December 31, 2006

more odd ranting - HNY07

i have a conceptual problem with concepts. how people learn is a very odd phenomena, and much learning takes place at the skewl of hard knox, as opposed to a formal institution. therefore, when people are confronted with an idea or objective that fits their own personal preference, they suspend reason and logic and consider the after affects as things that can be dealt with by other people. who are these mystery other people that pick up after everybody and clean their messes back under the rug.

actions have ramifications and inaction is action by default. peace is a precondition for affable communications and building in the personal interest sphere as well as the public interest sphere. but the public is us and if we wish to be private in addition to public, then we have to govern ourselves. leaving problems in our wake for other people to deal with is definitely not going to get us anywhere in the long run. the short run is like well - here. just think - the wave of baby boomers starts breaching the system in 2008. the skewl of hard knox will be open for business - everybody eligible. mitigation requires skills - good luck in your aquisition of said skills in 2007.

as i said, i have conceptual problems with the focus of how people expect things to get done withhowdt the willingness to do much on their own.

December 30, 2006

Time to Tame the Mint

Government enforced lunacy is the reason that we the people have to act rather than listen. Commodities are a hot item because the supply is not up to the demand. There are better uses for copper, nickel and zinc for the business community than to have them tied up in some mostly useless media of exchange. But the story behind the story - mentioned in the first paragraph about the outlawing of silver Liberty dollars - implies that there will be a serious attempt at repression of the barter economy about the same time that the dollar economy has lost all it's purchasing power.

Metals are very useful commodities if you know what their properties are. Ductile, mallable, conductive, low heat capacity. Metal catalysts provide tweaks in the working structure that allow something different to occur. Almost all organic process chemistry has a demand for surface chemistry activation for thermodynamic or kinetic advantage. Metals lower activation energies, and in proper form are essential to plant and animal growth at trace levels. Chemistry need not be mystery nor misery.

Silver, Gold, Palladium and the Platinum Group metals are very much worth the investment - especially if you can have the materials in hand. The Liberty dollar concept - basing exchange on set value of silver coin appears legal to me on the surface and should be encouraged rather than illegalized. If anybody has a good reference article to the events - i have a few questions of 'how it got there' from when i last checked howdt on that debacle (mid-October).

December 29, 2006

The 2006 Cannite Award

Lennibus Cannibus is an old traveler from the late 70s - the forerunner for personal discovery of dragons and high clouds. His player was known as Cannite and was a bashing bashful sort that protected the wizard Bud the Wizer. Role playing has always been a creative part of the dr. lenny psyche, so as i achieve the next phase of interactivity betwixt life and gaming, I offer a freedom of voice award - the Cannite - to my friends and aquaintences inside the net. Anyone that has physically met Dr. Lenny in real context in real life during the calendar year is eliminated from consideration. The Cannite is awarded to constructive critics of compulsion with the ability to control one's self as a means for societal order. If we can discern truth and it doesn't matter to anyone in the scheme of things, then why pretend that we have a civil society. And when we can discern truth - then we have to pay attention to the fact and stop believing the farce. Speak truth to power and non-power alike and well - you may win the Cannite. There is no physical prize nor monetary award - just a heartfelt sense of thanks.

As this old year peters howdt - i'd like to recognize some of the best trains of thought that we've followed in 2006. Cannite's Crew alongside Captain Lemme Howdt: three top essayist are Paul C. Roberts, Mike Rozeff and Wil Alston ! top three blogs are all in the Cross Lynx - to herd or not to herd, St. George blog, and -!- Sunni Maravillosa and the Conspirators -!- . The three top essay info-sites are Counterpunch, Lew Rockwell and Strike-the-Root. Cartoonists are Tom Toles, Pat Oliphant and Gary Trudeau - who has made Zonker Harris into a surfer boy icon again. Game places are Scheming Mind , It's Your Turn and Flying Buffalo. The top single place on the whole web for howdtstanding bizarro, cut with the depthful search for truth in the maddening throng, the 2006 Cannite winner is Rigorous Intuition. Jeff Wells and his commenting cast of characters find the nits that bug everybody and needle them back in until they fester howdt truth and heal the need for more (for the next moment or two).

December 28, 2006

haiku

free is chaotic
randomness has order now
freedom isn't free

new revolution
seems to be in the cards now
oppressive rule-regs

change the power grid
pawns chase the king, queen away
seize initiative

December 27, 2006

'Public' Libraries

Awhile back i might have got a bit upset at this attack on science. But there are so many caveats to this one that i have to sort this one through. The EPA is the nanny of all nanny-state agencies and should be totally closed because there is no environmental clause in the constitution - regulation is reserved in the bill of rights to the states. The 'science' collated by the EPA is funded to support pro-state hypotheses and agendas and thus must be taken with a grain of salt - a great pyramid sized grain of salt. (A pinch of sea salt will have to do - put it on your dinner plate to enliven your tastebuds and get an adequate supply of healthful micro-nutrients.)

All the significant documentation contained in the EPA libraries is available to scientist types that have access to the materials on-line or through other less convenient public libraries in each community or the university system. Now if the EPA were found to be shredding one of a kind documents and burning books - my thoughts might not be quite the same, but this isn't Fahrenheit 451 here. The information housed in these costly relics is still available, the convenience factor is just lowered. I kinda like cutting back government to scale - and how many of us non-gubment types actually have access to such EPA libraries anyway. Next time you visit your friendly, local federal agency, check howdt how many locks you have to pass just to get in to talk to somebody about using their facility library for a research jaunt.

Water we doing here

The substance that is all over the place is all over the place. Water is not terribly complex chemically, so we tend to overlook the real utility of the substance. Water is the anomaly that makes things tick - because it can use itself to create different forms, like snowflakes - and because it can hitch a ride on many other items. Water molecules gather in packets small and large - but if you think that the world might be overpopulated with people, calculate how many individual water molecules there must be in the world.

Eitch two oh. Really, the medium, the carrier and the substance, all in one. Carbon provides the framework for life, but the integration with water is the mojo rising. Small quantity trace elements reside in water - it might be interesting to walk thru a dilution visually. Water maintains a temperature dependent equilibrium - movement of exchange occurs continually, but with reversibility - as one attaches, another one lets go. Rate - how fast it happens - is the bothersome feature - because we just assume time in constant forward units.

One of the fallacies that has me thinking is the difference between molecular properties and bulk properties. Emergent properties are things that arise out of a bulk material that just don't exist on a smaller level - one water molecule is not wet, one hundred water molecules are not wet, nor a million. But at some point the water becomes wet, so wetness is an emerging property. The sum seems greater than the parts by the additional value of the emergent property, unless there is a counterbalancing force that reenforces the conservation of matter and energy - the first law.
In the vast continuum of fractal life, perhaps there is another force to be identified - the one that enables water to produce electrical continuuity that enables thought in a carbon structure lattice.

December 26, 2006

Guessing Game

what happens when it rains for several days and the temperature changes from near freezing to mid 50s? line up the hills in the background to see how much more water is flowing today compared to late september.

Choices

which beat do you hear
cacophony of the obvious
subtle ding of a bell
symphony or solo guitar?
waves undulate motion
transpose scale to note
physical audio oblivia
in cognitive dissonance.
own drummer pays a piper
to set you off, lock you out
agenda of the time, this time
need be what we make of it.
as illusions topple
reality strikes a sordid blow
walls come tumbling down
step wisely amongst rubble

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

Music Lyrics

sometimes music sets the mood, at other times the mood sets the music. when the choice of music is in my hands - i try to stay with the beat of the conversation - usually shifting up-beat a notch to keep people alive. if i wish to think certain thoughts, i tend to certain artists and their lyrics.

when i'm down and troubled and need a helping hand, and nothing can turn out right - it calls for Carole King, or Joni Mitchell or even Crosby, Stills and Nash, with or without Neil Young. The old stand-bys like Big Yellow Taxi and Cathedral, or Al Stewart's Year of the Cat bring back feelings of being able to handle the chores of the mundane existance that we all lead on the side to pay for our lives. I'll see you on the dark side of the moon. She's twisted man, poop d'shoobee. Don't bother asking for explations, she'll just tell you. 25 or 6 to 4.

December 24, 2006

Snowflake Fractals

Well, well, Wells. Thanks Jeff for this picture link. This is what happems when you look closer and closer at a crystalline image of frozen water. It is very cool to be very cool. Happy holidays and we wish you a merry caramel.


Lemme Bach Een : Contrasts

thanks for the title suggestion steve - perhaps we can do a mets/giants game sometime in the next year or ten - see ya in the bleachers, and perhaps the pew.

talk2me

commune nekate shunn brohk

lust gawn sauth agin agin
whut expecturate shunz
trans verse bye osmo, sis
ya gotta sey whut ya gotta sez

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

goway

quietude in the face of loud

run away to isolation zone
where one can dissolve into
off-color spirit driven silence

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

Campaign 2008: why and how to bother

Gordon Smith (R-OR) is a very beatable senator, given all the incumbent protections that occur on the political scene. So it comes as no surprise that now that the senate Democrats and Harry Reid (D-NV) are war-mongering, that Senator Smith is the first Republican of note to climb howdt of the box and oppose the war. I encourage this behavior - opposing war - for countless reason, but this currying for political favor tells me that not only can we defeat Senator Smith, but he is already running scared. Oregon is a blue state only because the Portland/Eugene corridor has greater population than the rest of the state. That would be like Massachusettes (Massholes?) controlling all of New England.

Douglas County, Oregon is a single watershed the size of the state of Connecticut. Our house representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is from Springfield - the low-budget half of Eugene on the other side of the River (just kidding - damn touchy springfield reader(s)). If Douglas County voted 100% against Rep. DeFazio, he would still be elected handily. Oregon is gerrymandered into five house districts, four Democratic districts with less combined land area than the one Republican district. But in blue/red terms - this state has mostly red territory, including all the rural areas. The green team is not really a factor, mostly because the personality necessary for political activity does not really appeal to members of the enviro persuasion. Ecotopia is an example of rural blue/green philosophy, perhaps viable if the powers would leave us alone to our own devices.

There's the rub. In this pay to play world, you have to play or they take it away. No opting howdt. If you don't vote, even a principled non-vote - the system still elects someone and the lemmings follow by their noserings. So if you really wish to opt howdt - be political on a very local basis by getting involved with your community on whatever level you are interested in.

This does not mean political parties or running for office. It means becoming an independent volunteer to set things the way you think things should be, in a microcosm of your own choice. If we start now, becoming active in civic organizations with the expressed purpose of making contact with other strong minded active agents of change, then the neo-independents (neo-conservative, neo-liberal - hmm : scratch that term), then a new thought process of individual responsibility with group support based via negotiable consensus and mutual trust might have the legs to react to campaign 2008 at the time the current political elite stop feeding at our red, white and blue trough.

December 23, 2006

Building (with Water) - an odd rant

when it comes down to what we as individuals do with our time and energy, most of us end up constructing a scenario where we are the major player in our lives. the common means to get more is to save what we have until something comes along that we can acquire to make more of what we traded away. as we replace things that have lost their luster with things that we currently value more, we are building toward a future where our immediate needs are fullfilled and our desires are being met. coming up with the cost of living depends on the image of what it is that we are building toward.

problem lies in the fact that we are playing with a stacked deck. what we want appears to be governed by the images of propaganda that we have been sold by relentless deceit. though originally the system might have accommodated the simple tastes of far fewer persons, today there are too many people each feeling that they not only can make a profit on every transactions, but also that every transaction requires profit. in a zero sum game that cannot be possible, but in a never ending growth model, building more on top of more is embedded philosophy.

as i have developed thought patterns howdtside the norm, observation of how nature accommodates errors into novel fabrications has fascinated me. what the result of the biologic process is, is what you get - and it goes on from there to fulfill some niche that grows or diminishes due to natural control. the role of each individual is important at some level in the total cyclic process that primes the life pump, no matter which scale of observation we take in the continuum. the level of sentience, of self-awareness is still undefined - my dog realises she exists, even though i think therefore i am never crosses her mind (or so we think). what about the large oak in the yard? the blade of grass? a water molecule? the up quark? at what level is an entity that functions in chemical biology as a cog in the process able to change that process to be something different?

the water molecule - hmmm. funny concept. water as a solvent is a continuum in itself - where the properties of the molecule combined in bulk are vastly different than the individuals that make up that bulk. we find water as water in so many places, that we forget that water is the single entity that makes up the majority of living beings. while we change our internal water supply daily, my guess is that we still contain much of the original water that we used to form our embryo - embedded in the organic structure of bone, tissue and organ matter. bound water has no means of exchange once it is used in a process that tethers biologic structure into function. i would hypothesize that if we could detect the age of an intact water molecule that has been bound in the labor of a biological function, that we would find a history of function that that molecule carries onto it's next bound destination. upon release from the current function, the water molecule gets a choice of where and when to tether next. The induction to make the choice may not be what we call free will, but it makes sense that water memory of past lives can contribute to its worldly experience - since water is really never created or destroyed, just used and unused from time to time.

if we look at the collection of people in the world today in similar terms to the collection of water molecules, perhaps we can develop a group handle that starts a way of thinking different from the pattern of thinking that has caused our worldly problems. Uncle Albert said that you can never solve a problem in the same frame of mind as it was generated - so let's just imagine.

December 22, 2006

Satyagraha 2 Elitism

I couldn't help but notice that this is the 1000th Dr. Lenny post on blogger. I hope to make it worth the readers while - so i'll get on with what i have to say.

In the course of human events, there have been some very potent ideas that have changed the direction of thinking and brought about a different culture than the one that preceeded it. The current amerikan culture suffers greatly when we allow the elite to manipulate. Satyagraha was ghandi's solution to the salt situation and it seems that perhaps the only way for we the people to force the behavioral situation is by full-hearted non-participation in any activity that specifically enhances the elite claim to power. In order to do this however, we have to understand what elitism is and what it is not - and not the picture painted by the media as to what is elite.

First - to be frank - if you are reading this post, you are very likely not elite. The middle ages and the chivalry that was established allow us all to be kings of our own domain and to know how to act when we have rightgeous elite recognition - all people in our own homes. But by elite - i mean those people who know the powers that be personally and have the ability to make decisions that affect the masses of chattle - not we kings of our homes. This system was built by people with self-interest and inventive skill, but has decended through time to be controlled by people with self interest and manipulative skill. Appeals to reason, logic and common sense do not so much matter as a primary interest in decision making - so long as elite status is retained. At least when kings ruled by devine right, they seemed to have their people foremost in their interests. Political rule is currently hopeless, because the playing field is poisoned from both within and without.

The way that i see it - the need to earn income in order to live here is nonsense. However, the ability to live at the standard of living that you prefer to live at, requires an income based on the means of productivity that you provide to others. People just don't like carrying slaggards - but if you contribute in some way to the health, well-being, happiness or value of your community, they will not run you out on a rail. But we have become too polite in a political sense and should remember the thoughts of Ayn Rand in Virtue of Selfishness, the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Community, though, need be done on a personal level and community interaction with other community should be negotiated by trust and honorable dealings. Of course, this is a fantasy world view.

But - just think - if we valued our time more than the money and could exchange in real terms value for value - how much infrastructure should we support? How much do we really need? And are there better ways to provide the common services of life rather than the current - one for one and none for all approach? When you start worrying about degree of trust between you and your spouse, your children and your friends - based on artificial constraints on the ability to do what each of you feel you have to do - perhaps not doing anything to support the mechanism of the system of imposition is the best we can do. Satyagraha.

Person to person, let's develop trust by working on it. Find people that you know you can rely on and rely on them - while supporting their effort to be able to do the same for you. By looking at your own intentions, and finding support in small personal cliques - each individual controls the sum of her own motives and we begin breeching the trust barriers places in our path by major media and the elite powers that be.


An old joke suggests that the words trust me and fuck you are synonyms. Perhaps it has more truth to it than we know. Don't ask for trust nor trust blindly. Act how you need to act, be who you need to be - but realize that we can accomplish much more by finding a way to get howdt of this current mindset before the next political election - because the leadership demonstrated by the political elite has been absurd - it is not leadership so much as looting. The school system teaches one thing while reality teaches another and logic just doesn't carry very much weight. Finding somebody to trust and build with, will lead to finding more people to trust and build with and perhpas the ground up effort can cause some change. And if we do this right, we won't have the time to pay any attention to the elite and their manipulative games. Satyagraha

December 21, 2006

home again

Missus lemme howdt has made it back from the depth of the tank. A bad left turn compounded by a bunch of insanity from the police state because missus lemme insists on her second amendment rights. Kudos to our barrister and the district attorney in a different jurisdiction for considering compounded issues of illness and x-mas. I am so relieved to have her home - 12 days tracking two kids and trying to deal with work and home and getting her home was getting me physically worn. Much thanks for all the good will - the story still has to be held at vest closeness because the trials and tribulations have only just begun. Knowing missus lemme as i know her, i know that she will do what she needs to do. we need a better system. yesterday. stop the war on ______ ! (you can fill in the blank)

Fourth attempt

I'd better remain cowed and not speak howdt with what i was gonna say, because the power that be hold all the cards and what i say can and will be used against somebody else, just because that's the way things currently work. The rights that we have do not conform to any responsibilities and the state insists on being our nanny in so many social contextx, that non-conformity is treated as a criminal enterprise. If we can avoid getting into the system - hah - right. If they don't have something legit, they are perfectly willing to make it up. As Joe Jackson once wrote - Everything gives you Cancer.

The current cancer is the total abject failure of our school system to teach people responsibility. The agenda is to provide enough disinformation that creates a clear picture that the only resource available for any problem solving is the state. Logic, reason, ethics, common sense, morality - these are just philosophy terms for those who don't have to make a living. If you work, the state will control every aspect of how you do your job, from the ergonomics of your chair to the amount of wage you see in your check. However - the miasma is unstable.

When everybody seems afraid to bite the hand that feeds - no other sources of food are apparent. The great riches of life are not constrained to a nine to five cubicle. But high school indoctrination is mostly lost on the brain dead - most sophomores have the skills necessary to carry themselves through life - if they understood that their actions would directly lead to their life results. But the analysis of cause and effect, of application of knowledge for practical utility, has been usurped by the need to follow the minutae created to keep people in their place - out of the threat of harm TO THE PTB, sold however as the threat of harm to themselves. Hence the drug war, to protect our kids from the evils of those meth heads - by thumping those heads and inconveniencing the rest of us. Free thought - cause and effect - action/reaction - planning and follow through - are not encouraged in public school because inquiry leads to independent thought and god forbid we should teach our children to think. They might ask a question that makes us think. So by denying youth access to information, we give them a simplified picture of how it is, and put them out there to be taken advantage of, until they catch on. Our college system ensures that youth don't catch on until they are well teathered to the teat.

So what to do, what to do. Grab ankles? That of course is the statist solution. Expand your mind and learn what is real? Not really possible, since we no longer have the tools to discern truth from myth. Question the assumptions? Logic support would be necessary, but perhaps there is some hope on this front. Prepare for a fascist future? Unless you really are brain dead, you had better. But really - if you think about the inherent laws of nature compared to the laws of man, should they be parellel rather than perpendicular? If the economy doesn't collapse - what is the likely outcome of the wars on drugs, terror, iraq, afghanistans, mom and pop stores, peace and life? We will all be dead. If the economy does collapse - what is the likely outcome? The wars go away, people fend for themselves, and we will all be dead.

Seems if the outcome is going to be the same, and we're all going to die eventually, then perhaps the time is now to stand up and call for an end to the nonsense that has become from the powers that be in control of the state. Death always happens at the end of life. Why allow the medical profession to extract so much value in a failing attempt to avoid an irreversible outcome. Control yourself - do what you have to do - and help free everyone from the shackles of political correct mumbo-jumbo that passes for discourse. We had best attempt to solve some of the real problems our species face as we ensure that though individuals die, life on earth survives for others to play an even-handed game of life. Time to stop chasing dollars to live to make dollars and to look seriously at what passes for knowledge and achievement.


Desperately Seeking Lemme

Now that the blog moved - lemme howdt can no longer make posts - and there seems to be little way for him to shift to the new blogger, since he is the alter ego of dr. lenny. I'll likely register him anew and let him join as a team member - but while he is stuck in hyperspace, Dr. Lenny will take over his poetry posting.

December 20, 2006

Switched

I dunnit. I switch from old blogger to new blogger. This means that i can go thru the same headaches as all the other bloggers that work this system - as google figures out how to turn the screws and make more profit off of us. I have been tempering my remarks lately, mostly because of some personal challenges, but when the gloves come off, look howdt.

December 19, 2006

knowledge

"You don’t really know something until you can explain it to your Grandmother."Albert Einstein

December 17, 2006

humanoddity

I am a flake, lightly falling
amongst other flakes til we stick
white drifts grow as more flakes
fall from wet heights to cold ground.
We march offstep, listening
to drummers playing personal tunes
unique to our auditory canals
such that lock step never exists
diversity of opinion, blended thought
looking for change of means
to accomplish tasks of dreams
while remaining free of care.
Life is where ethics and morals dance
in practical utility of uncommon desire
to enable the riches of awe.
Interwoven good with evil, trying
to get for oneself a piece of
amerikan pie - as Don waves
bye bye to the chevy on the levy.
I am a flake - lightly falling
avoiding the worm at the bottle bottom.

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

December 16, 2006

Research Directed Learning

The Redile System is getting closer to implemented reality. Redile will pilot the current system this winter/spring by supporting a knowledge contest in environmental science, the Canon Envirothon. The 2007 contest will take place in Oregon at the Oregon Garden in Silverton in May and for the winners, nationally in New York in June. Five member high school teams testing and making a presentation on current concepts on bio-fuels and energy options. To participate - sign into yourclassroom.com as a student and enroll in the free general information course. We will also help train adult support mentors, so this is not a youth only program. The costs will be low, but there will be some costs.

The Redile system has a reliance on reteaching, which is a vague concept for most. If you have to teach a topic to others, it requires reenforcing what you know. The teacher does not have to know everything, but the students have to be able to ask that one question that tells each one that the expert knows what he is talking about and can be taken as truthful in context and valuable in skill. There also must be an off-line hands-on application of learned concepts, that reenforce the mechanism for use of the newly learned information.

There are many concepts of science that do not play in other fields of academic endeavor, though i don't understand why. Science is almost a micro-religion that requires firm believers with a fixed criteria of acceptible truth, with many fields of shade greys and conditions where the grey shades lighten or darken and turn useful. Reason and logic are applied concepts in modern science, but i wonder whether ethics was lost. You know what you know and build a system of knowledge based on stacked proof, but when an explanation requires undoing accepted belief, you must reinvestigate the assumptions and correct deeper that just the experiment of the moment. While the form of science application differs by field, the substance is mutual common ground.

December 15, 2006

Bucolic




Or whatever you like to call it when you can see snow from the kitchen window.

woof


what to do, what to do

This article from STR compares the political ying to the political yang - USSR and USA. There are suggestions for the future that most folks will not appreciate. The format of presentation follows a talk seminar approach - something that can be available if the net remains, but where would the energy come from for the net to remain? donkey, bunny and pony poop won't cut the mustard, although they could allow you to grow your own mustard. Pass the canola.

December 13, 2006

Questions for Vache Folle

Who gets to deal with the pony poop? If we take the time to compost it, can we get to keep it? And why doesn't the blogger beta accept normal blogger comments?

the real story

There is a science fiction novel set by Donaldson (the gap series), where the first book The Real Story tells the official story and the next five book tell you what actually happened from the point of view of different characters. My crisis of the moment is to piece back a story that took place in April/May and attempt to figure out a sequence of events that i wasn't privy to and hence didn't pay attention to at the time.

Generally i am anal about collecting on-paper information in hard copy form that provides a trace of records, but yesterday was spent sorting files and digging for information that wasn't where it was thought to be. Slow computers, unexpected visitors and managing life aspects always need more attention on those types of days. Just one of those days of ineffectiveness, where buffetted by circumstance, you make your way through with as much optimism and clarity of thought as possible.

When Einstein's relativistic observer got sucked into the reference frame - somebody still had to play the narrator's role, right?
Life gets too comfortable when you don't have to deal with circumstance - distractions are available in many forms. i wish my postings could be more erotic than erratic, but that's how life works these days, for those of us who know better than to believe the real story.

December 10, 2006

Screaming

Recall once there was a product called Screaming Yellow Zonkers. Popcorn, I think - not related to Doonesbury's friend. Anyway - i mentioned earlier that screamer was a political term. A political screamer is a person who is vocal and way howdt there, so that others with similar position may seem more moderate as negotiators. This person makes certain that the farthest left or right argument is in play and can be negotiated down into the final setting position. While the screamer's desire can be written off as a non-viable ultimate position, having one there makes sure all the points, no matter how politically incorrect, get across. Of course anyone may scream for any reason, and not all screamers have political end motives.

life

sometimes ya just want to scream, so ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

December 08, 2006

How to think

One of my favorite screamer* liberals is Kelpie Wilson at Truthout. Today she tries to warn us about global climate change. She even contains a graph, of average climate change by location, in multi color - Lemme likes the style. But she doesn't mention if the graph is mean temperature (most likely) and never once comes close to the reality of global warming. Yes - we are currently experiencing an increase in temperature, which correlates well to the increase in output of energy due to sunspots. No carbon fix or people regulation is gonna fix the problem. What will fix the problem is 1 - Adapting to the changes short term 2 - Allowing a natural sequence of weather process and 3 - Tendency of everything to gravitate toward the mean.

Dr. Lenny considers himself a natural resources scientist and a conservationist. The idea of adaptation would be to plan for the current climate change to dissipate over time and then reverse back toward cool when the solar inputs decrease. The when time frame is not really up to us. So now is the time for some southern oregon land managers to plant warmer grape varietals and perhaps citrus and olive trees - but that depends on the trend increasing. How do they measure average temperature? What is an average temperature anyway? If you have coffee and ice water at the restaurant at breakfast, when you plunge your hands into each the average temperature is 50 centigrade. Does that mean your coffee will not scald your hand? (Please do not try this).

But the example does bring up a point on how we measure things, including what we know. I wish there were reliability ratings on beliefs - like i can believe that water boils at 100 C with a 99.8% confidence level. But if i lived in Denver, the statement would be 100% wrong, due to the effect of altitude on boiling point.

There is so much that we know because it has been taught to us as baseline belief and fro me, because it integrates well with the system that i use to think about newly present facts. I also run the gamut of possibilities with what i hold to be true and then assign values to the new conflicts generated for thinking about in more depth later. When depends on how much the new belief disrupts the old system. Truth is where you find it, and where ever you find it, you have to choose to believe it as truth. When you do, then you have to accept it as such and go from there. To deny a truth that you truly believe is a form of insanity. But if the new valid truth conflicts with old valid truths, then one is not valid and i always feel that i must resolve these conflicts consistently within my thought system. That is one of the reasons i can paralyze myself in thought process and have to read a book like atlas shrugged in a week, while working on the conflict resolution and regaining personal growth capacity and productivity. It becomes difficult sometimes to function the way people expect when the shift of point of view is extreme.

Dr. Lenny does not support big environmentalism at all, but supports thoughtful recognition of ecology with land use. It took a while to work through the Greenpeace and WWF agendas and to watch the action path, to learn that the person on the ground matters more than all the scientific publications ever printed, when the decision is to be made on the ground. Most people carrying chainsaws and bucking logs for a living are putting their lives on the line to produce a product that american manufacturing needs to support the lifestyle. I went through the whole gamut on owls - from people who think they are tasty to people who feel that it should be a jailable crime to own a feather. There are many truths that are not commonly held.

I think it is time to look at what we know and re-evaluate the worth of the knowledge against some subjective measure based on a similar historical event. Perhaps some of our cardinal assumptions are wrong, just like the temperature statement in Denver.

* screamer is not a derogatory term, but an important political concept.

December 07, 2006

meiosis

what happened
rate conditions
order array
double growth
some decay
look at weigh
mass balance
transforms
higher energy
molecular stores
until, until,
threshold
irreversible...
and so it went

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

December 05, 2006

Cereal Boxes

As a kid growing up, Dr. Lenny was a voracious reader. Sitting around at breakfast reading a cereal box was a great way to emulate dad reading the newspaper. Those FDA requirements that were met for iron and niacin were, well, super important facts: similar to the back of baseball cards. Eventually, as general mills and other companies realized that kids like me had this habit of reading the boxes, we began to get puzzles and free offers that committed our parent to buying stuff from those friendly folks providing flakes.

Now, the size of the box and the volume of cereal are quite disconnected. Lots of processed sugar and added 'nutrional value supplementers', which used to be called filler. Very little grain for a hugely inflated cost. The boxes are made of very short cardboard fibers, the kind that wont hold together any longer for pulp and paper due to overcycling. And now there is a use for this waste material that they ask you not to recycle - use it as a compost timer.

By taking pressboard and ripping it into pieces and scattering in my compost pile, it adds to the green material decomposing and also give me an indicator for when the process is done - i can't decipher the material. The strands are very short - the heat of the active anerobes in the center of the pile is enough to catalyze the reaction - plus it is a marvelous bug food source. Fungi like to infest it (though not near as much as fungi like corrugated cardboard), and the compost pile is just one set of bacteria finding food source on the heels of another set of stuff, continuing as long as the food source remains plentiful and the limited oxygen circulating can be used for metabolism. When the heat goes down, stir it up. when the boxes are gone - compost is ready to use. Supplements the propaganda value and returns material into the biological flux more rapidly.

Control and K.A.O.S.

Would you believe that I have the answer to all your problems? Would you believe that I have the answer to some of your problems? One of your problems? I have an old shoe phone that eusta work? Still in love with 99 - thanks Max. Oh - the post ...

Control yourself and most things that happen come about because you wish them to and are prepared for their consequences. Cede control and you are buffetted by the winds of whim - other folks that take control from your vacancy and apply your ministrations to them. Sell your time and they get to use it - addtional work for you, less for them, those ad-ministrators. I prefer chaos to control, keeping myself under my control, while observing the chaotic behavior of others, being manipulated by loss of control. Get Smart.

December 01, 2006

uh, huh, y'know

Effective oral communication is the ability to get your point across with your audience without the need to beat them over the head with facts. What is not said is often as important as what is said. The importance of effective written communication is in the documentation of the event for future reference, be it a contract, a historic tale or a journal essay. Summarizing information in a manner that allows effective knowledge to be jogged from memory at the association of a key word or phrase may be the hook that allows memory to embrace the idea presented. Direct action speaks louder than words and learning is impacted seriously by communication ability.

In the 'business' world, how you respond to a request for information can dictate the sequence of events that come down the pike. Competition is intense on the playing field of amerikan life, but between innings we should be able to catch a beer, trade notes and set about on tasks that productive for all involved. Cooperative association with people of complementary skills would mean that each one of us no longer has to reinvent wheels for himself. Effective communication enhances knowledge of who knows what and allows the proper pairings to use folks talents to build the value base. The teams of sport duke it out on the playing field; sometimes the rules get changed for the 'benefit' of the game. We need to turn off the game and work together to decide the focus of the effort - because the old game ain't working for the majority of us.