Why should the US care about the Middle East?

The Middle East is a mess. There's Iraq, of course. That doesn't seem likely to end well, or at all. Then there's Iran, with it's looming nuclear capability. And, of course there's Israel. Israel and Palestine. Israel and Lebanon. Israel and us.

Not to be crude, but, why should we, in the United States, give a flip? Is it because stability in any region is valuable to global commerce? If that were the case, we'd jettison Israel in a heartbeat and good riddance. Is it because, as the defender of liberty where ever it's threatened, we have a moral obligation? If that were the case, we'd look more carefully at whose side we're on. Moreover, why isn't it just as important in Darfur, or Kashmir, or Sri Lanka?

The inescapable conclusion is that we're too dependant on oil to leave politics and conquest in the oil-rich Holy Land to the tender mercies of its inhabitants. And that means that our policy is even more stupid than its disasterous results would indicate. If the US invested a tenth of the money we spend on war, aid, diplomacy, or just plain crap in the ME on hydrogen fuel cells, or wind generation, or who knows what alternatives, we'd be in a much more secure position to let them have their fun and be done with it.

The water crisis, a solution

Every year, it seems, the upper Mississippi river floods. Towns, large and small, in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, are inundated and angry. Meanwhile, at the western edge of the Mississippi watershed, that is, Colorado's eastern slope, we're in the midst of a 10-year drought that has farmers desperate and the rest of us concerned, too. My own propery, in fact, includes what is euphemistically labeled on topo' maps as the headwaters of Horse Creek. Horse Creek, you see, is dry. On the map, it winds through south-eastern Colorado to join the Arkansas River (not dry) in La Junta. In reality, it's just sand. There are a lot of supposed creeks like that, all supposedly feeding the Arkansas but, in fact, dry.

Now, we seem (by we I mean people) to have no problem stringing pipelines all over creation to carry oil and natural gas. Those pipelines have serious problems: a leak can mean serious environmental catastrophe. On the other hand, we (again, people) have solved all the major engineering problems involved in laying the pipe in the first place, insuring continuous flow, regulating output, that sort of thing.

What if, instead of oil, we piped water from the upper Mississippi to the barren plains of the western basin? Two problems solved: flooding controlled, and drought mitigated. Moreover, water isn't biodegradable, compressible, or any other-ble that makes oil pipelines dangerous, or expensive to maintain, or detrimental to the environment. The pipe springs a leak in Nebraska? Who cares? It's just water! The cost of installation would probably be recouped in 2 or 3 years of disaster recovery savings. Plus, I might just get a lake out of it. Furthermore, the water will eventually get to the same place, joining the Mississippi in Arkansas after it's quieted down some.

Economic Growth

Now, I know less about economics than almost anything else (except maybe curling). Still I think I know one thing that seems to fly in the face of all economic pronouncements, left or right: growth is not sustainable. We hear reports about the health of the economy based on growth and stagnation; growth is good, stagnation is bad. Well, the words themselves are certainly charged. Everyone knows that growing implies health. Stagnation implies fetid swamps, mosquitos, poisonous snakes. But, what if, instead of stagnation we said stability? That certainly sounds nicer.

Economic theory was developed in a time of seemingly limitless resources and relatively small poplulations. In those circumstances, there is no immediate down side to growth. So growth is an easy way to sustain an economy. Generate more people. Generate more jobs for them. Use up more resources doing it. It was always a bad model but there was no way to see that it was "through the trees". Well, the trees are gone now, literally. It isn't that the depletion of resources, or the rise in population has changed a growth-based model from good to bad, it was always a bad model. There have always been those who could see that but they were dismissed by the establishment on both the right and the left as alarmists, pessimists, and, when all else fails, idiots.

We need a good economic model. One that doesn't require growth to be strong. There is, in fact, no logical reason why an economic model must equate growth with success. Consider a system where the number of elements remains constant, but not the elements themselves. The resources that fuel the processes in this system are recaptured, re-cycled, to fuel the next generation of processes. And so on. This is, indeed, the definition of a star, well known to be a powerful engine.

I don't know what the right model is. But I get angry when I hear growth equated with economic health. Growth is growth. That's all. Economic health must be measured against people's ability to live, and the expectation that their children will be able to live, as well.

Truth and Science

There seems to be a good deal of misunderstanding in American society about what science is. When some social engineers want to teach creationism, or intelligent design, alongside evolution in science classes, they betray a fundamental misunderstanding of science, as well as embuing science with far more importance than it has. "Evolution is just a theory", they say. Well of course it's a theory. That's what science is. Relativity is a theory. Quantum electrodynamics is a theory. They all happen to be theories that are consistent with all currently known evidence. Therefore, they are accepted as valid theories, for the time being, until some evidence is discovered with which they are not consistent.

What scares the social engineers is that they confuse scientific theories with truth. Science isn't about truth. Art is about truth. Religion is about truth. Philosophy, even, is about truth. But science is fundamentally and emphatically not about truth. Science is about fact. Science is about models. Science is about what is not true, in the sense that it can be shown that a given explanation does not jibe with data. But science is never about truth. Truth should not be taught in science class; it's just that simple.

I learned the "scientific method", attributed to Francis Bacon, in junior high school. It went something like this:

• observe a phenomenon
• formulate a(n) hypothesis (aka "model")
  
• test the hypothesis by any of the following means (listed in order of rigor):
  
• experimentation
  
• observation
• literature search
• conjecture
• analyse results
• draw conclusions

The only latitude for "truth" in that list is that a phenomenon was truly observed (which is different from stating that it truly happened), the data truly resulted from the experiment (if an experiment was conducted), and possibly, that the hypothesis truly did not fit the data. That's the absolute closest that science can come to truth.

Consider the study of mitochondrial DNA (mDNA). Scientists observed first that there was such a thing. Mitochondria are organelles within the cells of organisms that appear to have their own life-cycles but are carried through the host cells' reproduction. What a gas! Furthermore, as they are carried in fully formed cells, mitochondria are passed through the generations by mothers (whose ova are basically whole cells). Then they discovered that mitochondria mutate at knowable rate. Now this is a theory. They know that mitochondria mutate. They observe a pattern to that mutation, and they build a model of that mutation rate. Should any evidence come to light that violates that model, the theory would have to be discarded. None has. Using this model, scientists can calculate, and have calculated, at what point in the past two individuals (or an entire population) had a common maternal ancestor. They did it with dogs and they did it with people. Is it true? That's not a valid scientific question. It is consistent with all known data and the model. That's all.

Art, on the other hand, is about truth. That's why it isn't open to debate. That's why it isn't subject to refutation. That's why it can be wrong. Truth must be believed because there's no other way it can be known. Science, fact, data, need not be believed; it can be seen. Granted, sometimes the seeing requires some pretty elaborate equipment (including, say, mathematics), but it can be seen. Which is not to say that science is devoid of belief. The entire history of science, in fact, rests on one fundamental belief: there is an objective reality. It's actually pretty ironic. The basic tenet of science is that there is a truth that is, in essence, orthogonal to scientific observation. All we, as scientific beings, can do is sense simplified projections of reality. This was said about particle physics but I think it applies to all science: it's like hitting a swiss watch with a hammer and then trying to figure out what time it is by looking at the pieces. The more we learn about how complex our models can be without spanning the complexity of the underlying reality, the more we turn to art, religion, or, in extreme cases, drugs to express the truth.

So, if a school board somewhere doesn't like what science is, they should just not teach it. No regrets, no shame, no excuses. I like science but it's only one discipline among many for approaching or avoiding reality. To insist that science be taught, but that something that is not science be included in the curriculum, is to grant more importance to science than I think those who would do so would care to admit. Let them say with no embarassment: "We don't need no stinking science! We'll teach truth!". It wouldn't be my first choice but it is certainly within the prerogatives of local authorities. There are lot's of other worthwhile things to teach and to learn. But to teach that which is not science as science does a disservice to everyone.

The Myth of the Militia

First of all, I want to state that I think the men and women in the military offer a sacrifice to the rest of us way out of proportion to what we, as a society, have a right to expect. That said, however, their role in the US and the world has become confused with that of an organization that has not existed since the Revolution. That institution was the Colonial Militia. The militias, indeed, were sworn to defend the homeland, to preserve the liberty and tranquility of the citizenry, and to, unilaterally, decide when that was necessary. After the adoption of the Constitution, the militias were disbanded (although, interestingly, not disarmed), and the United States Armed Forces were established under the control of the civil government. There's nothing particularly profound in that but we (as a society) seem to have forgotten what it means. Our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, in uniform do not defend liberty; they implement policy. If it is the policy of the government du jour, then they do defend liberty. It's been a while since I have believed that, indeed, that was the policy of the US government. If, instead, it is the policy of the US government to control some strategic global asset, then that's what they do. They don't get to choose, and it is a fundamental tenet of constitutional democracy that they should not get to choose.

So, not to disparage anyone, it's wrong to say things like "they put their lives on the line so we can enjoy liberty at home" or some such tripe. They do put their lives on the line and for that they deserve our respect and support. But it isn't so that we at home can practice the freedoms guaranteed in our founding documents. It is to implement policy. In that, the Armed Forces are really no different from other instruments of policy, other than that they are frequently in immediate danger, and that they project immediate danger. To mythologize our armed service personnel is dangerous and anti-democratic. We are frequently told that to question the war in Iraq, for instance, is to dishonor our troops. Hogwash! The job of our troops is to implement policy. The job of the civilian government is to devise policy. If I disagree with a policy, my argument is not with the instrument but with the wielder.

So it isn't surprising that events occur that are at odds with the (erroneous) notion that the role of the US military is to defend, protect, and generally support democracy. Events like MyLai. Events like Abu Graib. Events like Haditha. The public, the same people who equate questioning policy to disloyalty, recoils in horror. The picture is blurred. Our heroes are not who they seemed. But the fact is that they are just what they seem: instruments of American policy, acting in our name, carrying out the policies of our government. Don't make them heroes when they're not. Don't make them villains when they're not. It is the policy that stinks.

a good walk spoiled

I was out walking with my dogs, who, admittedly, were more interested in the ground squirrels than in the walk.



Where I live is considered "short grass prairie", but after 4 years of drought, it's more like "desert". Still, I like it and I find the empty landscape beautiful in its own way.








So I was unhappy to find that my own little piece of prairie had been sullied by the bad habits of my neighbor.

My property is shaped like a tetris piece, and this particular neighbor owns 40 acres tucked into one of the jags in my place. He doesn't live there, he just stores a (growing) pile of junk right along the fence line. It is, after all, his right to keep whatever he wants on his side of the fence. I have to say, though, I always find it irritating that he pushes up so close to the fence. Given that, it was inevitable that a good, strong, south wind would cause problems, and it did.

coincidence, correlation, and causality

Two or more things happen. What do we say about them? More and more in our public discourse, I see signs of a hasty and lazy leap to the conclusion of a causal relationship when there is barely any reason to believe in even a correlation. Some definitions:

• Coincidence - two or more things happening. For my purposes, they don't even need to be said to happen at the same time.
  
• Correlation - two or more things whose occurrence is (are?) connected. It could be that one thing always happens when one or more other thing happens, or only if something else doesn't happen, or ...
• Causality - one or more thing whose occurrence is a direct result of one or more (other) thing.
  

It is the purview of science, or at least the scientific method, to establish what relationship exists, if any, among events. A tree falls on my car and my wife calls her mother. Coincidence, probably. A tree falls on my car and the wind blows. There could be a causal relationship there but there really isn't any basis, just from these two events, to conclude that there is one.

Establishing causality, as opposed to making it up, is hard. Often in science, particularly in physics, the scientist develops a model that fits some (hopefully, all) the data associated with a particular phenomenon or observation. A model is not the same as physical reality. It is useful precisely because it is a simplification of reality. If a model works, then it is often possible to derive causal relationships (mathematically) from the model. Even then, the validity of that causality is only conditional on the model. It is frequently the case that the prediction of causal relationships is what allows a model to be tested, and discarded. Without a model, that is, in reality, establishing a causal relationship as opposed to a correlation, is often impossible.

Politicians are, in my opinion, the worst offenders, because their intellectual laziness has the broadest effect. Every time a politician says "...because...", examine the foundation for the causal relationship. Mostly, there won't be any. Bush says "the economy is strong because of our tax cuts". Wrong on so many levels. First of all, I don't see much evidence that the economy is strong. But, that aside, how do we know anything about a causal relationship between the tax cuts and the strength (or weakness) of the economy? They're just two pieces of (varyingly believable) information.

immigration

I'm trying to understand the current fuss about immigration, illegal or otherwise. What if, instead of Mexico, Colorado were being flooded with transplants from, say, Kentucky. What would we do? Surely, those new Coloradans would be competing with those already here for jobs. Would we tell them they couldn't come? More likely, we would, as a nation, address the issue in Kentucky that was causing them to leave.

I know, really I do: Mexico is a foreign country. But here's the point: we have a trillion dollar deficit. We're spending money we don't have to fight in Iraq. We're spending money we don't have to fix the levies in New Orleans. And now we're going to spend more money we don't have to do what everyone knows will not solve the problem of immigrants coming across the Mexican border. I'd rather spend less money to fix the problem, rather than more money to just act tough. The United States should work with the Mexican government to address problems in the Mexican economy that force (yes, force) people to seek jobs here. It would be cheaper in the short term, way cheaper in the long term, and it might actually work.

the case for impeachment

Conservative leaders are fond of criticizing what they call "activist judges" for interpreting laws in a culturally relative way. We are admonished by these leaders, in Congress, in the press, and in the Supreme Court that an appropriate view of the law, especially the Constitution, is the "strict constructionist" view where the framers' original intent is rigorously and narrowly implemented. Liberals, on the other hand, will tell us that the authors of the Constitution, living as they did in the 18th century, could not have foreseen many of the complex obstacles to legal interpretation that pertain in our modern world. Well, one thingthe framers clearly understood was the war on terrorism.

Under British colonial rule, the American colonies were subject to raids, arrests, and all manner of indignities perpetrated by the government in pursuit of threats to their established order. Sometimes it was hostile natives. Sometimes it was French provocateurs. Sometimes, more frequently as the Revolution approached, it was home-grown American revolutionaries fomenting disobedience to the Crown. But always it was the British government's claim that their own actions were in defense of order against "those who would do us harm" (terrorists). So, over the centuries, while much has changed, this, at least, has not. Then, as now, governments felt challenged by demons, real and imagined, and answered that challenge with war.

With this history in mind, the framers of the Constitution and its first 10 ammendments (the Bill of Rights) set about to establish a government regulated by laws. In particular, then Congressman James Madison had Britain's war on terrorism in mind when he delineated the separation of powers in the Constitution and the rights of individuals against unwarranted searches in the Bill of Rights (ammendment 4: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."). The war on terrorism, or any war, is no excuse for violating these laws.

President Bush has stated openly that he knowingly and willingly directed warrantless searches against American citizens. He said that the war on terrorism permits him to take this action. The framers of the constitution clearly foresaw this condition when they wrote the laws defining our republic. A strict constructionist interpretation of the law dictates that there is absolutely no ambiguity in this case. The conservatives can't have it both ways. If they truly believe in the principle of original intent, they should stand up for it. If only there were a spine to be found in the halls of Congress, the President should be removed from office.

patriotism in a nation of laws

What does it mean to be a patriot? I sense that there is an ugly sentiment among the populace that any exercise of dissent, indeed, any exercise of the liberties that define America, is un-patriotic. In my opinion, quite the reverse is true.

We are a nation of laws. That used to be unique; it's still something to be proud of. We are a nation founded on principles of reason and tolerance. The very essence of patriotism, therefore, is the honoring of those principles and respect for those laws. How can it be un-patriotic, in and of itself, to disagree with the majority? The foundation of our republic is the compromise among strong competing interests (federalism and state's rights, big and small, North and South). I submit that the strength of our constitution, the codification of what patriots supposedly honor, is directly proportional to the magnitude of its compromises.

Nor can it be un-patriotic to be wrong. Charles Lindberg supported Hitler. Nobody can claim that Lindy was not a patriot. Yet, no one would argue that the thousands of Americans who went to war to defeat Hitler were not patriots, too. So, Lindy was wrong. That doesn't diminish his patriotism.

So, who might we say is not patriotic? I believe that those who would subvert the laws of government, the Constitution, to a regime of anti-libertarian "crackdowns" are anti-American. Those who would involve the U. S. in "foreign entanglements" (as George Washington called them) for other than the public's interest are anti-American. Those who would seek to make America intolerant are anti-American. Those who would have America act in ways that are not supported by reasoned argument are anti-American. Lying to Congress about Medicare; lying to the world about terrorist activities; suspending due process for citizens (and non-citizens, for that matter); leaking the names of covert operatives for political revenge; these actions are fundamentally anti-American and, indeed, illegal.

For starters

I have known for some time now that all the cool kids were blogging. Never having been cool, nor having much to say, I hadn't signed up, myself. I'm still not cool. It turns out, however, that I occasionally think of things I want to say. Next time, I'll be ready.