nerdgirl

Devils advocate: Do we pay out more or get more from the rest of the world? US public debt to foreign states is $2.31T! VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Two further thoughts on this (for now … always reserve right for more thinking

Is there a book or some other body of argument behind the 9.21 minute video? My first thought was to make a comparison, in which the video fares poorly, to Hermann & Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, published in 1988 (movie wasn’t made until 1992 and is much less hard core economics-oriented than the book, perhaps not surprisingly.) Was the video produced to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos? Or is it ‘virally’ being spread (‘re-emerging infectious video?’) now because of Davos? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Per official US policy, yes, we do (from 2002 Nuclear Posture Review): “Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets important to achieve strategic and political objectives.” “Hard” power is derived from nuclear capabilities along with conventional forces. Blatantly stealing from Clausewitz, the ultimate aim of military superiority is the ability to force an adversary “to do our will,” i.e., power. Per US policy, nuclear retaliation against state and non-state actors is a viable option. We gave up BW & CW because we had nukes … other normative and operational reasons were at play, sure; but nukes were never off the table. (Per NPT Article VI, nuclear weapons states indicate they will work toward disarmament; when signed, the NPT was a 25-year trial, in 1997 became indefinite.) ~~~~~ I would ask something of the inversion of your assertion: in our changing, globalized post-Cold War world is there too much emphasis on power derived from nuclear weapons? Is the current nuclear proliferation upswing a result of over-emphasis on security power derived from nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era? Also depends on how you want to define power? I could build an argument that the US derives its power from its scientific, engineering, and technical achievements & innovation, which enabled détente & “peace through superior firepower” [military/security power, MAD as part of traditional “hard” power, along with conventional forces] and enables(ed) our form of entrepreneurial capitalism [economic power, another part of “hard” power]. American entrepreneurial capitalism is fundamentally different that the state-guided capitalism of most of Europe, India, & China; and the oligarchic capitalism of Russia. ~~~~~ Concur w/Bill Von’s assertion w/r/t deterrence … historically. (And gently remind my European friends & colleagues that a significant number of them took great solace in being under our nuclear umbrella throughout the Cold War. Norway is concerned w/r/t/ fissile material being transported across the E105 at Storskog and along the rest of the shared Russian border. NATO was a security-driven compact not economic.) There was substantial discussion as to whether the 2002 NPR represented a (fundamental) lowering of the barriers to offensive or retaliatory response with nuclear weapons (to non-nuclear attack). Who is America’s major adversary? State or non-state actors? As we’ve discussed before, there are limitations to nuclear response against terrorists (sub- or non-state actors). What is the (appropriate) response if a state or state-supported terrorist group executes a mass effect biological or chemical attack on US troops or civilians? I.e., a real mass-effect attack: >10,000 fatalities or >100,000 casualties (a “Vitko”); not something like the 5 fatalities of the fall 2001 Amerithrax incident or 12 fatalities of March 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin nerve agent attack). A nuclear response very much remains on the proverbial table. Official US policy per the National Strategy to Combat WMD: “The United States will continue to make it clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including through resort to all of our options – to the use of WMD against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” (p.3, under deterrence). Remember the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), aka “bunker busters,” foray that Congress halted in 2005? And the latest proposals for tactical “mini-nukes”? (For anyone so inclined: technically-grounded & peer-reviewed () discussion on why RNEPs wouldn’t work by Mike May {emeritus prof Stanford & former director Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory} & Zach Haldeman, “Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons Against Buried Biological Agents,” Science & Global Security, 2004, vol 12, pp. 91-114.) There’s a legitimate question in the OP and threaded throughout the responses, what is the role of the US nuclear arsenal and nuclear weapons globally in the 21st Century? Best unclassified estimates are that there are ~27,000 nuclear warheads in the world. >95% of those are divided btw US & Russia. In 1985, the US began eliminating its chemical weapons stockpile (31,495 metric tons declared). As of 7 Jan 08, the Army has overseen the demilitarization of just over 50% of the Cold War era stockpile. Official OSD projection is 2022 for complete demilitarization. I wouldn’t bet on seeing the stockpile eliminate before 2030 (earliest). Forty-five years. Btw: Russia declared 42,000 metric ton CW stockpile (many speculate some/much remains undeclared), of which it is estimated (generously) that 90% of world’s declared CW stockpiles. Even *if* the US were to initiate complete nuclear disarmament & verification - w/r/t Russian disarmament & verification, again, would my European friends and colleagues exert some positive influence here, please? - it would take longer than CW stockpile elimination. Period. Decreasing the nuclear stockpile, ratifying the CTBT (US already signed it), extending START verification, de-alerting the estimated ~1000 nuclear weapons on high-alert every day (i.e., ready to launch in < 30 minutes) left over from Cold War policies & mindset, implementing measures to secure fissile material & increase security on global nuclear arsenal, and re-evaluating missile defense are all places to start … basically the strategy and executable actions described by Schultz, Perry, Kissinger, & Nunn (excuse me for not specifying their honorifics). Sen Obama is speaking about moving beyond the Cold War deterrence model. I would like to know what Sen McCain has indicated his strategy would be … VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Boyfriend gave me this one last year. Love to wear it around home, but I’m not inclined to wear in public (too tight if one is more well-endowed than the model – just doesn’t project the look I want to convey).* * Possible exception for Couch Freaks. Thanks for the link. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Poll-phylactic: (n)(adj) mechanism or use of repeated questioning of voters or subjection of greater electorate to onslaught of polling results (of dubious substantive nature), which may contribute to “electile dysfunction.” /Marg

Hmmm … I’ve given both time (ran the Sunday ‘soup kitchen’ at the St. Jude Catholic Worker House for ~18 months while in grad school and volunteered evenings and overnights for >4y) and money to the Catholic Worker Movement. And I’m not Catholic. “Volunteers of all faiths, traditions, and ages are welcomed.” I’m much more impressed and persuaded by the folks who “live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ,” than those who condemn others or who purchase billboards (of course, in a market economy they can do whatever they want with their money w/in limits of state, local, & federal law). While many do derive ethical and moral codes of behavior from religious principles, one can also derive ethical & moral codes of behavior from the rule of law, from Enlightenment principles of personal liberty and personal responsibility (e.g., my example provided above), and/or from any number of a-religious philosophical approaches, e.g., from Aristotle to Descartes to Ayn Rand to Existentialism (authenticity & Da Sein) to Star Trek. Nor does that preclude the secularist, the humanist, or the atheist from seeking guidance & inspiration from the great religious traditions and from religious philosophers/ethicists, e.g., from the Norse Poetic Edda to Saint Teresa of Avila (a personal favorite) to Soren Kierkegaard to Spinoza (orthodox Jew who eventually became a pantheist) to the Dali Lama. As Kurt Vonnegut succinctly described: “being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead. Humanism is a progressive lifestance that, without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.” Im-ever-ho, that’s the ultimate in personal responsibility: behavior because it’s normatively right, without motivation or expectation of material or immaterial compensation. There’s a high-ethics question, more of an intellectual/philosophical nature than pragmatic impact: if one’s charitable behavior is based on the ultimate reward system (eternal life), how truly freely given is/can that personal or community charity be? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Most alpacas only spit at other alpacas. Extremely rare ... & you have to be doing something substantial to provoke spitting (unlike llamas). Most like carrots & apple slices ... and to chew on wool gloves (while on your fingers).

Perhaps, the Europeans would direct energy and influence toward actions encouraging nuclear disarmament of Russia and limit proliferation in the Middle East? E.g., renewed interest by Turkey in uranium enrichment. Norgies have been advocating the ”seven-country initiative” that doesn't seem to be getting traction. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Solid plan up until this part -- how do you plan to reduce our nukes? Drawing fire would do it, but not a great idea. To start, I’d look to the stunningly progressive “Hoover Plan” (as in Stanford’s conservative Hoover Institute) articulated in a 4 January 2007 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by formers Sec of State and Sec of Treasury George Schultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, and Senator Sam Nunn (former chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Tuesday, they re-emphasized nuclear disarmament as a priority, in another Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.” “The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands. “The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous. “In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can't even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can't get there from here. But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible. “Progress must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate goal. Indeed, this is the only way to build the kind of international trust and broad cooperation that will be required to effectively address today's threats. Without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral.” To aid progress toward the ultimate goal of nuclear abolition, the bipartisan group urges the United States and Russia to take a number of specific interim actions: Extend the verification provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), due to expire in late 2009; Reduce the risk of accidental missile launches, including discarding Cold War-era massive attack (MAD) procedures; Increase and invest in security improvements to prevent the theft of nuclear weapons and materials, via CTR, IAEA, & UN SCR 1540; Work toward bring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force; Negotiate further strategic nuclear reductions (i.e., work toward NPT Article VI). VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Very nice! My aunt owns High Spice Alpacas of Walking Lightly Farm in Colorado (10,100ft MSL back side of Pike's Peak). The crias are adorable. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Have you ever read Jared Diamond's Why is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality, which discusses evolutionary biology/physiologically per the title & offers some explanation as to why humans have tended to monogomy whereas our closest evolutionary relatives and other mammals don't. Albeit, the book is more popular science than pure science. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

What is the origin of rule of law is fascinating question! Which part of law? Civil law? Natural law? Common law? The convention of individual liberty and property rights -- which I'm willing to bet you treasure as much as I -- originate from Enlightement ideals, e.g., John Locke. The Code of Hammurabi, which we all know, is generally considered the first recorded/oldest remaining example of attempt to create laws came out of ancient Sumerian family laws & attempts to regulate commerce and address property/slave/irrigation/etc disputes as a way to limit warfare & homicide. That's got an ancient Near Eastern tribal origin. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

While I do concur with your assertion that terrorist suicide bombers are “monsters,” I disagree with the assertion that motive is irrelevant or unimportant. When doing threat assessment, threat is a function of capability, vulnerability, and motivation. If one ignores any one of the three factors, an incomplete analysis results. My concern about motivation is not apologetic/justifying/rationalizing but to enable more effective deterrents, tactics, and strategies to reduce the threat. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

This past weekend’s Wall Street Journal had a interesting article, The Lost Archive, on a recently re-discovered “photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Q'uran.” Because the Q'uran is considered direct word of the prophet (PBWH), it is considered immutable. The (potential) introduction of other texts with different versions of the Q'uran is therefore heretical. Your comment reminded me of one example: “A scholar in northern Germany writes under the pseudonym of Christoph Luxenberg because, he says, his controversial views on the Quran risk provoking Muslims. He claims that chunks of it were written not in Arabic but in another ancient language, Syriac. The ‘virgins’ promised by the Quran to Islamic martyrs, he asserts, are in fact only ‘grapes.’ [or “white raisins”] ” More on the evidence/argument for 72 grapes or “white raisins” at “Virgins? What virgins?” Obviously, “Luxenberg” represents a minority, non-consensus view. Imagine, tho', how the temptation of 72 grapes or raisins might impact motivation of some suicide bombers? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Yeah, 'cos when society was all devout and pious stuff there was no affairs, no spousal abuse, the gutters weren't full of prostitutes and the Pope almost never had illegitimate kids. And, let's not forget that back when organized religion had more impact on daily life/government, the homicide rate was 20x what it is today! Thank you "England" for keeping good records! VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

What errors specifically? What lack of reporting? When the study was published – immediately before the Congressional elections – yes. Because it was so dramatically different/higher than the previous estimates. And, weren’t the pundits challenging it on political grounds rather than technical ones? What evidence do you have to support the assertion that there was a lack of reporting on the pundit’s criticism, especially when the President was commenting on it? And weren’t the epidemiologists reviewing the methods and not finding any gross errors? I would argue the latter was where the under-reporting occurred. I would be willing to bet that most of the political pundits couldn't tell the difference between a Monte Carlo estimate and least squares fit. Both teams reported statistically significant ranges (back to issue of uncertainties) w/in 95% confidence interval (CI). Within that 95% CI, the WHO goes to 223,000; the Johns Hopkins University low is 392,979. I want to know how they rationalize the significant figures. Incorporate in the missing data due to the undercount of the WHO team not going into the “dangerous areas” of high conflict, i.e., Anbar, Baghdad, Nineveh, and Wasit, and the figures are starting to look a lot closer. The JHU folks did a survey and statistical analysis in 2004 too, which got very little reporting. In that study of the first 17 months of OIF, reporting 98,000 excess deaths … the 95% CI was 8000 to 194,000. Regardless, the peer-review system is working. Research that generated a figure that appeared anomalously high was re-visited (under sponsorship of the UN) and the re-estimation appears to be more valid. In the end, less dead people is good. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Like the way you phrased that.

Naw, Guns and Butter is for those who do take high school civics in Berkeley. /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I hear a large number of people *supporting research* on stem cell therapy for potential life-saving therapeutic uses, with the implicit requirement for FDA approval for safety & effectiveness, e.g.: 2:1 support for stem cell research, per 2007 Virginia Commonwealth University survey, which is commensurate w/surveys from 2001 curiously (to me at least

Come on’ Mike – what “bad data” and what “incorrect statistics”? Again, Soros' Open Society Institute funded MIT. MIT funded the Johns Hopkins Study. I agree that it should have been acknowledged in the Lancet article. There's a whole lotta conjecture being tossed around that doesn't appear to have any underlying evidence … The statistical method used has been validated in other conflict settings (e.g., Africa ... & IIRC, the former Yugoslavia). There was a tremendous backlash in the political punditry community that prompted reviews by the epidemiological community. Even President Bush commented on it: “not credible.” Who sponsored the New England Journal of Medicine study published last week? “Supported by United Nations Development Group Iraq Trust Fund, European Commission, and the WHO.” The NEJM article by researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO) “Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006” (which is available free as full-text) supports the argument that the peer-review system works! [intentionally silly] Does this mean that the next time a recommendation comes out of the UN, the EC, or WHO, we’re all going to be behind it?

Birthday present or very early Christmas gift for all y’all members of Speakers Corner guns & recipe contingent? (You know who you are. ) Pancakes? Cookies? Marzipan? So many options. Wish there was an AK-47 mold. /Marg

Tossing in 2 more pennies (to the nickel's worth I posted a few days ago): I don't think I've ever used “consensus” or “settled” as equivalent to the “preponderance of the available evidence.” If I have, that was imprecise & 'bad' of me. Scientists are actually *really* comfortable with error bars and accustom to dealing with uncertainties (if nothing else limitations of instrumental resolution). Policy makers (aka politicians), the media, and large percentages of the voting/pontificating public aren’t. They want black and white answers … sometimes when there aren’t. The problem isn’t the science (or the peer-review system ), it’s how the science gets applied (or mis-applied) to policy or how the science/pseudo-science is politicized. Science is a process that generates data/information/results that can be used for good or for bad, depending on how the human (politician, lobbyist, pundit, corporate shill, venture capitalist, start-up CEO) uses it. Bali was a diplomatic economic policy forum not a scientific conference. Does anyone really think that the US delegates were not fully briefed on the technical, economic, and whatever else challenges to anthropogenic climate change? When I've briefed HASC or SASC folks (staff not the elected committee members themselves … yet ) or folks from the OPCW, there’s zero to very little discussion of really hard-core science, e.g., pulling out the primary data. While there are a few technically competent to very good folks (e.g., Eryn Robinson & Arun Seraphin), the vast majority of the folks don’t have technical backgrounds, don’t have time for that level of detail, or occasionally just don’t care. Frankly, much of the discussion & the way I try to convey the concepts, is not that far away from how I do in this forum. (I’m also a big fan of properly-used PowerPoint – humans are visual creatures; if we were intelligent canines, we'd have 'stop-smells' instead of 'stop-lights' at intersections.) At what point do the skeptics become prescient iconoclasts … or time-wasting kooks … or an ‘abrasive bitch’? Are all y’all proponents of challenges to anthropogenic climate change as outspoken on the original research in this thread – the epidemiological modeling that estimated a much higher fatality value than the “consensus” figure? If not, how do you rationalize that? VR/Marg ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ “So far, scientists have pursued the truth about nature while engineers have solved practical problems faced by society. Hereafter, scientists are expected to not only have specific abilities related to their research, but also have an ability to foretell the trends of future society...The crucial point is to create and maintain a sustainable society for our offspring. Science and technology must contribute to this.” Ryoji Noyori, 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Or wait a few years until organ printing, aka bio-printing, is reality. New Scientist & ABC News write-ups of work at University of Southern Carolina. “What if the tens of thousands of people waiting for organ transplants in the United States didn't have to wait? What if burn victims could replace their scars with skin that was indistinguishable from their own? What if an amputee could replace an entire limb with one that felt, looked and behaved exactly as the original?” Ink-jetted bone and muscle is already being done at Carnegie Mellon (MIT Tech Review write-up). “Organ 'Printing' Creates Beating Heart Cells” based on work by folks at Clemson. Then -- to intersect w/Keith’s [BIGUN] post on human prosthetics & augmentation -- the question becomes do you order a better, newer, younger organ (if you can pay for it or have access) or do you go old-school with someone else’s recycled organ (& all of the commensurate immunological problems). VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying