 45 caliber pistol for his 21st birthday!  The father might be prosecuted giving a gun to a felon.

As bad as these mass murders are, they are but a small part of the murders committed each year in the U.S. (about 11,000*).  There are also around 18,000 suicide deaths yearly by guns.  Just like we accept around 30,000 deaths yearly by automobile in this country, it seems as if we have become used to a similar number of gun deaths also.  Only mass murders make the news, and then we dwell on them for awhile before going back to normal.  Illegal immigration of terrorists does not seem to be a problem in spite of wrrries by some people.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-aftermath-of-firearm-newton-ct.html

ECONOMY AND WAGES

A Wall Street Journal article in Real Time Economics (June 11) begins with the sentence: The U.S. Economy contracted 0.7% in the first quarter [of 2015]. Or did it?*

Not surprisingly there is a problem in collecting the appropriate information in a large and complex economy, and, apparently, consumers spent more at retailers and on medical care than previously thought.  Even the revised numbers are not very exciting.  J.P Morgan Chase thinks the economy "only" went down 0.2%.  A group called Macroeconomic Advisers thinks the quarter was flat.  The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis will give its estimate on June24.  Each estimate may be more accurate than the last one because of the time to accumulate more information.

At the same time, a Wall Street Journal blog says that wages and benefits may be growing faster than we think.**

*http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/11/reports-of-the-u-s-economys-contraction-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/?mod=djemRTE
**
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/10/are-wages-and-benefits-growing-faster-than-we-think/?mod=djemRTE_h

CONSUMER SPENDING INCREASES

Consumer spending is having a hard time recovering in spite of the gasoline price bonus; however, it picked up 2.7% in May.*  Note in the figure that consumer spending was dropping for years before the Great Recession. and is about where it was in the first half of 2007.



* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/11/where-did-americans-spend-their-money-in-may/?mod=djemRTE_h

ATTACK YOUR OPPONENT'S STRENGTH

Carl Rove in 2004 developed what seemed to be a strange and self defeating strategy in the 2004 reelection bid of President George W. Bush against Democratic hopeful John Kerry.  that is, attack your opponent at his strength.  In Kerry's case it was to demean the value of military medals in what became known as Swift Boating.  The approach seemed to be effective though it annihilated military honors as being worthless.

So with Hillary Clinton we see the attack on the Clinton Foundation, an organization developed to try to do good.  To what extent this procedure will have on the value of non-profit organizations remains to be seen, but I hope it does not annihilate non-profits as being self service organizations.
This attack seemed to be too much for even some conservatives who came to the defense of the Clinton Foundation.*

By Christopher Ruddy,* founder of the conservative Newsmax: I was drawn to him largely for the very same reason he and his wife are being criticized today: the Clinton Foundation. Over time, I was impressed enough with its work that I even became a donor.
...........................................................
After watching the Fox program, it became clear to me the only thing "tangled" and "blurred" are the numerous unsubstantiated, unconnected, and baseless allegations being made about them.
...........................................................
But let’s get back to the matter of the Clintons and their foundation. I have been involved with the foundation for over seven years now.  During that time, I have always found it nonpartisan. I have never felt the whiff of politics from either its staff or any of its activities. 

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-foundation-cash-controversy/2015/04/27/id/640856/

RICK SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT - 2016

[Disclosure:  Rick Santorum is probably my least favorite politician.]

So Rick Santorum is running for president again.  By emphasizing his religious extremism, he managed to win a number of states in the Republican primaries of 2012.  Now he has presumably decided to cater to the American worker (he says) as well.  If I was an American worker, I would watch that hand under the table.  He says that he would somehow increase wages for the American worker.  Strange how Republicans discover the American worker every four years, but tromp on them in the intervening years (Get rid of the minimum wage or at least not increase it.  This would supposedly increase the number of jobs but make all workers even poorer than now.).  The predominant Republican opinion seems to be that the American worker is overpaid. Santorum doesn't say how he is going to increase the wages of the American worker, but, to be sure, it is early days in this political process with the election still 14 months away!

Mitt Romney did say how he would approach this problem.  He would make things favorable to starting more small businesses.  The trouble with this is, that early in his work life, he did work on promoting start-ups and did create some jobs, but he found he could make more money faster by manipulating money and abandoned start-ups.  That is a problem. The average start-up lasts about 5 or 6 years so the jobs are really rather temporary but can the number of start-ups even be increased enough in order to employ all the unemployed and minimally employed?

A problem with capitalism is that companies must sell ever more and preferably more expensive goods.  There are a couple of ways to do this: one is to get the domestic people to buy (want) ever more goods.  Here advertising plays a role.  Another is to export goods to people in other lands who need more goods.  This works well for exports to some foreign countries, though exchange rates do not always favor American companies.  Also most people in foreign countries cannot afford to buy our goods.  Encouraging more start-ups certainly will help with the employment problem but probably is not the total solution to the employment problem.  How are more start-ups to be encouraged: through government assistance or tax advantages (which is government assistance by a different name.)?

The American worker faces a number of problems that I have mentioned before.*  One is that the wages of the American worker have to be less than the cost of automation.  Another, of course, is that the wages must be competitive with the wages of low cost labor in other countries, tempered by the costs of transportation, increased costs of fuel in other countries, etc.  Then there is the problem that many, many jobs have just disappeared, such as telephone operators, gas station attendants, clerk typists, grocery store clerks, etc.  Even grocery store clerk jobs are being minimized by automated check out.

The point is that the drag on workers wages and number of jobs are many, and I doubt these problems are amenable to simple solutions.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-race-to-bottom.html; http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/plight-of-american-workers.html:

IRAQ: TIME FOR THE 'STANS

Actually it is past time for Iraq to be allowed to breakup into three 'stans - Kurdistan, Sunnistan, and Shiastan.  Why do we keep on trying to force a whole Iraq?  It was designed to be unstable and it surely is. The only thing that could keep it together is a brutal dictator like Saddam and we didn't like him either.  Perhaps there is some way that a loose confederation of the three could be kept, but I don't know about that.  It seems as if President Obama doesn't want to preside over the breakup of Iraq.  Would a breakup benefit or harm his legacy?  I would think that in the end it would help it, but he doesn't seem to think so.

I believe that if we allowed this, the Sunni tribal leaders would rise up against the ISIS (which is a brutal dictator).  I might take some cash and armaments for the tribal leaders to do this, but that would be less costly than what we are doing now with our mission creep another group of around 450 to be sent to Iraq in addition to the 3,000 already there.).  The idea is for this latest group to be located in Sunnistan to train Sunni troops, presumably favorable to a central government.  Maybe that will succeed but I doubt it.

Nor doubt Turkey wouldn't like a Kudistan, and we would have to deal with that.  I'm sure there would be disputes over the boundaries, but that is probably more solvable than trying to keep Iraq whole.  And would Iran try to take over Shiastan?  I don't know if Shiastan would like to be incorporated into Iran, but my guess is that it would like to be pretty independent.

EMPLOYMENT PICTURE CONTINUES IMPROVIING IN MAY

The biggest increase occurred in Silicon Valley’s San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, where payrolls grew 6%. That was followed by the areas surrounding Orlando, Fla., where payrolls grew 4.3%, and Riverside, Calif., which saw 4.1% payroll growth. Employment in New Orleans-Metrairie—the only metro area without an increase—held steady in April from a year ago.
Expanding payrolls also helped push down the unemployment rate in the vast majority of big U.S. cities. Austin-Round Rock, Texas had the lowest rate in April, at 3%, followed by Salt Lake City, Utah, at 3.1%. The Las Vegas area had the highest jobless rate at 7.*
................................................................................

Only two big cities had higher jobless rates in April than a year earlier: New Orleans-Metrairie, where more people have returned to the workforce, and Kansas City.
Of all the 387 metropolitan areas, payrolls grew in 85.3% of them from a year earlier, and nearly nine out of 10 had lower jobless rates.*

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 8,000 to 276,000 in the week ended May 30th from the previous week. The 4-week moving average increased while continuing claims reached the lowest since late 2000.**

* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/03/all-but-one-of-americas-big-metro-areas-added-jobs-in-april/?mod=djemRTE_h
** http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/jobless-claims

SOME MYTHS HELD BY CONSERVATIVES

Perhaps the biggest myth held by conservatives is that denigrating  Muhammad was not the trigger for the diplomatic outpost attack in Benghazi even though there were demonstrations throughout Islamic nations.  We have had two 9/11s since Benghazi that appear to have been peaceful.  Where are the embassy attacks since Benghazi?  Besides, the sainted President Reagan had two embassy attacks, both worse than Benghazi and also had the Marine Barracks disaster to boot; yet conservatives forgive him for these.

Another myth is that if we had left 10,000 or 15,000 troops in Iraq everything would be fine there.  They are apparently unaware that President Bush did exactly that in Afghanistan when he pivoted to war in Iraq.  The Taliban had been pushed into Pakistan where they regrouped and came back stronger than ever.  Only a brutal dictator can keep Iraq together.

Then there is the Red Line in Syria over poison gas.  When Obama drew the Red Line in Syria if Assad didn't comply he would bomb Assad's retreat.  Assad offered to give up his poisons weapons in exchange for not bombing him and Obama accepted it.  If conservatives wanted to say that just getting rid of the poisonous gases was insufficient, they would have a valid point, but they feel that bombing Assad would gotten rid of him.  Though undoubtedly we could have destroyed many buildings, killing Assad was unlikely.  He undoubtedly would have been in a bunker  And if we did kill Assad, wouldn't ISIS take over?  We have the example in Libya of what happens if we aid a mob in helping take out a brutal dictator.  At best you have chaos and ISIS sympathizers seem to be taking over Libya.  President George H.W. Bush realized this when he had Saddam's troops on the run in Iraq in the Kuwait War and stopped the U.S. advance.

It could be that conservatives actually know all the above and are just using their arguments for political purposes, but I suspect many really believe these myths.