NY Times on the Science and Scientists of Climate Change

This important NY Times piece makes reference to some of the actual details of the science, as well as the frustrations of the scientists who've been working in the field, with respect to the hard evidence that human-caused climate change is occurring and indeed accelerating.

We are long past the point where there is a legitimate "split of opinion" on what the evidence may mean, or that a plausible case for "cyclic climate change" can be made. In fact, we are probably past the point where political solutions are even feasible. The only way for the human race to avoid serious detrimental consequences from climate change in this century now probably revolves around the development of mitigation technologies, coupled with accelerated technological development leading to near cessation of the use of fossil fuels for energy within the first half of the century, driven not by politics but by technology. Will this happen? I wouldn't bet against it, but it will take some major paradigm shifts.

Why Roberts joined the Centrist Four

This is apparently what CBS news reporter Jan Crawford learned from anonymous court insiders about CJ Roberts's reasoning in leading a unique majority to uphold the ACA.

Some informed observers outside the court flatly reject the idea that Roberts buckled to liberal pressure, or was stared down by the president. They instead believe that Roberts realized the historical consequences of a ruling striking down the landmark health care law. There was no doctrinal background for the Court to fall back on - nothing in prior Supreme Court cases - to say the individual mandate crossed a constitutional line. The case raised entirely new issues of power. Never before had Congress tried to force Americans to buy a private product; as a result, never before had the court ruled Congress lacked that power. It was completely uncharted waters.
To strike down the mandate as exceeding the Commerce Clause, the court would have to craft a new theory, which could have opened it up to criticism that it reached out to declare the president’ health care law unconstitutional.
Roberts was willing to draw that line, but in a way that decided future cases, and not the massive health care case.

To me, this seems much more plausible and likely than any of the Right Wing conspiracy theories as to why they were "betrayed," or the assumption that Roberts was concerned about the "legitimacy" of the court, although that factor, in my opinion, should have been in the forefront of his mind, and perhaps it was; we can't really know.

Of course, allowing the Right to frame health care as a "product," rather than as an essential service in the provision of which government has been intimately involved for many many decades, is part of the problem; and in this regard I believe the government and the government's lawyers have done a poor job of defending the law both before the court and in the court of public opinion. Our party leaders, and especially the president himself, need to do a much better job of explaining how the act benefits most Americans, and in reframing the whole debate in terms of progressive moral stances, rather than Rightist economic ones.

Hell no! to Transpacific Trade Partnership that would benefit only Multinational Corporations, at the expense of public interest!

Tradewatch.org has published leaked details of the improperly secret terms of a proposed “Transpacific Trade Partnership” which is apparently supported by Corporatist politicians of both parties. This proposed agreement is directly contrary to Obama’s promises in the 2008 campaign and is totally unacceptable to the American people. It would amount to a forfeiture of public sovereignty in favor of Multinational Corporate interests. Please see tradewatch.org and get ready for a big fight to defeat this monstrosity. 

Some comments on the prevalence of habitable planets in the universe

The SETI institute (seti.org) has a series of fascinating talks, some of which focus on planet formation, and the likelihood and likely form of habitable planets in our Galaxy. I highly recommend them. (Many are on YouTube). This is a serious and very rapidly developing area of scientific investigation, and if you’re one of those people whose eyes glaze over when it comes to anything involving the wider universe and life beyond Earth, well, too bad for you, and I suggest you read something else. Bye. For the rest of you: it's really very interesting.

A quick summary of what I’ve gleaned lately, mostly from this source: planetary disks last about 1 million years on average; not much more, after the formation of a star, which generally takes place in starforming regions, which is a whole topic unto itself that I won't go into here. The disks of gas and dust from which planets form are ubiquitous (i.e., planets are very common), BUT, the region where the so-called habitable zone will later be located (i.e., for a sun-like Star the region of the disc centered around 150 million km from the star; or for any star the concentric region where at reasonable atmospheric pressures water can remain liquid) — is, during this planet forming phase, VERY HOT (~500K) throughout the planetary formation process, which effectively precludes the solidification of either rock or water. Since both of these are obviously necessary for the formation of terrestrial planets, what that means is that rocky planets with water on their surfaces do not form in situ. Instead, terrestrial planets (like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) invariably form from accretion through collisions of rocky and/or icy bodies that have migrated from further out in the protostar system. It also means that planetary systems just like the Sun’s, with only rocky planets in the inner region and only gas planets in the outer region, contrary to what was once believed, are probably relatively rare. It's just luck of the draw, since many of the processes involved are essentially random. What sometimes happens, as we now know, is that large gas giants migrate inwards, but when they don't, something somewhat like what happened here, i.e., the migration of rocky and/or watery bodies further inward, is likely. In fact, the mathematics of turbulence and other physical effects mean that proto-planets always move around in the disk during the formation stage; and, on average, on the order of one planetary-mass object per star is actually ejected from the system entirely, (which, tangentially, means that there are approximately as many so-called "rogue planets" in any given galaxy as there are stars).

Probably equally likely as the suite of terrestrial planets in the inner system that we have here in the Solar System, is a Neptune-sized planet in that area. Such a Neptune-sized planet could easily have a large moon, which, all things being favorable, could be habitable. Another possibility in the inner systems of typical stars would be the presence of a so-called Super-Earth. This is a class of planet which does not exist in the Solar System, but which is believed to be quite common in the universe at large. The definition usually given is a planet between approximately 1 and 10 Earth masses. (Not large enough to retain hydrogen, which would make them Neptunes, or, if you prefer, Neptunoids). These planets, especially in the upper range of this class are likely to be uninhabitable, often with very thick CO₂ atmospheres that would result in serious greenhouse heating. However, planets like this could exist in the habitable zone, and could have companion planets (or large moons) somewhat after the fashion of the Earth and the Moon, where the smaller planet in a binary planet pair could be habitable (with or without other, smaller, moons en suite). One reason that these binary planets, or large planets with slightly less-large moons, are especially interesting, is that they could conceivably exist in orbit around red dwarfs, which, as we know, are by far the most common type of star, consisting of roughly 90% of all stars in the universe. Although a single planet in close orbit around red dwarf, i.e. close enough to have liquid water, would probably be rotationally stopped with respect to the star, which would cause all kinds of problems, a planet sized moon of a super Earth or Neptunoid planet in close orbit around red dwarf, could have a day night cycle, and could conceivably sustain complex life. Given the prevalence of red dwarf stars, it may turn out that life-bearing worlds are actually typically this type of object, and single planets in orbit around larger stars like the sun, i.e., like Earth, may be less common.

This is not to suggest that actual gas giants are not also common in the habitable zones of protostar systems. Such gas giants (that is, comparable to Jupiter or Saturn, although some of them are actually much larger than Jupiter), in the habitable zone, are perhaps even more likely to have habitable moons. Thus, this kind of planetary body (i.e. an approximately Earth-sized moon orbiting a gas giant), could be even more common, especially in low-mass star systems (Class M and K; red and orange dwarfs), where the habitable zone is rather narrow and close to the star. (Just as red dwarfs (Class M) are the most common stars, the next larger class, K dwarfs, are more common than larger stars, and so on). Imagine a Saturn in orbit around Epsilon Indi or other orange dwarf, with a moon just enough bigger than Titan to retain an earthlike atmosphere and oceans. Such a world could easily resemble Earth. And even in orbit around a M dwarf, such a large gas planet's moon could have liquid water and a day/night cycle making the whole planet habitable, if rather different from our world, since red light is, after all, red light, and will give rise to a significantly different biosphere than ours, almost by definition.

So we may someday learn that more living worlds are actually moons of larger planets than are major planets of their stars in their own right (like Earth), across the board.   

Progressive Message to Obama Campaign: Get with a strong pro-1% Narrative or We Will Lose This

I agree with Les Leopold, who has an interesting interview with Ian Masters on ianmasters.com for June 7. He outlines what I think of as an essential progressive message to the Obama campaign. Forget about "progressive disappointment" that we didn't get perfect health care, etc. The issue is, what do we have to do now to win this damn election and move forward. Because that's far from a sure thing. Let me try to state it succinctly.

You are going to lose this if you don’t come up with a stronger narrative right away.

The Republicans’ narrative is strong. The fact that it is entirely false doesn’t matter — it will work if we don’t come up with our own strong messaging.

The propagandists for the Plutocrat party say the deficit was caused by Obama’s spending (false), that it’s what caused the Depression (false), & that lower taxes for the wealthy and lax enforcement of financial, labor, and environmental laws and regulation will help ease unemployment (false). But all of this seems to make sense to a lot of people, and they are buying it. Romney is winning the message war, and if this isn’t reversed, not only will he likely win in November. But even if Obama manages to win, there will be virtually no coattail effect and we will have gridlock and default de facto austerity, regardless, which will be a total disaster for the vast majority of Americans.

The narrative must be simple, and it must involve a drastic change of focus, and the abandonment of any attempt to be, as Jamie Galbraith puts it, the party of both the predators and the prey. The Democratic party must abandon the 1%; forget about wooing them for financial support. The president should carefully study the speeches of Franklin Roosevelt, especially from 1936. He must come out forcefully for the 99% and against the financial and corporate elites.

These should be the points:

• Wall Street Caused this Great Recession, and it must pay for getting us out of it.

(Elimination of carried interest, significant increase in taxes on wealthiest, modest transaction tax; regulations to end derivatives fraud and rein in excesses).

• The richest must pay their fair share.  

(Ditto).

• We must invest in America now, in order to restore prosperity.

(Austerity does not work and will not end the Depression.... see Paul Krugman on this issue).

• We must reform Financial Regulation and Taxes on finance and the biggest corporations to create jobs and ensure basic security, medical care, and education for our people.

(Tax and anti-fraud enforcement and regulation means more revenue and greater financial stability, Republicans want to make fraud in the financial sector business as usual, which means bigger deficits and more instability = bubbles and crashes). 

• The Republicans are lying to the American people: what they propose will mean more for the richest, less for everyone else. What we want is honest, clean government that enforces the law and makes everyone play by the rules.
• We are asking for your outrage: take to the streets to show you demand change, and vote for the president and for Democrats at all levels, who will enact it.

It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that, but it needs to be hammered home again and again, consistently, without muddling, without equivocation, and without retreat.

Otherwise, I fear the situation is dire, and we will see things get a whole lot worse in this country long before they get any better.

Obama Campaing shouldn't say "myth," they should call deliberate lies just that: DELIBERATE LIES.

Take this as an example. When the Obama campaign says "the President's supposed "spending binge" is nothing but a myth, repeatedly debunked by independent fact checkers," I think they're pulling the punch.

What they should say is "the claim by the nominee of the Republican party that President Obama has engaged in a spending binge is a deliberate lie, pure and simple, repeatedly debunked by objective and independent fact checkers... in fact, the truth is the exact opposite of Mr. Romney's false statement. Don't be fooled by these lies, which Mitt Romney has repeatedly shown a willingness to engage in."

My version is not only more accurate, it calls out the absolute immorality of the Republicans. This should be Obama's theme: clean, good government, old fashioned American values, enforcement of the law, government for the people, not for the benefit of elite fraudsters. And portray the Republicans, and Romney in particular, as in league with the fraudsters who wrecked our economy and are trying to go right back to the same old practices, and as willing, even eager, to lie to the American people at every turn in order to keep hold on power. Portray them as representing unethical and harmful practices at the expense of ethical business and the peoples' interests. It's an especially easy argument to make right now, because it's entirely true.

Illustration of why constitutional amendment to provide for direct popular election of president is so crucial

This article is a perfect illustration of why one of the 10 points in Steven Hill's plan to repair American democracy, i.e., direct election of the president, is so crucial. It appears perfectly possible that rather than holding a referendum based on the Peoples' policy choices and candidate preference, there will be an all out money-driven battle for the votes of a tiny minority in a small number of relatively low-population states in 2012. Clearly, it is past time to reform this particular aspect of the Constitution of our country.

I will have further comments on Hill's proposals in a forthcoming post.

Gary Sick on Iran (again)

As usual, Gary Sick's comments on the situation with Iran and the just-started negotiations with the US, are well worth a look: http://garysick.tumblr.com/

Obama as Conservative Democrat, and Progressives

This article from Alternet is very well informed and presents a coherent short analysis of just why Progressives are so uhappy with Pres. Obama, but, more importantly, what we can do to try to shape the course of future policy... which will depend on his re-election.

Habitable Worlds circling Red Dwarfs?

Here's an interesting short article (with very cool artist's conception and internal links) about the possibility of the existence of many, many habitable worlds orbiting red dwarfs (the most common type of star in the universe). 

The conventional wisdom has generally been that such worlds would be unlikely, mainly for two reasons: 1) they would have to be too close the star to be able to rotate with respect to it, in order to receive enough sunlight for habitable temperature (in other words they would tend to be stopped, with one face always to their sun, just as the moon is with respect to Earth); and 2) Red dwarfs flare all the time, and stellar flares are roughly the same dimensions no matter what the size of the star (no problem for a sunlike star over 100 million km from the planet, but a big problem for an "earthlike" planet only 4 or 5 million km from a tiny star; the flare could double the star's brightness and singe the planet). (Another objection is that photosynthesis is presumably a nearly universal process, and it only seems to work, chemically, with pigments like chlorophyll that maximize utilization of light well above the frequency of red light, but it can't be ruled out that there are other solutions to that particular biological puzzle; we only know about the optima for a planet with a yellow-star spectrum because that's where we live).

I don't see that recent developments really answer these potential objections, but it's interesting to see that astronomers are giving serious consideration to this, and actually collecting real data.

[Probably the first and only time I'll ever link to Fox News] .

Outlaw baseless derivatives now!

Here's another Slate article I agree with totally. It explains why speculation in derivatives that don't involve insurable interest or ownership of an underlying asset should be illegal.

Keith Olbermann

Although I have frequently admired Keith Olbermann's commentaries, I have to say that it's readily apparent that he has let his monumental ego get in the way of his responsibility to his viewers. (See this.) He seems to think that because Current TV is something of a shoestring operation, it's entirely the fault of the network that he was unrealistic in his demands and proved immensely difficult to get along with. This is the case, according to all accounts. I'm not sure what Olbermann thinks his future prospects are, but having been fired from both MSNBC and Current, I think it more than likely that his career as a talk show commentator is over.

Workers' right to organize should be a constitutional right

This piece in Slate presents the arguments for why the right of workers to organize should be a constitutional right. I completely agree with this, and believe that such a reform is long overdue.

What if Israel bombed Iran? (Sick)

Gary Sick writes a hypothetical piece  [ici] about what would actually happen if the lunatics in charge of Israel were to use their 'special relationship' with the Azeris (who would presumably let them land and refuel on return flights)... and actually proceed with the self-destructive impulse to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.

Personally, were I the president of the United States, I would tell Netanyahu that if they are crazy enough to try something like this, we will not cooperate in any way, we will denounce it while the planes are still in the air, and we will not assist in anything, not even rescue operations. And, oh, by the way, your military cooperation pact and aid pact with us is over forever.

I realize this is not the way it would go, but that would be my advice to Pres. Obama. To do this would make the entire situation in the great arc of disruption from Egypt to Islamabad infinitely worse for everyone. 
 

Obama favorable rating up

It was widely reported a couple of weeks ago that "due to gas prices," one poll was showing Pres. Obama's favorability rating way down... to 41%. It looks like that poll was an outlier, and probably completely inaccurate even at the time. According to this piece in Salon, which is mostly about Romney's predicament, Obama's favorable rating is now above 50, and for the first time in a long time, higher than his unfavorable rating. Some polls have Obama leading Romney by 11 points.

None of this is much of a predictor of anything, this early, especially with the huge uncertainties of the stability of the recovery (better this year, so far), and the wild card that is the irrational Israeli policy towards Iran and what an Israeli attack could do to global stability; but it certainly doesn't indicate that the Republican propaganda is as effective as they would like it to be.

Koch Bros. BOYCOTT list

I am so pissed off at the Koch Brothers, and their obnoxious oligarch act, that I have personally resolved to avoid doing business with their company, Koch Industries. Here's a list (from this, which also contains a handy .pdf fact sheet)... of Koch brands to boycott: 

Invista: Lycra Coolmax Tactel SolarMax Polarguard Dacron Thermolite Comforel Antron Carpet Fiber Stainmaster Carpet Cordura

Georgia-Pacific: VanityFair AngelSoft Quilted Northern Sparkle Brawny MardiGras Dixie DensArmorPlus Platinum Plywood ToughRock

International Brands: Demak Up KittenSoft Lotus Moltonel Tenderly Nouvelle Recycling Okay Colhogar Delica Inversoft Tutto

I found that I already wasn't using all but Vanity Fair  (napkins), which I sometimes bought (not knowing they were a Koch product). No more. 

Moral Shame on our Society

This morning, as I was walking in to work, I came upon an obviously both physically and mentally disabled woman, maybe about 65 years old, who was muttering to herself and shuffling along in slippers and what looked like filthy pajamas. This was on a street in downtown Los Angeles. It made me think, and hardly for the first time, that people on the Right in this country, who oppose even the most minimal basic social programs, are truly ignoring a moral dilemma of significant proportions. The fact that people like this woman live on the streets, where they are likely to die from lack of care in a relatively short time, is truly shameful and is a horrific indictment of the state of our society. There is just no way around this moral judgment. There can be no argument but that it would be feasible, even relatively easy, for our society to provide adequately for people like this, yet we fail to do so. That this is the case redounds to our shame.

SCOTUS on HCR

Although I choose to believe that John Dean is right that the Supreme Court is actually quite unlikely to overturn the Healthcare Reform Act, I can't help but perceive that this is a problem of the Democrats' own making. Had the party, along with the large majority of Americans, enacted single-payer, what has been termed "Medicare for all," there would be no question of constitutionality, and I believe Americans would be supporting that law today by an overwhelming majority.

Iain Banks: Subliming

Look to Windward has a two-page essay embedded in one of its chapters on what happens to mature sophontic civilizations (or sometimes to individuals), which he refers to as "Subliming" (with capital-S, just as non-biological intelligences are "Minds" with a capital-M).  He takes as a given (for purposes of the fiction) that there is an already existent "plane" where intelligent beings can exist as pure energy, and that one-way once-and-for-all (more or less) transference to this alternate existence is (again, more or less) inevitable for even entire civilizations. It's kind of like heaven, but not, and it's real, not pie in the sky spiritual.(Although the practical difference may be hard to pin down). One interesting aside he makes: when any particular civilization undertakes the perfectly possible (in the fiction, again) act of creating a "pure-AI," without "metalogical" (i.e., culturally derived) attributes, such an unbiased "Mind" invariably and essentially immediately Sublimes; thus, as a practical matter, Minds always have some of the cultural biases and attributes of the physical civilization that created them originally, even when they actually design and construct themselves. Anyway, if you haven't read this particular Culture novel, it's a bit of a mixed bag but there are good things in it.

I find that in surveying the novels of the Culture on iainbanks.net, (The Algebraist being not counted as Culture, although I gather there's nothing in it that specifically rules out being part of the same universe)... the only one I haven't read is Inversions, which I suppose I will now proceed to read. I tried to read it once, but, as has occasionally happened to me with Banks, I just couldn't get into it. When I finally do read them, I haven't regretted any of them.

He has a new non-SF book coming out, called Stonemouth. It will be some kind of thriller. I haven't read much of his non-SF, but some of it is quite highly thought of in England; here, hardly a blip.

Diplomacy Working in Iran ?

Gary Sick sees signs the Obama administration diplomatic tack on Iran may be working.

Hey, I'll take any good news, and this guy does know what he's talking about, so let's hope he's right.