US Power Grid Mapped

http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/electric-grid/

What is Civilization Not?

In response to the capture of a US-flagged merchant ship by Somali pirates, Andy McCarthy answers that question:

Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn’t recede willingly before the wheels of progress.

There is nothing less civilized than rewarding evil and thus guaranteeing more of it. High-minded as it is commonly made to sound, it is not civilized to appease evil, to treat it with “dignity and respect,” to rationalize its root causes, to equivocate about whether evil really is evil, and, when all else fails, to ignore it — to purge the very mention of its name — in the vain hope that it will just go away. Evil doesn’t do nuance. It finds you, it tests you, and you either fight it or you’re part of the problem.

The men who founded our country and crafted our Constitution understood this. They understood that the “rule of law” was not a faux-civilized counterweight to the exhibition of might. Might, instead, is the firm underpinning of law and of our civilization. The Constitution explicitly recognized that the United States would have enemies; it provided Congress with the power to raise military forces that would fight them; it made the chief executive the commander-in-chief, concentrating in the presidency all the power the nation could muster to preserve itself by repelling evil. It did not regard evil as having a point of view, much less a right to counsel.

FEMA to the Rescue

Smart choice for Fargo:

With floodwaters rising around them, Fargo officials and the Federal Emergency Management Agency faced an agonizing decision: Should they order a mandatory evacuation of the entire city?

FEMA thought the best course of action was to evacuate and not leave anything to chance. Fargo officials disagreed, saying they knew what it would take to hold back the Red River. The conversation turned heated at times, and Fargo ultimately won.

Now that the Red River is receding and leaving only relatively minor damage, that decision looks smart. The city began returning to normal Wednesday as people went back to work, stores reopened and the river dipped to only slightly above 37 feet.

Heroism

Compare and contrast:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5998930.ece

A pregnant woman, her husband and their three-year-old son were killed in a house fire early yesterday as police who arrived before the fire brigade prevented neighbours from trying to save them. The woman screamed: “Please save my kids” from a bedroom window and neighbours tried to help but were beaten back by flames and were told by police not to attempt a rescue...

“It was the most harrowing thing I have ever witnessed. Michelle was at the bedroom window yelling, ‘Please save my kids’ and we wanted to help but the police were pushing us back and not allowing us near. We were willing to risk our lives to save those kiddies but the police wouldn’t let us.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting

Police said they arrived within two minutes... Police heard no gunfire after they arrived but waited for about an hour before entering the building to make sure it was safe for officers.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-nursing-home0330,0,5401628.story

The shooting spree was ended by 25-year-old Officer Justin Garner, who entered the nursing home alone as he responded to a 911 call. McKenzie said Garner, a training officer with more than four years on the Carthage force and a past winner of the department's officer of the year award, knew he was headed into a perilous situation, but didn't wait for back-up or a SWAT team to arrive.

"If that's not heroism, I don't know what is," McKenzie said

"He had to go to all the way through the facility to encounter this individual," McKenzie said. "It would be hard for me to believe he didn't (hear gunfire)."

Stewart wounded Garner three times in the leg as they traded gunfire in a hallway of the 110-bed facility, McKenzie said. The single shot Garner fired from his .40-caliber service pistol hit Stewart in the chest.

"Whether he realizes it now, he will hopefully realize someday how many lives he has saved," McKenzie said, adding: "A lot more lives would have been lost, I honestly feel, had he not done what he did. For certain."

Smart Grid Considerations

From New Scientist:

There are two problems to face. The first is the modern electricity grid, which is designed to operate at ever higher voltages over ever larger areas. Though this provides a more efficient way to run the electricity networks, minimizing power losses and wastage through overproduction, it has made them much more vulnerable to space weather. The high-power grids act as particularly efficient antennas, channeling enormous direct currents into the power transformers.

The second problem is the grid’s interdependence with the systems that support our lives: water and sewage treatment, supermarket delivery infrastructures, power station controls, financial markets and many others all rely on electricity. Put the two together, and it is clear that a repeat of the Carrington event could produce a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen. . . .”If a Carrington event happened now, it would be like a hurricane Katrina, but 10 times worse,” says Paul Kintner, a plasma physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Vitamin E not very good for you in large doses, via the NY Times.

Earmarks

Earmarks lead to corruption:

You hear it over and over. Denouncing earmarks is Congress’ second favorite pastime. Almost as popular as earmarks themselves.

The budget that President Obama signed today has more than 8,500 earmarks. Obama says the frenzy has to stop.

Let’s be clear. Yes, the relative size of earmarks is small, just a percentage point or two of federal spending. . . . On the other hand, here are the arguments –against– earmarks.

First: Randy “Duke” Cunningham, doing jail time for pocketing bribes from defense contractors.

Next: Corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who once described the appropriations committee as an “earmark favor factory.”.. He went down in flames.

Congressman Bob Ney went down with him.

Then there’s Senator Ted Stevens, who made Alaska the earmarks capital of the U.S., guilty of corruption, now fighting to avoid jail time.

And, currently, Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha is under federal investigation for 114 million dollars in earmarks that he funneled to generous campaign contributors in the defense industry.

Bottom line. Don’t think of earmarks as pork. Think of them as a cash cow for the corruption of congress.

The more power government has, the more people, industry, and interests will flock to it with their hands out. And they'll be successful.

The Rules of Combat

If Armed

1. Forget about knives, bats and fists. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns. Bring four times the ammunition you think you could ever need.

2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammunition is cheap - life is expensive. If you shoot inside, buckshot is your friend. A new wall is cheap - funerals are expensive

3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.

5. Move away from your attacker and go to cover. Distance is your friend. (Bulletproof cover and diagonal or lateral movement are preferred.)

6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a semi or full-automatic long gun and a friend with a long gun.

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running. Yell "Fire!" Why "Fire"? Cops will come with the Fire Department, sirens often scare off the bad guys, or at least cause then to lose concentration and will.... and who is going to summon help if you yell "Intruder," "Glock" or "Winchester?"

9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on "pucker factor" than the inherent accuracy of the gun.

10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.

11. Stretch the rules. Always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.

12. Have a plan.

13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work. "No battle plan ever survives 10 seconds past first contact with an enemy."

14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible, but remember, sheetrock walls and the like stop nothing but your pulse when bullets tear through them.

15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

16. Don't drop your guard.

17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees. Practice reloading one-handed and off-hand shooting. That's how you live if hit in your "good" side.

18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. Smiles, frowns and other facial expressions don't (In God we trust. Everyone else keep your hands where I can see them.)

19. Decide NOW to always be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.

20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet if necessary, because they may want to kill you.

22. Be courteous to everyone, overly friendly to no one.

23. Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.

24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with anything smaller than "4".

25. Use a gun that works EVERY TIME. "All skill is in vain when an Angel blows the powder from the flintlock of your musket." At a practice session, throw you gun into the mud, then make sure it still works. You can clean it later.

26. Practice shooting in the dark, with someone shouting at you, when out of breath, etc.

27. Regardless of whether justified of not, you will feel sad about killing another human being. It is better to be sad than to be room temperature.

28. The only thing you EVER say afterwards is, "He said he was going to kill me. I believed him. I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm very upset now. I can't say anything more. Please speak with my attorney."

If Un-armed

1. Never be unarmed.

Hipocrites

Reminds me of the scene in 'The Aviator' where they dragged Howard Hughes before the Senate. Even more priceless when it happens in real life. If only it happened more.

Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo

Interview with Dambisa Moyo:

You argue in your book "Dead Aid" that Western aid to Africa has not only perpetuated poverty but also worsened it, and you are perhaps the first African to request in book form that all development aid be halted within five years.
Think about it this way — China has 1.3 billion people, only 300 million of whom live like us, if you will, with Western living standards. There are a billion Chinese who are living in substandard conditions. Do you know anybody who feels sorry for China? Nobody.

...

Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.

What do you think has held back Africans?
I believe it’s largely aid. You get the corruption — historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty — and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people.

If people want to help out, what do you think they should do with their money if not make donations?
Microfinance. Give people jobs.

...Go to the Internet and type in Kiva.org, where you can make a loan to an African entrepreneur.

...

Why didn’t you get a bond issue going in your native Zambia or other African countries?
Many politicians seem to have a lazy muscle. Issuing a bond would require that the president and the cabinet ministers go out and market their country. Why would they do that when they can just call up the World Bank and say, “Can I please have some money?”
...

For all your belief in the potential of capitalism, the free market is now in free fall and everyone is questioning the supposed wonders of the unregulated market.
I wish we questioned the aid model as much as we are questioning the capitalism model. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do is just say no.

Protests with a Plan

How to organize and plan a protest:

1. Incoherent messages are fine from the Assembly, but the primary organizers have to be organized. Home-made signs can be all over the place. The more the better. That’s fine. The color and signage look good on TV.

2. Create a theme - like “We want Senator So-and-So to resign for voting for this bill.” Or, “We want the Bill Repealed!” etc. Have a definitive purpose to your Assembly. A central theme will also help public speakers to focus. And don’t be afraid to personalize this. Put it on your Senators, Congress people, and the President. That’s what they are doing to anyone who objects. Remember, they made it personal first.

3. Speakers have to be prepared for the media. If you are an organizer, or the “face” of the event - take an hour to prepare. You don’t need to know everything about your cause. Just find 2 or 3 things - hard facts - you can point to and credibly say - this is wrong, here's how to make it better. It is critical. Not only have a primary message against something, have a message FOR something. People like leaders with solutions.

4. Pass out talking points, just in case Joe or Jane Protestor gets buttonholed by a reporter.

5. This is all about image. If you don’t present the media with a professional, organized and, unfortunately, scripted image, they are going to make their own, and it won’t be favorable.

6. Recruit some help to pack the area around people being interviewed for background. God love the guy in the crazy Uncle Sam suit, and you certainly need some comic relief, but these folks will quickly become THE story because they are colorful or controversial i.e., Good TV. Welcome their support. Maybe give them a minute on the mic. However, mainstream folks have to be the majority. Boring looking, and diverse Americans around the camera. No offense to anyone. Anytime a TV camera comes out, a certain number and type of attention seeker will flock to it. Now is the time for Grandma and Grandpa, the Plumber, the Young Executive, and the Homeschooling Mom to flock to the camera as background. Don’t be shy. Remember, how do you want your cause to be presented by the media? As crazies? Or as Concerned Neighbors?

7. Have an Agenda and a Time. We’re going to Assemble at this Time. We’re going to have a Sign-In Table. We’re going to have a Sign-Making Area. We’re going to have speakers at 10:30. We’re going to March to the Senator’s Office at this time and demand she resign. We’re going to end with Chants, and a Call-to-Action for the next Protest. That, and Protestors want to know what’s going on. If they become unsure, they leave. Organization wins, and it also intimidates the opposition. And the opposition is going to start showing up.

8. Share the Day’s Agenda with the Media. You have to create your own press. Sell it to them. They love good stories.

That’s it. Get a Message. And Get It Out.

UPDATED:

Be sure to have a signup sheet where people can put their emails and other contact information for future events.

Also, consider printing up some postcards addressed to your local Representative and Senators. They should say that they’re from the protest, and carry an organized, standard message. Get people to sign them, and solicit donations for postage, then mail them. Local mail from real constituents makes an impression.

Also, encourage them to contact local media after the event, and either compliment them on their coverage, or politely criticize it, as appropriate.

Adult Stem Cells Help AIDS / Leukemia Patient

Via Bloomberg:

A German AIDS patient was able to stop drugs he had been taking for 10 years after getting a transplant of stem cells from a donor with a rare gene variant known to resist the deadly disease. The transplant also cured his leukemia, researchers reported.

The stem cell donor was among the 1 percent of Caucasians who have the variant gene that lacks a section known as CCR5 that helps the AIDS virus enter a cell, according to a report today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors in Berlin hoped that putting the donor’s stem cells in the patient would rebuild his immune system and blood cells so they would lack the CCR5 piece.

The results of the experiment may point researchers to a new way of controlling the AIDS virus HIV that doesn’t force patients to take drugs for the rest of their lives.

Roman History

Cicero said...

When politicians, enthusiastic to pose as the people's friends, bring forward bills providing for the distribution of property, they intend that the existing owners shall be driven from their homes. Or they propose to excuse borrowers from paying back their debts.

Men with those views undermine the very foundations on which our commonwealth depends. In the first place, they are shattering the harmony between one element in the State and another, a relationship which cannot possibly survive if debtors are excused from paying their creditor back the sums of money he is entitled to. Furthermore, all politicians who harbour such intentions are aiming a fatal blow at the whole principle of justice; for once rights of property are infringed, this principle is totally undermined.
...

The real answer to the problem is that we must make absolutely certain that private debts do not ever reach proportions which will constitute a national peril. There are various ways of ensuring this. But just to take the money away from the rich creditors and give the debtors something that does not belong to them is no solution at all. For the firmest possible guarantee of a country's security is sound credit...

So the men in charge of our national interests will do well to steer clear of the kind of liberality which involves robbing one man to give to another.

To bad the Roman Senate didn't listen to him.

First Malaria Vaccine on the Way

From PopSci:

A vaccine with a 53 percent success rate doesn’t normally call for a celebration. But when that means protecting one in every two African children from a disease that kills a kid every 30 seconds, those odds start looking better. “The impact is tremendous,” says Joe Cohen, inventor of the first malaria vaccine. “We could save hundreds of thousands of kids every year.”

This spring, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline will enroll 16,000 infants and toddlers, the groups most at risk, in what could be the largest malaria-vaccine trial to date in Africa, setting up labs in 11 hospitals in Kenya, Burkina Faso, Malawi and four other countries. The test follows on the success of recent small-scale studies in Kenya and Tanzania that reduced infection by 65 percent in infants.

Congratulations to GSK. I hope this pans out successfully.

Perspective

From blogger davefoulk.net:

Each bill of United States Currency weighs one gram... Let’s say we had a pile of one dollar bills….787 billion of them- same as the Stimulus Package. How much would that cash weigh?

86,759 TONS

That’s more than an Iowa class battleship.

Or put another way, according to Senator Lamar Alexander, (much better at numbers than me), if you spent a million dollars a week, starting the day Jesus Christ was born. You would still have money left over. And you could spend it on a new calculator because the old one just died of shock.

Actually, to correct my former Governor, if you spent EIGHT million dollars a week for 2009 years, you'd be around $8.35 billion. And we're not counting the interest on this debt that will most certainly send this bill's cost over a trillion dollars.

Life

Curing Disease with Nanotechnology

Inching towards clinical trials.

“Our lab is creating biological nano-machines,” says Dr. Peer. “These machines can target specific cells. In fact, we can target any protein that might be causing disease or disorder in the human body. This new invention treats the source, not the symptoms.” Dr. Peer’s recent paper reported on the device’s ability to target leukocytes (immune cells) in the guts of mice with ulcerative colitis. Calling his new invention a submarine, Dr. Peer has developed a nano-sized carrier which operates like a GPS system to locate and target cells. In the case of Crohn’s disease, for example, it will target overactive immune system cells in the gut. In other diseases such as cancer, the submarine can aim for and deliver material to specific cancer cells, leaving the surrounding healthy cells intact. While other researchers are working in the area of nano-medicine and drug delivery, Dr. Peer’s submarines are among the first to combine a drug candidate with a drug delivery system. As the submarines float through the body, they latch onto the target cell and deliver their payload, a drug based on RNAi. This new kind of drug can affect faulty RNA machinery and reprogram cells to operate in normal ways. In essence, RNAi can essentially restore health to diseased cells or cause cells to die (like in the case of cancer cells).…

A Pack or a Herd?

Amanda Ripley commenting on why there was no panic on the US Airways flight that splashed into the Hudson:

He asked again and again why people had not become violent and hysterical, until the survivor agreed it was shocking indeed.

The truth is, in almost every disaster I have studied, people treat each other with kindness and respect. Violence and panic are extremely rare. An instant camraderie springs up between strangers--on a sinking ship or a bombed-out subway car. That is the rule, not the exception.

After the terrorist bombings on the London transit system on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 people and wounded hundreds, some victims actually resisted leaving the tube station. “I needed the [others] for comfort,” one survivor explained to U.K. psychologist John Drury. “I felt better knowing that I was surrounded by people.”

One study of U.S. mining disasters found that miners tended to follow their groups even if they disagreed with the group’s decisions. Grown men trapped underground would rather make a potentially fatal decision than be left alone.

In other airplane crashes, passengers have risked their lives because they climbed over seats to regroup with the rest of their family before evacuating. In skyscraper fires, people making arduous journeys down hundreds of stairs will tend to insist that those entering the stairwell from lower floors go ahead of them. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a 9/11 survivor who didn’t help or receive help from a stranger on the way out of the towers.

Why don’t we turn into raving maniacs? Because it is in our interest to be nice to each other. Under threat, we need each other more than ever.

I don't disagree with her last comment, but I think there's more to it than that.

I suspect the likelyhood of someone living through a disaster, whether man-made or natural, are statistically lower today than at anytime in man's history. And when we do encounter disasters, they're substantially more survivable today than at any other time in our history.

However, it still doesn't hurt for a civilization's culture to set some expectations of what's acceptable or not. The phrase, "Women and children first!" wouldn't exist without the prevalence of the "me first" attitude. Woe unto us if the "me first"'s win the day. It can happen and would be a defining benchmark in our civilization's decline.

Rich People versus Government

All Government is Corrupt:

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, with about $60 billion in assets each, are America’s richest men. With all that money, what can they force us to do? Can they take our house to make room so that another person can build an auto dealership or a casino parking lot? Can they force us to pay money into the government-run retirement Ponzi scheme called Social Security? Can Buffett and Gates force us to bus our children to schools out of our neighborhood in the name of diversity? Unless they are granted power by politicians, rich people have little power to force us to do anything.

A GS-9, or a lowly municipal clerk, has far more life-and-death power over us. It’s they to whom we must turn to for permission to build a house, ply a trade, open a restaurant and myriad other activities. It’s government people, not rich people, who have the power to coerce and make our lives miserable. Coercive power goes a long way toward explaining political corruption.

And to summarize what I've always said:

The only way to reduce corruption and money in Washington is to reduce the power politicians have over our lives.

Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" Chord Mystery Solved

Fourier transform to the rescue.