Ye Olde Prisoners

There are lots of countries – virtually all of Europe – where the death penalty has been abolished. Extradition of those accused in the United States of a capital crime is often stopped if the death penalty is a possibility. Life without the possibility of parole is also a sentence that is increasingly an American phenomenon, often imposed for everything from crimes like rape, murder to kidnapping, espionage, etc. Some countries cap any potential sentence, under any circumstances, at maximum fixed term – Portugal at 25 years, Brazil and Bolivia at 30 years, Serbia 40 years, Mexico 50 years, etc., etc. – or allow a maximum sentence to extend only if the criminal still poses a threat to society (Norway, which otherwise imposes a 30 year sentence for genocide and 21 years for other heinous crimes). Those that have life sentences seldom allow them to be imposed for people under 18 years of age.

“In the US, at least 40,000 people are imprisoned without hope for parole, including 2,500 under the age of 18… That is just a fraction of those who have been given a life sentence but yet may one day win release. The Sentencing Project, a non-profit organisation that studies sentencing and criminal justice in America, estimated in 2009 that at least 140,000 prisoners in the US now serve a life sentence…This does not include convicts given extremely long sentences with a fixed term, like the Alabama man sentenced to 200 years for kidnapping and armed robbery.” BBC.co.UK, June 15^th. In the UK, the number of prisoners serving “whole life” sentences is a meagre 50 total.

With 25% of the world’s prisoners, we are spending tens of billions of dollars to hold really old folks for a really long time. “More and more United States prisons resemble nursing homes with bars, where the elderly and infirm eke out shrunken lives. Prison isn’t easy for anyone, but it is especially punishing for those afflicted by the burdens of old age. Yet the old and the very old make up the fastest-growing segment of the prison population…

“[There are] at least 26,100 men and women 65 and older incarcerated in state and federal prisons, up 62 percent in just five years… Owing largely to decades of tough-on-crime policies — mandatory minimum sentences, ‘three strikes’ laws and the elimination of federal parole — these numbers are likely to increase as more and more prisoners remain incarcerated into their 70s and 80s, many until they die.” Jamie Fellner writing for the New York Times, August 18^th. Americans love their cars, football, baseball and putting folks behind bars. In budget impaired times, we still don’t want to add common sense to our judicial system even though we really cannot afford that “luxury” anymore.

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently addressed the archaic sentencing rules of the federal system, drilling down and asking judges to reconsider excessively harsh sentences, particularly in simple drug-related crimes, that are filling federal prison system that does not even have a parole alternative (a federal sentence is what it is, except for up to a 15% reduction for “good behavior”). Fellner continues: “Anger, grief and the desire for retribution are understandable, and we can all agree that people who commit serious crimes should be held accountable… But retribution can shade into vengeance. While being old should not be an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card, infirmity and illness can change the calculus of what justice requires.

“It is worth asking: What do we as a society get from keeping these people in prison? People like the 87-year-old I met who had an ‘L’ painted on his left shoe and an ‘R’ on his right so he would know which was which and who didn’t even seem to know he was in prison. Or the old men I watched play bingo in a prison day room who needed staff members to put the markers on the bingo cards for them… Holder gave his answer to this question on Aug. 12 when he announced new compassionate release policies for the Bureau of Prisons. Elderly and infirm federal prisoners who have served a significant part of their sentence and pose no danger will now be eligible for early release.” NY Times.

We have a lot of other programs, particularly education, infrastructure and research, where that money could actually be spent to make American lives a whole lot better. What do you think?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I remember my mother asking me, all-too-often, something that Americans perhaps need to hear again: are your eyes bigger than your stomach?

Privacy: Who’s the BOSS?

Younger Americans laugh at the notion that there is some basic right to privacy. Their adept ability to scan and search the Web, their library of texted and other electronic images and videos and their ability to poll their peers for whatever is missing may not mirror NSA Prism program, but they know what they know… and can find out. The is a hovering awareness that the GPS capacity in most smart phones is being recorded and “saved” by local and national police authorities ready to challenge alibies and place people at any given moment in their lives. We know that NSA-derived information has filtered down into local police authorities to prompt “stops” and further inquiries. Hey, who cares about the Fourth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution when government wants to know?!

Arguments that such procedures are protected by the “secret, behind closed doors with no real oversight” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court should fall on deaf years. First you have to trust that court, with minimal standards, and second, you have to trust your government that is addicted to wiretaps and eavesdropping, including of most of its own citizens. Foreign communications? Yeah, right! The system is rife with abuse: “A federal judge sharply rebuked the National Security Agency in 2011 for repeatedly misleading the court that oversees its surveillance on domestic soil, including a program that is collecting tens of thousands of domestic e-mails and other Internet communications of Americans each year, according to a secret ruling made public on [August 21^st].” New York Times, August 21^st.

Private sources can also generate relevant “marketing information” with the ubiquitous cookies that they plant and poll inside your computer and mobile platforms. Casinos have been scanning patrons’ faces for years, looking for gambling miscreants banned from their premises. Experts can track your entrance and movement into bricks and mortar stores and might even be looking at where your eyes are focusing. In many cities, very much the case in the U.K., cameras are on virtually every urban street corner, being monitored by local police and recorded “just in case.” Moore’s Law has given us an exponential ability to store huge amounts of data, and that is precisely what we are doing.

Airport screenings can get downright R-rated, and entering massive sporting events often requires a bag check and passage through a magnetic metal detector with more intrusive scans when the buzzer goes off. And as terrorist moments accumulate, increasingly stricter programs are implemented: “[F]ans [are] starting to adapt to the N.F.L.’s new, stricter bag policy, which was put in place after the Boston Marathon bombings in April. With few exceptions, fans attending games are allowed to take into stadiums only small purses and handbags; small, clear plastic or vinyl bags; and one-gallon plastic freezer bags.

“Shoulder bags, backpacks, briefcases, fanny packs, camera and binocular cases and even diaper bags are now forbidden. Coolers, thermoses and seat cushions with zippers are also banned. Blankets are still allowed, as are gloves, hats and other items that can be stuffed in pockets or worn.” New York Times, August 20^th. Fun, huh? Retinal scans, anyone?

Terrorists seem to be winning; we seem to be very terrified and willing to give up many traits which may have defined us as Americans. The expendable part of our lives appears most definitely appears to be this outdated (?) notion of privacy. Orwell must be rolling in his grave. And it’s not like the bulk of this information is being used in connection with terrorism. Given the massive haystack of stored data, the government can always go back and look for private stuff if they have an inkling of anything they consider suspicious. And we are getting better and better at finding needles in that haystack as our analytical sophistication grows daily. Judges with clear constitutional standards and warrants are significantly absent from these processes.

While you don’t even have to leave the privacy of your home to be “scanned,” if you show your face in a crowd, you are leaving visual and traceable fingerprints of your presence for instant or future analysis: “The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System — or BOSS — last fall after two years of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used…

“The release of the documents about the government’s efforts to overcome those challenges comes amid a surge of interest in surveillance matters inspired by the leaks by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. Interest in video surveillance was also fueled by the attack on the Boston Marathon, where suspects were identified by officials looking through camera footage.

“In a sign of how the use of such technologies can be developed for one use but then expanded to another, the BOSS research began as an effort to help the military detect potential suicide bombers and other terrorists overseas at “outdoor polling places in Afghanistan and Iraq,” among other sites, the documents show. But in 2010, the effort was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security to be developed for use instead by the police in the United States.

“After a recent test of the system, the department recommended against deploying it until more improvements could be made. A department official said the contractor was ‘continuing to develop BOSS,’ although there is no sign of when it may be done. But researchers on the project say they made progress, and independent specialists say it is virtually inevitable that someone will make the broader concept work as camera and computer power continue to improve.” NY Times. They say it will take five years to perfect… yeah, right! Our elected representatives squirm as most people are “just getting used to it.” How do you feel about these increasing intrusions?

I’m Peter Dekom, and as you are reading this, that fact is probably being recorded somewhere!

Earth without People: the Next Beginning?

It was called the Triassic Period, and it ended 136 million years ago. “[U]nderground channels of molten rock … fed widespread volcanic eruptions 200 million years ago as the supercontinent Pangaea pulled apart at the seams. The eruptions covered more than four million square miles with basalt lava and belched vast amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur into the atmosphere. Brief volcanic winters followed, but the eruptions also set off an ocean-acidifying, global-warming catastrophe that wiped out three-quarters of life on earth. This was the end-Triassic extinction, which cleared the way for the dinosaurs and their domination of the planet for the next 136 million years, before a giant asteroid struck Mexico and ended their reign.” Peter Brannen for the New York Times, August 16^th.

Science fiction stories of humans in giant fleets of space vehicles searching for a new planetary home are still popular. But what if it were true? What if we had to leave? Could it be that we are precipitating another de facto Triassic Period… acidity so strong that most of life on earth just dies? “This spring, a team of researchers from Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a paper in the journal Science connecting these eruptions — which took place in four pulses over 600,000 years — with this global near-death experience, one of five major extinctions over the last 540 million years.

“Some scientists believe we are now in the midst of another great extinction, driven not by natural events but by the activities of man: hunting, habitat destruction, the introduction of invasive species and pollution, which has drastically altered the thin glaze of life-supporting chemistry that coats the earth. By some estimates, perhaps close to 30,000 species of plants and animals go extinct every year. Whole ecosystems, like coral reefs, which went virtually extinct in the end-Triassic extinction, are now facing worldwide collapse again.

“A World Bank report last fall warned that ‘present emission trends put the world plausibly on a path toward 4 degrees Celsius warming within the century.’ The surface waters of the carbon-dioxide absorbing oceans have already become 30 percent more acidic since the start of the Industrial Revolution…  ‘In terms of global warming and ocean acidification,’ [Professor Paul E. Olsen, a paleontologist at Columbia and one of the study’s co-authors] said, the rate of change during the end-Triassic extinction ‘was comparable to what we’re doing today.’…

“Professor Olsen discovered that the first wave of the extinction happened within just a single sedimentary layer, in less than 20,000 years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide likely doubled from the eruptions, sending global temperatures soaring by 3 degrees Celsius or more.” NY Times. Global warming, increasing acidity, slow eradication of an increasing number of species… could it be that mankind is replicating the same kind of environmental damage to the planet that thousands of erupting volcanos and massive lava flows impose on the planet 200 million years ago. This is a slow build, well within the above-noted 20,000 years that laid the planet bare so many millions of years before. Nature just picked up where she left off and began rebuilding for a few more million years.

But the “gradual without the dramatic impact of oh-so-many erupting volcanos” has not remotely become a desperate call to action for all mankind. The problem still seems to be too much in the future, and there is this subtext that our ingenious technology will find a simple and affordable solution along the way. But the numbers just keep getting worse, and nature really doesn’t care if she has to start over… again. When is it time to make a difference? When is it too late?

I’m Peter Dekom, and while the nastiest moments might not happen in my lifetime, they well might during the lives of my son and his children.

Poor White Crash

I’m hardly a road scholar, but a recent study from the University of California (at Berkeley) definitely got my attention. Having owned more than a few German and British cars in my misspent life, I thought a study of the driving habits of those who have these top-of-the-line Deutsch treats was mos’ interesting. And yes, Mergatroyd, I actually do come to a complete stop at stop signs, but speed limits… well, let’s say I try… On the other hand, cutting folks off and weaving through traffic just aren’t my style. So let’s look at the study.

“Berkeley psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner along with a research team from the University of Toronto conducted seven experiments, two of which measured drivers' ethical behavior… First, by using Kelly Blue Book data on the year, make and model, researchers were able to extrapolate which cars could be considered luxury or high class. This included the usual suspects, like newer BMW, Porsche, Mercedes and Audi models. Then, unsurprisingly, the researchers found higher-income earners tended to drive these cars…

“The first experiment measured how many drivers failed to yield at a four way stop. Data showed 12 percent of drivers cut fellow motorists off at the intersection, with 30 percent of high-end drivers failing to yield. In the second experiment, 46 percent of high status drivers failed to yield to pedestrians at a crosswalk compared to 35 percent of a random sampling of drivers. Next time you're crossing the street and see a BMW heading your way, watch out… ‘Upper-class individuals' relative independence from others and increased privacy in their professions may provide fewer structural constraints and decreased perceptions of risk associated with committing unethical acts,’ the study read.” Autos.Aol.com, July 17^th. 

So upscale drivers are a whole lot more likely to be rude, self-centered and willing to ignore other drivers as they sail their land yachts down the highways and byways of their automotive universe. “An informal study from discount website VoucherCodesPro is backing up those [Berkeley] findings. They found drivers who are perceived as expressing road rage the most tend to drive luxury brands, with BMW topping the list. Followed close behind were Land Rover and Audi. They also found that blue was perceived as the most aggressive color car and men ages 35 to 50 were the worst offenders. Predictably, the worst times for road rage were Friday afternoon and Monday morning rush hours.

“Yet another informal study recently called luxury owner's morality into question. A UK dating website for people looking to cheat on their spouse called Illicit Encounters surveyed their users and found 22% were Audi owners. The most popular model with cheaters last year? BMW of course.” Autos.Aol.com, August 15^th. Porsche anyone?

I’m Peter Dekom, and it does seem that getting lost in performance cars can lose more than a sense of superiority all too easily!

Stability and Growth

Stogy old economies, encumbered with high costs of living and plenty of social support systems, slammed by austerity programs, seem to be shuddering slowly to modest growth numbers while the infamous BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China – and their ilk are facing contractions in their exceptionally rapid growth numbers in the last few years. Why? Corruption, environmental disasters, changing demands from the citizenry are all factors as is lack of access to internationally-recognized market exchanges and transparent financial regulatory schema. Heavy polarization, the melding of wealth and political power, an unequal access to educational opportunities, and outright hordes of angry citizens – sometimes armed – add fuel to the stability fire. The International Monetary Fund labels such inequities as very significant growth disruptors.

Even within the successful Western nations, countries like Canada – with strong regulatory control over financial institutions and limitations on what they are permitted to do – have managed to avoid severe recessions and depressions entirely. The “cowboy way” in the United States, where market movement (volatility) makes traders rich, has escaped sufficient meaningful regulation and captured dozens of medium to large economic contractions along the road.

But these stogy countries have advanced educational systems – even if they have degraded of late – infrastructure that has evolved over the last century plus to support economic growth and there is sufficient historical experience with managing a productive economic engine that corporate wagon wheels rapidly find the ruts in the productivity road that they have driven down for many, many decades. These modern nations often house great universities, famous for turning out innovation and innovators. The culture supports work, jobs and productivity on a mass basis.

Overlooked by too many are the complex and highly-developed legal systems in Japan and the West that can challenge even the most powerful incumbents. Contrast the European or American legal systems with those in the BRIC countries. The BBC tells us that in the last 10 years, Russia has imprisoned about half a million middle and larger entrepreneurs for a host of charges which most agree are not legitimate. In China, any court decision can be overturned at the whim of high-ranking party officials. Bribes are commonplace all over the world (particularly in heavy growth, developing nations), and except for Russia (where connection to the Putin regime is determinative), the rich have little to fear from their local civilian courts.

“In the wake of global scandals involving kickbacks and accounting fraud, one unlikely country, India, is aiming to set a tone in overhauling its corporate oversight laws… [In August] the nation’s upper house of Parliament passed the Companies Bill, 2012, sweeping legislation meant to overhaul auditing, impose stiffer penalties for fraud and create more government oversight of businesses… India, a nation notoriously rife with graft and bribery, was partly motivated to pass the legislation in the wake of an accounting scandal that has been called India’s Enron. In 2009, B. Ramalinga Raju, the chairman of a prominent outsourcing company, Satyam Computer Services, confessed to overstating company assets and earnings by more than $1 billion, and then resigned. The fact that one company could defraud shareholders of such a large sum despite regular audits made painfully obvious the need for greater oversight in corporate India…

“Yet while hopes remain high that the bill will appeal to foreign investors, and kick-start India’s economic growth, nearly a decade of revisions has left a watered-down measure lacking structure. Much of the bill depends on new committees and rules that have yet to be drafted, so legal experts have doubts about its ability to police corporations.” New York Times (DealBook), August 14^th. Yeah, right, it’ll clean up fast… and I’m the Easter Bunny!

If you read some of the general negative criteria about barriers to growth noted above, you can see that the United States is beginning to develop some really bad habits – where 1% of the people own 42% of the wealth – that may eventually drag us into those columns of negative attributes that plague the “other” growth-nations. Our legal system seems to be holding it together, assuming that the Supreme Court stops tilting the playing field further in favor of the incumbent wealthy class. But in these other nations, it’s a whole lot worse, no matter the best intentions of many (but not all) of the local leadership.

Protests in Brazil over massive spending to draw in the World Cup and the Summer Olympics whiles masses of people still live in favelas – the infamous massive urban slums – and cannot afford the increases in things like food, public transportation, and healthcare. In Russia, it’s best to keep your head down and not succeed too much… unless you are really certain that the Putin regime loves you. China has lifted a billion people out of poverty but there is no doubt that the privileged lead very different lives from those around them, fighting necessary environment regulation of toxic polluters in which even high-ranking government officials have a financial stake. Infrastructure in India remains a horrible local joke (see the picture above).

“For emerging economies, analysts say that the current cooling of growth is taking some of the countries to a more sustainable pace of expansion after years of acceleration that some considered unhealthy. In China, the 14.2 percent expansion seen before the peak in 2007 is not likely to be reached again, though the expected growth of 7.5 percent next year is still impressive… ‘Even though it’s slowed down some, there is still a big opportunity,’ said Barry P. Bosworth, a China expert at the Brookings Institution.

“Brazil and India have deeper problems. India has not been hurt by falling commodity prices, but the economy has been constrained by corruption and inefficiency. The value of the Indian rupee fell recently to a record low against the dollar… In Brazil, many economists say the declining value of the country’s iron ore and soybeans has revealed that Brazil’s leaders failed to invest in infrastructure when the money was pouring in.”  New York Times, August 14^th. For us, the lessons need to be clear. Invest in that which makes you productive, fight trends that further polarize society and value legal transparency above all… or join the ranks of spoiled dreams and dashed hope.

I’m Peter Dekom, and learning lessons from the mistakes of other never has been a strong American practice.

Yeah, We Want to Cut Government to the Bone!

As state and local governments begin bowing and breaking under the burden of $2.7 trillion of unfunded or under-funded pensions (when does the fed step in?), as our own government continues to give unsupportable defined benefit pensions itself, as government hires “contractors” at almost double the cost of the civil servants they replace, as farm “insurance” subsidies and our military’s addiction to mega-expensive weapon system (more than the military budgets of the next ten military budgets on earth… combined!) rolls with very few genuine program cutbacks, as we incarcerate more prisoners for longer terms per capita than any other nation on earth, as our medical healthcare costs are by far the highest in the world, as our under-constructed and heavily-worn infrastructure is not remotely prepared to prevent the budget-breaking damage from global-warming and as we continue to support a tax code that is designed to benefit the mega-wealthy at the expense of the average… the desire to cut government spending is a necessary and overwhelming need. Austerity! Austerity! Minimal government! Minimal regulation! Get the government out of our lives!

Clearly, in that nasty list above, there is lots of fat to be trimmed and lots of additional taxation to be generated. But do we really want that minimal government? Okay, Congress. Maybe you should have the same pension that the rest of us have from that loving government: live on social security when you retire. Try Medicare-level healthcare instead of the Cadillac policies you have!

Or adopt the austerity measures and government cutbacks that have generated 25-6% unemployment rates in Spain and Greece. Or perhaps you might prefer the pay cuts that have rolled through Europe! Austerity, the kind that Europe has tried and the Tea Party embraces, is the clearest failed policy of the attempt to “recover.” Only Germany has seen a modest wage increase. The rest of Europe continues its decline:

“Wages in the UK have seen one of the largest falls in the European Union during the economic downturn, according to official figures…Figures from the House of Commons library show average hourly wages have fallen 5.5% since mid-2010, adjusted for inflation, which is the fourth-worst decline in the 27-nation bloc….Across the European Union as a whole, average wages fell 0.7%.

“Only Greek, Portuguese and Dutch workers have had a steeper decline in hourly wages, the figures showed… Other countries that have suffered during the eurozone debt crisis also fared better than the UK. Spain had a 3.3% drop over the same period and salaries in Cyprus fell by 3%... French workers saw a 0.4% increase, while the 18 countries in the eurozone saw a 0.1% drop during that period.” BBC.co.uk, August 11^th. Too many big European banks are undercapitalized, carrying way too much bad debt on their books, and the system has yet to figure out how to solve its overall debt/growth conundrum, a threat that continues to worry global financial planners hoping that a real recover will happen soon. The “one true thing” is that the austerity mantra that swept Europe just a few short years ago – the German solution for too much debt – has failed for virtually all of Europe… except, of course Germany.

One of the most important differentiators of government cost allocations is the investment vs. expense paradigm. Expenses don’t grow your economy; investments do. Some expenses are necessary – a level of environmental and financial regulation coupled with legitimate public safety/national security – and they enable our continued existence.

But the costs that generate a value for the future – investments with a real rate of return – are focused primarily in three basic categories: research (finding those technologies that make us cutting-edge competitive, creating new jobs along the way), infrastructure (minimizing damage from nature and enabling the free flow of commerce) and education (creating and maintaining the skills for the future). Any cuts or failures to maintain programs in these three areas are automatic slams to our growth, our future values and global influence.

And so many elected officials are prepared to cut massively in each of the three critical categories above, allowing special interests exceptionally favorable tax breaks and loopholes and exemption from regulation, and refusing to deal with our simmering pension debacle, that they are sabotaging our future. These individuals have so little belief in their own country that they steadfastly refuse to invest in its growth!

I’m Peter Dekom, and while my life will be less impacted by our idiot legislators in office, the lives of my son and generations to come will suffer as a result of our stupid unwillingness to learn from the mistakes of others.

Something Flippant this Way Comes

Like a presidential candidate with massive pattern of inconsistency, planetary and solar “polarity flips” – where a magnetic “positive” poll on one side of these massive orbs changes places with the “negative” polarity on the other (sometimes slowly, sometimes really fast) – are standard operating procedure all over the universe. You can no longer be positive that the negative will not become positive, while the negative becomes… er… positive.

Take our own sun for example… about every eleven years, it happens. Rather quickly actually. North becomes south and, of course, vice versa. All that hot, swirling plasma that makes up this searingly hot orb conducts electricity, which in turn generates a massive magnetic field, one that stretches for millions of miles.

“There exists something solar physicists call a heliospheric current sheet. It’s a surface of sorts that juts out from the Sun’s equator, rooted where the Sun’s slowly rotating magnetic field induces an electrical current. It’s a low current, but it’s steady, and it extends, like a sheet, well beyond the orbit of Pluto… It’s around this sheet that the Sun’s whole magnetic influence, properly called the heliosphere, is organized. As Earth orbits the Sun, it dips in and out of the current sheet. Changes in the electrical environment as the planet transitions from one side of the sheet to the other can stir up stormy space weather in our vicinity.

“When the Sun’s poles flips, the sheet will ripple, becoming temporarily very wavy. And that’s potentially good news. The current sheet normally protects the Earth and our Solar System from cosmic rays—the high-energy particles shot out at near light speed by supernova explosions and other violent events that typically threaten the health of astronauts and space probes—by deflecting them. It’s possible that a wavy, crinkly current sheet will act as a better shield against these energetic particles from deep space. [Or not!]

“Astronomers and solar physicists know the flip is imminent because the poles are already showing the first signs of change. Magnetograms [I think my wife gets these] at Stanford's Wilcox Solar Observatory have been tracking the Sun's polar magnetism since 1976 and monitor the Sun's magnetic field daily. The poles are already out of sync—the north pole has changed its sign and soon the south pole will change its… As this happens, the polar magnetic field weakens and disappears. When the Sun’s material reorganizes itself and the poles return reversed, the magnetic field also returns with the opposite polarity. It will be the sure sign that a solar maximum is behind us and the second half of a solar cycle is beginning.” MotherBoard.Vice.com, August 7^th. Cool, if you understand all this… and cool even if you don’t!

Hey, sun, good work. We’re jealous here on earth at what you get to do… What? What’s that? Earth does it too? Wouldn’t that make our navigation systems and compasses go completely out whack? Would I get motion sickness during the process? Do folks with magnetic personalities have “issues” when the flip occurs? How does it work?

NASA, can you explain? “Scientists understand that Earth's magnetic field has flipped its polarity many times over the millennia. In other words, if you were alive about 800,000 years ago, and facing what we call north with a magnetic compass in your hand, the needle would point to ‘south.’ This is because a magnetic compass is calibrated based on Earth's poles. The N-S markings of a compass would be 180 degrees wrong if the polarity of today's magnetic field were reversed. Many doomsday theorists have tried to take this natural geological occurrence and suggest it could lead to Earth's destruction. But would there be any dramatic effects? The answer, from the geologic and fossil records we have from hundreds of past magnetic polarity reversals, seems to be ‘no.’

“Reversals are the rule, not the exception. Earth has settled in the last 20 million years into a pattern of a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, although it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal. A reversal happens over hundreds or thousands of years, and it is not exactly a clean back flip. Magnetic fields morph and push and pull at one another, with multiple poles emerging at odd latitudes throughout the process. Scientists estimate reversals have happened at least hundreds of times over the past three billion years. And while reversals have happened more frequently in ‘recent’ years, when dinosaurs walked Earth a reversal was more likely to happen only about every one million years.” Oh, hey, I’m not waiting for that pimped-out earth ride… ‘cause the sun’s about the flip anytime now. Hang on!!!! It’s time!

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes this weird-science stuff is really fascinating!

Democracy Under Fire

I was watching John Oliver on the Daily Show recently, and his mocking words suggested that just as some nations were seeking greater legitimacy in election results by mandating voting in local and national elections, too many American states are finding ways to make sure clearly identified demographics are kept away from the polls. He went over Australian enforcement efforts for their elections and contrasted that push with American state efforts with a contrary goal. But Australia is hardly the only nation with a requirement that citizens vote.

“Countries that have compulsory voting systems are Austria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, France (senate only), Gabon, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nauru, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland (province of Schaffhausen), Thailand, Turkey and Uruguay.

“A study of the World Fact Book of the American Central Investigation Agency (CIA) and the July 4, 2005 edition of the prestigious British daily ‘The Guardian’ reveals that of the 31 countries with compulsory voting system, around a dozen nations (and Schaffhausen, a province/canton of Switzerland) actually enforce it.

“If an eligible voter does not attend polling in many of these countries, he or she may be subject to punitive measures by law.But again, people are only penalised practically in countries like Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Congo, Ecuador, Peru, Luxembourg, Singapore, Uruguay and the world’s smallest republic of Nauru.” The News.com.pk, February 4^th.

Back in the United States, poll taxes have been found to be unconstitutional. But the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – a statute that addressed specified states that clearly used voter ID requirements to keep people with statistically liberal voting proclivities (poor or at least urban folks who didn’t drive and hence didn’t have driver’s licenses) from voting – was eviscerated in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County vs. Holder. Almost instantly, most of those “specified states” resurrected those discriminatory “government-issued photo ID” statutes as a condition to voting.

“Twelve states, including the battleground state of Virginia, now require voters to show some form of photo identification (see table below), with approximately thirteen other states pursuing similar legislation. Some of the states that were pursuing new photo identification requirements were legally bound to apply for Federal Preclearance prior to enacting any new election laws.” Wikipedia. Few non-drivers apply for government-issued alternative photo IDs, which have limited value except in the voting booth. It is estimated, for example, that a quarter of voting age African-Americans – who are not exactly known as a bastion of Republican votes – don’t have driver’s licenses. Almost none of that group has alternative, government-issued photo IDs.

The rational for such laws is to prevent voter fraud, despite convincing findings to the contrary: “In 2007, a report prepared by the staff of the federal Election Assistance Commission found that, among experts, ‘there is widespread but not unanimous agreement that there is little polling place fraud.’” Wikipedia.

Former Senator, Secretary of State and probable presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton sees precipitous danger in this anti-democratic trend. Addressing the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, she condemned the ruling inShelby County: “‘Anyone who says racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention,’ Mrs. Clinton told the lawyers gathered at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. She urged them to fight voter identification laws in their communities, but she also pleaded with the members of a ‘gridlocked Congress’ to quickly enact legislation that would make it easier to vote… ‘Our government cannot fully represent the people unless it has been fairly elected by them,’ Mrs. Clinton said…

“Mrs. Clinton, like many Democrats and voting rights groups, argued that the court’s ruling would limit voters’ participation, particularly among minorities, the poor and younger voters who disproportionately cast their ballots for Democrats. Texas, Mississippi and Alabama all announced that they would move ahead with strict voter identification requirements, and on [August 12^th], Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina signed a similar measure.” New York Times, August 12^th.  Hey Hillary, what do you think the odds of getting new revised standards passed by the current Congress? Too many are smiling all the way back to their cushy offices with spectacular benefits.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are all cheapened by a government that specifically and intentionally keeps minorities from voting.

India Underwater

Sometimes we forget that “another truly volatile” region rests with South Asia, among nations once joined as a single country until 1947, when Muslims fled north and Hindus fled south to form, respectively, modern day Pakistan and India. In 1971, in a war that very much involved India, Pakistan lost Bangladesh, which became an independent state. The friction between these two nations – involving everything from outright wars (1965, 1971 and the 1999 Kargil conflict) to Pakistani claims over the largely Muslim northern State of Kashmir to India’s assertion that Pakistani money supported a brutal 2008 attack of Islamist against numerous civilian targets in Mumbai –  almost never drops below simmering and imminent conflict.

In 1967, India’s long-standing nuclear program produced weapon systems which were finally test-fired in 1974. Noting that India had crushed Pakistan in the above-noted 1971 war, Pakistan ramped up its own nuclear development programs, announcing its own nuclear weapons (cold-tested in 1983), with both countries – bound by treaty not to use nukes against each other – testing with actual explosions in 1988. Pakistan’s father of nuclear weapons – Dr. A.Q. Kahn – apparently had no issues sharing his technological advances with North Korea and Iran, suffering little more than a short-term “house arrest” for his “crime.”

How do Indians and Pakistanis feel about each other today? “According to a 2013 BBC World Service Poll, 11% of Indians view Pakistan's influence positively, with 45% expressing a negative view, while 19% of Pakistanis view India's influence positively, with 54% expressing a negative view.” Wikipedia. But weapon systems other than nuclear warheads also continue to be built. In 2012, India “leased” a Russian nuclear submarine (INS Chakra), even as it was building its own submersible nuclear capacity.

They’ve been using Russian-built Kilo class (diesel-electric) subs for years, but they are beginning to wear out… or have “other” issues. For example: On August 14^th, a fire broke out on the Kilo class INS Sindhurakshak, docked in Mumbai.“At least 18 sailors [were] feared to be trapped on board an Indian submarine that caught fire after an explosion in a Mumbai dockyard, officials say… Many sailors managed to jump to safety, Indian media reports say. Some of the injured were taken to hospital…  It is unclear what caused the explosion on the INS Sindhurakshak but dramatic images on Indian television appear to show a large fireball illuminating the sky. Smoke from the blaze could be seen in many parts of the city.” BBC.co.uk, August 14^th. So India is about to modernize her underwater fleet.

Enter India’s own Arihant (literally, “destroyer of enemies”) locally-manufactured entry into the world of nuclear submarines. The INS Arihant (pictured above) has just been cleared for sea trials. Armed with missiles (Indian-made, and yes, they can carry nuclear warheads), “smart” torpedoes (also locally made) and a 95-person crew, the Arihant is powered by an 85-megawatt nuclear reactor and can reach over 27 miles an hour (24 knots or 44 kilometers per hour) according to published statistics.

What does this mean for regional stability? According to the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus, “Once operational, the Arihant will mark a strategic milestone... India's deployment of a nuclear triad - the capacity to launch nuclear weapons from land, sea and air - will influence the strategic calculations of other nuclear players in the region, Pakistan and certainly China.” BBC.co.UK, August 10^th.  In short, this development is nothing more than a spur in the side of a galloping horse of a regional arm’s race. None of these great powers remotely trust each other, and the fact that India probably received Russian technological assistance to develop the Arihant cannot be lost on China, and most certainly not Pakistan.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the dispersion of sophisticated weapons capacity across so many nations around the world does not augur well for the prospects of peaceful co-existence.