Stockman on Middle East War

I find everything about the middle east to be baffling.  What MSM tells us doesn’t always make sense.  That is, the stories may make sense individually, but it’s easy to pick stories that just don’t match up with each other.  This is why I’m so skeptical of the whole Daesh/ISIS/ISIL thing.  It seems like they exist and they are bent on destruction of something, but their actual plans, goals, and motivations, I don’t believe we have really been well informed about.  That is, we get a lot of information from a lot of biased sources, and it’s impossible to know the “truth,” if there is one truth to be known.  It almost seems to me like they are SOA, with a whole bunch of messed up SAMCRO chapters that we will never know their internal motivations.  Or maybe it’s much simpler than that.  Whatever.  At any rate, David Stockman put together a nice roundup of (who knows how accurate) information.  Whether it’s true or not, the convoluted-ness of it makes sense to me:

Joe Biden has been forced to apologize to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for saying at Harvard that both had been providing huge infusions of money and weapons to the ISIS terrorists who have beheaded Americans.

But what was Joe guilty of, other than blurting out the truth?

The terrorists of ISIS are today closing in on the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobani on the Turkish border, having overrun scores of villages. A hundred thousand Syrian Kurds have fled into Turkey.

Yet though ISIS warriors are visible right across the border, and Turkey has the second largest army in NATO, with 3,500 tanks and 1,000 aircraft, the Turks are sitting on their hands, awaiting what may be a massacre.

Why? David Stockman quotes Turkish President Erdogan this weekend: “For us, ISIL and the (Kurdish) PKK are the same.”

Erdogan is saying a plague on both their houses. To Istanbul, the PKK are terrorists, as are the ISIS fighters the PKK is trying to keep from overrunning Kobani.

The United States, too, designates both the Islamic State and the PKK as terrorist organizations.

Which terrorist organization do we want to win this battle?

Who do we want to win the war between ISIS and the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra front on one side, and Assad’s regime, which Obama and John Kerry wanted to bomb in August of 2013?

Whose side are we on in Lebanon?

This weekend, al-Qaida’s Syrian wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, lost 16 jihadists in an incursion into the Bekaa Valley. Who defended Lebanon and fought the terrorist intruders?

Hezbollah, which we have declared a terrorist organization.

Whose side are we on in the Hezbollah vs. al-Qaida war?

In Yemen last week, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, whom the United States has been attacking for years, sent a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden car into a hospital used by Houthi rebels, who have taken over the capital of Sanaa.

Are the Houthis America’s allies?

Probably not, as they have plastered Sanaa with their slogans, “Death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews, and victory to Islam.”

The Houthis fighting al-Qaida, like Hezbollah fighting al-Qaida, are Shia, supported by Iran, which is on our side against ISIS in Syria and on our side against the Islamic State in Iraq.

But to Bibi Netanyahu, speaking at the U.N. last week, Iran is the great enemy: “[T]o defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power would be to win the battle and lose the war.”

Hence, the neocon war drums have begun to beat for U.S. strikes on Iran if negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program conclude Nov. 24, with no deal satisfactory to the United States.

But no matter how olfactory its regime, why start a war with an Iran that is a de facto, and perhaps indispensable, ally in preventing ISIS from establishing its caliphate in Damascus and Baghdad?

I think we really need to reconsider the whole thing.  Why are we there?  What is the end goal?  Is there a way from where we are now to that end goal?  Does it really have to involve a lot of killing and use of enormous amounts of American people, time, and money?

Justin Raimondo has answered that question, also on David Stockman’s blog.  It’s depressing.

Math is Hereditary

Quartz has a post about a study in UK of children and the heritability of math skills.  They report that a large portion of math as well as other school achievement is due to hereditary factors.

Our study showed that the mean results in the GCSE core subjects of English, mathematics and science is more heritable (62%) than the nine other psychological domains (35–58%) we looked at.

What????  It makes sense to me that there would be behavior tendencies passed along, like ADHD, but math skills, or lack thereof?  I have seen anecdotal evidence to refute this claim.  In my own family.

Anyway, it’s an interesting article.

Pam Grout

Although I was not able to get her book E-squared to work for me, I still enjoy the emails and blog posts from Pam Grout.  This post is a wonderful example of why:

1. Striving is unnecessary. By the time we’re adults, we master a mental architecture that insists our number one job is to figure out what’s missing from our lives and to create a plan to find it.

But here’s a news flash!!! There is nothing missing. When we strive to change, we set up an energetic frequency (I always think of the cloud that followed Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon) that keeps our good away.

2. In Truth, there is absolutely nothing wrong. No matter how it may appear to the naked eye, you, me, all of us are perfect just as we are. Right here, in this moment, we are perfect children of the most high F.P. When we seek to “fix” something, we only add weight to the illusion that something could be wrong. And in seeking, we train ourselves how to be broken. Wanting to change something sets off warning bells, sends up a red flare. Danger-danger, Will Robinson.

3.There’s no need to follow the seven (or eight) steps. Most of us believe there’s a linear progression. We go from A to B to C, etc. When you live in miracle mind, which is your natural state, answers arise spontaneously, people you’re meant to meet show up in the same aisle at the drug store, everything works without effort. Going from A to Z to A again is how we can fly.

4. There’s 24/7 custom-designed guidance. One size (or diet plan or strategy for meeting your soulmate) does not fit all. Everything you need to know is already inside you. The fact you look for it somewhere else is why the answers continue to elude. Any worthy pilgrimage will always bring you straight back to yourself.

This also dovetails nicely with 12-step philosophy.  Even though it specifically discourages following steps.  LOL.  In my experience, 12 step can be pretty customizable.   From Hazelden’s daily gift email:

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.
–Maya Angelou

We had to surrender to a power greater than ourselves to get to where we are today.  And each day, we have to turn to that power for strength and guidance.  For us, resistance means struggle – struggle with others as well as an internal struggle.

Serenity isn’t compatible with struggle.  We cannot control forces outside of ourselves.  We cannot control the actions of our family or our co-workers.  We can control our responses to them.  And when we choose to surrender our attempts to control, we will find peace and serenity.

That which we abhor, that which we fear, that which we wish to conquer seems suddenly to be gone when we decide to resist no more – to tackle it no more.

The realities of life come to us in mysterious ways.  We fight so hard, only to learn that what we need will never be ours until the struggle is forsaken.  Surrender brings enlightenment.

Life’s lessons are simple once I give up the struggle.

The program is helping us restructure our lives. We discover that many former, automatic responses no longer fit who we desire to be. That means we have to try new, less-practiced behaviors, such as being honest without being harsh or critical.

Learning tenderness is possible. With the help of this program and one another, we are learning to express the acceptance and love that have been given to us by our Higher Power. Giving away what we have been given is sharing the truth absolutely.

I will not hurt anyone today by any comment. I will truthfully share the love and acceptance I have been given.

You are reading from the book:

Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey

Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey. © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

For me, it’s nearly impossible to fight the urge to DO SOMETHING.  I also struggle with knowing when a problem is mine in whole or in part, or whether it is someone else’s in whole or in part.

On an unrelated note, I love today’s thought on FB from the Dalai Lama:

I consider myself to be just one among 7 billion human beings. If I were to think of myself as different from others, or as something special, it would create a barrier between us. What makes us the same is that we all want to lead happy lives and gather friends around us. And friendship is based on trust, honesty and openness.

Just wanted to save that for future reference.  Have a great day!

Marshmallow Test

The Atlantic has an article with Walter Mischel, the marshmallow test guy, who has out a new book about it.  In the interview, he comes up with this:

Urist: In the book, you advise parents if their child doesn’t pass the Marshmallow Test, ask them why they didn’t wait. What should I be trying to elicit from my son about why he grabbed the first little cupcake? When I asked, he just shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

Mischel: It sounds like your son is very comfortable with cupcakes and not having any cupcake panics and I wish him a hearty appetite. Whether the information is relevant in a school setting depends on how the child is doing in the classroom. If he or she is doing well, who cares? But if the child is distracted or has problems regulating his own negative emotions, is constantly getting into trouble with others, and spoiling things for classmates, what you can take from my work and my book, is to use all the strategies I discuss—namely making “if-then” plans and practicing them. Having a whole set of procedures in place can help a child regulate what he is feeling or doing more carefully.

All I can say about that, is wow.  If-then plans.  And practice them.  Ha!  If you have a child who is impulsive, and not internally disciplined, and distracted, then you already know the agony that will be involved in both developing appropriate, reasonable, workable if-then plans, and then in practicing them.  A relevant quote, that I have found to be particularly applicable to the parenting of children who require discipline from the outside in (and no, I do not mean beatings!!):

Urist: I have to ask you about President Clinton and Tiger Woods, both mentioned in the book. I’ve heard of “decision fatigue”—are their respective media scandals both examples of adults who suffered from “willpower fatigue?” Men who could exercise enormous self-discipline on the golf course or in the Oval office but less so personally?

Mischel: No question. People experience willpower fatigue and plain old fatigue and exhaustion. What we do when we get tired is heavily influenced by the self-standards we develop and that in turn is strongly influenced by the models we have. Bill Clinton simply may have a different sense of entitlement: I worked hard all day, now I’m entitled to X, Y, or Z. Confusion about these kinds of behaviors [tremendous willpower in one situation, but not another] is erased when you realize self-control involves cognitive skills. You can have the skills and not use them. If your kid waits for the marshmallow, [then you know] she is able to do it. But if she doesn’t, you don’t know why. She may have decided she doesn’t want to.

So as a parent, the challenge is to figure out how much energy you have, and to what you will allocate it.  Your job?  Personal care for yourself and/or kids (i.e., do they look like hobos)?  Cleaning/maintaining your home?  Homework?  Preparing nutritious, organic, home made meals?  Extra curriculars, like sports or music?  Religious practice?  Regular old discipline?  And then lets add on If-then plans, and practicing them.  Oh, and don’t forget the energy needed to maintain yourself – body, mind, and spirit.  And then, of course, your primary responsibility to your spouse.

From my own experience, so far I am seeing in my older teenagers (who would probably not pass the marshmallow test today) that they are hardwired to act immediately.  Teaching them about delayed gratification has been a never ending process, and I’m not sure that anything I have done has helped or hindered that process.  It may just be a natural part of their maturing.

 

Off the Grid

ThinkProgress is reporting that HSBC (the evil bank, I know, redundant) estimates that in Germany, it will soon be cheaper to buy a home based solar power system with batteries than to pay for electricity from the power companies:

HSBC took a look at the situation in Germany, and concluded that power generation units with a capacity of 10 megawatts or less will make up 50 percent of the country’s power by 2025 — up from 30 percent now. “The process of re-localisation of power production appears unstoppable,” HSBC says in its paper.

“Initially we expect that this will be small-scale in the form of household-based battery storage of solar-generated power, and, further ahead, large-scale conversion of hydro-power to green gas for storage in the gas network.”

Curiously, they kind of come to the same conclusion for the US, although it’s mentioned more in passing at the end of the article:

Here in America, Tesla thinks the costs of battery storage could fall to $100 per kilowatt-hour by the end of the decade. As John Aziz pointed out at The Week, that would drop the combined cost of a home solar array and a home battery to $17,000 over the system’s 20-year lifespan — well below the $26,000 the average U.S. household currently spends on electricity from the grid.

A couple of important points not to miss here:  Germany is already at 30 percent.  US is at more like 1%.  Even so, if it becomes cheaper, a lot of people will do it.

This would be a dream come true for a lot of people.  As always, check your assumptions:

• The processes for manufacturing, installing, using, and end of life disposal of solar plus batteries is actually less costly in terms of whatever matters to you.  That is, environmental costs, carbon emissions, water usage, etc.
• The TP article shows the HSBC assumptions on costs.  It looks pretty conservative to me:

Cornucopia Project – Titusville, PA

“Feed your neighbor, while nourishing your community.” – Ashley Sweda, Neiltown, PA

This project is a cooperative way to help feed those who are needy, including elderly, the unemployed, and just anyone who comes in to the food bank for help.  The food bank gives out seeds, and in return for free seeds, the people who take the seeds bring some of the harvest back to the food bank to be given away.  Here is a more lengthy description.  And here.   And here is his presentation.  The presentation includes recommendations for sources for your plants, and also a reading list.

Wish list:

• Horse, cow and/or chicken manure for fertilizer
• Old hay and/or straw
• Lime, wood fire ashes
• Refrigerators and freezers
• Old pipe and fencing
• trampoline fabric

 

Contact:  AshleySweda (at) yahoo.com  814.758.5744

Sponsors:  Titusville Area Food Bank

Livingston Seed Company

Cancer research

So, these physicists are looking at cancer in a whole new way.  From Scientific American:

At first glance, Davies, who is trained in physics rather than biomedical science, seems an unlikely soldier in the “war on cancer.” But about seven years ago he was invited to set up a new institute at A.S.U.—one of 12 funded by the National Cancer Institute—to bring together physical scientists and oncologists to find a new perspective on the disease. “We were asked to rethink cancer from the bottom up,” Davies says.

…

The team’s hypothesis is that when faced with an environmental threat to the health of a cell—radiation, say, or a lifestyle factor—cells can revert to a “preprogrammed safe mode.” In so doing, the cells jettison higher functionality and switch their dormant ability to proliferate back on in a misguided attempt to survive. “Cancer is a fail-safe,” Davies remarks. “Once the subroutine is triggered, it implements its program ruthlessly.”

Speaking at a medical engineering conference held at Imperial College London, on September 11, Davies outlined a set of therapies for cancer based on this atavistic model. Rather than simply attacking cancer’s ability to reproduce, or “cancer’s strength,” as Davies terms it, the model exposes “cancer’s Achilles’ heel.” For instance, if the theory is correct, then cancer evolved at a time when Earth’s environment was more acidic and contained less oxygen. So the team predicts that treating patients with high levels of oxygen and reducing sugar in their diet, to lower acidity, will strain the cancer and cause tumors to shrink.

The effects of oxygen level on cancer have been independently investigated for many years and appear to support Davies’s ideas, says Costantino Balestra, a physiologist at Paul Henri Spaak School and the Free University of Brussels, both in Belgium. In unpublished work that has been submitted for peer review, for instance, Balestra and his colleagues have recently demonstrated that slightly elevated oxygen levels can begin to induce leukemia cell death without harming healthy cells. “It almost looks too easy,” Balestra says. “Our preliminary results seem to show that supplying a little extra oxygen for one or two hours a day, in combination with other traditional cancer therapies, would benefit patients without any harsh side effects.” Balestra emphasizes, however, that this work was not carried out to test Davies’s hypothesis and cannot be taken as proof that the atavistic model is correct.

Davies and his colleagues also advocate immunotherapy—specifically, selectively infecting patients with bacterial or viral agents. Medical researchers are already investigating the promising effects of such an approach for artificially boosting patients’ immune systems to aid in their recovery. Immunotherapy has already performed well in treating melanomas, for instance, and its effects on other cancers are being studied. According to the atavistic model, however, in addition to invigorating the immune system, cancer cells should also be more vulnerable than healthy cells to being killed by infectious agents because they lose higher protective functionality when they “reboot into safe mode,” Davies says. Recent studies injecting clostridium spores in rats, dogs and a human patient also appear to support this interpretation, he says.

Really interesting!  Hopefully this will continue to be investigated.  Not sure how it will get funded, though, since these treatments are unlikely to make anyone much money.