Is the Multiverse Immoral?

This question of morality really belongs to the department of metaphysics. Leibniz soundly and cogently rejected the worldview that underlies the multiverse some 300 years ago. The rank pessimism of Voltaire’s Candide as a satirical response is echoed by today’s widely held “scientific” tenet that the fundamental law of the universe is irrationality. We meet this type of rather flagrant pessimism in this statement from Hawking: “But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past.”

More Lilliputian Tales

"Real Time" host Bill Maher asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) a fairly straightforward question: "Do you believe in evolution?" Kingston not only said rejects the foundation of modern biology, he explained it this way: "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey." He added, "If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence."

Seriously, that's what he said.

Let's pause to appreciate the fact that it's the 21st century -- and Jack Kingston is a 10-term congressman who helps oversee federal funding on the Food and Drug Administration.

As part of the same discussion, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell tried to ask Kingston about the overuse of antibiotics. The far-right congressman had no idea how the question related to evolution.

At one point, Kingston, sarcastically, turned to National Review's Will Cain, part of the same roundtable, and said, "Will, help me out anytime you want, buddy."

The assumption, of course, is that Cain, a conservative, must agree with the confused congressman about modern science. Cain responded, "I'm sorry, I believe in evolution."

Will, you're not the one who should be sorry.

In the larger context, there's a renewed push underway for the United States to value and appreciate science in the 21st century -- our future depends on it. And while this push is underway, Republican leaders are more comfortable walking a bridge to the 18th century.

What an embarrassment.

This tired, phony debate that is so often trotted out is wrong on both sides...Liberals are constitutionally incapable of conceiving the difference between humanity and animals. They just adore the sentiment of John Lennon's charming lullaby: "Why don't we just do it on the road?" Pious Conservatives on the other hand are quite religious: they fervently worship one god...Mammon.

Saturday Follies

Model predicts 'religiosity gene' will dominate society

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the past 20 years, the Amish population in the US has doubled, increasing from 123,000 in 1991 to 249,000 in 2010. The huge growth stems almost entirely from the religious culture’s high fertility rate, which is about 6 children per woman, on average. At this rate, the Amish population will reach 7 million by 2100 and 44 million by 2150. On the other hand, the growth may not continue if future generations of Amish choose to defect from the religion and if secular influences reduce the birth rate. In a new study, Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor of economics at Cambridge University, has looked at the broader picture underlying this particular example: how will the high fertility rates of religious people throughout the world affect the future of human genetic evolution, and therefore the biological makeup of society?


My model predicts increasing amounts of imbecilic "research" in order to inveigle grants from the suckers.


Thus saith the Lord: "Be fruitful and multiply (especially at those tent revivals!)"

Liberal Racism Exposed Liberally

January 27, 2011 by Helen Vesperini

Enlarge

Evans Wadongo holds up one of his solar-powered LED lamps at his workshop in a Nairobi suburb. Not yet 25, Evans has already changed the lives of tens of thousands of his fellow Kenyans living in poor rural communities by supplying them with some 15,000 lamps since producing the first one from pieces of fabricated scrap metal and discarded solar equipment in 2004.

Evans Wadongo is not yet 25 but has already changed the lives of tens of thousands of his fellow Kenyans living in poor rural communities by supplying them with solar lamps.

As a child growing up in west Kenya, Wadongo struggled to do his homework by kerosene lamp. He was caned at school if his family ran out of fuel for the lamp, and he permanently damaged his eyesight by sitting over the smoky fumes when they did have kerosene.

But his father, whom he describes as a teacher who was "very strict" and "my greatest inspiration", saw that he completed his studies and made it into university.

Once there, Wadongo started wondering how to improve conditions for children in communities similar to his home village -- and there are many. Though Kenya is one of the richest countries in east Africa, more than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

The young man had always wanted to help people but did not have the stomach to go into medicine, so he opted for engineering. He was only 19 when he invented his first solar lamp after using part of his student loan to buy what he needed.

"Then, I never thought it would take off on this scale. I just wanted to take one to my grandma," he recalled.

Some 15,000 lamps have been turned out since production started in 2004, and Wadongo says his goal is to hit 100,000 by 2015.

"I started in the village where I grew up and I saw kids going from primary into high school," he told AFP.

He has no time for Kenya's political class, accusing them of "wanting people to remain poor so that they can stay in power".

For Wadongo, the lamps are not an end in themselves, but rather "a way to lift people out of poverty."

Enlarge

Jeniffer David, 47, hangs her solar-lamp outside her mud-brick house to get some sunlight at Chumbi village, some 50 kilometres southeast of Nairobi. David says the lamp has changed her family's life. Now, her children can read and study in the evening, without cost or nuisance.

He and his team from the "Use Solar, Save Lives" project start by identifying impoverished communities that rely for lighting on kerosene lamps -- when they can afford the fuel. They hand out 30 lamps to a community association, often a women's group, and encourage the locality to pool the money each family has saved by no longer buying kerosene.

When the fund accumulates the group can use it for a project, such as fish farming or rabbit breeding. 

Nomadic communities get a special model of lamp for easier transport.

Typical is Chumbi village, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) outside Nairobi where Wadongo gets an enthusiastic welcome.

"They all want lamps," smiles Agnes Muthengi, a representative from a local association, the Kalima Kathei Women's Fellowship, who accompanied him to the village.

Jennifer David, 47, lives in a mud-brick house flanked by outbuildings made largely from scrap metal.

Next door, a field of maize wilts for lack of water. David's husband is a casual day labourer and work is hard to come by. Her only other source of income is a fledgling rabbit breeding business. But with one rabbit only fetching the equivalent of one euro ($1.3) locally and one of the five children sick and in a home, life is a struggle.

A slogan painted on rusted corrugated iron informs the visitor that the inhabitants "trust in Jesus". Hanging on a post in the yard, one of Wadongo's lamps is charging.

Enlarge

A villager at Chumbi village, some 50 kilometres southeast of Nairobi, reads with the aid of a solar-powered lamp in her house. She is among the villagers in the east African country who have benfited from solar-powered LED lamps innovated by Kenyan Evans Wadongo.

"Since I got this lamp things have changed," David told AFP. "Before I was using kerosene. It smelled and gave off a lot of smoke and I was using a lot of money to buy the kerosene."

Now, her children can read and study in the evening, without cost or nuisance.

Wadongo plans to extend his project to neighbouring countries -- Uganda is next on the list. He is already training interns, not only from Kenya and elsewhere in Africa but also from US universities. He also aims to decentralise production of the lamps, thus providing work for unemployed youths.

The young engineer is also planning a "model" village at Nyaobe in the west of this country, which straddles the equator. Residents will be hooked up to a local solar-powered grid and will have access to Internet.

"If every one of us started thinking about others before thinking about ourselves the world would be better," he says.

(c) 2011 AFP

The pushing of this "appropriate technology" by Agence France Presse and Physorg.com is racist WWF crap. Franklin Roosevelt successfully implemented rural electrification 70 years ago in the United States!! The whole premise that Africa has a different culture than the west and we can't impose our values on them, is nothing more than a thinly disguised ruse for international finance to continue extracting resources cheaply from that continent unimpeded, i.e. loot them. The gullible mis-educated liberal that swallows this and similar propagandistic tripe is culpable in what is tantamount to deliberate genocide because they put the blinders of denial on whenever they are confronted with the glaring light of truth. 

A Heated Debate in Hell

The Reality of Death Panels
 by Mike Stopa

SUPPORTERS OF President Obama’s health care reform law have relentlessly derided Sarah Palin’s notion of “death panels’’ as a vulgar rhetorical technique, with no basis in reality, devised merely to scare a gullible, uneducated citizenry into rallying to repeal the law. The death panel notion persists, however, because it denotes, in a pithy way, the economic realities of scarcity inherent in nationalizing a rapidly developing, high-technology industry on which people’s lives depend in a rather immediate way. G.K. Chesterton once wrote that vulgar notions (and jokes) invariably contain a “subtle and spiritual idea.’’ The subtle and spiritual idea behind “death panels’’ is that life-prolonging medical technology is an expensive, limited commodity and if the market doesn’t determine who gets it, someone else will.
In December, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a regulation, since rescinded by the Obama administration, that would have allowed doctors to be reimbursed for “voluntary advanced care’’ planning. When the regulation was publicized, it resulted in a renewed outcry that such end-of-life planning provisions presage the inevitable death panels of ObamaCare.
In response, J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, wrote in a CNN opinion piece that “an advance care planning consultation is not about limiting or rationing care. It’s not about hastening death. It’s not about having choices made for the patient. It’s not about saving money.’’
But anyone who thinks that end-of-life planning has nothing to do with cost has never had the unenviable experience of participating in that planning. According to Donald Berwick, the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault. In economic terms, it is waste. Several techniques, including advance directives and involvement of patients and families in decision-making, have been shown to reduce inappropriate care at the end of life, leading to both lower cost and more humane care.’’
The resistance to incorporating end-of-life planning into Medicare is based on the rational fear that such planning will be used to coax patients into forgoing life-extending technologies that Medicare administrators may deem risky, of marginal benefit, or unlikely to succeed — an estimation that could be based in part on the cost of the technology.
Moreover, the suspicion that such programmed advance planning conceals ulterior motives is exacerbated by the fact that relatively few patients will ultimately benefit from it. It is mainly of value for those who do not die suddenly, who have no trustworthy relations to maintain their power of decision, and who lose their wits a potentially long time before their death.
Opposition to government-funded end-of-life planning does not imply ignorance of the indignity or discomfort of having one more tube placed into one’s body to buy an extra few days of painful life. (Although one can imagine concluding that dignity is a highly overrated virtue when the alternative is death). But when a massive government bureaucracy, tasked with determining medical “best practices’’ and controlling costs, announces a policy that “wellness visits’’ should have us chatting with our doctors about what technologically invasive, life-extending procedures we would just as happily do without, we are not supposed to be suspicious?
Even aside from end-of-life counseling, any form of medical insurance, including ObamaCare, has to determine where the boundaries of coverage lie. Today, hospitals decide not to provide life-extending procedures all the time. In practice, for those who have no independent means, some form of utilitarian, “greatest good for greatest number’’ ethic is imposed whereby treatment is approved based on things like the likelihood of success and the potential lifespan of the patient. Much of the rigor of those considerations is already envisioned as part of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
Conversely, medical technology is forever inventing new medicines and procedures that have the potential to extend life or cure the previously incurable. Each such technique inevitably passes through a phase where it is experimental, risky, and expensive. Often enough the sky is the limit and so late in life we are all liable to become, in the words of the late Harvard philosopher Robert Nozick, “utility monsters.’’
To the extent that ObamaCare ultimately succeeds in imposing uniformity on basic health care, it will likely lead to the creation of secondary markets for providing insurance against various health eventualities and access to “heroic’’ procedures to extend life. Water runs downhill and it’s a good thing that it does. First, we need to have people buy the expensive medicines and experimental technologies. Europe has discovered this as its regulated system of medicine has driven its pharmaceutical industry farther and farther behind that of the United States. Capping costs kills innovation.
But, in addition, Palin is right. Death panels are an inevitable consequence of socialized medicine. The law of scarcity demands them.
A mature discussion of health care must recognize basic economics so that we can think ahead on how to satisfy the demands of those who are not satisfied with base-level care.

Both right wingers and left wingers believe that we are inevitably in an era of scarce resources. This is false. What limits us is the control of international finance over the currently collapsing global monetary system. Take that away by reviving Glass Steagall and returning to the government that fosters the preconditions to promote the general welfare, including the maintenance of adequate healthcare per capita, and the whole “debate” about rationing dissolves. All the right wing “think” tanks this site lists would fight to the bitter end to stop re-imposition of Glass Steagall. Why? Because they all worship at the alter of Mammon. The left wingers on the other hand, have an irrational hatred for technological advancement. They tend to view humanity as no more than mere animals. This is why “mercy killing” is popular among them. They don’t conceive the fundamental distinction that separates humanity from all lower forms of life. Any “debate” you are urging among these two equally wrongheaded viewpoints leads us nowhere except to a quick trip to hell.

More Chaotic Babble

Viz, what passes for professional linguistics these days! Perhaps its savantry...When Heine attacked the political Chaoten in his day, little did he imagine that they would emerge as such garrulous scientific types. Wilhelm Von Humboldt said the measure of a language is its ability to enhance intellectual capabilities of its speakers. Here and now our post moderns will turn poor Humboldt on his head! Hey presto! What marvelous meretricious palaverous blather is this? They know not whereof they speak...


"Human languages evolve continuously, and a puzzling problem is how to reconcile the apparent robustness of most of the deep linguistic structures we use with the evidence that they undergo possibly slow, yet ceaseless, changes. Is the state in which we observe languages today closer to what would be a dynamical attractor with statistically stationary properties or rather closer to a non-steady state slowly evolving in time? Here we address this question in the framework of the emergence of shared linguistic categories in a population of individuals interacting through language games. The observed emerging asymptotic categorization, which has been previously tested - with success - against experimental data from human languages, corresponds to a metastable state where global shifts are always possible but progressively more unlikely and the response properties depend on the age of the system. This aging mechanism exhibits striking quantitative analogies to what is observed in the statistical mechanics of glassy systems. We argue that this can be a general scenario in language dynamics where shared linguistic conventions would not emerge as attractors, but rather as metastable states."

From the Mouths of Babes

Fool's gold catches eye of solar energy researchers

January 21, 2011 By Tiffany Hsu

Iron pyrite - also known as fool's gold - may be worthless to treasure hunters, but it could become a bonanza to the solar industry. The mineral, among the most abundant in the earth's crust, is usually discarded by coal miners or sold as nuggets in novelty stores.

I must whole heartedly agree: solar energy research is indeed comparable to fool's gold.

Now Isn't This a Dainty Quantum Dish?

Quantum robins lead the way

January 21, 2011 by Pete Wilton

Enlarge

European robin. Photo: Wikimedia/Erik Vikne.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Did you know that the humble robin uses quantum physics?

Researchers have been investigating the mechanism which enables birds to detect the Earth's magnetic field to help them navigate over vast distances. This ability, known as magnetoreception, has been linked to chemical reactions inside birds' eyes.

Now a team from Oxford University and Singapore believe that this 'compass' is making use of something called quantum coherence.

In a forthcoming article in Physical Review Letters the team report how they anaylsed data from an experiment by Oxford and Frankfurt scientists on robins.

The experiment showed that the magnetic compass used by robins could be distrupted by extremely small levels of magnetic 'noise'. When this noise, a tiny oscillating magnetic field, was introduced it completely disabled the Robins' compass sense which then returned to normal once the noise was removed - good news for robins which have to navigate on the long migration route to Scandinavia and Africa and back every year.

In their analysis the Oxford/Singapore team show that only a system with components operating at a quantum level would be this sensitive to such a small amount of noise.

'Quantum information technology is a field of physics aimed at harnessing some of the deepest phenomena in physics to create wholly new forms of technology, such as computers and communication systems,' said Erik Gauger of Oxford University's Department of Materials, an author of the paper.

'Progress in this area is proving to be very difficult because the phenomena that must be harnessed are extremely delicate. It would normally be thought almost inconceivable that a living organism could have evolved similar capabilities.'

Co-author Simon Benjamin from Singapore explained: 'Coherent quantum states decay very rapidly, so that the challenge is to hold on to them for as long as possible. The molecular structures in the bird's compass can evidently keep these states alive for at least 100 microseconds, probably much longer.'

'While this sounds like a short time, the best comparable artificial molecules can only manage 80 microseconds at room temperature. And that's in ideal laboratory conditions.'

Erik and Simon now hope that further research into how birds harness these quantum states could enable researchers to mimic them and help in the development of practical quantum technologies.

Provided by Oxford University (news : web)

Thank You Bill Gates for Your "Charity"

Pathological Video Game Use Among Youths: A
Two-Year Longitudinal Study


RESULTS: The prevalence of pathological gaming was similar to that in
other countries ( 9%). Greater amounts of gaming, lower social competence, and greater impulsivity seemed to act as risk factors for
becoming pathological gamers, whereas depression, anxiety, social
phobias, and lower school performance seemed to act as outcomes of
pathological gaming.
CONCLUSION: This study adds important information to the discussion
about whether video game “addiction” is similar to other addictive
behaviors, demonstrating that it can last for years and is not solely a
symptom of comorbid disorders. Pediatrics 2011;127:e319–e32

Where in the World is Lisa Zyga?

This just in:

Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks

January 21, 2011

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

Wow! What new age mysticism here in the great tradition of phrenology and Mesmerism...How about reporting on some research on "conscious dreaming?" Oops, I forgot about that madman in Arizona. Where's Lisa Zyga when you need her?

How We Like Sheep Do Go Astray--

The Darker Side of Inflation… is Death

Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research on 01/21/2011 21:42 -0500

• Australia
 
• Ben Bernanke
 
• Germany
 
• Monetary Policy
 

Ben Bernanke always was a revisionist liar… but now his misguided policies are actually killing people... literally.

In case you’ve missed it, food riots are spreading throughout the developing world Already Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, and even Laos are experiencing riots and protests due to soaring food prices. 

As Abdolreza Abbassian, chief economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), put it, “We are entering a danger territory.”

Indeed, these situations left people literally starving… AND dead from the riots.

And why is this happening?

A perfect storm of increased demand, bad harvests from key exporters (Argentina, Russia, Australia and Canada, but most of all, the Fed’s money pumping.

If you don’t believe me, have a look at the chart of the Rogers Agricultural commodities index below:

As you can see, it wasn’t until the Fed announced its QE lite program that agricultural commodities exploded above long-term resistance. And in case there was any doubt, QE 2 sent them absolutely stratospheric.

As a consequence of this, many developing nations (where food accounts for a larger percentage of income) have already broken out in riots, protests, and other demonstrations.

Some commentators see this situation and say, “so what, that will never happen in the US.” These folks are in for a RUDE surprise in the coming months.

Indeed, you can already see the impact hitting the US:

-Kraft Raises Prices On Maxwell House, Yuban Coffees

-General Mills to raise prices

-McDonald’s plans to raise prices in 2011

-Food Sellers Grit Teeth, Raise Prices

-Kroger to Pass Along Food Price Gains

It’s really a striking situation to see academics employ policies that result in actual people starving and still say with a straight face “inflation is contained.” Seriously, how does Bernanke see the situations occurring abroad (and now in the US) and NOT think he might be off base (yes, I know the answer, it’s a rhetorical question).

Most folks talk about inflation and think of the images of Weimar Germany where people literally burned money for fuel. They don’t think of starvation and food riots. But that’s exactly what’s occurring in the world right now as a result of Bernanke and his cronies attempts to keep the big banks (all of which are insolvent) in business and cranking out the bonuses.

This is the darker side of inflation folks. It’s the side most people don’t want to talk about. But it’s real.

Good Investing!

Graham Summers

PS. If you’re getting worried about the future of the stock market and have yet to take steps to prepare for the Second Round of the Financial Crisis… I highly suggest you download my FREE Special Report specifying exactly how to prepare for what’s to come.

I call it The Financial Crisis “Round Two” Survival Kit. And its 17 pages contain a wealth of information about portfolio protection, which investments to own and how to take out Catastrophe Insurance on the stock market (this “insurance” paid out triple digit gains in the Autumn of 2008).

Again, this is all 100% FREE. To pick up your copy today, got to http://www.gainspainscapital.com and click on FREE REPORTS.

PPS. We ALSO publish a FREE Special Report on Inflation detailing three investments that have all already SOARED as a result of the Fed’s monetary policy.

You can access this Report at the link above.

While I agree with the gist of your writing, the attempt to sell survivalism rather than a economic solution allows any wary reader to wave away the reality you report as merely another case of a crank trying to scam some dough. Unless the speculative bucket shop gambling casino is shut down and we return to sovereign credit systems based upon productive investments in the physical economy, no amount hand wringing survivalism makes a bit of difference to the future well being of humanity. And after all, we all are going to kick the bucket sooner or later...What matters is what we leave behind us, don't you think?

Why Insurance Companies Heart Obamacare

Anyone who has actually thought clearly about "Obamacare" has realized long ago that this is a corporatist scheme by insurance companies and Wall Street to increase their looting of America. Different packaging of the rationale for this corporatist looting is played to appease the prejudices of both left and right. For the left its all about compassion for suffering and right to die a dignified death. For the right its smaller government, lower taxes, and the right to "prosperity." Both roads lead to the same dead end...The problem with America's voting public is a lack of courage to unshackle oneself from the self imposed ideological blinders of such left versus right hogwash. Just as in Jonathan Swift's fable of the Liliputian wars over which side to crack one's egg, this ideology has been manufactured as a means of controlling the "debate." All the while the "too big to fail" criminal speculators  laugh all the way to their bailouts.

Mussolini the Corporatist

What Does The M in M Theory Stand For?

Since M Theory is a product of Cambridge, it only make sense that it must like the M in MI5 stand for Mother. Hence its similarity to the pagan great mother worship of Gaia (which I believe is another project of like minded "thinkers.")

Warmed Over Malthusian Fecal Matter

A new "study" entitled Energetic Limits to Growth portentously warns:


"The bottom line is that an enormous increase in energy
supply will be required to meet the demands of projected
population growth and lift the developing world out of
poverty without jeopardizing current standards of living
in the most developed countries. And the possibilities for
substantially increasing energy supplies are highly uncertain.
Moreover, the nonlinear, complex nature of the global
economy raises the possibility that energy shortages might
trigger massive socioeconomic disruption. Again, consider
the analogy to biological metabolism: Gradually reducing
an individual’s food supply leads initially to physiological
adjustments, but then to death from starvation, well before
all food supplies have been exhausted.
Mainstream economists historically have dismissed
warnings that resource shortages might permanently limit
economic growth. Many believe that the capacity for
technological innovation to meet the demand for resources
is as much a law of human nature as the MalthusianDarwinian
dynamic that creates the demand (Barro and
Sala-i-Martin 2003, Durlauf et al. 2005, Mankiw 2006).
However, there is no scientific support for this proposition;
it is either an article of faith or based on statistically flawed
extrapolations of historical trends. The ruins of Mohenjo
Daro, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, the Maya, Angkor,
Easter Island, and many other complex civilizations provide
incontrovertible evidence that innovation does not always
prevent socioeconomic collapse (Tainter 1988, Diamond2004)."

We find the authors acknowledging their funding as follows:



"For support we thank the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute and National Institute of Biomedical Imaging
and Bioengineering Interfaces grant to JHB, JGO, and WZ;
National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant DEB-0541625
and the Rockefeller Foundation to MJH; NSF Grant
OISE-0653296 to ADD; and National Institutes of Health
Grant DK36263 to WHW. We thank the many colleagues
who have discussed these ideas with us and encouraged us to
write this article. Charles A. S. Hall, Charles Fowler, Joseph
A. Tainter, and several anonymous reviewers provided
helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript"


So long as the Rockefeller Foundation, inter alia, can finance the spewing of such anti human mental sewage as this, I suppose the people of darkness, at the very least, will be well paid...