Quotations from "Hidden Attraction" - The Mystery and History of Magnetism by Gerrit L. Verschuur and "The Void" by Frank Close
From "Hidden Attraction":
" .. gravity, electricity, and magnetism all showed an inverse square law of force .."
"The equations{Maxwell's} describing electric and magnetic phenomena involved time as a parameter, and hence also a velocity. Up to then no one had expected that to understand the nature of lodestone one needed to take time into account."
"The stunning conclusion was that electrical and magnetic forces, under the umbrella of a new description, electromagnetism, traveled at the speed of light."
" ... the original questions about the nature of magnetism led scientists into a new world, a universe filled with electromagnetic waves and electromagnetic phenomena .."
" ..we have created a new world and gained precious new insights into our place in the scheme of things on earth and in the rest of the universe."
" .. astronomical studies of the farthest reaches of the universe depend on being able to detect and interpret electromagnetic waves from space."
"Forming a reasonably correct idea of the atom and of the physics of its behavior allowed a hydrogen bomb, a small-scale version of a star, to be built."
" ... nothing that will ever be discovered in physics will undo the fact that an atomic bomb wiped out Hiroshima. The model of the atom that allowed the bomb to be built was an excellent approximation of the truth."
From "The Void":
"Every student of mechanics meets these laws < > It is certainly true that their application enables us to send spacecraft all the way to Jupiter and by applying the right amount of force at the right time, as dictated by Newton, the craft indeed arrives at its destination."
" ..there is no absolute measure of velocity, < >acceleration is different: its magnitude as measured in all inertial frames is the same."
"Newton's laws of motion < > In 300 years of careful experimentation their only failures are when applied to objects moving near to the speed of light, whence they are subsumed in Einstein's relativity theory, and at atomic length scales, where the laws of quantum mechanics replace them."
"While quantum mechanics makes precise statements about phenomena on subatomic length scales, it does so while ignoring the effects of gravity."
"As the universe expands, space expands but objects held together by electromagnetic forces, such as planets and stars, do not change size < > Electromagnetic radiation has nothing to hold it so its wavelength extends as the universe grows."
Friday, December 27, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Experimental Blog #172
Quotations from "The Infinite Resource - The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet" by Ramez Naam
" ... the most valuable resource we have and that we have ever had is the sum of our human knowledge .. " ".. the continual accumulation of new ideas, new inventions, and new knowledge about the world."
"Worldwide extreme poverty has plunged from more than 35 percent of the world population{ in 1970} to around 5 percent."{in 2005}
"Mobile phones have saturated the developed world, and now reach three quarters of the developing world as well."
" ...our stockpile of knowledge is the one natural resource that has grown over time rather than depleting < > knowledge increases our wealth < > Innovation increases our wealth."
"The physical resources matter. But the change in our knowledge resources - our science, our technology, our continual generation of new useful ideas - has made far more impact over the course of history. Knowledge acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value .."
"Farms in the United States use half the energy as they did in 1948, per unit of food produced."
"The energy needed to desalinate seawater has been reduced by nearly a factor of 9 over the last 40 years."{1970 to 2010}
"The limiting factors in mining are innovation and energy, not raw materials."
" .. the vast quantity of raw materials we possess, combined with their nearly infinite reusability, makes the value we can extract from that finite resource nearly limitless."
"To collect enough energy to provide for all of humanity's current needs, using current consumer-grade solar technology, it would take only 0.6 percent of the Earth's land area."
"We could meet the water needs of nine billion people with roughly .001 percent of the energy the sun delivers to our planet."
"China is now the world's leader in renewable energy."
" .. China is acting more aggressively against climate than we are, even though the problem is one of our making."
"Per terawatt hour of energy produced, coal kills an estimated 161 people worldwide. Nuclear, even after adding up all the potential future deaths attributed to every nuclear accident that has ever occurred, comes in at less than one-tenth of a death per terawatt hour."
" .. GM{genetically modified} crops have already reduced insecticide usage, reduced insecticide poisoning, encouraged soil conservation, reduced usage of the most dangerous herbicides like atrazine, reduced pollution of drinking water with herbicides, increased profits for developing world farmers trying to pull themselves out of poverty, and moderately increased yields."
"The average resident of the United States used one-third less oil in 2011 than in 1972."
" ... the most valuable resource we have and that we have ever had is the sum of our human knowledge .. " ".. the continual accumulation of new ideas, new inventions, and new knowledge about the world."
"Worldwide extreme poverty has plunged from more than 35 percent of the world population{ in 1970} to around 5 percent."{in 2005}
"Mobile phones have saturated the developed world, and now reach three quarters of the developing world as well."
" ...our stockpile of knowledge is the one natural resource that has grown over time rather than depleting < > knowledge increases our wealth < > Innovation increases our wealth."
"The physical resources matter. But the change in our knowledge resources - our science, our technology, our continual generation of new useful ideas - has made far more impact over the course of history. Knowledge acts as a multiplier of physical resources, allowing us to extract more value .."
"Farms in the United States use half the energy as they did in 1948, per unit of food produced."
"The energy needed to desalinate seawater has been reduced by nearly a factor of 9 over the last 40 years."{1970 to 2010}
"The limiting factors in mining are innovation and energy, not raw materials."
" .. the vast quantity of raw materials we possess, combined with their nearly infinite reusability, makes the value we can extract from that finite resource nearly limitless."
"To collect enough energy to provide for all of humanity's current needs, using current consumer-grade solar technology, it would take only 0.6 percent of the Earth's land area."
"We could meet the water needs of nine billion people with roughly .001 percent of the energy the sun delivers to our planet."
"China is now the world's leader in renewable energy."
" .. China is acting more aggressively against climate than we are, even though the problem is one of our making."
"Per terawatt hour of energy produced, coal kills an estimated 161 people worldwide. Nuclear, even after adding up all the potential future deaths attributed to every nuclear accident that has ever occurred, comes in at less than one-tenth of a death per terawatt hour."
" .. GM{genetically modified} crops have already reduced insecticide usage, reduced insecticide poisoning, encouraged soil conservation, reduced usage of the most dangerous herbicides like atrazine, reduced pollution of drinking water with herbicides, increased profits for developing world farmers trying to pull themselves out of poverty, and moderately increased yields."
"The average resident of the United States used one-third less oil in 2011 than in 1972."
Friday, December 6, 2013
Experimental Blog # 171
Quotations from "Dot Complicated" - Untangling Our Wired Lives by Randi Zuckerberg
"Now five billion people around the world have their own mobile phones, and about a billion of those are smartphones with access to the Internet, e-mail, and all the amazing apps that are available today."
"I follow a simple mantra. Work. Sleep. Family. Friends. Fitness.
Pick three."
Two of the author's online behavior rules for children are:
#3. Only add "friends" online if you also know them in real life.
#5. If you're going to put something in writing, make sure you would be comfortable if it was reprinted in a newspaper.
"... about the trend of social media "shaming" and how it's gotten wildly out of hand."
"One tweet, one photo, one blog post is now all it takes for people to lose their jobs, their reputations, and their credibility."
"When you shame-post someone, it can have serious effects on that person's life."
"Now the ability to broadcast to everyone is universal, and the wildest dreams of the craziest futurists from the 1990s are a reality. Today everyone is a journalist, everyone is an art gallery, everyone is a newspaper, a magazine, and a wire service, all in one.
And everyone is a mini media empire."
"Now five billion people around the world have their own mobile phones, and about a billion of those are smartphones with access to the Internet, e-mail, and all the amazing apps that are available today."
"I follow a simple mantra. Work. Sleep. Family. Friends. Fitness.
Pick three."
Two of the author's online behavior rules for children are:
#3. Only add "friends" online if you also know them in real life.
#5. If you're going to put something in writing, make sure you would be comfortable if it was reprinted in a newspaper.
"... about the trend of social media "shaming" and how it's gotten wildly out of hand."
"One tweet, one photo, one blog post is now all it takes for people to lose their jobs, their reputations, and their credibility."
"When you shame-post someone, it can have serious effects on that person's life."
"Now the ability to broadcast to everyone is universal, and the wildest dreams of the craziest futurists from the 1990s are a reality. Today everyone is a journalist, everyone is an art gallery, everyone is a newspaper, a magazine, and a wire service, all in one.
And everyone is a mini media empire."
Monday, December 2, 2013
Experimental Blog # 170
Quotations and notes from "The Electronic Silk Road" - How the Web Binds the World Together in Commerce by Anupam Chander
"If an event in cyberspace occurs both "everywhere and nowhere" < >, whose law governs?"
"Despite public perception to the contrary, the United States actually exports far more services{counting both electronically mediated and other services} than it imports. The United States had a net surplus in commercial services trade of $187 billion in 2011, < > India imported < > almost as much as it exported < > in 2011 ..."
"Who makes the rules that govern the ways that Facebook connects a seventh of humanity < > a community of a billion people."
"More than 80 percent of Facebook users lie outside the United States." Does this mean that there are about 200 million users of Facebook in the USA?!
"Even while Chinese factories have made that country the capitol of outsourcing in manufacturing, China has greatly lagged India in the outsourcing of services."
"The desire to liberalize the flow of goods across borders in service of efficient production has at times been insufficiently attentive to the rights of workers and the health of the environment.
"Trade has made and remade the world for millennia. The addition of services to global trade will remake the world yet again."
"If an event in cyberspace occurs both "everywhere and nowhere" < >, whose law governs?"
"Despite public perception to the contrary, the United States actually exports far more services{counting both electronically mediated and other services} than it imports. The United States had a net surplus in commercial services trade of $187 billion in 2011, < > India imported < > almost as much as it exported < > in 2011 ..."
"Who makes the rules that govern the ways that Facebook connects a seventh of humanity < > a community of a billion people."
"More than 80 percent of Facebook users lie outside the United States." Does this mean that there are about 200 million users of Facebook in the USA?!
"Even while Chinese factories have made that country the capitol of outsourcing in manufacturing, China has greatly lagged India in the outsourcing of services."
"The desire to liberalize the flow of goods across borders in service of efficient production has at times been insufficiently attentive to the rights of workers and the health of the environment.
"Trade has made and remade the world for millennia. The addition of services to global trade will remake the world yet again."
Monday, October 14, 2013
Experimental Blog # 169
Quotations from "Einstein's Mistakes" - The Human Failings of Genius by Hans C. Ohanian
"Einstein's theories of relativity rest on foundations first laid by Galileo - the special theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the relativity of motion, and the general theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the equal rates of acceleration of freely falling bodies. Furthermore, both the special and the general theories incorporate and extend Newton's laws, and both incorporate Maxwell's equations."
"In 1861, Maxwell finished assembling all the laws of electricity and magnetism in a system of four equations, Maxwell's equations. He discovered that these equations imply the existence of electromagnetic waves consisting of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that are created by oscillating electric charges."
"Einstein was not the discoverer of E=mc{squared}. The equation was known several years before Einstein < > The equation played only a marginal role in the discovery of nuclear fission and the development of the atomic bomb. < > The first complete proof of E=mcc was not found by Einstein, in 1905 or at any other time. It was found by Max von Laue, in 1911."
"Einstein's mistakes did not affect his rank because they did not prevent him from making his groundbreaking discoveries."
"How much of an advantage did Einstein gain over his colleagues by his mistakes? Typically, about ten or twenty years. < > other physicists would have discovered the theory of general relativity some twenty years later, via a path originating in relativistic quantum mechanics."
" ...if Einstein had not discovered his equations for the gravitational field in 1915, then quantum theorists would certainly have discovered them in the mid-1930s, some twenty years later."
"In the absence of Einstein, all these discoveries would have been made somewhat later - mostly by an entirely different path - and physics today would have been pretty much the same as it is."
"Einstein's theories of relativity rest on foundations first laid by Galileo - the special theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the relativity of motion, and the general theory rests on Galileo's discovery of the equal rates of acceleration of freely falling bodies. Furthermore, both the special and the general theories incorporate and extend Newton's laws, and both incorporate Maxwell's equations."
"In 1861, Maxwell finished assembling all the laws of electricity and magnetism in a system of four equations, Maxwell's equations. He discovered that these equations imply the existence of electromagnetic waves consisting of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that are created by oscillating electric charges."
"Einstein was not the discoverer of E=mc{squared}. The equation was known several years before Einstein < > The equation played only a marginal role in the discovery of nuclear fission and the development of the atomic bomb. < > The first complete proof of E=mcc was not found by Einstein, in 1905 or at any other time. It was found by Max von Laue, in 1911."
"Einstein's mistakes did not affect his rank because they did not prevent him from making his groundbreaking discoveries."
"How much of an advantage did Einstein gain over his colleagues by his mistakes? Typically, about ten or twenty years. < > other physicists would have discovered the theory of general relativity some twenty years later, via a path originating in relativistic quantum mechanics."
" ...if Einstein had not discovered his equations for the gravitational field in 1915, then quantum theorists would certainly have discovered them in the mid-1930s, some twenty years later."
"In the absence of Einstein, all these discoveries would have been made somewhat later - mostly by an entirely different path - and physics today would have been pretty much the same as it is."
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Experimental Blog # 168
Quotation from "Relativity" - The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein, translated by Robert W. Lawson, Introduction by Roger Penrose, Commentary by Robert Geroch, and a Historical Essay by David C. Cassidy
Quotations from the commentary by Robert Geroch:
"There are many other methods to measure "the length of a moving rod."
"There is considerably less reason to believe that these various methods must all agree in this realm. In fact, according to relativity theory they do not. For each different method there will be a factor - which can be calculated within special relativity .. . For one method ... might always yield precisely the rest-length of the rod; and for some other method ... the rod ... would be deemed to have lengthened rather than shortened.
Thus "moving objects contract" is not a very good summary of what is predicted by special relativity."
"Similar remarks apply to "time dilation." There are numerous experiments the results of which deserve to be called the "elapsed time" between two events; and different experiments will generally yield different answers. Einstein's time dilation refers to one particular choice of an experiment."
Quotations from the commentary by Robert Geroch:
"There are many other methods to measure "the length of a moving rod."
"There is considerably less reason to believe that these various methods must all agree in this realm. In fact, according to relativity theory they do not. For each different method there will be a factor - which can be calculated within special relativity .. . For one method ... might always yield precisely the rest-length of the rod; and for some other method ... the rod ... would be deemed to have lengthened rather than shortened.
Thus "moving objects contract" is not a very good summary of what is predicted by special relativity."
"Similar remarks apply to "time dilation." There are numerous experiments the results of which deserve to be called the "elapsed time" between two events; and different experiments will generally yield different answers. Einstein's time dilation refers to one particular choice of an experiment."
Friday, September 20, 2013
Experimental Blog # 167
Notes from "Bankrupting Physics" - How Today's Top Scientists Are Gambling Away Their Credibility by Alexander Unzicker and Sheilla Jones
"According to the "standard" or "concordance" model of cosmology, the universe is made up of 4 percent usual matter, while the rest consists of invisible substances such as dark matter and dark energy."
Light travels at the speed of light no matter how fast you are going, or whether you observe it sitting or moving.
" time is measured differently in a moving system than in one at rest, with the strange result that clocks in motion have to run slower. As startling as this may seem, the famous factor by which time passes slower{the square root of 1 minus velocity squared / divided by the speed of light squared} is derived by simple logic."
"The name of this surprising fact is "time dilation." "
"For general relativity{the equation} is 1 minus 2 x gravitational constant x mass of Earth / divided by radius of Earth x speed of light squared."
"Accordingly, time runs slower for one day in New York than at the top of one of Colorado's many mountains. But the difference is a mere forty nanoseconds." " .. it is indeed measurable with atomic clocks."
"Envisioning an absolute time, which flows without any relation to matter, might be completely false, as false as Newton's notion that absolute space without matter exists."
"According to the "standard" or "concordance" model of cosmology, the universe is made up of 4 percent usual matter, while the rest consists of invisible substances such as dark matter and dark energy."
Light travels at the speed of light no matter how fast you are going, or whether you observe it sitting or moving.
" time is measured differently in a moving system than in one at rest, with the strange result that clocks in motion have to run slower. As startling as this may seem, the famous factor by which time passes slower{the square root of 1 minus velocity squared / divided by the speed of light squared} is derived by simple logic."
"The name of this surprising fact is "time dilation." "
"For general relativity{the equation} is 1 minus 2 x gravitational constant x mass of Earth / divided by radius of Earth x speed of light squared."
"Accordingly, time runs slower for one day in New York than at the top of one of Colorado's many mountains. But the difference is a mere forty nanoseconds." " .. it is indeed measurable with atomic clocks."
"Envisioning an absolute time, which flows without any relation to matter, might be completely false, as false as Newton's notion that absolute space without matter exists."
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Experimental Blog # 166
Notes and comments from "Last Ape Standing" - The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived by Chip Walter
"Despite its academic-sounding name, a good deal of brawling often goes on within the field of paleoanthropology."
"Today hominid refers to all great apes, including gorillas and chimpanzees, but hominin refers specifically to ancient and modern humans who split off from a common chimp ancestor seven million years ago, or thereabouts."
The first of the genus Homo, Homo habilis, arose about 2,350,000 years ago.
"Between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago the first anatomically modern humans emerged, probably near Ethiopia. {But there is anything but universal agreement on this}."
As many as 12 other species of Homo have also been found.
Seven other genera of hominin, going as far back as 7 million years, have also been found; but there are probably, if not certainly, very many other undiscovered genera and species.
"...between 4 percent and 6 percent of the genomes of the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Island contain Denisovan DNA."
" ..most of the human race from Europe to the islands of Southeast Asia{and probably farther}is part Neanderthal! That Africans seem not to share any Neanderthal blood indicates that these two families mated after the wave of Homo sapiens departed Africa, but before their descendants headed into Europe and Asia."
"How many more species and hybrids might we find now that DNA analysis has opened so many genetic doors?"
"It is not as crazy as it might once have been thought that a more modern descendant of Homo erectus was still living as recently as twenty-five thousand years ago."
"Nearly every waking moment we describe what is going on in our minds to ourselves ..."
Does this describe the human mind as a speaker and a listener? This life-long conversation with ourselves must be, by far, our most important conversation.
"When you are thinking, and talking, to yourself, the you that you are speaking to is a symbol."
"We are not only an animal that can explore a life not yet lived, and dream of a future we desire, we can also take hold of these dreams and make them come true. Out of a chaotic flux of random events in nature that have no agenda and are utterly incapable of making any plans, we have evolved into a planning, agenda-making, dream-conjuring creature."
"And don't we all live in imaginary worlds of our own making - in the tomorrows that we plan; the lives that we lay out; the conversations we imagine having with friends or enemies?"
"Despite its academic-sounding name, a good deal of brawling often goes on within the field of paleoanthropology."
"Today hominid refers to all great apes, including gorillas and chimpanzees, but hominin refers specifically to ancient and modern humans who split off from a common chimp ancestor seven million years ago, or thereabouts."
The first of the genus Homo, Homo habilis, arose about 2,350,000 years ago.
"Between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago the first anatomically modern humans emerged, probably near Ethiopia. {But there is anything but universal agreement on this}."
As many as 12 other species of Homo have also been found.
Seven other genera of hominin, going as far back as 7 million years, have also been found; but there are probably, if not certainly, very many other undiscovered genera and species.
"...between 4 percent and 6 percent of the genomes of the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Island contain Denisovan DNA."
" ..most of the human race from Europe to the islands of Southeast Asia{and probably farther}is part Neanderthal! That Africans seem not to share any Neanderthal blood indicates that these two families mated after the wave of Homo sapiens departed Africa, but before their descendants headed into Europe and Asia."
"How many more species and hybrids might we find now that DNA analysis has opened so many genetic doors?"
"It is not as crazy as it might once have been thought that a more modern descendant of Homo erectus was still living as recently as twenty-five thousand years ago."
"Nearly every waking moment we describe what is going on in our minds to ourselves ..."
Does this describe the human mind as a speaker and a listener? This life-long conversation with ourselves must be, by far, our most important conversation.
"When you are thinking, and talking, to yourself, the you that you are speaking to is a symbol."
"We are not only an animal that can explore a life not yet lived, and dream of a future we desire, we can also take hold of these dreams and make them come true. Out of a chaotic flux of random events in nature that have no agenda and are utterly incapable of making any plans, we have evolved into a planning, agenda-making, dream-conjuring creature."
"And don't we all live in imaginary worlds of our own making - in the tomorrows that we plan; the lives that we lay out; the conversations we imagine having with friends or enemies?"
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Experimental Blog # 165
Quotations and comments from "The Art of Betrayal - The Secret History of MI6" or Life and Death in the British Secret Service by Gordon Corera
"The task of the Secret Intelligence Service{SIS} - or to use its more popular name MI6 ..."
"The British public had become obsessed with traitors .."
"On both sides of the Atlantic, a fire had been lit by *******'s betrayal < > It blazed with fierce intensity, nearly consuming both the CIA and MI6 until it burnt itself out."
"The early 1960s were a golden age for the small army of Soviet spies plying their trade in Britain."
"Did it all matter? Did the spying and the lying and betraying make any real difference? Critics argue that all the spying accomplished was to raise the temperature by heightening suspicions that fuelled the Cold War in which ignorant armies clashed by night. Those who believe in intelligence say it did make a difference by managing a hostility that was real and dangerous."
"Donald Rumsfeld expressed this strange view best when he said 'the absence of evidence is not absence of evidence'."
By the end of this book, which is filled with fascinating and often tragic stories, but not so many basic facts, is the author Gordon Corera completely oblivious, or is he only pretending?
"The task of the Secret Intelligence Service{SIS} - or to use its more popular name MI6 ..."
"The British public had become obsessed with traitors .."
"On both sides of the Atlantic, a fire had been lit by *******'s betrayal < > It blazed with fierce intensity, nearly consuming both the CIA and MI6 until it burnt itself out."
"The early 1960s were a golden age for the small army of Soviet spies plying their trade in Britain."
"Did it all matter? Did the spying and the lying and betraying make any real difference? Critics argue that all the spying accomplished was to raise the temperature by heightening suspicions that fuelled the Cold War in which ignorant armies clashed by night. Those who believe in intelligence say it did make a difference by managing a hostility that was real and dangerous."
"Donald Rumsfeld expressed this strange view best when he said 'the absence of evidence is not absence of evidence'."
By the end of this book, which is filled with fascinating and often tragic stories, but not so many basic facts, is the author Gordon Corera completely oblivious, or is he only pretending?
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Experimental Blog # 164
Quotations from "The Faiths of the Postwar Presidents - From Truman to Obama" by David L. Holmes
"In Christianity, four churches fall into the liturgical category: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, and Lutheran. These four churches worship in a more formal way than the churches categorized as nonliturgical - such as the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Mennonite < > Liturgical churches emphasize the Christian sacraments, follow patterns of worship inherited from centuries of Christianity, and tend to be less emotional and more ritualistic than services in nonliturgical churches."
"Evangelical Christians view the Bible as the supreme authority for faith and conduct, emphasize born-again conversion experience{and not simply baptism} as the entrance to Christianity, and believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not only possible for humans but essential to their salvation."
"Eisenhower presided over a major religious revival in the United States. < > Every religious group that occupied the approximate American religious center - Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and mainline Protestantism - grew. It was an unexpected legacy for a president who was raised in the extreme left wing of American religion."
As for President John F. Kennedy:
"The religious profile of Rosemary, the oldest sister, is difficult to determine. < > Possibly bipolar < > After a lobotomy arranged by her father when she was twenty-three caused permanent disability, Rosemary was placed in the care of nuns in rural Wisconsin for the rest of her life."
"But the most sweeping assessments came from Kennedy himself. "If I had to live my life over again," he wrote to a friend, "I would have a different father, a different wife, and a different religion.""
" ...the churches that Lyndon Johnson attended were what Christianity refers to as "liturgical churches.""
"Johnson probably hopped from church to church for a combination of reasons."
"Thus Johnson varied the churches he attended - Christian{or Disciples of Christ}, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, and others."
"In Christianity, four churches fall into the liturgical category: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, and Lutheran. These four churches worship in a more formal way than the churches categorized as nonliturgical - such as the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Mennonite < > Liturgical churches emphasize the Christian sacraments, follow patterns of worship inherited from centuries of Christianity, and tend to be less emotional and more ritualistic than services in nonliturgical churches."
"Evangelical Christians view the Bible as the supreme authority for faith and conduct, emphasize born-again conversion experience{and not simply baptism} as the entrance to Christianity, and believe that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not only possible for humans but essential to their salvation."
"Eisenhower presided over a major religious revival in the United States. < > Every religious group that occupied the approximate American religious center - Judaism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and mainline Protestantism - grew. It was an unexpected legacy for a president who was raised in the extreme left wing of American religion."
As for President John F. Kennedy:
"The religious profile of Rosemary, the oldest sister, is difficult to determine. < > Possibly bipolar < > After a lobotomy arranged by her father when she was twenty-three caused permanent disability, Rosemary was placed in the care of nuns in rural Wisconsin for the rest of her life."
"But the most sweeping assessments came from Kennedy himself. "If I had to live my life over again," he wrote to a friend, "I would have a different father, a different wife, and a different religion.""
" ...the churches that Lyndon Johnson attended were what Christianity refers to as "liturgical churches.""
"Johnson probably hopped from church to church for a combination of reasons."
"Thus Johnson varied the churches he attended - Christian{or Disciples of Christ}, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, and others."
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Experimental Blog # 163
Quotations and comments on "The Secretary" - A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power by Kim Ghattas
"Even today, while America is deeply in debt again, exhausted by two wars, its influence challenged by rivals big and small, millions of people around the world still believe that the United States can snap its fingers to make things happen, for good or bad .."
"As ever, interpretation of any statement depended on your political leanings: you were either looking for a sign that help was on its way or looking for a clue about America's nefarious designs."
"Governments everywhere that instinctively and narrowly pursued their national interest somehow expected the United States to suspend the pursuit of its own interests to please them. The Arabs wanted the United States to ditch the Israelis; the Israelis wanted the United States to bomb Iran; the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted Obama to wait with him for the Shiite messiah; Pakistan wanted to be given Afganistan on a gold platter; India wanted the United States to say it could have Kashmir; Japan wanted Washington to make Beijing go away."
Was there a murder of an American special representative, or envoy, for Afganistan and Pakistan? Kim Ghattas says or asks no such thing. She only writes that he "died suddenly" and, "Not everybody had agreed with Holbrooke, and there was much infighting within the administration about him, but he kept people's minds focused on the issue."
Kim Ghattas writes extensively about the very embarrassing revelations and exposures in 2010 by WikiLeaks; but since none of them were "top secret", they apparently did not cause very serious or lasting damage.
Kim Ghattas was a very close witness and reporter of the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and seemed to move infectiously on to Egypt and Libya and Syria.
Of course, the author also writes about many other subjects from her 300,000 mile journey with the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In the acknowledgements section at the end of her book Kim Ghattas writes, "Living through war is nothing to be thankful for but it did push me to always seek meaning in life." And, "my parents taught me never to give up and to never blame anyone or anything else for what's going wrong in my life."
"Even today, while America is deeply in debt again, exhausted by two wars, its influence challenged by rivals big and small, millions of people around the world still believe that the United States can snap its fingers to make things happen, for good or bad .."
"As ever, interpretation of any statement depended on your political leanings: you were either looking for a sign that help was on its way or looking for a clue about America's nefarious designs."
"Governments everywhere that instinctively and narrowly pursued their national interest somehow expected the United States to suspend the pursuit of its own interests to please them. The Arabs wanted the United States to ditch the Israelis; the Israelis wanted the United States to bomb Iran; the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted Obama to wait with him for the Shiite messiah; Pakistan wanted to be given Afganistan on a gold platter; India wanted the United States to say it could have Kashmir; Japan wanted Washington to make Beijing go away."
Was there a murder of an American special representative, or envoy, for Afganistan and Pakistan? Kim Ghattas says or asks no such thing. She only writes that he "died suddenly" and, "Not everybody had agreed with Holbrooke, and there was much infighting within the administration about him, but he kept people's minds focused on the issue."
Kim Ghattas writes extensively about the very embarrassing revelations and exposures in 2010 by WikiLeaks; but since none of them were "top secret", they apparently did not cause very serious or lasting damage.
Kim Ghattas was a very close witness and reporter of the Arab uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010 and seemed to move infectiously on to Egypt and Libya and Syria.
Of course, the author also writes about many other subjects from her 300,000 mile journey with the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In the acknowledgements section at the end of her book Kim Ghattas writes, "Living through war is nothing to be thankful for but it did push me to always seek meaning in life." And, "my parents taught me never to give up and to never blame anyone or anything else for what's going wrong in my life."
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Experimental Blog # 162
Comments on "The Roberts Court" - The Struggle for the Constitution by Marcia Coyle
This book is so complicated and detailed that it is very difficult for someone who is not well acquainted with American law and the judicial system to understand rather large parts of it.
The Supreme Court and the American judicial system probably have more to do with American government and politics than many people realize. The White House and its current occupant, the houses of congress, and the public activity of both the Democratic and Republican parties can be so distracting that the real governing, that is control, of the American people through its many courts might sometimes hardly be noticed. People might think that since they never go into them, any of the courts that is; they then have nothing to do with them.
There are so many laws passed by so many governing bodies, and the acts of the federal government can be so long, even 2 or 3 thousand pages, that millions of American citizens and their lawyers can continuously find ways to question the "constitutionality" of laws and acts of all kinds that they don't like. Or, at least, so it seems.
It is tempting to say that the "brains", or intelligence, of the American government, that means control, are concentrated in its juducial system; with the Supreme Court at the top. The well thought out arguments carried out before the 9 Supreme Court justices, and involving them, too, must be among the best examples of America's strongest minds; or, at least, strongest in the use of carefully chosen words in carefully composed sentences.
This book is so complicated and detailed that it is very difficult for someone who is not well acquainted with American law and the judicial system to understand rather large parts of it.
The Supreme Court and the American judicial system probably have more to do with American government and politics than many people realize. The White House and its current occupant, the houses of congress, and the public activity of both the Democratic and Republican parties can be so distracting that the real governing, that is control, of the American people through its many courts might sometimes hardly be noticed. People might think that since they never go into them, any of the courts that is; they then have nothing to do with them.
There are so many laws passed by so many governing bodies, and the acts of the federal government can be so long, even 2 or 3 thousand pages, that millions of American citizens and their lawyers can continuously find ways to question the "constitutionality" of laws and acts of all kinds that they don't like. Or, at least, so it seems.
It is tempting to say that the "brains", or intelligence, of the American government, that means control, are concentrated in its juducial system; with the Supreme Court at the top. The well thought out arguments carried out before the 9 Supreme Court justices, and involving them, too, must be among the best examples of America's strongest minds; or, at least, strongest in the use of carefully chosen words in carefully composed sentences.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Experimental Blog # 161
Quotations and comments from "Plutocrats - The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland
"The rise of the 1 percent is a global phenomenon .."
"The 1 percent is outpacing everyone else in the emerging economies as well."
"Today two terrifically powerful forces are driving economic change: the technology revolution and globalization."
"Globalization is working - the world overall is getting richer. But a lot of the costs of that transition are being borne by specific groups of workers in the developed West."
" ..Credit Suisse calculated that there were about 29.6 million millionaires < > in the world, about half a percent of the total global population. North Americans .. account for 37 percent .. 37.2 percent .. are European ..Asia-Pacific is home to ..19.2 percent .. there are just over 1 million in China{3.4 percent}."
"Forbes classifies 840 of the 1,226 people on its 2012 billionaire ranking as self-made."
"In 2011, after Viktor Yanukovych, whose candidacy was backed by several eastern Ukrainian oligarchs, was elected president, he imprisoned Ms. Tymoshenko, in a politically motivated case redolent of Mikhail Khodorkovsky."
"When it comes to the creation of twenty-first-century billionaires, the USSR's sale of the century is also the most powerful driver, more important than Silicon Valley's technological revolution or the flourishing of finance on Wall Street and in the city of London."
"The fire sale of the assets of the former Soviet Union stands out because it marked such a sharp shift from nearly total state ownership ..But it was also part of a wider global trend."
" .. the seventy richest members of the NPC{National People's Congress in China} made more money in 2011 than the total combined net worth of all the members of all three branches of U.S. government - the president and his cabinet, both houses of congress, and the justices of the supreme court{all 660 members of the three federal branches}."!!
" .. there were 271 billionaires in China in 2011 .."
"China's plutocrats don't fight the state because they are the state - and when any of them forget that, they are treated with summary brutality: between 2003 and 2011, at least fourteen Chinese billionaires were executed."!!{also quoted as a fact in blog # 154}.
"The rise of the 1 percent is a global phenomenon .."
"The 1 percent is outpacing everyone else in the emerging economies as well."
"Today two terrifically powerful forces are driving economic change: the technology revolution and globalization."
"Globalization is working - the world overall is getting richer. But a lot of the costs of that transition are being borne by specific groups of workers in the developed West."
" ..Credit Suisse calculated that there were about 29.6 million millionaires < > in the world, about half a percent of the total global population. North Americans .. account for 37 percent .. 37.2 percent .. are European ..Asia-Pacific is home to ..19.2 percent .. there are just over 1 million in China{3.4 percent}."
"Forbes classifies 840 of the 1,226 people on its 2012 billionaire ranking as self-made."
"In 2011, after Viktor Yanukovych, whose candidacy was backed by several eastern Ukrainian oligarchs, was elected president, he imprisoned Ms. Tymoshenko, in a politically motivated case redolent of Mikhail Khodorkovsky."
"When it comes to the creation of twenty-first-century billionaires, the USSR's sale of the century is also the most powerful driver, more important than Silicon Valley's technological revolution or the flourishing of finance on Wall Street and in the city of London."
"The fire sale of the assets of the former Soviet Union stands out because it marked such a sharp shift from nearly total state ownership ..But it was also part of a wider global trend."
" .. the seventy richest members of the NPC{National People's Congress in China} made more money in 2011 than the total combined net worth of all the members of all three branches of U.S. government - the president and his cabinet, both houses of congress, and the justices of the supreme court{all 660 members of the three federal branches}."!!
" .. there were 271 billionaires in China in 2011 .."
"China's plutocrats don't fight the state because they are the state - and when any of them forget that, they are treated with summary brutality: between 2003 and 2011, at least fourteen Chinese billionaires were executed."!!{also quoted as a fact in blog # 154}.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Experimental Blog # 160
Quotations from "Secrets of Silicon Valley" - What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World by Deborah Perry Piscione
"Silicon Valley is a meritocratic culture that rewards innovative ideas, independent thinking, and hubris. It .. also embraces youth, failure, and transparency."
" ..Silicon Valley technologies impact the world's most basic ideas about work, learning, and lifestyles."
"We're just beginning a global startup revolution in talent development and idea creation , a movement so widespread that it could redefine the foundational concept of business and work in the twenty-first century."
" ..Silicon Valley is responsible for creating almost every technological innovation that has and will continue to change the global world in the way we live, work, and socialize."
"No longer does China want to be known as the world's manufacturing plant, but rather seven strategic emerging industries have been targeted for growth: next-generation information technology, biotechnology, new enegry, energy conservation, clean energy vehicles, new materials, and high-end manufacturing equipment."
"Silicon Valley is essentially a one-industry town < > all of its energy and resources go toward creating the best possible high-tech economy."
"Silicon Valley is a meritocratic culture that rewards innovative ideas, independent thinking, and hubris. It .. also embraces youth, failure, and transparency."
" ..Silicon Valley technologies impact the world's most basic ideas about work, learning, and lifestyles."
"We're just beginning a global startup revolution in talent development and idea creation , a movement so widespread that it could redefine the foundational concept of business and work in the twenty-first century."
" ..Silicon Valley is responsible for creating almost every technological innovation that has and will continue to change the global world in the way we live, work, and socialize."
"No longer does China want to be known as the world's manufacturing plant, but rather seven strategic emerging industries have been targeted for growth: next-generation information technology, biotechnology, new enegry, energy conservation, clean energy vehicles, new materials, and high-end manufacturing equipment."
"Silicon Valley is essentially a one-industry town < > all of its energy and resources go toward creating the best possible high-tech economy."
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Experimental Blog # 159
Quotations from "Bend, Not Break - A Life in Two Worlds" by Peng Fu with MeiMei Fox
"When I was little, I thought dragonflies chose to hover just above my family's garden because they liked to admire its beauty."
"I read somewhere that men learn from studying theories, wheras women learn by observing others."
"The Chinese have a proverb:
"The number one strategy is retreat." "
" I possess no extraordinary talents. I simply was born with the couriosity to learn, the tenacity to make a better life, the desire to help others, and a great deal of resilience."
" ...challenging experiences break us all at some point - our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines."
"When I was little, I thought dragonflies chose to hover just above my family's garden because they liked to admire its beauty."
"I read somewhere that men learn from studying theories, wheras women learn by observing others."
"The Chinese have a proverb:
"The number one strategy is retreat." "
" I possess no extraordinary talents. I simply was born with the couriosity to learn, the tenacity to make a better life, the desire to help others, and a great deal of resilience."
" ...challenging experiences break us all at some point - our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines."
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Experimental Blog # 158
Comments on "Animal Wise" - The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures by Virginia Morell
Although the 18th century philosopher Voltaire and the 19th century scientist Charles Darwin seem to be exceptions, the science of animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, did not become genuinely scientifically respectable until later in the 20th century.
This science attempts to describe the mental lives of other animals, from "ants to apes"; and more specifically in this book: fish, birds, rats, elephants, dolphins, dogs and wolves.
What do their minds contain? Images, smells, sounds, emotions, memories, self-awareness; even imagination and abstract concepts?
The contributions of contempory science women are very noticable and fundamental. In this book they include: Jane Goodall, Victoria Braithwaite, Irene Pepperberg, Karen McComb, Cynthia Moss, Diana Reiss, and Rachel Smolker.
Although the 18th century philosopher Voltaire and the 19th century scientist Charles Darwin seem to be exceptions, the science of animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, did not become genuinely scientifically respectable until later in the 20th century.
This science attempts to describe the mental lives of other animals, from "ants to apes"; and more specifically in this book: fish, birds, rats, elephants, dolphins, dogs and wolves.
What do their minds contain? Images, smells, sounds, emotions, memories, self-awareness; even imagination and abstract concepts?
The contributions of contempory science women are very noticable and fundamental. In this book they include: Jane Goodall, Victoria Braithwaite, Irene Pepperberg, Karen McComb, Cynthia Moss, Diana Reiss, and Rachel Smolker.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Experimental Blog # 157
Comments on "Gold Rush in the Jungle" - The Race to Discover and Defend the Rarest Animals of Vietnam's "Lost World" by Dan Drollette
During the War in Vietnam, or the American War, or the Second Indochina War, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and over 12 million gallons of herbicides destroyed over 850 square miles of forest.
The destruction in Vietnam, although enormous, was concentrated in selected areas of the country's 127,240 square miles of total area. There were many remarkable places where native wildlife flourished; including 63 new species of vertebrates, up to and over 200 pounds, that were unknown to science before 1992.
But, finally, came peace, developement, and "prosperity", as well as, extinction.
During the War in Vietnam, or the American War, or the Second Indochina War, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and over 12 million gallons of herbicides destroyed over 850 square miles of forest.
The destruction in Vietnam, although enormous, was concentrated in selected areas of the country's 127,240 square miles of total area. There were many remarkable places where native wildlife flourished; including 63 new species of vertebrates, up to and over 200 pounds, that were unknown to science before 1992.
But, finally, came peace, developement, and "prosperity", as well as, extinction.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Experimental Blog # 156
Quotations and comments from "Death Zones and Darling Spies" - Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting by Beverly Deepe Keever
" .. in escalating the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, Kennedy brushed aside the prophetic warning given to him in 1962 by French general Charles de Gaulle: "You will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire."
"These newcomers < > about 6,000 < > nearly tenfold the limit of 685 < > allowed < > under international accords agreed upon on July 21, 1954 .. "
"Also, as the American public was to learn years later, breaching this international agreement was Kenndy's secret order initiating covert operations against North Vietnam and Laos conducted by U.S. Special Forces .."
Beginning in 1961, "U.S. helicopters would go on to fly an amazing number of over thirty-six million{!!!} flights over South Vietnam and North Vietnam."
"Unwilling to support either a Communist takeover of Vietnam or continued French colonial rule, Eisenhower vigorously supported Diem as a third force." "If elections had been held in 1956, Eisenhower is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh .."
"Calling Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen for the second time, Johnson implored him to intervene again with Nixon < >"'They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war. < > This is treason." Dirksen responded simply, "I know."" This is regarding Richard Nixon's contacts with the South Vietnamese before the 1968 American election.
"On June 8, 1969, Nixon announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Like a giant yo-yo, U.S. numbers began a free fall, from a peak of 543,000 on March 31, 1969, until on December 31, 1973, "less than 250" U.S. military personnel were assigned in Vietnam."??!!
The last chapter of Beverly Deepe Keever's book is mostly about Pham Xuan An, the author's evidently remarkable "associate and a Communist spy."
" .. in escalating the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, Kennedy brushed aside the prophetic warning given to him in 1962 by French general Charles de Gaulle: "You will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire."
"These newcomers < > about 6,000 < > nearly tenfold the limit of 685 < > allowed < > under international accords agreed upon on July 21, 1954 .. "
"Also, as the American public was to learn years later, breaching this international agreement was Kenndy's secret order initiating covert operations against North Vietnam and Laos conducted by U.S. Special Forces .."
Beginning in 1961, "U.S. helicopters would go on to fly an amazing number of over thirty-six million{!!!} flights over South Vietnam and North Vietnam."
"Unwilling to support either a Communist takeover of Vietnam or continued French colonial rule, Eisenhower vigorously supported Diem as a third force." "If elections had been held in 1956, Eisenhower is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh .."
"Calling Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen for the second time, Johnson implored him to intervene again with Nixon < >"'They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war. < > This is treason." Dirksen responded simply, "I know."" This is regarding Richard Nixon's contacts with the South Vietnamese before the 1968 American election.
"On June 8, 1969, Nixon announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Like a giant yo-yo, U.S. numbers began a free fall, from a peak of 543,000 on March 31, 1969, until on December 31, 1973, "less than 250" U.S. military personnel were assigned in Vietnam."??!!
The last chapter of Beverly Deepe Keever's book is mostly about Pham Xuan An, the author's evidently remarkable "associate and a Communist spy."
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Experimental Blog # 155
Quotations and notes from "Almost Everyone's Guide to Science" - The Universe, Life and Everything by John Gribbin with Mary Gribbin
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
Friday, April 19, 2013
Experimental Blog # 154
Quotations and notes from "Tiger Head, Snake Tails - China Today, How It Got There and Where It Is Heading" by Jonathan Fenby
"Average annual per capita income has soared from 528 yuan at the start of < > the early 1980s to 19,100 in urban areas and 5,900 in the countryside at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century."
"Sixty-five million Chinese travel abroad each year."
"The number of patent applications has risen from 50,000 to 300,000 a year since 2000{again placing China second only to the USA}".
"A Chinese publication has reported that more than fifty billionaires have died of unnatural causes since 2003; of these seventeen committed suicide, fifteen were murdered and fourteen were executed."
"Eighty million Chinese belong to the Communist Party .."{apparently 20% are women}.
Since China has such diversity of climate and terrain, "China contains 30,000 species of plants{compared to 17,000 in all North America}."
"Shanghai < > has constructed the equivalent of 334 Empire State Buildings in fourteen years."
"Religion is officially regulated with five faiths allowed: Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Daoism - the latter being China's only indigenous creed, with its doctrine of the pursuit of the mystical way, freewheeling belief system and bewildering array of gods and demons .."
"The central bank{of China} estimates that 18,000 officials have skipped abroad in the last two decades, taking a total of more that $120 billion with them."
"Average annual per capita income has soared from 528 yuan at the start of < > the early 1980s to 19,100 in urban areas and 5,900 in the countryside at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century."
"Sixty-five million Chinese travel abroad each year."
"The number of patent applications has risen from 50,000 to 300,000 a year since 2000{again placing China second only to the USA}".
"A Chinese publication has reported that more than fifty billionaires have died of unnatural causes since 2003; of these seventeen committed suicide, fifteen were murdered and fourteen were executed."
"Eighty million Chinese belong to the Communist Party .."{apparently 20% are women}.
Since China has such diversity of climate and terrain, "China contains 30,000 species of plants{compared to 17,000 in all North America}."
"Shanghai < > has constructed the equivalent of 334 Empire State Buildings in fourteen years."
"Religion is officially regulated with five faiths allowed: Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism and Daoism - the latter being China's only indigenous creed, with its doctrine of the pursuit of the mystical way, freewheeling belief system and bewildering array of gods and demons .."
"The central bank{of China} estimates that 18,000 officials have skipped abroad in the last two decades, taking a total of more that $120 billion with them."
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Experimental Blog # 153
Quotations from "Chinese Characters - Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land", edited by Angilee Shah and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Forward by Panaj Mishra
Here are a few quotations from 3 of the 18 contributors, 10 men and 8 women, who compose this anthology.
From Panaj Mishra:
"...the word "capitalism" scarcely describes an economic system in which a one-party state controls the major banks and companies and regulates the movement of capital. < > China has surely also adopted commonplace Western practices such as the privatization and truncating of public services, deunionization, and the fragmenting and lumpenization of urban working classes."
From Jeffrey Wasserstrom:
"It is true that China is still run by a Communist Party ... It is a Communist Party, however, that has stopped celebrating class struggle < > that the pursuit of a "harmonious society" is what China's leaders today talk about most .."
From Angilee Shah:
" ...China's economic rise is{quoting Adam Hersh} "the most rapid socioecnomic transformation in the history of human civilization."
"Some five hundred million people have been raised out of poverty since the 1980s .."
"China today is a place of great diversity and incredible people who are living through an unprecedented time."
Here are a few quotations from 3 of the 18 contributors, 10 men and 8 women, who compose this anthology.
From Panaj Mishra:
"...the word "capitalism" scarcely describes an economic system in which a one-party state controls the major banks and companies and regulates the movement of capital. < > China has surely also adopted commonplace Western practices such as the privatization and truncating of public services, deunionization, and the fragmenting and lumpenization of urban working classes."
From Jeffrey Wasserstrom:
"It is true that China is still run by a Communist Party ... It is a Communist Party, however, that has stopped celebrating class struggle < > that the pursuit of a "harmonious society" is what China's leaders today talk about most .."
From Angilee Shah:
" ...China's economic rise is{quoting Adam Hersh} "the most rapid socioecnomic transformation in the history of human civilization."
"Some five hundred million people have been raised out of poverty since the 1980s .."
"China today is a place of great diversity and incredible people who are living through an unprecedented time."
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Experimental Blog # 152
Quotations and notes from "The Terror Factory" - Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism by Trevor Aaronson
"A Senate oversight committee found in 1975 the FBI had 1,500 informants. In 1980.., 2,800 ...Six years later .. 6,000 .." Today, after the Moslem{Muslim} terrorist attacks on 9/11, the FBI has an "official roster" of 15,000 informants. The author, Trevor Aaronson, writes that the FBI has a "vast army of spies, located in every community in the United States with enough Muslims to support a mosque.."
"The FBI currently spends $3 billion annually to hunt an enemy that is largely of its own creation."
"According to government and federal court records, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 500 terrorism defendants since 9/11."
"Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directely involved with terrorism at all, but were .. small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas."
"Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists .."
This is a very provocative book on a very controversial subject.
"A Senate oversight committee found in 1975 the FBI had 1,500 informants. In 1980.., 2,800 ...Six years later .. 6,000 .." Today, after the Moslem{Muslim} terrorist attacks on 9/11, the FBI has an "official roster" of 15,000 informants. The author, Trevor Aaronson, writes that the FBI has a "vast army of spies, located in every community in the United States with enough Muslims to support a mosque.."
"The FBI currently spends $3 billion annually to hunt an enemy that is largely of its own creation."
"According to government and federal court records, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than 500 terrorism defendants since 9/11."
"Of the 508 defendants, 243 had been targeted through an FBI informant, 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting, and 49 had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the people who didn't face off against an informant weren't directely involved with terrorism at all, but were .. small-time criminals with distant links to terrorists overseas."
"Of the 508 cases, I could count on one hand the number of actual terrorists .."
This is a very provocative book on a very controversial subject.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Experimental Blog # 151
Comments on "The Terror Courts" - Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay by Jess Bravin
President George W. Bush created the Special Military Commission by executive order in November of 2001 to deal with the captured foreign terrorists after the 9/11 attacks on America. It seems that neither he nor his administration had any confidence in the existing American judicial system.
The "offshore" commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was authorized to use what might be called "torture lite" to obtain confessions and other useful information. The prisoners were not to be tortured to death or physically injured. It seems that they had to be in such condition that, after a day or two of rest, they could be brought into the courtroom and not appear to be injured or abused. Numerous times the author also mentions the "clandestine network" of CIA prisons that are secretly located in foreign countries, but not much seems to be known about what transpired in these places.
Jess Bravin apparently concludes that the Guantanamo military commission was actually much slower to produce results than the established American judicial system would have been. Very few convictions could be obtained because confessions or evidence produced under such allowed conditions could not be upheld. Several prisoners were released for political reasons to England and Australia.
For its own political reasons the administration of President Barak Obama has continued the military commission at Guantanamo Bay. However, substantial changes have been made; for instance, "torture lite" is no longer supposed to be used to obtain evidence or confessions. Besides that the author writes that if prisoners are actually convicted of anything, they seem to receive a more lenient sentence than they would receive from the established American judicial system.
President George W. Bush created the Special Military Commission by executive order in November of 2001 to deal with the captured foreign terrorists after the 9/11 attacks on America. It seems that neither he nor his administration had any confidence in the existing American judicial system.
The "offshore" commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was authorized to use what might be called "torture lite" to obtain confessions and other useful information. The prisoners were not to be tortured to death or physically injured. It seems that they had to be in such condition that, after a day or two of rest, they could be brought into the courtroom and not appear to be injured or abused. Numerous times the author also mentions the "clandestine network" of CIA prisons that are secretly located in foreign countries, but not much seems to be known about what transpired in these places.
Jess Bravin apparently concludes that the Guantanamo military commission was actually much slower to produce results than the established American judicial system would have been. Very few convictions could be obtained because confessions or evidence produced under such allowed conditions could not be upheld. Several prisoners were released for political reasons to England and Australia.
For its own political reasons the administration of President Barak Obama has continued the military commission at Guantanamo Bay. However, substantial changes have been made; for instance, "torture lite" is no longer supposed to be used to obtain evidence or confessions. Besides that the author writes that if prisoners are actually convicted of anything, they seem to receive a more lenient sentence than they would receive from the established American judicial system.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Experimental Blog # 150
Quotations and notes from "The Joy of X" - A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity by Steven Strogatz
"... numbers have lives of their own. ..Even though they exist in our minds, once we decide what we mean by them,..They obey certain laws and have certain properties, .. and ways of combining with one another ...they are eerily reminiscent of atoms and stars, the things of this world ...except that those things exist outside our heads."
"The Babylonians ..numerical system was based on 60 ...Sixty is the smallest number that can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6{besides 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30}. ..Because of its promiscuous divisibilty, 60 is much more congenial .. for any sort of calculation or measurement that involves cutting things into equal parts"{such as hours or minutes or circles}.
"Quantum mechanics describes real atoms, and hence all of matter, as packets of sine waves. Even at the cosmological scale, sine waves form the seeds of all that exists."!
"...vector calculus is helping to explain how dragonflies, bumblebees, and hummingbirds can fly - something that had long been a mystery to conventional fixed-wing aerodynamics."
"With the notions of divergence and curl ...{Using mathematical maneuvers equivalent to vector calculus} Maxwell's equations .. express" the four fundamental laws of electric and magnetic fields: how electricity and magnetism are related to their sources of charged particles and currents and how they interact over space and time to produce undulating waves.
The laws of probability turn individual randomness into collective regularity.
"... numbers have lives of their own. ..Even though they exist in our minds, once we decide what we mean by them,..They obey certain laws and have certain properties, .. and ways of combining with one another ...they are eerily reminiscent of atoms and stars, the things of this world ...except that those things exist outside our heads."
"The Babylonians ..numerical system was based on 60 ...Sixty is the smallest number that can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6{besides 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30}. ..Because of its promiscuous divisibilty, 60 is much more congenial .. for any sort of calculation or measurement that involves cutting things into equal parts"{such as hours or minutes or circles}.
"Quantum mechanics describes real atoms, and hence all of matter, as packets of sine waves. Even at the cosmological scale, sine waves form the seeds of all that exists."!
"...vector calculus is helping to explain how dragonflies, bumblebees, and hummingbirds can fly - something that had long been a mystery to conventional fixed-wing aerodynamics."
"With the notions of divergence and curl ...{Using mathematical maneuvers equivalent to vector calculus} Maxwell's equations .. express" the four fundamental laws of electric and magnetic fields: how electricity and magnetism are related to their sources of charged particles and currents and how they interact over space and time to produce undulating waves.
The laws of probability turn individual randomness into collective regularity.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Experimental Blog # 149
Quotations and notes from "The Whole Story of Climate" - What Science Reveals about the Nature of Endless Change by E. Kirsten Peters
" ... most major climate changes in geologically recent times have occurred in a mere twenty or thirty years."
"No full climate crash has occurred in the span of written history."
" ... the Pleistocene ... alternated between long periods of cold - lasting roughly 100,000 years - and short periods of considerably warmer times - lasting about 10,000 years."
"If we think of climate change as our enemy, we will always be defeated."
" ... geologists ... realized that there must be diamond-rich rocks in Canada{in the Barren Lands about two hundred miles northeast of Yellowknife?!} that had sent a few gems thousands of miles to the south{New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illionois?!} courtesy of staggering volumes of ice."
" ... from pollen studies all around the world in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it became abundantly clear to geologists that regional climate changes are always occurring on Earth."
"The Vostock{Antarctica} ice record of 420,000 years covers four great cycles of climate change on Earth."
" .. the jury is still very much out on the idea that relates the history of agriculture to greenhouse gases and global climate."
"On long timescales, increases in temperature, controlled by the Earth's orbit around the sun, create more methane and carbon dioxide. ... from what most scientists can tell, greenhouse gases are not the primary driver of long-term climate change on Earth .."
" ... most major climate changes in geologically recent times have occurred in a mere twenty or thirty years."
"No full climate crash has occurred in the span of written history."
" ... the Pleistocene ... alternated between long periods of cold - lasting roughly 100,000 years - and short periods of considerably warmer times - lasting about 10,000 years."
"If we think of climate change as our enemy, we will always be defeated."
" ... geologists ... realized that there must be diamond-rich rocks in Canada{in the Barren Lands about two hundred miles northeast of Yellowknife?!} that had sent a few gems thousands of miles to the south{New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illionois?!} courtesy of staggering volumes of ice."
" ... from pollen studies all around the world in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, it became abundantly clear to geologists that regional climate changes are always occurring on Earth."
"The Vostock{Antarctica} ice record of 420,000 years covers four great cycles of climate change on Earth."
" .. the jury is still very much out on the idea that relates the history of agriculture to greenhouse gases and global climate."
"On long timescales, increases in temperature, controlled by the Earth's orbit around the sun, create more methane and carbon dioxide. ... from what most scientists can tell, greenhouse gases are not the primary driver of long-term climate change on Earth .."
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Experimental Blog # 148
Notes and quotations from "Restless Empire - China and the World Since 1750" by Odd Arne Westad
This history of modern China begins with the Qing{also sometimes called Manchu} dynasty, which ruled for almost three hundred years, from 1644 to 1912. Even during the 15th century Chinese were emigrating along trade routes to other settlements in Southeast Asia; Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Java, Malaya, and Thailand. In the 19th and 20th centuries, besides the United States and Canada, Chinese also emigrated to Cuba and Peru. Eventually totalling about 20 million people, over 75% had gone to Southeast Asia.
Today, the author says, about 40 million people of Chinese descent live outside of China, compared to more than 350 million people of European descent who live outside of Europe.
Beginning in the 1830s several European powers began incursions into China for their commercial advantages. By the end of the 19th century these European powers were joined by Japan. "In 1911 ... an army mutiny forced the mother of the last emporer, the four-year-old Puyi, to issue his abdication. By imperial decree, China became a republic ..."
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 abruptly terminated Japan's occupation of China. However, the vigorous support of the Soviet Union gave the victory in the Chinese civil war to the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP. There followed a very thorough "sovietization" of China, which possiblly cost an additional 4 to 5 million human lives.
However, the author calls the Great Leap Forward campaign, which ended in 1961, "the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history". Odd Arne Westad writes that an estimated 45 million people died from hunger, illness, or exhaustion.
"During the 1960s, China went through a period of isolation and increasing irrelevance in international affairs." "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was by far the largest and most intense government campaign in Chinese history. It killed fewer people than the Great Leap and it affected the economy less, but in terms of people's daily lives and of lives ruined and made meaningless it was far worse."
Odd Arne Westad writes over another one hundred pages to end his book on a somewhat more positive note.
This history of modern China begins with the Qing{also sometimes called Manchu} dynasty, which ruled for almost three hundred years, from 1644 to 1912. Even during the 15th century Chinese were emigrating along trade routes to other settlements in Southeast Asia; Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Java, Malaya, and Thailand. In the 19th and 20th centuries, besides the United States and Canada, Chinese also emigrated to Cuba and Peru. Eventually totalling about 20 million people, over 75% had gone to Southeast Asia.
Today, the author says, about 40 million people of Chinese descent live outside of China, compared to more than 350 million people of European descent who live outside of Europe.
Beginning in the 1830s several European powers began incursions into China for their commercial advantages. By the end of the 19th century these European powers were joined by Japan. "In 1911 ... an army mutiny forced the mother of the last emporer, the four-year-old Puyi, to issue his abdication. By imperial decree, China became a republic ..."
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 abruptly terminated Japan's occupation of China. However, the vigorous support of the Soviet Union gave the victory in the Chinese civil war to the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP. There followed a very thorough "sovietization" of China, which possiblly cost an additional 4 to 5 million human lives.
However, the author calls the Great Leap Forward campaign, which ended in 1961, "the greatest man-made catastrophe in human history". Odd Arne Westad writes that an estimated 45 million people died from hunger, illness, or exhaustion.
"During the 1960s, China went through a period of isolation and increasing irrelevance in international affairs." "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was by far the largest and most intense government campaign in Chinese history. It killed fewer people than the Great Leap and it affected the economy less, but in terms of people's daily lives and of lives ruined and made meaningless it was far worse."
Odd Arne Westad writes over another one hundred pages to end his book on a somewhat more positive note.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Experimental Blog # 147
Quotations and notes from "Round About the Earth" - Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit by Joyce E. Chaplin
"Satellites were indeed the easiest way for nations to enter the space age, ... France{November 1965}, Japan{February 1970}, and China{April 1970} became the third, fourth, and fifth nations to put satellites in orbit." Post-colonial nations also put up satellites: India{briefly functioning in April 1975}, Indonesia{1976}, the Arab League{1985}, and Pakistan{1990}.
"Apollo 17 delivered .. the last person, so far, to have strolled the lunar surface. This expedition of 1972, the longest Moon stay, lasted 75 hours, about 11 percent of the 655.73 hours that it takes for the Moon to circle the planet."
"By 2012, over five hundred people had gone into space."
"The USSR established nine orbital outposts between 1971 and 1982. .. America's Skylab orbited from 1973 to 1979, .. A subsequent Russian station, Mir, orbited for fifteen years, a total of 86,000 times around the world, .. from 1986 to 2001. .. Finally, there is the world's current extraterrestrial outpost, the International Space Station{ISS}, first orbited in 1998, .."
At 569 kilometers above Earth, and higher, are the 'robotic emissaries'. "By the end of 2007, close to nine hundred satellites were in orbit, operated by authorities in over forty different countries."
Of course the earlier parts of the book were very interesting too.
"Satellites were indeed the easiest way for nations to enter the space age, ... France{November 1965}, Japan{February 1970}, and China{April 1970} became the third, fourth, and fifth nations to put satellites in orbit." Post-colonial nations also put up satellites: India{briefly functioning in April 1975}, Indonesia{1976}, the Arab League{1985}, and Pakistan{1990}.
"Apollo 17 delivered .. the last person, so far, to have strolled the lunar surface. This expedition of 1972, the longest Moon stay, lasted 75 hours, about 11 percent of the 655.73 hours that it takes for the Moon to circle the planet."
"By 2012, over five hundred people had gone into space."
"The USSR established nine orbital outposts between 1971 and 1982. .. America's Skylab orbited from 1973 to 1979, .. A subsequent Russian station, Mir, orbited for fifteen years, a total of 86,000 times around the world, .. from 1986 to 2001. .. Finally, there is the world's current extraterrestrial outpost, the International Space Station{ISS}, first orbited in 1998, .."
At 569 kilometers above Earth, and higher, are the 'robotic emissaries'. "By the end of 2007, close to nine hundred satellites were in orbit, operated by authorities in over forty different countries."
Of course the earlier parts of the book were very interesting too.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Experimental Blog # 146
Quotations and notes from "The Last Lost World - Ice Ages, Human Origins, and the Invention of the Pleistocene" by Lydia V. Pyne and Stephen J. Pyne
"As a geologic epoch, the Pleistocene lasted from approximately 2.6 million to 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It includes an ice age, ...Earth's fifth great extinction event{the Toba eruption 73,000 to 71,000 years ago}, and the appearance and evolution of the hominins." "but Earth did not re-lay its tectonic tiles in any major way during the epoch."
There are 3 cycles{or "orbital forcings"}, orbital stretching, axis tilting, and axis wobbling, which coincide in extremely complex ways to cause Ice Ages. "80 percent of the Pleistocene was glacial, and no interglacial lasted more than 12,000 years."
"The saga of Homo was not unique within the Pleistocene for its evolutionary experience was characteristic of the times. What happened to hominins .. happened to clades of other taxa ..", such as the African bovids and the elephantids -- the proboscideans.
"An estimated 210 skulls of paleohumans exist".. Apparently in 8 species, so far.
"The earliest tendencies toward the modern sapients probably appeared 500,000 years ago in Africa with clear definitions both anatomical and genetic evident between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago."
"Some 22,000 years ago the last glacial reached its maximum ... But a consensus places the general collapse at 11,500 to 14,500 years ago."
"Between 3,000 and 50,000 years ago, some two-thirds of mammal genera and half of all species that weighed more than roughly one hundred pounds went missing."
"...most of the mammalian biomass in the world today is either human{40 megatons of carbon} or human domesticates{100 to 120 megatons of carbon}, while wild vertebrates claim only 5 megatons."
"The arts and humanities can no longer claim - even pretend to claim - that they can make valid statements about the material world and how it works. .. But philosophy, literature, and history can help explain how the sciences work. .. They can illuminate how we might understand and express the practice of knowing, and how we come to a felt sense of who we are and how we should behave."
Science "cannot, unaided, address what it means to live, what makes a life worth living, what purpose spans the narrative of a life or of humanity. It cannot say why a society should even engage in this kind of inquiry."
"As a geologic epoch, the Pleistocene lasted from approximately 2.6 million to 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It includes an ice age, ...Earth's fifth great extinction event{the Toba eruption 73,000 to 71,000 years ago}, and the appearance and evolution of the hominins." "but Earth did not re-lay its tectonic tiles in any major way during the epoch."
There are 3 cycles{or "orbital forcings"}, orbital stretching, axis tilting, and axis wobbling, which coincide in extremely complex ways to cause Ice Ages. "80 percent of the Pleistocene was glacial, and no interglacial lasted more than 12,000 years."
"The saga of Homo was not unique within the Pleistocene for its evolutionary experience was characteristic of the times. What happened to hominins .. happened to clades of other taxa ..", such as the African bovids and the elephantids -- the proboscideans.
"An estimated 210 skulls of paleohumans exist".. Apparently in 8 species, so far.
"The earliest tendencies toward the modern sapients probably appeared 500,000 years ago in Africa with clear definitions both anatomical and genetic evident between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago."
"Some 22,000 years ago the last glacial reached its maximum ... But a consensus places the general collapse at 11,500 to 14,500 years ago."
"Between 3,000 and 50,000 years ago, some two-thirds of mammal genera and half of all species that weighed more than roughly one hundred pounds went missing."
"...most of the mammalian biomass in the world today is either human{40 megatons of carbon} or human domesticates{100 to 120 megatons of carbon}, while wild vertebrates claim only 5 megatons."
"The arts and humanities can no longer claim - even pretend to claim - that they can make valid statements about the material world and how it works. .. But philosophy, literature, and history can help explain how the sciences work. .. They can illuminate how we might understand and express the practice of knowing, and how we come to a felt sense of who we are and how we should behave."
Science "cannot, unaided, address what it means to live, what makes a life worth living, what purpose spans the narrative of a life or of humanity. It cannot say why a society should even engage in this kind of inquiry."
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