The last big die off here on Earth was when the Dinosaurs died off due to a meteor impact. It kicked up so much dust that the climate changed radically and the Dinosaurs had no food and they all died. That is how it all happened and it is going to be the same for us humans. There has never been so many of us humans here on Earth. I think that we have already crossed over the steady state holding capacity of the Earth.
The Earth is one big and complex system where all the elements are inter related. I think that you would agree with that. The amount of food that can be produced has about topped out. We have pushed it up from its natural level with irrigation and fertilizers, but we can not go much farther. I feel that we will actually start to go backwards as our soil is used up and the irrigation water has deposited too much salt on the soil. The way that we have pushed up the amount of food that the Earth can produce has been with the use of more and more energy. As that energy gets more expensive, it will keep driving up the cost of food. At some point many of us humans will not be able to grow or buy food. That is when the serious die off is going to start. It is already happening in some parts of the world, like in Africa.
We keep hearing all this talk about global warming, but we never hear exactly how it will affect the carrying capacity of the earth. Will global warming mean the Earth can produce more food or less? No one seems to want to answer that question. My guess is that it just might result in the Earth being able to produce "more" food. For sure, it will change the locations where different types of crops can be grown. Some areas will have less food and others more.
We have already had a major die off on Easter Island many years ago. The small island got over populated and most of the people died off. Before the last few died, they carved those large heads as a way to save themselves form Darwin. It did not work and it will not work for us humans today either.
How about Hatti? It would now be in a major die off if it were not for all the food aid going into the island from dogooders. Look at it this way. Which action would result in the fewest loss of lives? Giving them food and allowing the population to keep growing or to stop giving them food and let enough die off now so that the population would be in balance with how much food they could produce? I think you know the answer. Fewer would die if the correct action were taken now.
Look at the state of the world's oceans. Us humans have looked at the vast oceans as an unlimited source of fish and food, but with wooden sailboats and hand thrown spears, us humans killed off most of the world's whales in just a few years. What do you think is happening now with these giant nets that float for miles in the open ocean? We are past the point where our oceans can produce the most fish and food. It is going to be down hill from here on and that is going to affect the carrying capacity of the Earth even more.
Do you think that wind mills or solar cells or battery powered cars is going to make much difference? What they are going to do is the speed up the decline. Because the energy they produce costs more, and is going to make food of all kinds more expensive. Printing money is not going to solve the problem either. Money is just the representation of "value" produced by us humans and we are falling behind in the per capita production of "value". The world's population is now growing at about 1.8% per year while the total "value" of production is only growing by less than 0.5%. That means that us humans are getting poorer. That means we can afford less food and energy and less of a quality of life that we have known. Around the world it will be a mix, with some people still having a good quality of life while others have a much worse quality of life. Taken in total, the world will have a worse quality of life. In the end, it will mean a "Big Die Off". It is not a questions about if it will happen, it is only a question of how soon. We already have a die off in some areas of Africa and it will spread to other areas of the world until at some point it will be recognized for what it is. Darwin doing his thing to get us humans back into balance with the Earth's resources.
In a prior blog, I said that we will "never" run out of oil. That is because the oil will keep getting more expensive until only the richest people will be able to afford it. You can still buy whale oil, but it is expensive and that is what is going to happen with food and energy as we get back in balance with the Earth. When we do get back into balance, how many humans do you think will be living on this Earth? In the case of Easter Island, I think it is about 1% of the number who where there at its peak. I think that we will be back to where the Native Americans were in 1492 when Columbus first sailed here and living about the same way. The Native Americans were here for over 30,000 years and we have only been here for just over 500 years and look at the mess that we have generated.
Us humans have had a nice run and we accomplished a lot, but the party is almost over and those who have eyes can see to the end of the tunnel where we have to clean up the mess after the party.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Monday, November 26, 2012
Curse Of The Dogooder
How is that for a title? I have blogged on Dogooders for a while now, but now I have connected all the dots and it is very interesting. Albert Einstein worked most of his life on his "Unification Theory". That was his theory that almost everything is connected in some way and thus there is some kind of Unification concept out there that cries out to be discovered. Old Al was not the only one who was working on this concept. Many scientists had already proven that many things that appeared to be unrelated were in fact directly tied to each other. The only question was, "how far do these connections go"? That is where I come in with my Unification Theory about Dogooders.
I contend that Dogooders carry a curse. That curse is a direct result of their Dogooder activities. The curse does not appear immediately. It is like AIDS, you don't die right away after being infected, you die much later, but you do die in the end. It is similar with the actions of Dogooders. I am going to try to make my point with some simple examples that I think you will be able to follow. Here is the first one.
About 75 years ago, in the Northwoods of the USA, a large fancy resort complex was created with several lakes and many thousand of acres of forest. In these forests were a large number of deer. The people who were members of this large complex were Dogooders and decided that it would be "good" if they were to feed the deer corn during the harsh winters so that so many of the deer did not die from starvation. This was done and at first it seemed that their Dogooder actions had saved many deer so there were plenty of deer to shoot and to watch. Everyone was very happy and the news media came and took pictures of what they had done and published it far and wide. In the lodge, they had deer heads mounted that were the envy of hunters every where. How could it have been better? A few years ago, the members noticed that the new deer heads that were being added to the wall were much smaller than the ones killed in the old days. Most just thought that this was the way it was and had nothing to do with the actions of the Dogooders, until some smart kid studied the situation in more detail. What he found was that the deer were actually getting smaller as a result of the corn feeding that had been going on for the past 75 years. It seemed that the smaller and weaker deer were able to make it thru the harsh winter and were then able to breed more deer like themselves. Before the corn feeding started, many of the weaker and smaller deer did not make it thru the winter and thus were not part of the breeding group. The clear bottom line is that by the Dogooders feeding the corn to the deer, they had caused the deer to become smaller and weaker. Now if the feeding of corn were to stop, many more of the deer would die during the harsh winter than ever died before. The Dogooders had actually created a monster, they had "Cursed" the deer herd. It happened just like that and now how do the Dogooders correct their mistake? See the problem?
In a prior blog, I came down hard on Benjamen Spock and the bad affect his teachings have had on the current generation of adults. Here is my new take on what Spock did. He created a new group of parents who were Dogooders on how they raised their kids. That's right, Dogooders. These new parents did not raise their kids like most of the parents had done for the last several thousand years, they did a "better" job. They did not punish their kids if they were bad, they reasoned with them. They made the life of their kids much easier than it had been for them. How did they do this? They gave them their own rooms, toys and about anything else they wanted. They took them here and there so that they could "socialize" with other kids of their own age and not have to hang around their parents all the time. These new parents were very "good" to their kids, and you might call them Dogooder parents. If their kids wanted something, the parents would work hard to give their kids what ever they wanted. You are talking about a lot of very happy kids. But wait! When these kids started high school, did they take the difficult classes? No! They were used to getting what they wanted without having to do any real work for it. These new parents wanted their kids to go to college and to the best colleges if possible. It was not so important that they take the most difficult majors for which there would be a job when they graduated. The main thing was "socialization" and having a "good" experience. These new parents just might send their kids to Europe for a summer to "broaden" them and allow them to pick up some "culture". Many did exactly what I have described above. They were clearly Dogooders when it came to being a parent. What did all this accomplish? It created a generation of kids and adults who can not cut it against almost any country in the world. The Dogooders have "cursed" a whole generation and I do not see any way out.
We have been going down by every measure compared to the rest of the world. I blogged before that we are now 9th in average height, 25th or 26th in education and 38th in life expectancy. Think about that deer herd and what happened to them in just 75 years of free corn during the winter. The very same think is happening right here and I do not see a way out.
Recall the real estate collapse? Sure you do. We are still in it. What did the Dogooders have to do with that? Every thing. How about being able to deduct interest on you home mortgage, but not rent on a home? How about the government assuming the risk of bad loans so the banks would loan money to people who could not pay it back? How about the elimination of down payments or proof that you had a job before you could get a loan? This was all done by Dogooders who, like the case of the deer, helped for a while until the inflated real estate market started to return to "normal". Notice that all this did not happen in Canada, because they did not have these Dogooder policies.
I could go on an on, with things like government sponsored student loans to take bull shit majors or health care that allowed grossly overweight people to get artificial knees or hips. My challenge to all of you is for you to tell me the Dogooder policies that actually made anything better in the end. I know you can not. Most look good when they start out, but they all end up the same way by making things much worse. Watch this one about "going over the cliff". No action by our government is going to stop us from going over the cliff. The Dogooders have the upper hand, so just get used to it and get used to being "Cursed".
I contend that Dogooders carry a curse. That curse is a direct result of their Dogooder activities. The curse does not appear immediately. It is like AIDS, you don't die right away after being infected, you die much later, but you do die in the end. It is similar with the actions of Dogooders. I am going to try to make my point with some simple examples that I think you will be able to follow. Here is the first one.
About 75 years ago, in the Northwoods of the USA, a large fancy resort complex was created with several lakes and many thousand of acres of forest. In these forests were a large number of deer. The people who were members of this large complex were Dogooders and decided that it would be "good" if they were to feed the deer corn during the harsh winters so that so many of the deer did not die from starvation. This was done and at first it seemed that their Dogooder actions had saved many deer so there were plenty of deer to shoot and to watch. Everyone was very happy and the news media came and took pictures of what they had done and published it far and wide. In the lodge, they had deer heads mounted that were the envy of hunters every where. How could it have been better? A few years ago, the members noticed that the new deer heads that were being added to the wall were much smaller than the ones killed in the old days. Most just thought that this was the way it was and had nothing to do with the actions of the Dogooders, until some smart kid studied the situation in more detail. What he found was that the deer were actually getting smaller as a result of the corn feeding that had been going on for the past 75 years. It seemed that the smaller and weaker deer were able to make it thru the harsh winter and were then able to breed more deer like themselves. Before the corn feeding started, many of the weaker and smaller deer did not make it thru the winter and thus were not part of the breeding group. The clear bottom line is that by the Dogooders feeding the corn to the deer, they had caused the deer to become smaller and weaker. Now if the feeding of corn were to stop, many more of the deer would die during the harsh winter than ever died before. The Dogooders had actually created a monster, they had "Cursed" the deer herd. It happened just like that and now how do the Dogooders correct their mistake? See the problem?
In a prior blog, I came down hard on Benjamen Spock and the bad affect his teachings have had on the current generation of adults. Here is my new take on what Spock did. He created a new group of parents who were Dogooders on how they raised their kids. That's right, Dogooders. These new parents did not raise their kids like most of the parents had done for the last several thousand years, they did a "better" job. They did not punish their kids if they were bad, they reasoned with them. They made the life of their kids much easier than it had been for them. How did they do this? They gave them their own rooms, toys and about anything else they wanted. They took them here and there so that they could "socialize" with other kids of their own age and not have to hang around their parents all the time. These new parents were very "good" to their kids, and you might call them Dogooder parents. If their kids wanted something, the parents would work hard to give their kids what ever they wanted. You are talking about a lot of very happy kids. But wait! When these kids started high school, did they take the difficult classes? No! They were used to getting what they wanted without having to do any real work for it. These new parents wanted their kids to go to college and to the best colleges if possible. It was not so important that they take the most difficult majors for which there would be a job when they graduated. The main thing was "socialization" and having a "good" experience. These new parents just might send their kids to Europe for a summer to "broaden" them and allow them to pick up some "culture". Many did exactly what I have described above. They were clearly Dogooders when it came to being a parent. What did all this accomplish? It created a generation of kids and adults who can not cut it against almost any country in the world. The Dogooders have "cursed" a whole generation and I do not see any way out.
We have been going down by every measure compared to the rest of the world. I blogged before that we are now 9th in average height, 25th or 26th in education and 38th in life expectancy. Think about that deer herd and what happened to them in just 75 years of free corn during the winter. The very same think is happening right here and I do not see a way out.
Recall the real estate collapse? Sure you do. We are still in it. What did the Dogooders have to do with that? Every thing. How about being able to deduct interest on you home mortgage, but not rent on a home? How about the government assuming the risk of bad loans so the banks would loan money to people who could not pay it back? How about the elimination of down payments or proof that you had a job before you could get a loan? This was all done by Dogooders who, like the case of the deer, helped for a while until the inflated real estate market started to return to "normal". Notice that all this did not happen in Canada, because they did not have these Dogooder policies.
I could go on an on, with things like government sponsored student loans to take bull shit majors or health care that allowed grossly overweight people to get artificial knees or hips. My challenge to all of you is for you to tell me the Dogooder policies that actually made anything better in the end. I know you can not. Most look good when they start out, but they all end up the same way by making things much worse. Watch this one about "going over the cliff". No action by our government is going to stop us from going over the cliff. The Dogooders have the upper hand, so just get used to it and get used to being "Cursed".
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Changing Currency
I am not talking about changing from the Dollar to the Euro. This is something a lot more important. If you have noticed it or not, the currency has been changing. The currency that I am talking about is the over all economic currency. Here is an example, 200 years ago the currency was a strong back, good eye sight and hard physical labor, plus who you knew and what status you were born into. This is the way it was since the beginning of time. The problem is that the currency has changed and it seems that no one wants to admit it. I'll work thru some simple examples to make this all clear.
Historically, the economy of the world, countries and individual were based on physical labor with a few at the top who managed the work. I think that you have to agree that that was the model for many centuries. To get into the top group, it was more important who you knew or what family you were born into than was it on your skill or talent. Most people were in the physical workers.group. The pay was based on what a person could produce with their physical labor. It was judged as fair for most of history, because it was. An interesting point about all this is the fact that if you took 100 typical workers, the worst 10% could produce at 90% of the average and the top 10% could produce at 110% of the average. It would be the same for running, throwing a ball or almost any other physical thing. There is a difference between people, but it is not all that much. Human height or weight are similar examples. My point is that as long as the currency is physical work, the differences are small. Follow this? The problem is that things have changed as has the currency or the value of physical labor compared to other types of labor. That's next.
The world is still operates on 90% physical labor, but the modern economies have a currency based on skill, ability and knowledge rather than physical labor.. In my judgement this is a much fairer system. Imagine a poor kid who was very smart who developed his skills, but who could only get a job pulling weeds while a kid born into a rich family could manage his father's farm and eat steaks? What has happened is that this kid who can solve complex technical problems is worth much more than the kid who pulls weeds. A good weed puller might be worth up to 50% more than a poor weed puller, but a person who can solve complex technical problems could easily be worth 100 time that of a person who was poor at solving complex technical problems. That is the situation that people seem to be having such a problem dealing with. They look backwards and see a different picture, but this is not the past. It is now and the future will be even more different. The future will present complex technical problems that are much more difficult than those we have to deal with today and it is my projection that people who can deal with those will be worth over 1000 times that of the average person. If you are following this, it is going to lead to a situation where these high demand high skilled people will be earning many time that of the old profile people who have been doing physical labor. The fact that the currency has been changing faster than most humans can adjust too is the real problem.
Kids and parents who did not see this coming and dropped out of high school or earn worthless college degrees, now will be on the outside looking in. Those are the facts. That is the bad side, but there is a good side. We have, on average, a much higher quality of life. You have to admit that. We also have a much higher degree of fairness. That's right, fairness!! Think of the poor kid above who was smart and developed his skills but who could only get a job pulling weeds? Now that same kid is one of those who can solve these complex technical problems and thus earn much much more. To me, that is the definition of fair. How about the kid who was born into the rich family. Today, he can expect to earn less than his parents unless he also has the ability and skill of the poor kid. Fair, again.
Now take Obama. What he seems to want to do is to punish the poor kid who finally climbed out of the hole that his family had been doomed too for centuries. It is true, this poor kid is now wealthy, but it has not always been that way. How does punishing the kid now, make anything more fair? The reason the kid is now wealthy is that the economic currency has changed and we now reward knowledge and ability more than physical work. Obama is not going to be able to change this basic natural law no matter what he does.
The currency has changed, get used to it!!!!
PS-----It used to be that if you knew the union boss in your neighborhood, you were assured of a high paying job for life. That is not the case any more because of the weakness of unions in the private sector. Who you know or what family or status you were born into was never fair and now it is gone. Each person is now dealt with on the basis of their skill and knowledge so that we now, for the first time, all have equal opportunities. I think that this new equalness is what has made so many of those who had advantages in the past so unhappy. Sorry, accept the much more fair world. Don't buy the BS coming out of Obama. If you do, you are a dishonest coward. Most people at the top got there on the basis of merit and those on the bottom did too. Sorry about what fairness can do!!!!
Historically, the economy of the world, countries and individual were based on physical labor with a few at the top who managed the work. I think that you have to agree that that was the model for many centuries. To get into the top group, it was more important who you knew or what family you were born into than was it on your skill or talent. Most people were in the physical workers.group. The pay was based on what a person could produce with their physical labor. It was judged as fair for most of history, because it was. An interesting point about all this is the fact that if you took 100 typical workers, the worst 10% could produce at 90% of the average and the top 10% could produce at 110% of the average. It would be the same for running, throwing a ball or almost any other physical thing. There is a difference between people, but it is not all that much. Human height or weight are similar examples. My point is that as long as the currency is physical work, the differences are small. Follow this? The problem is that things have changed as has the currency or the value of physical labor compared to other types of labor. That's next.
The world is still operates on 90% physical labor, but the modern economies have a currency based on skill, ability and knowledge rather than physical labor.. In my judgement this is a much fairer system. Imagine a poor kid who was very smart who developed his skills, but who could only get a job pulling weeds while a kid born into a rich family could manage his father's farm and eat steaks? What has happened is that this kid who can solve complex technical problems is worth much more than the kid who pulls weeds. A good weed puller might be worth up to 50% more than a poor weed puller, but a person who can solve complex technical problems could easily be worth 100 time that of a person who was poor at solving complex technical problems. That is the situation that people seem to be having such a problem dealing with. They look backwards and see a different picture, but this is not the past. It is now and the future will be even more different. The future will present complex technical problems that are much more difficult than those we have to deal with today and it is my projection that people who can deal with those will be worth over 1000 times that of the average person. If you are following this, it is going to lead to a situation where these high demand high skilled people will be earning many time that of the old profile people who have been doing physical labor. The fact that the currency has been changing faster than most humans can adjust too is the real problem.
Kids and parents who did not see this coming and dropped out of high school or earn worthless college degrees, now will be on the outside looking in. Those are the facts. That is the bad side, but there is a good side. We have, on average, a much higher quality of life. You have to admit that. We also have a much higher degree of fairness. That's right, fairness!! Think of the poor kid above who was smart and developed his skills but who could only get a job pulling weeds? Now that same kid is one of those who can solve these complex technical problems and thus earn much much more. To me, that is the definition of fair. How about the kid who was born into the rich family. Today, he can expect to earn less than his parents unless he also has the ability and skill of the poor kid. Fair, again.
Now take Obama. What he seems to want to do is to punish the poor kid who finally climbed out of the hole that his family had been doomed too for centuries. It is true, this poor kid is now wealthy, but it has not always been that way. How does punishing the kid now, make anything more fair? The reason the kid is now wealthy is that the economic currency has changed and we now reward knowledge and ability more than physical work. Obama is not going to be able to change this basic natural law no matter what he does.
The currency has changed, get used to it!!!!
PS-----It used to be that if you knew the union boss in your neighborhood, you were assured of a high paying job for life. That is not the case any more because of the weakness of unions in the private sector. Who you know or what family or status you were born into was never fair and now it is gone. Each person is now dealt with on the basis of their skill and knowledge so that we now, for the first time, all have equal opportunities. I think that this new equalness is what has made so many of those who had advantages in the past so unhappy. Sorry, accept the much more fair world. Don't buy the BS coming out of Obama. If you do, you are a dishonest coward. Most people at the top got there on the basis of merit and those on the bottom did too. Sorry about what fairness can do!!!!
The Dog Ate My Homework
This is a different slant on the killings in Libya. We now know that it was not a mob, but organized terrorists. The concern that I have is how so many people bought the party line out of the Obama administration that it "was" a mob. It is equally a concern as to why so many people in the Obama administration lied or were so incompetent as to believe that it was a mob. That is why I bring up the quotation "The dog ate my homework."
I know that many of you are parents and even as kids, you must have heard the excuse that"The dog ate my homework". If your kid told this line to you, was the first thing that you did was to try to find the dog? No, it was to punish your kid for lieing. Now, at the time you did not have all the facts, but from prior experience, you knew that the odds of the dog actually eating the homework were very small. Wasn't it exactly the same thing with the claim that in was a mob? You can't just check your brain at the door when it comes to dealing with people telling you things, no mater who they are. In the case of Libya, we all came to the party with some prior knowledge that we could apply to the likely hood that it was a mob vs organized terrorists. This is a repeat, but why didn't the talking heads ask for some kind of proof that it was the mob considering the fact that because being a mob was such a low probability that to pick that one, they would need a "lot" of proof. Are we all that stupid? It is possible that the dog did eat your kids homework, but for you to accept that, I think you would need to see some of the paper sticking out of the dogs mouth or in his poop. Without that kind of proof, your kid can expect to be punished.
I did not get into Bayes' Theorem, but the above is a perfect example of most of you coming to the correct decision with respect to your kid's homework using Bayes' Theorem. What people should have said to Rice and the others is, "Oh, yes, the dog ate my homework too." I think that had the talking heads made some kind of comment like this, right from the beginning, this whole thing would not have had legs and we would have quickly gotten to who actually told everyone in the Obama administration that it was a mob and not organized terrorists.
Now for Petreaus. Why would he be a party to this lie when now we know that he knew it was not a mob, but organized terrorists. My guess is that it was something like this. The President, Obama, who is his commander and chief told him that it was in the national interest to claim that it was a mob. The President, Obama, would not have had to explain exactly why in was in the national interest, but on that basis, Petreaus would have been expected to obey and it appears that he did. There is only one person over Petreaus who would have the authority to get him to "shade" the truth and that would be the President, Obama. Now, it it happened this way, what could have been in Obama's mind that convinced him that this was in the national interest? Obama getting reelected!!! After killing OBL, Obama had convinced that he had greatly weakened the terrorists, but if they had killed our Ambassador, that would point out that terrorists were still a serious threat. That would weaken Obama and mitigate against him winning the election. For Obama, that may have looked to him as in the national interests, but not for me or most high school graduates.
Next time, call out, "The dog ate my homework" and bring people back to reality. Remember the "King has no cloths"? It is the same thing. We all need to be honest with ourselves and others.
I know that many of you are parents and even as kids, you must have heard the excuse that"The dog ate my homework". If your kid told this line to you, was the first thing that you did was to try to find the dog? No, it was to punish your kid for lieing. Now, at the time you did not have all the facts, but from prior experience, you knew that the odds of the dog actually eating the homework were very small. Wasn't it exactly the same thing with the claim that in was a mob? You can't just check your brain at the door when it comes to dealing with people telling you things, no mater who they are. In the case of Libya, we all came to the party with some prior knowledge that we could apply to the likely hood that it was a mob vs organized terrorists. This is a repeat, but why didn't the talking heads ask for some kind of proof that it was the mob considering the fact that because being a mob was such a low probability that to pick that one, they would need a "lot" of proof. Are we all that stupid? It is possible that the dog did eat your kids homework, but for you to accept that, I think you would need to see some of the paper sticking out of the dogs mouth or in his poop. Without that kind of proof, your kid can expect to be punished.
I did not get into Bayes' Theorem, but the above is a perfect example of most of you coming to the correct decision with respect to your kid's homework using Bayes' Theorem. What people should have said to Rice and the others is, "Oh, yes, the dog ate my homework too." I think that had the talking heads made some kind of comment like this, right from the beginning, this whole thing would not have had legs and we would have quickly gotten to who actually told everyone in the Obama administration that it was a mob and not organized terrorists.
Now for Petreaus. Why would he be a party to this lie when now we know that he knew it was not a mob, but organized terrorists. My guess is that it was something like this. The President, Obama, who is his commander and chief told him that it was in the national interest to claim that it was a mob. The President, Obama, would not have had to explain exactly why in was in the national interest, but on that basis, Petreaus would have been expected to obey and it appears that he did. There is only one person over Petreaus who would have the authority to get him to "shade" the truth and that would be the President, Obama. Now, it it happened this way, what could have been in Obama's mind that convinced him that this was in the national interest? Obama getting reelected!!! After killing OBL, Obama had convinced that he had greatly weakened the terrorists, but if they had killed our Ambassador, that would point out that terrorists were still a serious threat. That would weaken Obama and mitigate against him winning the election. For Obama, that may have looked to him as in the national interests, but not for me or most high school graduates.
Next time, call out, "The dog ate my homework" and bring people back to reality. Remember the "King has no cloths"? It is the same thing. We all need to be honest with ourselves and others.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
College Catalogs
When was the last time you read one of the college catalogs that your tax money supports? Hey, it is your money! It has been a while for me too. The weather has been bad and I have gotten so bored that I picked up a current college catalog and started reading thru it. It is a little slow reading, but there is a lot of interesting stuff in there. I think the best way to read one of these is to imagine that you are going for one of the degrees that the college offers. I chose education and here is some of what I found.
First, there are all kinds of different types of public school teachers that you can become. If it were me, I would clean house and only offer a couple of types. Think of all the dead wood that I would eliminate. It seemed to me that there were far too many majors or minors devoted to language. I have no idea why that is except it has been passed down that way from 1,000 years ago when us humans were first figuring out how to write down our spoken languages. I see no reason for our tax money to be used to support any language except English and I would put some limits on that. This one point alone would allow me to get rid of at least 90% of the language department faculty and allow them to go out into the world with all their knowledge and get "real" jobs. The other area is Art, Music, Dance, and Drama. These look like games to me and we don't need to be using our tax money to show people how to play games and then to pay them again to teach our kids how to play games. I would eliminate all of these. I noticed also that some courses have fancy names. They don't call it PE any more, but it is still the same thing. When I was in school, we did not have anyone called a PE teacher until we got into high school. I think the only reason that we had PE teachers was to supervise the shower room. We did not have shower rooms in grammar school either. Most of us just took our showers at home and we seemed to have stayed clean enough. The other area that is new is the program to "save the world". In my state it is even a law that you have to take these "save the world" classes to graduate and get a license to teach. It is interesting that the main threat to the world and the human race is over population and high school drop out and the classes don't seem to address that area at all. Oh, I forgot, before we invested so much in PE teachers, our kids were a lot slimmer. You have to ask if our investment has been worth it or not? They still have a big commitment to "student teaching" were the kids have to go out from the college and actually participate in teaching a class. I just hope that my kids are not used as Genny pigs for student teachers. I don't want my tax money spent on green horns. In the college catalog that I have been reading, they state that student teaching is one of the best way that teachers learn how to teach. This gets interesting because if this is one of the best way, all these other things that our tax money is being used for must be "worst". Logical to me. If that is the case, why don't we just eliminate teachers colleges? That is the way they do it for college and university teachers and the way they used to do it when we had higher SAT scores. You have to look at the facts once in a while to see what is really going on.
Now the bottom line. We are spending more but getting less by every measure. Our kids have lower SAT scores, our kids are fatter, our drop out rate is higher, more of our kids are getting knocked up out of wedlock. We can only be sure of one thing and that is we are paying more. I think it is time to try a different "course" and I don't mean a different college course.
First, there are all kinds of different types of public school teachers that you can become. If it were me, I would clean house and only offer a couple of types. Think of all the dead wood that I would eliminate. It seemed to me that there were far too many majors or minors devoted to language. I have no idea why that is except it has been passed down that way from 1,000 years ago when us humans were first figuring out how to write down our spoken languages. I see no reason for our tax money to be used to support any language except English and I would put some limits on that. This one point alone would allow me to get rid of at least 90% of the language department faculty and allow them to go out into the world with all their knowledge and get "real" jobs. The other area is Art, Music, Dance, and Drama. These look like games to me and we don't need to be using our tax money to show people how to play games and then to pay them again to teach our kids how to play games. I would eliminate all of these. I noticed also that some courses have fancy names. They don't call it PE any more, but it is still the same thing. When I was in school, we did not have anyone called a PE teacher until we got into high school. I think the only reason that we had PE teachers was to supervise the shower room. We did not have shower rooms in grammar school either. Most of us just took our showers at home and we seemed to have stayed clean enough. The other area that is new is the program to "save the world". In my state it is even a law that you have to take these "save the world" classes to graduate and get a license to teach. It is interesting that the main threat to the world and the human race is over population and high school drop out and the classes don't seem to address that area at all. Oh, I forgot, before we invested so much in PE teachers, our kids were a lot slimmer. You have to ask if our investment has been worth it or not? They still have a big commitment to "student teaching" were the kids have to go out from the college and actually participate in teaching a class. I just hope that my kids are not used as Genny pigs for student teachers. I don't want my tax money spent on green horns. In the college catalog that I have been reading, they state that student teaching is one of the best way that teachers learn how to teach. This gets interesting because if this is one of the best way, all these other things that our tax money is being used for must be "worst". Logical to me. If that is the case, why don't we just eliminate teachers colleges? That is the way they do it for college and university teachers and the way they used to do it when we had higher SAT scores. You have to look at the facts once in a while to see what is really going on.
Now the bottom line. We are spending more but getting less by every measure. Our kids have lower SAT scores, our kids are fatter, our drop out rate is higher, more of our kids are getting knocked up out of wedlock. We can only be sure of one thing and that is we are paying more. I think it is time to try a different "course" and I don't mean a different college course.
Monday, November 12, 2012
General Petraeus Affair
Here we go again. Have you noticed that this time it is following the exact same path as in the past? You ask, "What path is that"? You know, "plausible deny ability". This is where everyone at the top who are in charge do not know anything about what those who they are responsible for are doing. Isn't it a neat concept? Every time some thing "bad" happens during Obama's watch, he is "out of the loop" or has "plausible deny ability". I ask, "how can a person responsible for something claim that he is "not" responsible? Obama has done this at least 5 times that I can count and I am sure there must be more.
Did you ever notice that Obama is always in the loop and aware in detail if something "good" happens? I know a little about the odds of a coin coming up heads and tails and this one looks like some one has queered the odds. Who could that be? I think that your guess will be correct.
This blog is just a reminder for you to stop looking at the Petraeus' affair as the problem and look at the people in the chain of command who knew, but have hidden behind the concept of"plausible deny ability". That's the problem. I blogged on this same point before and I don't think any of the talking heads on TV have mentioned this dishonest concept once. As long as we remain this totally stupid, this same kind of thing is going to continue. I do hear things like, "what did he know and when did he know it?" This is not the same as "plausible deny ability". This has become the most often used method of telling bald face lies to the American people and we need to bring an end to it.
Open your eyes or it is just going to get worse.
Did you ever notice that Obama is always in the loop and aware in detail if something "good" happens? I know a little about the odds of a coin coming up heads and tails and this one looks like some one has queered the odds. Who could that be? I think that your guess will be correct.
This blog is just a reminder for you to stop looking at the Petraeus' affair as the problem and look at the people in the chain of command who knew, but have hidden behind the concept of"plausible deny ability". That's the problem. I blogged on this same point before and I don't think any of the talking heads on TV have mentioned this dishonest concept once. As long as we remain this totally stupid, this same kind of thing is going to continue. I do hear things like, "what did he know and when did he know it?" This is not the same as "plausible deny ability". This has become the most often used method of telling bald face lies to the American people and we need to bring an end to it.
Open your eyes or it is just going to get worse.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The Physics And Art Of Arrowhead Making
I think I blogged before that I am part Native American, but there is more to it than that. It turns out that one of cousins is about the best arrowhead napper in the USA. I am not sure how he got into arrowhead making or how he got so good. To most, they would say that arrowhead making is an art handed down generation by generation. I used to find a lot of arrowheads when I was out in the fields, but not too much anymore. Most were made for Obsidian or volcanic glass. They were black and very sharp. I don't think Native Americans made arrowheads just to have them get lost, so the fact that we still find so many when working our fields, means they must have made millions and used them for hunting for thousands of years. Consider a one acre field of about 40,000 square feet, to find 5 arrowheads in that one field would mean that the Native American would have to have lost how many per year? Figure that if you found 5 that here must have been at least 3 or 4 time that number lost in the field, or 20. Now consider that this Native American hunted this field for 20,000 years. To lose 20 arrowheads, he would have had to lose one every 1,000 years. Hey, Native Americans have been here a very long time. Now onto physics.
The procedure for making an arrowhead is to first find a good piece of stone or flint. These are types of stone that are very dense and when cracked result in holding sharp edges. I am not going to go into the stone much here. I am more interested in the process and physics associated with that. The way that the arrowhead is formed is to hit it with another stone in such a way as to chip of small flakes. There is another way that uses pressure to flake off stone, but I am not going there either. I am only going hitting one stone against the other since this is the oldest method us humans used.
A few basic points about stone. It is very brittle. What does that mean? It has a very high modulus of elasticity. This means that it is very stiff. If it were considered a spring, it would be one of stiffest springs in the world. If you hit a stone with a hammer, the hammer will deflect more than the stone. That is why in arrow head making you use a stone to hit a stone. From here on it will be about F=MA or force = mass time acceleration. This equation give you clue about how to flake an arrowhead. We need a high force and we only acceleration to work with, but in this case, it is deceleration that we need. In one hand we hold the arrowhead and in the other we have the striking stone. The mass we are talking about is the mass of the arrowhead. The striking stone is much larger than the arrowhead. The energy in the striking stone is a function its mass and its velocity. When the striking stone hits the arrowhead, it tries to move or accelerate the arrowhead. The mass of the arrowhead resists the acceleration and a force "F" is place on the arrowhead and the striking stone at the point where the striking stone hits the arrowhead.
A couple of fine points. It is the mass of the arrowhead that affects to force. This means that for larger arrowheads, the speed of the striking stone can be less. When the arrowhead gets very small and has less mass, the speed of the striking stone has to increase to generate a force large enough to flake of a chip. Further, the arrowhead can not be placed in a vice or other stiff holders or the arrowhead will be crushed. It has to be free to move a slight amount so that the holding forces can be equalized. Normally the napper used a small piece of leather to hold the arrowhead.
These are the basic physical principles and it now shifts to art where accuracy and speed count. The vector of the force is equally important. It needs to be a glancing blow that places the force parallel to the surface of the arrowhead, but to actually have a force, the blow needs to have a vector component that is normal or directly into the arrowhead so that enough contact friction can be generated to develop the force parallel to flake off a chip. It is complicated, but the rules of simple physics still apply. If a bullet was shot into a big rock at an angle, it would not split the rock, but only flake off some chips. If on the other hand a big rock, the same size as the rock being hit was used, it could split the rock even though the rocks hit together at much lower speeds. I think you can see why speed is so important. You can't make an arrowhead with slow swings of the striking stone, but you could smash you arrowhead.
I know this is not the best presentation of how physics applies to arrowhead making, but I think it is a start and may get you to thinking.
The procedure for making an arrowhead is to first find a good piece of stone or flint. These are types of stone that are very dense and when cracked result in holding sharp edges. I am not going to go into the stone much here. I am more interested in the process and physics associated with that. The way that the arrowhead is formed is to hit it with another stone in such a way as to chip of small flakes. There is another way that uses pressure to flake off stone, but I am not going there either. I am only going hitting one stone against the other since this is the oldest method us humans used.
A few basic points about stone. It is very brittle. What does that mean? It has a very high modulus of elasticity. This means that it is very stiff. If it were considered a spring, it would be one of stiffest springs in the world. If you hit a stone with a hammer, the hammer will deflect more than the stone. That is why in arrow head making you use a stone to hit a stone. From here on it will be about F=MA or force = mass time acceleration. This equation give you clue about how to flake an arrowhead. We need a high force and we only acceleration to work with, but in this case, it is deceleration that we need. In one hand we hold the arrowhead and in the other we have the striking stone. The mass we are talking about is the mass of the arrowhead. The striking stone is much larger than the arrowhead. The energy in the striking stone is a function its mass and its velocity. When the striking stone hits the arrowhead, it tries to move or accelerate the arrowhead. The mass of the arrowhead resists the acceleration and a force "F" is place on the arrowhead and the striking stone at the point where the striking stone hits the arrowhead.
A couple of fine points. It is the mass of the arrowhead that affects to force. This means that for larger arrowheads, the speed of the striking stone can be less. When the arrowhead gets very small and has less mass, the speed of the striking stone has to increase to generate a force large enough to flake of a chip. Further, the arrowhead can not be placed in a vice or other stiff holders or the arrowhead will be crushed. It has to be free to move a slight amount so that the holding forces can be equalized. Normally the napper used a small piece of leather to hold the arrowhead.
These are the basic physical principles and it now shifts to art where accuracy and speed count. The vector of the force is equally important. It needs to be a glancing blow that places the force parallel to the surface of the arrowhead, but to actually have a force, the blow needs to have a vector component that is normal or directly into the arrowhead so that enough contact friction can be generated to develop the force parallel to flake off a chip. It is complicated, but the rules of simple physics still apply. If a bullet was shot into a big rock at an angle, it would not split the rock, but only flake off some chips. If on the other hand a big rock, the same size as the rock being hit was used, it could split the rock even though the rocks hit together at much lower speeds. I think you can see why speed is so important. You can't make an arrowhead with slow swings of the striking stone, but you could smash you arrowhead.
I know this is not the best presentation of how physics applies to arrowhead making, but I think it is a start and may get you to thinking.
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