12 February 2011 A shove in the right direction

http://www.dgans.com/lyrics.html#Shove

“You can make your own good luck

It'll get you back out on the road

Instead of being stuck

Don't let misfortune stop you cold

Or keep you from your dreams

Learn from your predicament

It's easier than it seems

You'll crash into a wall or two

While driving for perfection

A kick in the ass

Is a shove in the right direction

A kick in the ass

Is a shove in the right direction”

Shove in the Right Direction

David Gans and Lorin Rowan

© Whispering Hallelujah (BMI) / Lo Ro Music (ASCAP

Cassi Creek:

Our friend, singer-songwriter David Gans, penned this as encouragement for personal growth in the face of adversity. I doubt that he had any reason to link it to the current social and political upheavals taking place in the Middle East today. I didn’t see any association when I first heard the song. But inspiration comes from all sorts of sources and political revolution is truly an opportunity for personal growth for those living through it.

In the previous attempts at modernization in the Arab states, the military leaders have repeatedly linked their fortunes to the dictatorial and oligarchic rulers; the source of longevity, power, and wealth for those military leaders. Such links have always excluded the common populace. Egypt’s army is an army of conscripts. That paid off for the Egyptian people. The army remembered its origins and stood guard between the forces of repression and the people of Egypt. This is a huge step in the right direction.

Compare the national army of Egypt to that of Iraq. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq Hussein used his army to oppress and torture the citizens of Iraq. After the Bush invasion and the subsequent period of lawlessness resulting from the idiotic decision to discharge all troops and police, the recombinant army of Iraq has yet to prove itself worthy of the name.

The armies of Syria and Lebanon will, when their turns arrive, most likely follow whatever Iran dictates through Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait may be able to stave off modernization for a while yet by throwing hands full of money to the populace. Yemen will likely fall to the Islamic extremists.

Jordan will come to regret its annexation of the territory that was to become the state of Palestine. The best course for Abdullah II may be to reinforce its alliance with Israel and to encourage the Egyptian army to behave in a similar manner. A tri-partite alliance of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt could dominate and model a new Middle East

It all comes down to the wiliness of military leaders in Egypt and Israel and civilian leaders in Jordan and Israel to work for regional peace and strength, forgetting the previous stupidity of religious conflict that has dominated the region for a century or more.

Tunisia and Egypt have shown that the right direction can be reached without very much bloodshed and without invoking the old demon of Israel’s existence. The other Arab states need to understand that they are at risk. The tribalism of the past may fall prey to the internet speed of social revolution and cultural upheaval.

Israel has an unprecedented opportunity to join in this process. The settlements are largely indefensible and should be closed out and handed over to the proto-Palestinians. If the Arab states demand rational and civil behavior of their citizens, Israel can do no less.

I’m very curious to see which Arab state will reform itself next. Jordan could be the best prepared to launch a new nation without a royal family in the driver’s seat. Saudi Arabia may find it has no royal family in residence some fine morning, but the religious extremists pose tremendous potential harm there due to the presence of Mecca and Medina on Saudi soil.

One thing is certain; the next steps will be very interesting to watch. It will take patience on the part of the first world nations to keep from interfering in Arab nations as we have in the past.

Today is sunny, chilly but not bitter cold. I have to clean the ashes from the wood stove and rebuild the fire for tonight. I need to marinate the steaks I’m going to fix for Gloria’s birthday, tomorrow, so that they taste somewhat more interesting than usual. I’ll fix some asparagus as well, roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

It’s a good day to be here.

2011 Vun11Februaryce der rokets is up

It's Time For A New Narrative; It's Time For 'Big History'





Enlarge AFP/Getty Images

The front page of the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda after the 1957 launch of Sputnik.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/02/10/133652898/its-time-for-a-new-narrative-its-time-for-big-history?sc=fb&cc=fp

What a wonderful series of blog posts and comments this week on where we are in science education!

Picking up on this, I'd like to go back to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address where he spoke of our "Sputnik moment." I'll first revisit the original Sputnik moment in 1957, then compare it our current situation and finally offer some general thoughts on the role of science in our lives.

In the original Sputnik moment, nicely described here, the Soviets launched a 180-pound beeping object into a pre-determined orbit, quickly following with a >1,000-pound satellite carrying a dog and food for her 100-hour orbit. (She didn't survive).

Meanwhile, the United States still hadn't gotten its 3-lb. item off the pad. The result was pandemonium:

The Soviets will be "dropping bombs on us from space like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses." —Sen. Lyndon Johnson

"What is at stake is nothing less than our survival." —Sen. Mike Mansfield

"A severe blow — some would say a disastrous blow — has been struck at America's self-confidence and at her prestige in the world. Rarely have Americans questioned one another so intensely about our military position, our scientific stature, or our educational systems." —Sen. Lister Hill

The response was the National Defense Education Act (note the D-word), pumping a billion dollars over four years (a lot back then) into student loans and science-classroom improvements.

Institutions like NASA were founded and the aeronautics industry was further buffed up. And we got the job done: first-man-to-the-moon 10 years later. We won the space race, the arms race and the Cold War. And then we drifted back into 40 years of generalized science-education apathy.



Cassi Creek:

“Don't say that he's hypocritical,

Say rather that he's apolitical.



"once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?

That's not my department," says wernher von Braun.”

In the interest of winning the race with the Soviets to control as much of near-Earth space as possible from the planet’s surface, we spent the end of WWII and the months following scouring Germany for German scientists and engineers. We overlooked their participation in war crimes against civilians. We brought them with their families to the U.S. We found ways to grant them U.S, citizenship.

We wound up with von Braun’s team, the designers and builders of Germany’s V-2 single stage liquid fueled destroyer of neighborhoods. Basically unguided, it launched and descended in obedience to the laws of ballistics, motion, and mass.

We hauled what we could back to our side of the world to experiment with and improve upon. The Soviets took their share of Germans and put them to work on heavy lift tasks, envisioning from the start a ballistic weapon to cross polar icecaps and oceans.

When Sputnik orbited, the U.S. was shaken to its core. From priding ourselves as the pre-imminent aerospace power in the world, we were suddenly upstaged by a totalitarian state that was proving our conceptions of it to be largely wrong.

Russia, and the USSR, had launched using the brute force mechanism with a huge launch vehicle that was Russian in nature. We, the U.S. were working on three different military programs, all of which were less than capable. I can recall watching almost nightly newsreels showing one or more of our rockets self-destructing or being destructed for safety reasons. We were surprised, unpleasantly, and giving in to panic and haste.

Our German scientists had no interest in actually allowing a pilot control of their creations. Most of them had little regard for the pilots/astronauts chosen to fly the spacecraft if it ever became reality. The pilots, on the other hand, were pilots and behaved accordingly, gradually winning some of their demands from the design team.

While all this took place, we were frantically trying to churn out more engineers, physicists, chemists, and other hard science professionals to staff our design and construction teams. NASA did succeed in putting people on the moon and with the demise of Apollo; the moon once again became a distant and unoccupied orb.

For all the effort, for the lost lives, for the goals met and exceeded in exploring space, we have come to rely on Russia to provide the heavy lift and resupply missions that keep our lonely international space station in low earth orbit.

Most of the Germans we captured are gone now. Many of the NASA teams have retired and more will soon as the U.S. space program is downsized. Now there is a European space consortium, a Japanese program, and Indian program and China wants to become dominant. We’ve allowed our grasp of math, physics, and engineering to fade away again, just as we did in the 1950s. We stand less chance of defeating China than we did the USSR. China didn’t capture any Germans. It did see the relevance in training Chinese to compete with the rest of the world and has long excelled in that. Then there are the opportunists who work the rogue nation programs, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan’s contribution to them.

Von Braun once joked about learning to count backwards in Chinese. I never believed it was a joke.

“You too may be a big hero,

Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.

"In German or English I know how to count down,

Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun.”



Shabbat Shalom!

10 February 2011 Don’t drink the water, don’t breathe the air!

It used to be the advice offered to tourists visiting Mexico and other Latin-American countries. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), it may well become the warning to tourists visiting the U.S.

While the more prominent GOPers\teavangelists are waging culture war by trying to place the lives of women at risk due to pregnancy below the potential life of an unborn fetus, by attempting to create a WASP theocracy, and by removing access to health care from the reach of nearly all Americans, Good Rep. Issa is waging war on our citizens by attempting to remove from the books financial, technical, industrial, and other regulations that American corporations find onerous and “job killing.”

“Job killing” is nothing but a new propaganda sound-byte created by the GOPer fiction machine to convince the unemployed and the under-employed that regulations limiting financial piracy and manipulation, regulations enforcing clean air and water standards, and any other regulation and/or law that might possibly drop a CEO’s bonus from 8 figures to 7 figures. “Job killing” is a flat-out GOPer lie. “Job killing” is found in corporate boardrooms, not in government regulations. “Job killing” is a company doubling the required workload while refusing to hire back laid-off former employees or to hire new ones. “Job killing” is outsourcing jobs to India, Mexico, or China rather than building new factories in the U.S. “Job killing” is siting software and hardware support in Bangalore.

“Job killing” is attached to everything the GOP\teavangelists want to reverse, repeal, renege, or repudiate. “Job killing” is a myth spun by GOPer\teavangelists who are elected by the populace but who are paid by corporate lobbyists to place the profits of huge corporations ahead of the good of the nation. It is about poisoning our waters and our air for the convenience and profit of coal companies, mineral miners, oil companies, and timber companies; while allowing greed to overrule ethics and law in the financial houses that control commerce.

“Job Killing” is a myth! Those jobs were killed off one by one and one thousand by one thousand as regulations were removed during the days of Saint Ronnie. They were lost when even the least amount of regulation to preserve the environment became intolerable to corporations American in name and PO Box only. They vanished when Wal-Mart demanded that quality be subjugated to ever-cheaper quantity. They vanished when Unions forgot that the nation needs affordable labor and when unions forgot that they were not intended to rival corporate pays scales for executives. The jobs fled offshore when people who should have known better voted for corporate shills, theocrats, and loud-mouthed, poorly educated candidates with nothing to offer but burlesque stage pageantry gimmicks.

As Issa and friends find ways to overturn and remove environmental regulations, job safety regulations, we’ll see the true promise of the reactionary right. We’ll return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when rivers caught fire, when children and the elderly couldn’t breathe outdoors, when acid rain killed entire forests. We’ll see our few remaining workers made chronically ill by their jobs, which will deny them health care benefits while blaming them for becoming ill. We’ll see more workplace injuries even as workplaces become ever more scarce.

As predicted by hundreds of science-fiction writers, we’ll barrel past declining nation status to full-blown, third world, oligarchy. The wealthy will have sufficient money to buy breathable air, drinkable water, and unadulterated food and medications. Everyone else will not. The two-tiered society that our GOP\teavangelist free-marketeers long for will finally be here. Thank you, Mr. Issa. Watch your name share recognition with notables such as Vidkun Quisling!

9 February 2011 Miles to go before I sleep

The morning began smoothly and happily after a night of broken sleep. Oatmeal, blueberries, honey, coffee, and orange-pineapple juice lit the inner fire. In turn, I brought in more firewood and stoked up the woodstove.

There was a major distraction that made me slightly late getting out of the house and onto the road. That sort of distraction is always welcome. Still, it took a few minutes to scrape the ice off the car windows. It took another 6 or so to reach the highway. I turned east on 107 and immediately noticed a set of flashing blue lights pursuing a westbound car. I pulled over to the shoulder and then noticed more flashing lights ahead on the road, and a line of stopped cars in my lane. By the time I reached the line of traffic, I thought that it might be some sort of roadblock/ID check. With all in order, I anticipated no problem. A few cars coming from behind pulled out onto the shoulder and off on feeder lanes. Other drivers were making three-point turns and then pulling onto County 353. That would take them to Jonesborough, sort of out of my way.

I called Gloria to see if she had heard anything on local news. I was still thinking checkpoint of some sort. Enough people around here drive without valid licenses and insurance to make that match up with the turn-arounds. Finally, I decided to go through Jonesborough and to hope for a onetime arrival. As I crossed the centerline and glanced east, I could see several fire trucks, at least one ambulance, more cop cars, and lots of stopped traffic.

Whatever happened, I’m quite happy that I wasn’t involved in the event. From checkpoint to major accident, fire, MVA, one of more of the above became the guess.

I’ll find out more tonight or tomorrow. I’ll pass that point on the way home and there may also be something in the local television news or newspaper.

Whatever it was, it poured a major dose of seriousness into my awareness. I normally drive defensively and within local limits. The morning’s event may provide more impetus to make that routine even more routine.

As it happened, I did get to class just as the symbolic bell chimed.

I’m looking forward to the evening. I’m usually glad to crawl out of the pathfinder and to relieve some of the muscle pain and joint pain that driving causes. Today, thinking of all the possibilities avoided this morning, I’m quite happy to have those miles to drive before I sleep.

8 February 2011 Which side are you on, Congress

Posted at 4:43 PM ET, 02/ 7/2011

The real budget solution

By E.J. Dionne



“Nothing is more annoying to a columnist than another columnist who gets to an idea you had planned to write about before you do. And with that, I salute The New Republic's Jonathan Chait for his excellent column in the current issue of the magazine. (Subscription required).

The thrust of the column is that the best way to take a huge chunk out of the deficit and put the country on a sound fiscal cushion is to do nothing -- specifically, to do nothing at the end of 2012 when all the Bush tax cuts expire. If Congress doesn't act, the Bush tax cut is gone. The tax rates we had under Bill Clinton are restored. And everything about the deficit becomes easier.”



Cassi Creek:

Dionne spells it out quite clearly. We need to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2012. We need the revenue to keep the nation solvent. In the Clinton era, tax revenues were so sufficient as to allow a tax surplus when Clinton left office.

The subsequent Bush tax cuts, two unfunded wars, and the Medicare prescription plan – of much more benefit to Pharm houses and insurance companies than seniors - ran through the surplus like water from a broken main. We lost our surplus, received instead a rapidly increasing deficit that, if unchecked, will make us a third world nation with unemployed citizens chanting for jobs in the streets. From a distance, we won’t be able to tell if it is Gaza or Georgetown, Alabama or Algeria. And it won’t matter, as the jobs won’t be there for anyone.

Congress, those people who just finished telling us how much they love this nation so that we would elect them, needs to decide whether they are working for U.S, citizens, who voted them into office and pay their salaries; or Corporate America, which can only buy votes and pay for lots of under the table items while feeding re-election campaigns. Congress has the chance to prove their supposed patriotism in 2012. They can ignore the demands for renewing the Bush tax cuts and start making a serious effort to save the nation from debt. Or they can do what the GOP/teavangelists want them to do and sell out once again to the people with the big checkbooks and the checks that never show up as personal revenue. That will tell us which side they are on. I know what I’d like to believe about our elected leaders. But I believe that I already know which side they are on.

7 February 2011 Nothing important here, keep moving, people.

http://views.washingtonpost.com/post-user-polls/2011/02/-super-bowl-commercials.html?hpid=talkbox1

How would you rank these Super Bowl commercials?

You've already had your morning water cooler discussions about the commercials that aired during Super Bowl XLV. So tell us, how would you rank these Super Bowl commercials? You can watch all of the commercials here and read Hank Stuever's take here.

When I log onto the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even the Johnson City Press web site, I expect to find news items. I’ve come to the sad realization that there will be some inclusion of what passes for “sports” in this nation despite my best efforts at wishing that inclusion away. I’ve found various ways and means to avoid watching such television programming and the print “sports sections” work as well for lighting the stove as any other remnant of a tree that I have on hand. In short, I’m usually able to avoid the associated idiocy associated with the various forms of tax-supported training programs geared at funneling new meat into the national athletics and gambling franchises.

But in the Washington Post today, on CNN today, the topic of discussion is not the Egyptian political uncertainty or that of the other Arab states that will be affected by Egypt. It is not the latest teavangelist plot to deform our government into a theocracy, spearheaded by the Palin-Beck-Huckabee groups. It is not even the football game played in Dallas. The primary topic I’ve seen, read, heard while getting ready for class, waiting for class is the commercial associated with the football game. Commercials!

Why bother to become excited about propaganda aimed at separating us from our money? Why do we sit through hours of sales pitches, which are then played repeatedly while someone describes their “cuteness,” “cleverness,” the “hotness” of the female or male models used in these commercials on steroids?

I recall very well the arguments that played out in each city and town that was awarding or denying cable television contracts. “Cable TV would free us from commercials.” “Cable TV would let us pay for and watch only those programs we wanted” There were other claims as well but those are the major selling points that have not come true.

Today we are handed up to 25 minutes of commercials in each hour of programming. We have supposedly “hundreds of programming choices that we can purchase from cable providers. But of the hundreds available at my home, there are 10-15 sports channels, another 10-15 popular music channels, countless shopping channels, and far too many “come to Jesus channels.” Not only are these not possible to deselect, they are also spread out through the few packages I want to purchase so that I cannot escape the.

Here’s the drift Cable providers and Congress. I want ala carte channel selection. I don’t want packages chosen to make some cable executive and his church or family happy. If, you are going to charge me for service and then stream one long series of commercials toward me while boosting the volume when they begin to play; then you need to quit billing me for commercial air time and frequency. I don’t want them, I’m not amused by them, and I won’t watch them. The mute button and off switch get lots of use at my home. If you want to broadcast them, then bill the advertiser for the airtime, not the consumer.

I won’t even watch commercials one night a year so that I can join in the next day’s idle conversations, Not last year, not this, and not next year. They’re commercials, a huge waste of my time. Nothing to see there. Keep moving people!

6 February 2011 Palin mangles Egypt statement

TRENDING: Palin: Obama's 3 a.m. call went to answering machine

By: CNN Political Coverage Manager Steve Brusk


Washington (CNN) - Sarah Palin, in her first comments on the uprising in Egypt, called the situation President Barack Obama's 3 a.m. phone call and said, "It seems the call went right to the answering machine."

Palin, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, spoke with Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody after her speech Friday night at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.



In the interview, the potential Republican presidential candidate said, "We need to know what it is America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with. And we do not have all that information (from the administration) yet."

She told "The Brody File" she was "not real enthused about what it is that's being done on a national level and from (Washington) in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt."

Palin criticized the administration's public response, saying "nobody yet has explained to the American public yet what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us ... who will be taking the place of (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak."

"In these areas that are so volatile right now because obviously it's not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House," she said.

According to a transcript from CBN released Saturday evening, Palin said there were still unanswered questions on the protests that led to the upheaval.

"Remember President Reagan lived that mantra: Trust but verify," she said. "We want to be able to trust those who are screaming for democracy there in Egypt, that there is a true sincere desire for freedoms. And the challenge that we have, though, is how do we verify that what we are told, what it is that the American public are being fed via media, via protesters, via the government there in Egypt in order for us to have some sound information to make wise decisions on what our position is."

On the question of "who's going to fill the void" after Mubarak leaves office, Palin said "Is it going to be the Muslim Brotherhood? We should not stand for that, or with that, or by that."

She told the interviewer, "Any radical Islamists, no, that is not who we should be supporting or standing by. So we need to find out who was behind all the turmoil and the revolt and the protests so that good decisions can be made in terms of who we will stand by and support."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/05/palin-obamas-3-a-m-call-went-to-answering-machine/#more-145843

Cassi Creek:

The distillate is this. Palin is demanding to be told who we have selected to become the new leader(s) of Egypt. What she apparently wants is for the U.S. military to march into Egypt and install a government which will be a client state of the U.S., most particularly one that will bow to the demands of the Theocons and teavangelists who imagine that they can somehow install a pro-Christian, pro-American puppet show in Cairo.

Palin objects to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet Palin offers no objection to the Christian analog, which she belongs to usurping a leadership role in American politics. She would be perfectly happy to see our Constitution re-written in a manner that allows the establishment of a national religion, hers of course. Nor would she see any departure from the intentions of the “founders,” other than perhaps Jefferson.

Once again, she has demonstrated her unfamiliarity with history and with English as a primary language. Whether or not she understands that Egypt is a sovereign nation on the continent of Africa is still undiscovered. Perhaps her handlers will steer her away from that “gotcha question.” She obviously believes we have the right to define the future for 83 million Egyptians without being invited to the party. I’m of the opinion that she should offer to go negotiate a new government, anti-Islamic, pro-American, using her immense body of personal knowledge and skills. Perhaps she can mold Egyptians into “real Americans” and change the history of the Middle East to hasten the second coming. I doubt it. But I do hope someone will publically offer her the opportunity, along with a one-way airline ticket. She should be a real hit in Cairo or Alexandria. Nothing that I can think of would do more to secure Egypt for the Muslim Brotherhood.  In the interim, while we wait for her to emulate Reagan and illeagly negotiate with a foreign nation behind Obama's back; as Reagan's handlers did with Carter over Iran, someone should remind the Palin harpy that she holds no national or local political office and no one in D.C. owes her any information about past, ongoing, or future plans or programs.