Someone--at least as far back as Bismark's general Helmuth von Moltke--said "No plan survives contact with the enemy." It's consistent with the ideas of Sun Tzu although nothing quite like it appears in "The Art of War".
The US prevailed in WWII not by the superiority of its technology, although there was some of that, but by superior numbers. The US industrial base was able to produce more planes, tanks and ships than our enemies. That included producing a lot of them for our allies. The German Panzer tank was significantly superior to the US Sherman, but a plan was quickly devised where three or more Shermans could defeat a single Panzer, essentially by trapping it and forcing it into a crossfire. There were a lot more Shermans than Panzers so this tactic proved effective. Liberty ships were produced in such great numbers for such low cost that they were considered to have paid for their construction cost if they successfully made a single shipment.
Before the war, there was some design work and a little advance production by the US, but the real work didn't start until after Pearl Harbor. There were lots of big surprises. For example, before the war it had been thought that bombers needed to be able to defend themselves, consequently B-17s and B-24s carried a lot of guns. 5 or 6 of the 10 member crew of a B-17 were primarily there to man the guns. But it turned out it didn't work all that well and there were appalling losses of bomber crews, and work was quickly begun on a fighter with sufficient range to travel with them to the target. Once the P-51 came on line, the bomber losses dropped dramatically.
During the Cold War, lots of ideas about the enemy promoted lots of ideas about how we should defend ourselves, and this led to an ever escalating rise in complexity and cost. The various skirmishes that did occur: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia, showed how completely inappropriate the Cold War ideas about weapons were for the conflicts we actually did have. B-1s, B-2s, F-117s, Nuclear Aircraft Carriers, etc., were all used in the Iraq conflicts, against enemies who were almost completely defenseless against those, and would have been almost equally defenseless against B52s and F4s, designed in the early 1950s. (not completely: surface to air missiles took down a number of planes, including an F-117 during Bosnia.). The most effective planes of the present generation, by far, are the drones, such as the Predator, which has performance not much more impressive than a WWI Sopwith Camel, but carries modern weapons and observation gear and can be flown remotely.
Recently, one of the more effective 1980s generation airplanes, the A-10 "WartHog", was retired in favor of the as yet undebugged F-35. Each F-35 costs more than ten times as much and cannot do any of the missions the Warthog proved so effective at very well. The F-35 program costs roughly the same amount each year as the SNAP "food stamp" program that feeds 5 million people every day.
We need national defense, no doubt, but we need to do it wisely. The over-reliance on extremely complex military systems does not keep us safe; it does the opposite. We are committing large portions of our treasure and talent to producing weapons that are not particularly useful. At the same time, we're offshoring our once formidable industrial base. Should we need to project force the way we did in World War II, we no longer have the industrial base that won WWII. It doesn't appear that we have any enemies who could take us on, but should we be surprised, with our absurd military, we will almost certainly lose.
14 March 2016
23 January 2016
Presidential Name Frequency
6 James James Madison, James Monroe, James K Polk, James Buchanan, James Garfield, James Earl Carter
5 John John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, John Calvin Coolidge, John F Kennedy
4 William William Henry Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, William Jefferson Clinton
3 George George Washington, George H W Bush, George W Bush
2 Andrew Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson
2 Franklin Franklin Pierce, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2 Thomas Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Woodrow Wilson
1 All Others Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Rutherford B Hayes, Chester A Arthur, Stephen Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren G Harding, Herbert Hoover, Harry S Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, Lyndon B Johnson, Richard M Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama
There are a few funny cases: John Quincy Adams, Stephen Grover Cleveland, Thomas Woodrow Wilson and John Calvin Coolidge tended to go by their middle names. Grant and Ford both changed their name (from Hiram Ulysses Grant and Leslie Lynch King, respectively).
Even though it's the most common presidential name, there were no presidents named James between the death of James Garfield on 19 Sept 1881 and the inauguration of Jimmy Carter on 20 Jan 1977: 95 years, over half the lifetime of the republic at the time. The second most popular name, John, went even longer: 4 Mar 1845 to 20 Jan 1961: 116 years, and George went from 4 Mar 1797 to 20 Jan 1989: 192 years.
addenda 14 Jan 2017: found out that Coolidge and Cleveland also went by their middle names so edited the article. Surprisingly many presidents do not have a middle name given on wikipedia. Here's the list of those that do:
J Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, James Knox Polk, Hiram Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, James Abram Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur, Stephen Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Warren Gamaliel Harding, John Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Clark Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman (no middle name, initial only), Dwight David Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Bains Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Gerald Rudolph Ford, James Earl Carter, Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barrack Hussein Obama. 27 of 43.
5 John John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, John Calvin Coolidge, John F Kennedy
4 William William Henry Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, William Jefferson Clinton
3 George George Washington, George H W Bush, George W Bush
2 Andrew Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson
2 Franklin Franklin Pierce, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
2 Thomas Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Woodrow Wilson
1 All Others Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, Rutherford B Hayes, Chester A Arthur, Stephen Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren G Harding, Herbert Hoover, Harry S Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, Lyndon B Johnson, Richard M Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama
There are a few funny cases: John Quincy Adams, Stephen Grover Cleveland, Thomas Woodrow Wilson and John Calvin Coolidge tended to go by their middle names. Grant and Ford both changed their name (from Hiram Ulysses Grant and Leslie Lynch King, respectively).
Even though it's the most common presidential name, there were no presidents named James between the death of James Garfield on 19 Sept 1881 and the inauguration of Jimmy Carter on 20 Jan 1977: 95 years, over half the lifetime of the republic at the time. The second most popular name, John, went even longer: 4 Mar 1845 to 20 Jan 1961: 116 years, and George went from 4 Mar 1797 to 20 Jan 1989: 192 years.
addenda 14 Jan 2017: found out that Coolidge and Cleveland also went by their middle names so edited the article. Surprisingly many presidents do not have a middle name given on wikipedia. Here's the list of those that do:
J Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, James Knox Polk, Hiram Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, James Abram Garfield, Chester Alan Arthur, Stephen Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, Warren Gamaliel Harding, John Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Clark Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S Truman (no middle name, initial only), Dwight David Eisenhower, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Bains Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon, Gerald Rudolph Ford, James Earl Carter, Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, George Walker Bush, Barrack Hussein Obama. 27 of 43.
01 January 2016
The Jesus Religion
Jesus (nobody knows his family name--he probably didn't have one), son of Joseph and Mary, possibly of Nazareth, started a Jewish cult during the Roman occupation of Judea. There were a great many such cults, each with a charismatic leader. The historian Josephus lists dozens of them, including several that strongly resemble the Jesus cult, but the one following Jesus is conspicuously absent1. So surely there were many more that were not listed. Many of these leaders were declared Messiahs, most often by themselves. "Christ" is a Greek word which means the same thing as Messiah--"Jesus Christ" simply means "Jesus the Messiah". Apart from the Gospel, there is no primary source that refers to the Jesus cult or Christianity. The earliest that's given any credence is from the historian Tacitus, writing in 116AD, who says that Nero tried to blame the great fire of Rome in 64AD on Christians, who were much hated and whose founder had been crucified by Pontius Pilate. We can't tell if this is based on real involvement by Christians or a revisionist attempt to pin it on them 52 years later, either by Tacitus himself or by later copyists looking for reflected glory. All four Gospels were written between 70 and 110AD, so it's entirely possible that Tacitus got everything he knew about Christianity from such later sources as these. It's also entirely possible that the cultists Tacitus claimed were blamed for the fire had nothing to do with Christianity and subsequent copyists have enhanced Christianity's involvement.
The Romans were very accepting of the Religions of those they conquered. As long as the Emperor joined your Pantheon and received due worship with its other members, your religion was welcome in the Roman family. The only monotheistic religion in the region, Judaism, got into a little trouble over this--the Jewish king at the time of their conquest, Herod the Great, was perfectly willing to put a bust of Caesar into all local synagogues, which satisfied the Romans. Where this ran into trouble was that a group called the Zealots felt that this relatively minor imposition was a slight to God2 and became terrorists, killing Romans and any Jewish leaders that were willing to work with them. This terrorism worked as well as terrorism ever has: it provoked the Romans to destroy the Jewish homeland completely and carry a large fraction of the population off in slavery.
Jesus may have been one of these terrorists. The gospels do not tell us why the Romans wanted him dead, only that they did. His crime and punishment, sedition and crucifixion, were pretty much reserved for traitors against the state, such as these terrorists, so whatever the crime was, it has apparently been purged from the story for the benefit of the (largely Roman) audience. Nothing survives of this in the gospel apart from a bit of inter-factional rivalry. The Romans wouldn't have killed a faction leader unless they they thought he might be provoking violence. That Jesus doesn't make it, at all, into Roman records or the quite complete stories of Josephus, and that what little is known about him so flatly contradicts such a crime, suggests that the true story was either so inconsequential at the time to have not been noticed, or was somehow so embarrassing to later Christians that an unprecedentedly successful and complete revisionist purge was effected, or was entirely fictitious and made up by later people for some reason.
The completely fictitious version and the inconsequential version amount to the same thing. Whatever it was, the promulgators picked a completely inconsequential cult and elevated it. Most likely they did this to serve as a foil against some turmoil of the day. There were many issues that such a cult could be used to calm: Women had very few rights and Slaves had even less. Rome had been very accepting of residents of any of the colonies; it was traditional for free food to be provided to any Roman resident. All of these groups and more had banded together to demand more rights at one time or other. The Roman system of private armies was a complication too. Many, especially those from the colonies, would fight for whoever would pay them best. Rome was a constant, seething battleground of peoples feeling oppressed, and lots of them had weapons.
The philospher and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5BC-65AD) once said "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." The invention of Christianity may have been the ultimate expression of that idea. Christianity is perfectly devised to appeal to all the disenfranchised groups: Women, Slaves, colonists, especially Jews and the followers of the Greek "Mystery" religions3. All are equal in the sight of God, Jew or Greek, free or slave, man or woman (Gal 3:28 and many others). Jesus tells us to ignore insults and even violence, and love your neighbor and even your enemy. To honor your debts and your leaders, and not try to scam folks. Just exactly what a religion aimed at quelling rebellions needs to be.
Nothing gets people to band together quite so effectively as persecution and the many persecutions of Jews and Christians probably created more converts than they killed. That may have been the intent. The reason for the persecutions is obscure and the evidence of most of them, such as that of Eusebius of Caesaria, has largely been debunked. The strongest problem seems to be that Christians were often more tied to their church than to their families or the national interest. They were accused of all sorts of wicked deeds from devil worship to cannibalism and human sacrifice...and rumor mills will be rumor mills, and lynchings and stonings did occur. It seems to have reached a peak around 299AD.
A few years later, Constantine, inspired by his mother Helena, who had previously converted to "The Women's Religion", included a banner with a cross on it in his retinue at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. This battle won him the Emperorship and in gratitude he legalized Christianity. Told that it was a religion of the book, he asked for a copy. This was a problem. Every group had its own book, and they often conflicted4. Constantine, now Emperor, ordered them to get together and work it out. On his orders, the conference of Nicea was convened in 325. The two leading factions were led by Athanasius and Arius. The Athanasians believed that Jesus was immaculately conceived and had been resurrected after his crucifixion. The Arians believed that Jesus was a divinely inspired mortal man who had died on the cross and remained dead. The leading Arian faction was mysteriously detained on the road from Alexandria and missed the conference, deciding its outcome. Arianism remained popular for about a century but Nicea gave the Athanasians the upper hand. By the time of Augustine, writing around 425, Arianism was too weak to survive and what little was left was killed off by the Augustinian Heresy. Like many religious fanatics5, later Christians set about purging the historic record of anything that doesn't fit their own ideas of religious purity. They didn't quite completely succeed but mostly.
1There was an attempt, apparently made by a German copyist at some point during the Dark Ages, to edit such a description in. But the style of the language is conspicuously different and copies lacking these suspicious extra passages have survived.
2The Roman demand that Caesar be treated as a God is entirely consistent with Jewish theology, so what the Zealots were angry about was much ado about not very much, and the Jewish leadership, Herod the Great in particular, understood that. There are lots of entities recognizable as demigods--Archangels, such as as Gabriel and Michael, for example.
3The Greek Mystery Religions are interesting. Paul seems to have embraced them and integrated their important ideas into Christianity. Later Christians actively suppressed them and most of what we know is indirect. The mystery God (each of dozens of sects had their own) is immaculately conceived and interacts with people as if one of them. He is later killed and seen by everybody to be dead, but miraculously comes back to life to continue his worldly mission. The Lazarus story may be a nod to this notion, but Paul wanted more. He seems to have had a dispute with Jesus' brother James, who insists that Jesus was a divinely inspired mortal man. This dispute was ultimately decided, under suspicious circumstances, in Paul (and Athanasius') favor at Nicea. I've always suspected that James might have been the older brother although I have no evidence of this.
4Each of these books was individually hand-made. Wood-block printing existed but wasn't used for text until 500 years later, in China. Movable type for printing was devised by Gutenberg 1127 years after Milvia. Some of the purged texts survive as "apocrypha" and a few of the purged groups do too, such as the Gnostics in Egypt. Most are probably lost.
5The most tragic example of this are the repeated sackings of the Library of Alexandria, twice by Romans, in 48BC and 273AD, at least partly by accident, once on purpose by Christians in 391, and again on purpose by Muslims in 642. Ironically, the 273 battle was against Palmyra, some of the ruins of which have been recently destroyed by ISIS/DAESH for exactly the same reason. The suppression of Paganism, the mystery religions, Arianism, Pelagianism, the fates of Hus, Bruno, Galileo and countless rural healers as "Witches". It goes on and on.
Further Reading
http://www.amazon.com/Unriddling-Christian-Origins-Joel-Carmichael/dp/0879759526
http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-War-Revised-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140444203
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/the_right_gets_jesus_all_wrong_9_reasons_why_everything_you_know_about_jesus_is_a_myth/
The Romans were very accepting of the Religions of those they conquered. As long as the Emperor joined your Pantheon and received due worship with its other members, your religion was welcome in the Roman family. The only monotheistic religion in the region, Judaism, got into a little trouble over this--the Jewish king at the time of their conquest, Herod the Great, was perfectly willing to put a bust of Caesar into all local synagogues, which satisfied the Romans. Where this ran into trouble was that a group called the Zealots felt that this relatively minor imposition was a slight to God2 and became terrorists, killing Romans and any Jewish leaders that were willing to work with them. This terrorism worked as well as terrorism ever has: it provoked the Romans to destroy the Jewish homeland completely and carry a large fraction of the population off in slavery.
Jesus may have been one of these terrorists. The gospels do not tell us why the Romans wanted him dead, only that they did. His crime and punishment, sedition and crucifixion, were pretty much reserved for traitors against the state, such as these terrorists, so whatever the crime was, it has apparently been purged from the story for the benefit of the (largely Roman) audience. Nothing survives of this in the gospel apart from a bit of inter-factional rivalry. The Romans wouldn't have killed a faction leader unless they they thought he might be provoking violence. That Jesus doesn't make it, at all, into Roman records or the quite complete stories of Josephus, and that what little is known about him so flatly contradicts such a crime, suggests that the true story was either so inconsequential at the time to have not been noticed, or was somehow so embarrassing to later Christians that an unprecedentedly successful and complete revisionist purge was effected, or was entirely fictitious and made up by later people for some reason.
The completely fictitious version and the inconsequential version amount to the same thing. Whatever it was, the promulgators picked a completely inconsequential cult and elevated it. Most likely they did this to serve as a foil against some turmoil of the day. There were many issues that such a cult could be used to calm: Women had very few rights and Slaves had even less. Rome had been very accepting of residents of any of the colonies; it was traditional for free food to be provided to any Roman resident. All of these groups and more had banded together to demand more rights at one time or other. The Roman system of private armies was a complication too. Many, especially those from the colonies, would fight for whoever would pay them best. Rome was a constant, seething battleground of peoples feeling oppressed, and lots of them had weapons.
The philospher and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5BC-65AD) once said "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." The invention of Christianity may have been the ultimate expression of that idea. Christianity is perfectly devised to appeal to all the disenfranchised groups: Women, Slaves, colonists, especially Jews and the followers of the Greek "Mystery" religions3. All are equal in the sight of God, Jew or Greek, free or slave, man or woman (Gal 3:28 and many others). Jesus tells us to ignore insults and even violence, and love your neighbor and even your enemy. To honor your debts and your leaders, and not try to scam folks. Just exactly what a religion aimed at quelling rebellions needs to be.
Nothing gets people to band together quite so effectively as persecution and the many persecutions of Jews and Christians probably created more converts than they killed. That may have been the intent. The reason for the persecutions is obscure and the evidence of most of them, such as that of Eusebius of Caesaria, has largely been debunked. The strongest problem seems to be that Christians were often more tied to their church than to their families or the national interest. They were accused of all sorts of wicked deeds from devil worship to cannibalism and human sacrifice...and rumor mills will be rumor mills, and lynchings and stonings did occur. It seems to have reached a peak around 299AD.
A few years later, Constantine, inspired by his mother Helena, who had previously converted to "The Women's Religion", included a banner with a cross on it in his retinue at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. This battle won him the Emperorship and in gratitude he legalized Christianity. Told that it was a religion of the book, he asked for a copy. This was a problem. Every group had its own book, and they often conflicted4. Constantine, now Emperor, ordered them to get together and work it out. On his orders, the conference of Nicea was convened in 325. The two leading factions were led by Athanasius and Arius. The Athanasians believed that Jesus was immaculately conceived and had been resurrected after his crucifixion. The Arians believed that Jesus was a divinely inspired mortal man who had died on the cross and remained dead. The leading Arian faction was mysteriously detained on the road from Alexandria and missed the conference, deciding its outcome. Arianism remained popular for about a century but Nicea gave the Athanasians the upper hand. By the time of Augustine, writing around 425, Arianism was too weak to survive and what little was left was killed off by the Augustinian Heresy. Like many religious fanatics5, later Christians set about purging the historic record of anything that doesn't fit their own ideas of religious purity. They didn't quite completely succeed but mostly.
1There was an attempt, apparently made by a German copyist at some point during the Dark Ages, to edit such a description in. But the style of the language is conspicuously different and copies lacking these suspicious extra passages have survived.
2The Roman demand that Caesar be treated as a God is entirely consistent with Jewish theology, so what the Zealots were angry about was much ado about not very much, and the Jewish leadership, Herod the Great in particular, understood that. There are lots of entities recognizable as demigods--Archangels, such as as Gabriel and Michael, for example.
3The Greek Mystery Religions are interesting. Paul seems to have embraced them and integrated their important ideas into Christianity. Later Christians actively suppressed them and most of what we know is indirect. The mystery God (each of dozens of sects had their own) is immaculately conceived and interacts with people as if one of them. He is later killed and seen by everybody to be dead, but miraculously comes back to life to continue his worldly mission. The Lazarus story may be a nod to this notion, but Paul wanted more. He seems to have had a dispute with Jesus' brother James, who insists that Jesus was a divinely inspired mortal man. This dispute was ultimately decided, under suspicious circumstances, in Paul (and Athanasius') favor at Nicea. I've always suspected that James might have been the older brother although I have no evidence of this.
4Each of these books was individually hand-made. Wood-block printing existed but wasn't used for text until 500 years later, in China. Movable type for printing was devised by Gutenberg 1127 years after Milvia. Some of the purged texts survive as "apocrypha" and a few of the purged groups do too, such as the Gnostics in Egypt. Most are probably lost.
5The most tragic example of this are the repeated sackings of the Library of Alexandria, twice by Romans, in 48BC and 273AD, at least partly by accident, once on purpose by Christians in 391, and again on purpose by Muslims in 642. Ironically, the 273 battle was against Palmyra, some of the ruins of which have been recently destroyed by ISIS/DAESH for exactly the same reason. The suppression of Paganism, the mystery religions, Arianism, Pelagianism, the fates of Hus, Bruno, Galileo and countless rural healers as "Witches". It goes on and on.
Further Reading
http://www.amazon.com/Unriddling-Christian-Origins-Joel-Carmichael/dp/0879759526
http://www.amazon.com/Zealot-Life-Times-Jesus-Nazareth/dp/0812981480
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-War-Revised-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140444203
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/14/the_right_gets_jesus_all_wrong_9_reasons_why_everything_you_know_about_jesus_is_a_myth/
Pseudoscience Ascendant
I just returned from 8 days in my hometown, Cupertino, California. Cell phone and cellular data reception there continues to be terrible, and if I use my phone much, the battery dies in a fraction of the time it does in more sensible places. The home of Apple, HP and countless other high tech innovators, has very few cell towers, and these companies have been forced to implement their own private cell networks. Here's the reason. They have it exactly backwards.
The WHO report cited is essentially a sop, admitting that it's remotely possible that this could be a problem, just to get these nincompoops off their back. There is no credible evidence that low level gigahertz radio causes cancer. None. Very high power, tuned and focused radiation can cook things though. Microwave ovens are tuned to the frequency of water. They're shielded, but by staying a few feet away, even if there's a breakdown, you can stay safe. Powerful radars have been known to kill bugs and birds that flew too close. Not by cancer though, by boiling the water in them.
But let's pretend that there was a problem. Digital cell phones adjust their power output based on how far they are from the cell tower. If they're far, they increase power, if they're near, they reduce it. This has a bunch of advantages. First of all, it saves a lot of battery power if they don't have to use it. More significantly, it increases network capacity. Each logical channel is only used up for as big an area as the power being used can reach. The same channel can be used by another tower/phone pair if they're out of range.
But the notowerinschoools folks have this exactly backwards. By keeping the towers far from the students, they are FORCING all cell communications to occur at high power. The transmitter that matters is not the one in the tower. The inverse square law makes it of little consequence to anyone more than a few dozen feet away. The transmitter that matters is the one the kid is holding up to their ear. If the tower 5 miles away, it's transmitting at high power. It's unlikely to cause cancer, but it might be boiling the kids brains a little bit. From less than an inch away. The closer the cell tower is, the less power the mobile phone needs to use to transmit. Unless you ban the cell phones completely, you are achieving exactly the thing you were trying to prevent. I wonder how a cell phone ban would go down in the schools of Cupertino...not.
Idiots.
Addenda 3 Jan 2017
There's a new cell tower in Cupertino near city hall that went on line in the spring. Cellular is now /much/ better there.
The WHO report cited is essentially a sop, admitting that it's remotely possible that this could be a problem, just to get these nincompoops off their back. There is no credible evidence that low level gigahertz radio causes cancer. None. Very high power, tuned and focused radiation can cook things though. Microwave ovens are tuned to the frequency of water. They're shielded, but by staying a few feet away, even if there's a breakdown, you can stay safe. Powerful radars have been known to kill bugs and birds that flew too close. Not by cancer though, by boiling the water in them.
But let's pretend that there was a problem. Digital cell phones adjust their power output based on how far they are from the cell tower. If they're far, they increase power, if they're near, they reduce it. This has a bunch of advantages. First of all, it saves a lot of battery power if they don't have to use it. More significantly, it increases network capacity. Each logical channel is only used up for as big an area as the power being used can reach. The same channel can be used by another tower/phone pair if they're out of range.
But the notowerinschoools folks have this exactly backwards. By keeping the towers far from the students, they are FORCING all cell communications to occur at high power. The transmitter that matters is not the one in the tower. The inverse square law makes it of little consequence to anyone more than a few dozen feet away. The transmitter that matters is the one the kid is holding up to their ear. If the tower 5 miles away, it's transmitting at high power. It's unlikely to cause cancer, but it might be boiling the kids brains a little bit. From less than an inch away. The closer the cell tower is, the less power the mobile phone needs to use to transmit. Unless you ban the cell phones completely, you are achieving exactly the thing you were trying to prevent. I wonder how a cell phone ban would go down in the schools of Cupertino...not.
Idiots.
Addenda 3 Jan 2017
There's a new cell tower in Cupertino near city hall that went on line in the spring. Cellular is now /much/ better there.
21 December 2015
Lie of the Year
Politifact, the moderate to slightly right of center fact checking service, has come out with its lie of the year. Donald Trump! Not the person, really, although that would make sense, because everything about the man is a lie: he claims to be smart and self made. Neither is true, although he's a pretty good salesman. Politifact lists a large number of the near constant lies that Trump is making during his campaign.
This only the second time that Politifact has had an actual lie as their lie of a year two years in a row:
2015: Trump's lies
2014: The Ebola Scare.
2013: If you like your health care you can keep it. (Had this been expressed "If you like your qualifying health care, you can keep it" it would have been true: the plans that were closed by ACA were fraudulent in some way. In 2008, they had rated this same statement as true)
2012: Romney/Ryan completely false claims that Jeep was moving its factory to China
2011: Democrat's completely true statement that Republicans voted to end medicare as we know it.
2010: Republican's absurdly false claims that the ACA is a government takeover of healthcare.
2009: Republican's dangerously false claims about death panels.
Politifact has a problem. 90% of the lies told in the political sphere come out of republican mouths or pens. Democrats and progressives lie sometimes too, but it's mostly hyperbole or simple mistakes. If you examine the statements from left leaning sources that politifact rates as "Pants on Fire" or "False", you'll find that a lot of them are actually more like half true or figures of speech.
If politifact were to report this honestly, they would be pilloried by the right wing media. So instead, they give the right a major pass. They still end up showing that right lies far more than the left, but it comes out looking a lot more like balance, even though it's not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html
As an example, here are the 9 statements by Obama and his campaign that are rated pants on fire.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/pants-fire/
1: if you like your plan, you can keep it. slight misstatement, basically true.
2: The FISA court is transparent. Mostly false but politically necessary
3: claims Romney plans to fire Big Bird. hyperbole, but essentially true.
4: claims Romney backed a bill that would block all abortions, including rape and incest. sort of true. Romney's support was more tacit than full-throated.
5: an Obama ad claims Gingrich, Perry and Romney would eliminate aid to Israel. the only actual Pants on Fire I found.
6: claims that asking gov't departments to examine laws and consider getting rid of them if they don't make sense is unprecedented. The essential claim is true, the unprecedentedness is Hyperbole.
7: claims the US is one of the biggest muslim countries in the world. Half true. US has between 2 and 6 million muslims. that's not big compared to Indonesia or Pakistan, but it is compared to Abu Dhabi or Quatar.
8: claims that 100% of McCains ads have been negative. Politifact claims the number was closer to 75%. Hyperbole.
9: claims McCain supported Limbaugh's comments about immigration. McCain only partly supported them. again, hyperbole about a claim with only a slight ring of truth in it.
Conversely, a lot of the statements rated true made by Republicans are trivial things. Cruz says there are more words in the IRS code than in the bible. Fiorina points out that Trump has changed his mind on abortion. Santorum says that 70% of Americans don't have a college degree. All true, but do they of any consequence to the Republican message?
This only the second time that Politifact has had an actual lie as their lie of a year two years in a row:
2015: Trump's lies
2014: The Ebola Scare.
2013: If you like your health care you can keep it. (Had this been expressed "If you like your qualifying health care, you can keep it" it would have been true: the plans that were closed by ACA were fraudulent in some way. In 2008, they had rated this same statement as true)
2012: Romney/Ryan completely false claims that Jeep was moving its factory to China
2011: Democrat's completely true statement that Republicans voted to end medicare as we know it.
2010: Republican's absurdly false claims that the ACA is a government takeover of healthcare.
2009: Republican's dangerously false claims about death panels.
Politifact has a problem. 90% of the lies told in the political sphere come out of republican mouths or pens. Democrats and progressives lie sometimes too, but it's mostly hyperbole or simple mistakes. If you examine the statements from left leaning sources that politifact rates as "Pants on Fire" or "False", you'll find that a lot of them are actually more like half true or figures of speech.
If politifact were to report this honestly, they would be pilloried by the right wing media. So instead, they give the right a major pass. They still end up showing that right lies far more than the left, but it comes out looking a lot more like balance, even though it's not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/opinion/campaign-stops/all-politicians-lie-some-lie-more-than-others.html
As an example, here are the 9 statements by Obama and his campaign that are rated pants on fire.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/pants-fire/
1: if you like your plan, you can keep it. slight misstatement, basically true.
2: The FISA court is transparent. Mostly false but politically necessary
3: claims Romney plans to fire Big Bird. hyperbole, but essentially true.
4: claims Romney backed a bill that would block all abortions, including rape and incest. sort of true. Romney's support was more tacit than full-throated.
5: an Obama ad claims Gingrich, Perry and Romney would eliminate aid to Israel. the only actual Pants on Fire I found.
6: claims that asking gov't departments to examine laws and consider getting rid of them if they don't make sense is unprecedented. The essential claim is true, the unprecedentedness is Hyperbole.
7: claims the US is one of the biggest muslim countries in the world. Half true. US has between 2 and 6 million muslims. that's not big compared to Indonesia or Pakistan, but it is compared to Abu Dhabi or Quatar.
8: claims that 100% of McCains ads have been negative. Politifact claims the number was closer to 75%. Hyperbole.
9: claims McCain supported Limbaugh's comments about immigration. McCain only partly supported them. again, hyperbole about a claim with only a slight ring of truth in it.
Conversely, a lot of the statements rated true made by Republicans are trivial things. Cruz says there are more words in the IRS code than in the bible. Fiorina points out that Trump has changed his mind on abortion. Santorum says that 70% of Americans don't have a college degree. All true, but do they of any consequence to the Republican message?
05 December 2015
Australian Crime Wave
Gun rights advocates are fond of pointing out that despite or perhaps because of the gun ban in Australia, crime rates have gone up there.
In fact, neither of these things is true. After several mass killings, culminating with the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996, the National Firearms Agreement brought the many contradictory regional gun laws into alignment, and required that all gun owners be licensed and store their guns safely. There is no ban, although it's distinctly harder for a criminal or crazy person to get a gun. There was a major buyback, which removed about 1/3rd of the guns in legal circulation, but there remain millions of legal gun owners in Australia.
Crime did go up briefly, but it's now substantially lower than before the Agreement. In fact, the spike began before the Port Arthur Massacre and had returned to previous levels by 2004. I've transcribed Robberies (both armed and not, which are the vast majorities of violent crimes) but other violent crimes show a nearly identical spike during this period, except for sexual assault, which has showed a rise that's fairly consistent with population. I've been trying to figure out if anybody knows what the cause was, but I haven't found it yet.
Gun deaths seem to have roughly halved according to this, but it's pretty fuzzy and I haven't found a precise numerical source yet. (the same graph shows a saving of about 12,000 lives a year due to the brady bill)
Population Robberies Per 100000
1993 17494 12765 73
1994 17667 13967 79
1995 17854 14564 82
1996 18071 16372 91
1997 18310 21305 116
1998 18517 23801 129
1999 18711 22606 121
2000 18925 23336 123
2001 19153 26591 139
2002 19413 20989 108
2003 19651 19709 100
2004 19895 16513 83
2005 20127 17176 85
2006 20394 17375 85
2007 20697 17996 87
2008 21015 16508 79
2009 21262 15238 72
2010 22183 14631 66
2011 22340 13653 61
2012 22723 13155 58
Population of Australia
Victims of Violent Crime
In fact, neither of these things is true. After several mass killings, culminating with the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996, the National Firearms Agreement brought the many contradictory regional gun laws into alignment, and required that all gun owners be licensed and store their guns safely. There is no ban, although it's distinctly harder for a criminal or crazy person to get a gun. There was a major buyback, which removed about 1/3rd of the guns in legal circulation, but there remain millions of legal gun owners in Australia.
Crime did go up briefly, but it's now substantially lower than before the Agreement. In fact, the spike began before the Port Arthur Massacre and had returned to previous levels by 2004. I've transcribed Robberies (both armed and not, which are the vast majorities of violent crimes) but other violent crimes show a nearly identical spike during this period, except for sexual assault, which has showed a rise that's fairly consistent with population. I've been trying to figure out if anybody knows what the cause was, but I haven't found it yet.
Gun deaths seem to have roughly halved according to this, but it's pretty fuzzy and I haven't found a precise numerical source yet. (the same graph shows a saving of about 12,000 lives a year due to the brady bill)
Population Robberies Per 100000
1993 17494 12765 73
1994 17667 13967 79
1995 17854 14564 82
1996 18071 16372 91
1997 18310 21305 116
1998 18517 23801 129
1999 18711 22606 121
2000 18925 23336 123
2001 19153 26591 139
2002 19413 20989 108
2003 19651 19709 100
2004 19895 16513 83
2005 20127 17176 85
2006 20394 17375 85
2007 20697 17996 87
2008 21015 16508 79
2009 21262 15238 72
2010 22183 14631 66
2011 22340 13653 61
2012 22723 13155 58
Population of Australia
Victims of Violent Crime
20 November 2015
Uncle Sam Billboard
I've always enjoyed the Uncle Sam billboard on I-5. Alfred Hamilton erected the sign on his land between Centralia and Chelalis when the government first built I-5 through it in the 1960s, and for years he changed the comment every week or two. He sold the land in 1995 but the billboard found a new home a few miles south of Chehalis at Rush Road, near exit 72. He died in 2004, but his son keeps updating the billboard.
Almost everything the Hamiltons say on the billboard is wrong, often absurdly so. He has a right to say stupid stuff, but I have a right to correct him.
A few samples:
NO NATION HAS EVER SPENT ITS WAY TO PROSPERITY
In fact, no country has ever done it any other way. A few didn't have to do the spending themselves, lucking into someone or something else who would do it for some reason. But the only way a nation (or a business or any other entity) can become prosperous is to invest.
THERE ARE MORE NRA MEMBERS THAN PEOPLE WITH OBAMACARE
There are about 5 million NRA members. There are between 9 and 17 million people with Obamacare, depending on how you count. For example, lots of people had insurance that didn't cover catastrophic illness, often by cancelling the policy because of some heretofore unnoticed preexisting condition. Now they can't do that. Clearly a PPACA beneficiary, but not part of over 9 million in the exchange.
20 TRILLION IN DEBT? AIN'T YOU EMBARRASSED YET?
It was under 18T at the time and it's still under 19. The debt was run up by the conservatives that Hamilton supports. More importantly, the debt is a meaningless number. The relevant number is the deficit, which Reagan and both Bushes hiked massively and Clinton and Obama reduced.
LIKE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT, RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE EVEN FURTHER
Lots of conservatives believe this, arguing that by raising the price of labor, demand for it would go down. Reality answers: don't believe in monocausality. Countless real world experiments have been done, and none of them show the effect he's talking about, and a few even show the opposite. There's clearly some other effect at work. Perhaps it's that by raising the wages low-wage workers, demand for goods is increased enough to counter the effect. Perhaps morale is raised enough to increase productivity sufficiently to pay for the extra labor cost. Perhaps it's something else. What is known is that at least for moderate increases, raising the minimum wage does not raise unemployment.
ALMOST 1 TRILLION TO AFRICAN DICTATORS. MARIA CANTWELL SPONSORED THE BILL
I'm not sure what he's talking about here (this is a frequent occurrence). Total foreign aid to all countries is about $50B, about 1/3rd of it military assistance to countries like Egypt and Pakistan (which are indeed run by dictators). Israel is by far the largest beneficiary. Countries in Africa get about $5B of this.
DEMOCRAT MOTTO: VOTE EARLY VOTE OFTEN
There's no evidence of consequential voter fraud and none of it swings Democrat. There is lots of evidence of election fraud and voter suppression and nearly all of it swings Republican
WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?
Obama has arranged for the release of both the short and long forms of his birth certificate. Both are easily found on line.
EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE: HOME OF ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS AND HOMOS
I can't find any evidence that Evergreen State is particularly the home of Earth Liberation Front or any other such group, or for that matter of gay folk. It does happen to be the closest 4 year college to the sign.
TOO MANY IN THE BOAT, TOO FEW ROWING
I sort of agree with this one but Hamilton's solution is probably the opposite of mine. There really is a demographic change that has the effect he's talking about. People are having fewer children and living longer, which means more people are collecting benefits relative to the number of people paying. But more significant is growing inequality: more have such low income that they don't pay much in taxes, and those at the top have been effective at getting the tax laws changed to their benefit.
MEXICO DEPORTS MORE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAN THE US DOES
I think he's talking about Central American illegals: Mexico deported about 173,000 last year, US 110,000. Of course, Mexico is a lot closer to Central America and catches a lot of people headed for the US en route. The US deported over 400,000 in 2012, nearly half to Mexico.
LET'S KEEP THE CANAL AND GIVE THEM KISSINGER
Totally agree about disposing of Kissinger. He's caused a lot of trouble, notably the pointless lengthening of the VietNam war, including over 20,000 American deaths. I sort of agree about the Canal. The US had bought what became the Canal Zone from Columbia in 1903 in the immediate aftermath of them gaining independence from Columbia after a long, violent struggle. Panama understandably felt they'd been taken advantage of. Territorial dispute continued for much of the 20th century often turning deadly, and Carter was able to make it stop by transferring ownership (after a 20 year delay) to Panama. This is a rare case where appeasement actually worked.
UNDER SHARIA LAW, IT'S ILLEGAL TO BE AN ATHEIST.
For once, I completely agree with Hamilton, but it's not clear why this matters. There is no risk whatever of Sharia Law being adopted in the United States or anywhere else in the western world, but there are a lot of people who would like to see its Christian version imposed here, such as the terrorists who kill abortion doctors and threaten those seeking abortion.
VOTE FOR THE AMERICAN
This was in autumn 2012. Hamilton apparently wanted us to vote for Mitt Romney, which as illustrated here, is exactly the same amount of American as President Obama.
WHY IS OBAMA TRYING TO STOP THE MILITARY VOTE?
He did close to the opposite. Ohio had a law that gave everybody in the state the opportunity to vote early. The Republican-led Ohio state legislature rescinded this law for everybody but overseas military. The Obama justice department sued to point out that this was not equal treatment and to try to restore early voting for everybody, but the Romney campaign distorted this to suggest that they were trying to eliminate early voting for the Military.
addition 26Jun2016
YOU GET TO CHOOSE: MURDERS & BEHEADINGS; OR A PROTECTED BORDER?
Since the murders and beheadings that ISIS is committing are mostly in a faraway country that doesn't border on the US, it isn't clear how toughening up the border could possibly protect against them. Moreover, all the ISIS related killings that have been occurring in western countries so far have been committed by people that were there legitimately; most often born there. Illegal immigrants to the US commit roughly 1/4th the number of crimes per capita as legal US residents.
addition 17Sep2016
SILLY PROGRESSIVES, PAYCHECKS ARE FOR WORKERS
Paychecks are for workers. We should stop giving government subsides to oil companies, giant agribusinesses, and most important of all, taxing financial profits at half the rate of actual work.
A few years back, Pew did a study that found the use of food stamps is strikingly independent of ideology: the likelihood that any individual will use food stamps over the course of their life is nearly identical regardless of ideology: liberal, conservative or moderate. It is, however, the case that Ds are more likely to have used them than Rs and Is: The Ds embrace the poor, while the Rs are hostile to them.
ARE YOU READY TO PAY HILLARY'S 3 TRILLION IN NEW TAXES?
The major part of Hillary's proposal is taxing financial income at roughly the same rates as earned income, which if projections are correct, would add about $1.1T in tax payments over the next ten years and $2.1T in the subsequent 10 years. This is predicated on the GDP more than doubling over that time, so the actual additional tax collected would be well under $100B a year at today's rates. (if the economy were to grow at Since people outside the top 1% generally don't have much financial income, nearly all of these new taxes will be paid by the top 1%.
Almost everything the Hamiltons say on the billboard is wrong, often absurdly so. He has a right to say stupid stuff, but I have a right to correct him.
A few samples:
NO NATION HAS EVER SPENT ITS WAY TO PROSPERITY
In fact, no country has ever done it any other way. A few didn't have to do the spending themselves, lucking into someone or something else who would do it for some reason. But the only way a nation (or a business or any other entity) can become prosperous is to invest.
THERE ARE MORE NRA MEMBERS THAN PEOPLE WITH OBAMACARE
There are about 5 million NRA members. There are between 9 and 17 million people with Obamacare, depending on how you count. For example, lots of people had insurance that didn't cover catastrophic illness, often by cancelling the policy because of some heretofore unnoticed preexisting condition. Now they can't do that. Clearly a PPACA beneficiary, but not part of over 9 million in the exchange.
20 TRILLION IN DEBT? AIN'T YOU EMBARRASSED YET?
It was under 18T at the time and it's still under 19. The debt was run up by the conservatives that Hamilton supports. More importantly, the debt is a meaningless number. The relevant number is the deficit, which Reagan and both Bushes hiked massively and Clinton and Obama reduced.
LIKE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT, RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE EVEN FURTHER
Lots of conservatives believe this, arguing that by raising the price of labor, demand for it would go down. Reality answers: don't believe in monocausality. Countless real world experiments have been done, and none of them show the effect he's talking about, and a few even show the opposite. There's clearly some other effect at work. Perhaps it's that by raising the wages low-wage workers, demand for goods is increased enough to counter the effect. Perhaps morale is raised enough to increase productivity sufficiently to pay for the extra labor cost. Perhaps it's something else. What is known is that at least for moderate increases, raising the minimum wage does not raise unemployment.
ALMOST 1 TRILLION TO AFRICAN DICTATORS. MARIA CANTWELL SPONSORED THE BILL
I'm not sure what he's talking about here (this is a frequent occurrence). Total foreign aid to all countries is about $50B, about 1/3rd of it military assistance to countries like Egypt and Pakistan (which are indeed run by dictators). Israel is by far the largest beneficiary. Countries in Africa get about $5B of this.
DEMOCRAT MOTTO: VOTE EARLY VOTE OFTEN
There's no evidence of consequential voter fraud and none of it swings Democrat. There is lots of evidence of election fraud and voter suppression and nearly all of it swings Republican
WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?
Obama has arranged for the release of both the short and long forms of his birth certificate. Both are easily found on line.
EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE: HOME OF ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISTS AND HOMOS
I can't find any evidence that Evergreen State is particularly the home of Earth Liberation Front or any other such group, or for that matter of gay folk. It does happen to be the closest 4 year college to the sign.
TOO MANY IN THE BOAT, TOO FEW ROWING
I sort of agree with this one but Hamilton's solution is probably the opposite of mine. There really is a demographic change that has the effect he's talking about. People are having fewer children and living longer, which means more people are collecting benefits relative to the number of people paying. But more significant is growing inequality: more have such low income that they don't pay much in taxes, and those at the top have been effective at getting the tax laws changed to their benefit.
MEXICO DEPORTS MORE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS THAN THE US DOES
I think he's talking about Central American illegals: Mexico deported about 173,000 last year, US 110,000. Of course, Mexico is a lot closer to Central America and catches a lot of people headed for the US en route. The US deported over 400,000 in 2012, nearly half to Mexico.
LET'S KEEP THE CANAL AND GIVE THEM KISSINGER
Totally agree about disposing of Kissinger. He's caused a lot of trouble, notably the pointless lengthening of the VietNam war, including over 20,000 American deaths. I sort of agree about the Canal. The US had bought what became the Canal Zone from Columbia in 1903 in the immediate aftermath of them gaining independence from Columbia after a long, violent struggle. Panama understandably felt they'd been taken advantage of. Territorial dispute continued for much of the 20th century often turning deadly, and Carter was able to make it stop by transferring ownership (after a 20 year delay) to Panama. This is a rare case where appeasement actually worked.
UNDER SHARIA LAW, IT'S ILLEGAL TO BE AN ATHEIST.
For once, I completely agree with Hamilton, but it's not clear why this matters. There is no risk whatever of Sharia Law being adopted in the United States or anywhere else in the western world, but there are a lot of people who would like to see its Christian version imposed here, such as the terrorists who kill abortion doctors and threaten those seeking abortion.
VOTE FOR THE AMERICAN
This was in autumn 2012. Hamilton apparently wanted us to vote for Mitt Romney, which as illustrated here, is exactly the same amount of American as President Obama.
WHY IS OBAMA TRYING TO STOP THE MILITARY VOTE?
He did close to the opposite. Ohio had a law that gave everybody in the state the opportunity to vote early. The Republican-led Ohio state legislature rescinded this law for everybody but overseas military. The Obama justice department sued to point out that this was not equal treatment and to try to restore early voting for everybody, but the Romney campaign distorted this to suggest that they were trying to eliminate early voting for the Military.
addition 26Jun2016
YOU GET TO CHOOSE: MURDERS & BEHEADINGS; OR A PROTECTED BORDER?
Since the murders and beheadings that ISIS is committing are mostly in a faraway country that doesn't border on the US, it isn't clear how toughening up the border could possibly protect against them. Moreover, all the ISIS related killings that have been occurring in western countries so far have been committed by people that were there legitimately; most often born there. Illegal immigrants to the US commit roughly 1/4th the number of crimes per capita as legal US residents.
addition 17Sep2016
SILLY PROGRESSIVES, PAYCHECKS ARE FOR WORKERS
Paychecks are for workers. We should stop giving government subsides to oil companies, giant agribusinesses, and most important of all, taxing financial profits at half the rate of actual work.
A few years back, Pew did a study that found the use of food stamps is strikingly independent of ideology: the likelihood that any individual will use food stamps over the course of their life is nearly identical regardless of ideology: liberal, conservative or moderate. It is, however, the case that Ds are more likely to have used them than Rs and Is: The Ds embrace the poor, while the Rs are hostile to them.
ARE YOU READY TO PAY HILLARY'S 3 TRILLION IN NEW TAXES?
The major part of Hillary's proposal is taxing financial income at roughly the same rates as earned income, which if projections are correct, would add about $1.1T in tax payments over the next ten years and $2.1T in the subsequent 10 years. This is predicated on the GDP more than doubling over that time, so the actual additional tax collected would be well under $100B a year at today's rates. (if the economy were to grow at Since people outside the top 1% generally don't have much financial income, nearly all of these new taxes will be paid by the top 1%.
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