Monday, June 09, 2003

The Grand Illusion John Brand writes:  Jose Ortega y Gasset's 1928 book, "The Revolt of the Masses," discusses European economic problems. He suggests that divisive nationalism, a Europe made up of many small states, prevented the development of a mass market similar to the one in the United States. He compares Europe's economic problems to a large bird that can never fully extend its wings because of the bars on its cage. Limitations created by cultural and political circumstances forestall attainment of inherent capabilities. Incompatibility between unfulfilled potential and existing limitations also plagues America's current economic difficulties. Of course, the stricture preventing our bald eagle from soaring is quite different from the cage that imprisoned the pre-WWII European economy. The forecast for our economy is, at best, uncertain. Combining the number of unemployed looking for work with those who have given up hope of ever finding a job, we probably have an actual unemployment rate of about 7 or 8 percent. That is an uncomfortable margin. The combined debt structures -- national debt, balance of trade deficit, personal credit card loans, bank loans, home loans, etc. -- is probably close to 20 trillion dollars. That's a scary figure. The first surplus rebate handed out by the Bush administration did little to stimulate the economy. The present tax cut and rebate will most likely do equally little to stimulate a sluggish economy. The constant rise of the Euro against the dollar gives us little reason for optimism about our economic situation. Though basic human needs vary little over time, our history is one of boom and bust, plenty and want, superabundance and dire needs. What bars of the cage prevent our eagle from flying freely? Could it be that the much-vaunted system of capitalism contains seeds that not only create economic havoc but weaken and even potentially destroy Constitutional governance? Could it be that representative, republican government and capitalism are totally incompatible systems? (06/09/03) Complexity is Just a Word! Peter Corning writes: What is complexity? ... there is still no agreed-upon definition, much less a theoretically-rigorous formalization, despite the fact that complexity is currently a "hot" research topic. Many books and innumerable scholarly papers have been published on the subject in the past few years, and there is even a new journal, Complexity, devoted to this nascent science. George Johnson,  quotes Dan Stein, chairman of the physics department at the University of Arizona: "Everybody talks about it. [But] in the absence of a good definition, complexity is pretty much in the eye of the beholder."...  Perhaps we need to go back to the semantic drawing-board. Complexity is, after all, a word -- a verbal construct, a mental image. Like the words "electron" or "snow" or "blue" or "tree", complexity is a shorthand tool for thinking and communicating about various aspects of the phenomenal world. Some words may be very narrow in scope. (Presumably all electrons are alike in their basic properties, although their behavior can vary greatly.) However, many other words may hold a potful of meaning. We often use the word "snow" in conversation without taking the trouble to differentiate among the many different kinds of snow, as serious skiers (and Inuit eskimos) routinely do. Similarly, the English word "blue" refers to a broad band of hues in the color spectrum, and we must drape the word with various qualifiers, from navy blue to royal blue to robin's egg blue (and many more), to denote the subtle differences among them. So it is also, I believe, with the word "complexity"; it is used in many different ways and encompasses a great variety of phenomena. (Indeed, it seems that many theorists, to suit their own purposes, prefer not to define complexity too precisely.)   (06/09/03) Politics and Debt, a Dangerous Combination The Atlantic Monthly -- The $350 billion tax cut President Bush signed last week is a three-dimensional victory, yet another manifestation of the Rove-Bush strategy: win now, win later, and win even by policies that fail in their own terms. Unlike his father, who chose to ride out his recession by not acting to stimulate the economy, and who was seen as out of touch as a result, George W. has won big now by showing that he is not just a foreign-policy President. True, there is not much stimulus in the tax cut, but there is enough for Bush to take credit if the recovery predicted for later this year and 2004 actually occurs. Democrats taking solace from the fact that the particulars of the tax cut are unpopular betray the short-range tactical outlook that disables their party against the future-focused GOP. The improved economy will be universally popular, and then so will the tax cuts that supposedly brought it on. Bush's victory will extend at least through 2008, a presidential election year, when most of the tax cut is due to "sunset." The Democratic candidate for President then, whether an incumbent or not, will have to declare for or against making the cuts permanent. If "for," he or she will not be able to promise the domestic spending on health care, education, and the environment that is the Democratic answer to Republican tax cuts. If "against," the candidate will court the fate of Walter Mondale, who ran for President in 1984 on a platform of raising taxes and lost forty-nine states. The strategy being pursued by several of the Democratic contenders for 2004 of promising to sunset some parts of the tax cut and keep others will clear neither them nor the 2008 Democratic nominee of the charge of raising taxes. And if the tax cuts the 2008 Democrat wants to end are the "unpopular" ones related to dividends and capital gains, he or she will be accused of playing hob with the "expectations" of business and Wall Street, on which the 401K pensions of millions who wouldn't know a dividend from a cord of wood depend. That every Democratic candidate for Congress will have to walk this same plank assures that at least a few of those voting for "more taxes" will lose their seats, strengthening GOP control over the House and Senate. (06/09/03) Skipping Meals might be Healthy! Science News -- People assume that the ideal meal schedule spreads calorie intake over the course of the day: Never skip breakfast, keep your blood sugar on an even keel, and all that. But Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, suspects that conventional wisdom may be due for an overhaul. While many doctors encourage people to eat three square meals a day, there aren't data to indicate that it's important, he says. In fact, says Mattson, "it may be healthy to have reduced meal frequency." In other words, skipping some meals—or occasionally fasting for the day—might be beneficial, even if overall calorie consumption remains unchanged. Recent studies on lab animals seem to support that notion. In one set of experiments, Mattson and his colleagues fed some mice on alternating days and forced them to fast on the days in between. They allowed other mice to eat daily. Both groups of animals were given unlimited access to food when they were permitted to eat. The mice that fasted intermittently gorged themselves when they could and so consumed as many calories on average—and gained as much weight during the 20-week study—as did their counterparts that ate daily. (06/09/03) That is Bloody Cheating! BBC Science -- A BBC investigation has discovered that illegal blood transfusions are increasingly being used as an effective form of doping. Athletes in many sports, particularly winter sports, are known to be transfusing blood from their team mates and coaches as a way of boosting their stamina and improving their chances of winning medals. Despite the bizarre nature of the idea, scientists who specialise in blood doping are certain that athletes are turning to these illegal transfusions in greater numbers than ever before. Jim Carrabre, chairman of the medical committee of the International Biathlon Union told the BBC that he had no doubts that transfusions were on the up. "Almost the majority of athletes that I saw at [the] Salt Lake City [Winter Olympics in 2002] were showing puncture wounds. The sheer number that I saw made me suspicious," he said. "I started focusing on the size of the puncture mark. You would use a small gauge needle to check haemoglobin levels, and when I saw the size of the needle marks I was convinced that athletes were using methods to enhance performance. "Probably 40% of the people I saw were either transfusing saline or using a blood transfusion." Blood doping began back in the 1960s with athletes withdrawing their own blood, storing it and only re-injecting it prior to competition when their body had already replaced the missing liquid. The extra blood would give them the competitive boost they needed.  (06/08/03) Help Research, Volunteer your PC CNN Science -- Millions of science enthusiasts currently loan their unused PC power via the Web to researchers who need it in the hunt for medical cures and scientific eurekas. Millions more will likely follow suit later this summer when Berkeley scientist David Anderson debuts an easier and cheaper way to write distributed computing software. (Volunteers simply download a screensaver and the software does the rest.) Anderson, creator of the world's first and most popular distributed computing program, SETI@home, inspired 4 million folks to help his team analyze radio signals for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. About a dozen other research projects now rely on distributed computing programs for supercomputing power, but until now, the software has been expensive and time-consuming to create. Anderson's free open-source software should change that. "The more projects that start using distributed computing the more people will be interested in lending their computers for research," says Anderson. In the meantime, here are four ways to put your idle PC to good use. (06/09/03) Sale of Prairie Dogs Banned! Washington Post -- The state of Wisconsin has temporarily banned the sale of prairie dogs. ... At least 19 people in three Midwestern states have contracted a disease related to smallpox, marking the first outbreak of the life-threatening illness in the United States, federal heath officials said yesterday. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concerned that the illness could spread, issued a nationwide alert to doctors and public health officials to be on the lookout for more cases. The outbreak came to light on May 16, when a 3 1/2-year-old child became ill, according to John Melski, who treated the child at the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wis. The child's parents had bought two prairie dogs as a Mother's Day present for the child's mother. Both the mother and father subsequently became ill as well, although all appear to have recovered. Officials determined that the prairie dogs had been purchased from a Villa Park, Ill., exotic pet dealer, who also became ill. The dealer also had a Gambian rat, which was ill. It is believed that animal passed the virus to the prairie dogs the dealer was selling. The dealer sold the animals to SK Exotics, a Milwaukee pet distributor, which then sold the apparently infected prairie dogs to two pet stores in Milwaukee and at a "pet swap" in northern Wisconsin. Most of the rest of the cases have been reported in the Milwaukee area, and are believed to have involved people who either worked at the stores or who handled the animals in the stores. Seventeen of the cases occurred in Milwaukee, with one case each having been reported in Illinois and Indiana. (06/09/03) 6:09:00 AM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 7/1/2003; 5:51:03 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.