March 31, 2006

EH - 86 : Politician's Motives

"Politicians are a class of unable, unwanted, unproductive, indecent, dishonest people, who try to remedy their inferiority through oppressing those morally superior."

Per Bylund has this one nailed. Power and Influence beget influence and power, but lemme's question is why do we bother listening to them at all? We should nod our heads, say what they want to hear and do whatever it is we were doing as soon as they go away. The concept of un-war is classic - and makes good sense! On the collapse of the USSR ...

"It seems too much control, too much harassment of the people, too much regulation, too much taxation – i.e. too much political power – causes too many problems for power to survive."
Now ...
"Through a number of reforms called the Patriot Acts, centuries-old rights of the people were abolished or "modified" to simplify further growth of political power and control of the opposition."

Seems the solution is to elect politicians that will sunset old laws and require removal of two existing laws prior to the creation of each now law. If we can decrease the volume of law ten-fold and decrease the complexity of the law to sixth grade level, then the rule of law can be equivalized and work for limited governance. Else - well Per describes where we're at.

March 30, 2006

High Theater near home

Roger Weidner will be in Court in the Douglas County Court House, April 4th /06 at 9 AM on a bogus harassment charge... This hearing will be before Judge Barber .... We would like a big crowed... Stand up and be counted...This is a very important Case...It's a must win case...;Please help...Bro Will

I have known Roger Weidner and Will Gaston for nearly 15 years and i will not miss the chance to visit with them in Roseburg next week. I was a court watcher at the Christine kidnapping trial a few years ago in the same courthouse. I was impressed with court system dynamics, though not with the arrangement of justice at all. The bailiff in the courtroom was an awesome officer of the law who took her job seriously and herself just a bit less so. Just remember to leave your pocket knife home.

Roger Weidner is dynamic. Dr. Lenny was the OR Reform Party Treasurer when Roger was the candidate for Oregon Governor. His message is that everybody is accountable to the law, including the judiciary. He goes after court corruption like flies to raw meat. A lot of my knowledge of right/left politics comes from people that i have met through distributing the Oregon Observer as a favor to Roger. Definitely a name worth googling.

March 29, 2006

today

whirled crumbling
like cookies
heaved violently
back after a party
where we imbibed
too much too long

utility function
as a cog in a wheel
repeating atrocity
by living fiction
pretense and the like
assaulting reason

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

System Rigging

The bureaucrats in Salem say there are lots of jobs going begging because the work ethic in the workforce will not allow people to hold these jobs. People want the benefits but don't wish to do the work. We have programs to train people for what we need them to do - Workforce Training.

Uh - don't we have schools to do that? Well - yes, but they don't work well - so we need task specific training.

So they sole source all the workforce dollars to a training and employment group that contracts with the state run community college system to provide specific vocational training for businesses relocating into the local area. The same community college that fails its students by demanding less rigor and running on the cheap, so that it can support an overabundance of retired administrators, with part-time semi-professional teachers. The inbreeding toward resistence to change runs deep - the school system does not educate much beyond fifth grade. From there it becomes an entertainment system.

Learning gets done by experience - nothing substitutes for time spent on task. The whole concept of seat time in public schools has been misrepresented because students do not actively learn sitting behind a stationary block of wood receiving audio signals. Productivity is measure by stacks of paperwork generated, and costs spend on irrelevance are never really recovered. Efficiency is a concept actively bred against in the current education system - make work to keep people droning on. The system is still chugging along - but at least now scrutiny is being given to some of the alternatives.

EH - 85 : New Frontier

Old school thinking and new school thinking are both cut out of the same groove. Forget schools altogether. People act because they feel they need to act and the charade of the system leaves too many people not knowing how to act. MacGregor may be correct in some areas, but the internet is not a savior, there are way more thinking people not connected to the information sphere of the net, who think logically, rationally and differently. Bound paper books and articles and papers all contain truths and falsehoods that people take, synthesize and then choose to believe or not to believe. Get some pre-1960s texts and see how much the philosophy (theory) of the world has changed.

Internal consistency requires external inconsistency.

If we get new information that disagrees with our context of understanding, our first inclination is to reject it out of hand. If we question enough, we can go look up more information about the problem and fit it into context, but when a new revolutionary idea comes along, we trot out the same shop-worn examples of how we know things work and compare the new system to the old. We build models of systems to try to get them to work with the minimal possible mechanisms, a variant of Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation for something is most likely the correct explanation.

Suddenly the fog starts to rise.

March 28, 2006

EH - 84 : Useful Idiots

Steven Yates at It's Happening Here noted that the main stream media (msm) was talking about 9-11 again. After reading and digging, i posted and decided to cross-post here also. Steven has a similar track record with the tenured university system as Dr. Lenny - buying a bill of goods when young and naive that served good purpose to educate us in how to think, not what to think. That we retain our skepticism and know how to search for truth puts us a cut above the useful idiots in the title.

I tend to think of people like Steven and I as far more useful than idiots, if we can empower people to question and seek answers to questions that satisfy the curiosity presented in the question. But do not believe our answers, unless you can support them in your own current belief system. But do believe me when i say that my zone architecture and Steven's universe have never been correlate with each other - we have not met, discussed nuance or even share religion. But he seeks truth and constructs his truth similar to where i blog mine from.

Very interesting - including the links and the links in the links. It is funny how the spam derivative was discussed - i talked about spam at the zone earlier today. The phish spams are also a scam to be wary of - fake credit card company, bank and financial institute mock-ups that look real and request info.
there may be some means to get around the game. how many new part timers are they bringing in to replace older tenured retirees at the college where you work? our local community college just voted to unionize - why is it that only public employees get effective unions (my work effective meaning recognized, not the assumpted word effective meaning productive).
as a scientist, i've wondered why there are no paulings and sagans on the public scene. when they start pulling the lab guys in the white coats out to discuss 'real' issues, then you know the propaganda value is high, because the level of respect is that necessary to convince the sheeple.
when they ask me to be a spokesperson, i always ask if i can say what i think as spokesman. If they say no, i decline the role immediately. I do not, however, go out and say what i think when i represent the organization that i have taken on the spokesperson role - i look at my responsibility with-in the role and the good of the people i have been chosen to represent. I may change hats, and get to the table wearing a different hat a second time - but the responsibility of being at the table is what brings better unfiltered information.
The PhD in any field is an earned degree based on diligence to self-orient to become a master of gathering information in your field of interest. A PhD in philosophy means a comprehension of the philosophy of creating philosophy. As a Christian, you have made a philosophical choice of outlook for your backdrop to rate other views of thought. As a blogger, you've decided to share them unto the world. i appreciate the significance of a world where we can debate Thoreau and agree that the knowledge base is a creative fiction strewn with fact that somehow eludes our grasp for vast periods of time. But i sense a clearing through the trees that will help us see the forest again.

Shingle Up

If wetlands mitigation happens to be on your things to look into list - perhaps you'ld like to earn an ONRRI degree in NEPA planning. The National Environmental Policy Act is the information request that must be filed with the federal government for approval of every on-the-ground project that the federal govenrnment takes on their own lands. Since we know that our department of interior wouldn't make the requirements on landowners any more difficult than their own regulations (yeah, right), why not learn to prepare statements that have their eyes crossed and their teas dotted. ONRRI (Oregon Natural Resources Research Institute) courses will begin in the fall.

Spam

The volume of Spam in March has increased significantly. I have been tracking a yahoo account that filters spam into a separate area - i am now over 200 spams a day. I no longer look through the spam filter except to do the daily count. But my other accounts all have seen a significant rise in spam also. Fortunately, computers come with a delete key.

March 27, 2006

questions

How do you who?
Who did you what?
What are you when?
When can you why?
Why don't you how?
How do you who? ...

Fear of Change / Free-Fall

The best tip jar in the world was spotted this weekend - it said simple - if you fear change, leave it here. I think the movie V for Vendetta is inspiring people to stop fearing the change, but nobody is quite ready to pull the plug out of the outlet quite yet. Dr. Lenny has already taken the leap and free-fall is not a bad feeling at all.

Of course, though, we used to play a version of free-fall in high school. Advanced physics class with doctor bobby kindt was so boring that we devised our own experiment, to measure the greatest ankle that a desk stool could be leaded against a wall with a human counterweight, without falling. Essentially, this was my first exposure to the angle of repose concept. Many times, me or one of my friends would come crashing to the floor when a small shift in center of gravity through the balance off the system.

Physics was highly entertaining in college also. Dr. Menard-ard used to repeat-eat his phrases to the class-ass. You can imagine the discussion-shun about vector and direction-erection. So guess what happened when a tube topped, hot pants babe attended class. Poor guy - never lost that fear of his own shadow.

Physics works when we measure things, but has broken down as we got more and more theoretical in approach and expensive in equipment. The search for the missing mass, the Higgs boson, was shut down in the 90's when congress defunded the superconducting supercollider. So we have no real proof for our grand theories and no current way of approaching proof. So, if i might ask as the physics intuitive readers, why are we so married to the current concepts of strings and quarks and tiny bits, and why does our concept of planets and planetary space, on a scale of galaxies and giant nebulae clouds have equal weight? Neither fits mathematically or physically with Newtonian mechanics and aren't we agreed that fractals (another concept) say that every scale is contiguous? Somethings better change.

If you are afraid of change, leave it for the person who is serving your latte this morning.

March 26, 2006

Round five

So far I have Johan Santana and Roy Oswalt (3), Jose Reyes (2) and outfielders Grady Sizemore and Carlos Lee. If Vernon Wells is there for Round 6, my howdtfield is set.

Bad Idea

One minute howdt for the draft to begin - A-Rod went number one - i got Santana at number 5.

Note added - next day.
Must pay attention to the draft and not blog. Too much to do on the computer to make it happen. I ended up getting Vernon Wells, and have a cool deep fast team. No stud first baseman - Prince Fielder or Chris Shelton will have to post some numbers. I could also be pen shaky - my only stud is Trevor Hoffman, though Keith Foulke could come back strong. Since this is a head to head league, i chose some vultures - Scot Shields and Justin Duscherer. These guys can get some cheap early season wins when the 4/5 starters get roughed up before the fifth and the media wonk can name the winner.

Blogging a Fantasy Draft

Since there is always time between picks, tonight i will blog some of the high-lights of a fantasy baseball draft. I have the 5th pick in the first round - I'll take either David Wright or Johan Santana. Unless, A-Rod, Pujols or Vladdy fall back to me.

Grandma Treetoad's Greenhaus

Left home for the distant land of Loon Lake and Ash Valley - and spend the weekend building a shrink-wrap greenhouse. Even though it was raining, heating the wrapping allowed water run-off and done it up well.


March 24, 2006

Fantasy Sports

Thyme Howdt - We need a few more people to have some fun in a free yahoo fantasy baseball league. We have the draft coming up on Sunday night 8:30 pst - league i.d. is 56055. This is just for bragging rights - there are no prizes. Last year the league came down to the final out. If you want to match baseball wits with Dr. Lenny ... here is your chance. I toss out the gauntlet. (no, not the video lemme - sandra locke and clint eastwood make quite the pair)

Baseball season is only nine days away, although it always takes me a week or two into April to re-adjust. I joined a three year keeper league that drafts next Friday. Knowing how much time i have to spend on these games (virtually zero - 15 minutes a day, max) : i hope to get plug and play players that will stay in the line-up all season.

I wonder if we could invent the Fantasy Congress game. You could draft two dozen legislators from either the house or senate and count the number of sponsored bills that they co-write. I can imagine offering a package deal of Obama and Pombo with Shumer and Lee thrown in for a real stud-muffin like Byrd or McCain, along with a junior senator like Wyden and a representative to be named later.

EH - 83 : Food Security

Mark Wynne takes a shot at the CAFO industry with an accounting of the ecologic costs of operations, that are picked up by the commons. I would indulge the reader to question some of the underlying assumption made in this piece and also to think through some of the strategy logistics of what it would take to implement his ideas.

Dr. Lenny worked at a zoo that was a designated CAFO and was somewhat responsible for managing manure (what is a compost, but a big pile of sh*t). We used a 5 acre mitigational wetland - a neat cooperative effort. Worth thinking about what we do with wastes - manure to energy seems a natural, but there is a serious restriction to on-farm industrial manipulations based on community zoning restrictions. Animals not concentrated would require a much greater volume of space. Where do they expect us to get more new space in a constantly crowding world?


Who is a Terrorist?

Isn't sovereignty about being responsible for ourselves? Right now, you can accept responsibility by saying i'll take responsibility and not be held accountable at all, yet anyone can be the low person on the totem pole who gets blamed for the failure, if they don't have their cover set and a specific fall-guy preannointed. I reference Brown and Libby in the political arena - but it is a universal concept. Blame and fault are vastly different arenas, responsibility lies somewhere closer to fault than blame, but on a sliding scale from scapegoat to actual terrorist.

So we are left with the question of who is a terrorist, and both Vache and Lenny have professional interests that have them hit on all cylinders (i store gas as a chemist). As V from Vendettaville has made the concept palatable this week, i suppose that being open here today makes sense for visible speakers of the bloggosphere. But who is to say that people continuing in the lemming mind-frame will not use these statements in trials to stifle dissent later.

I have talked to both my state rep and my federal rep to know that they are both driven people who think for themselves, but realize that the only means to pursue their agendas are to be part of the team until the point of incidence - where the affect of the vote makes a difference to the agenda. Since these people are in different parties, but both in the minority - i consider it brave when they do not march in line with party status quo. But other than the key constituent issues from southwest oregon, they both vote regular party line. the state rep made a bold move to get the legislature out of session, term before last, and caught major retribution from her party, but won re-election despite their efforts.

As long as the system stands intact, any congressional district that sends home a veteran legislator in favor of a novice loses out on the spoils big time. It is the reward system of divvying up the commons that needs to be addressed, and we are now classified as terrorists and prevented from bringing it up. And we will be prosecuted by the same legal profession that writes the rules and enforces the system currently in play.

Paging Dr. Orwell, Paging Dr. Soltzenitzen, Paging Dr. Thoreau

March 23, 2006

Timewarp in shades of Grey

The major difference between dealing with the business world and dealing with the government world is the sense of time warp. While i like the Rocky Horror version, dealing with the business world sense of time is that things have to happen yesterday to compete. If you have the newest latest greatest way to slice bread, it has to be howdt there on cable commercials slicing and dicing to make enough sales to support the cost of production and the business of marketing and the added expense of taxes for permission to run the business. More dollars can be made off tax-breaks than sales - so lobbying becomes a priority expenditure.

School world, a subset of government world that i am somewhat familiar with, has a completely different prioritization of time. The pace is frantic, there is always something that has to get done before the priorities can be addressed, so that nothing is ever prioritized and addressed. It is dealt with as it comes and if it comes before time is ready, we deal, do the best we can and life goes on. Urgency is given to the most important priority of the moment - and following the bell schedule and sequence of rules is more important than arriving at the timely answer. Eventually, the answer may come, or it may not, but life goes on.

My modest proposal to correct this imbalance is to tinker with the broken problem - government. This congress has never met an allocation they didn't adore and this administration has not vetoed a single bill. Regulation parades as law. The department of education, for instance, is a superfluous uneccessary boondoggling waste of taxpayer money, yet given control of all three branches of government, the republicans cannot find a means to eliminate it.

Time has come to restrict members of the BAR association to the judicial branch of governmint. If no attorney or purveyor of law technically was allowed to partipate representitively in how to use the law - we would get simple law that people would understand that would be easy to follow. It would be the same argument in my field, science, to never allow the scientists into the process of how to use the science - we serve a gate-keeper role to ensure that the decision makers have access to the best science available. But scientists can recuse themselves from science policy discussion, whereas lawyers cannot recuse themselves from government.

If the sys-ops just made sure their systems worked and stayed away from policy, then govt. could supply a support system and be in a coordinative/cooperative role, rather than a consumptive user and tax oppressor role.

Response to JLW

James Leroy Wilson at the Partial Observer suggests that a new age has started because the fed is hiding M-3, the total money supply. His conclusion suggests some means to prevent economic collapse, but i question whether anyone should really want to prevent the collapse. As an miniarchist, i am not certain that a constitutional government is warrented, but certainly not worth saving if we look at the second half of the 20th century. So let's peek at the presidents since Harry trumped Dewey and do a quick assessment of presidents in my lifetime:

Ike - great mil/indus speech : JFK - the only thing our govt has to fear is a president and his brother coming in to clean things up : LBJ - Pat Oliphant's editorial comic 3-22-06 - : Nixon - watergate - with some awful liberal legislation : Ford - Chevy Chase falling : Carter - Inflation days are here again : Reagan - the first imaginary imagery president : Bush I - information broker on a par with Jedgar Hoover : Clinton - devil with a blue dress : Bush II - i'm not my daddy

Is chaos not better than this sort of order ?

March 22, 2006

there

when all paths lead to
the same destination
caged lab rats running
the endless loop
burning off energy
in nonproductive array
adds to mental entropy
of urgent formal reaction
tho equal opposite stress
is causation - nothing
comes of nothing
ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
the ephemeral ability
to rise and fall and rise
and fall and dust off
pick up the boddice &
continue, understanding
that true crime is not
reaching the potential state
that is achievable in
absense of artificial
barriers to thought

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

Pombastic

With due respect to disagreeing opinions at conservative institutes like the George C. Marshall Institute and the Heartland Institute, I believe that Richard Pombo (R-CA) represents a grave threat to our society, with his machinations to selective disable laws he doesn't like. As a good anarchist, i'd just as soon dismantle all the laws and regulations that have to do with regulating behavior and stick to defining the basic rules of the game. This truthout article describes how process is circumvented to get the desired results - to the point where conservative values are tossed in an ends justifies the means mode. There are too many regulations which ought to be vetted through a functional congress, that serve with force of law, yet are creative constructs of the people in the power positions. People must now say - hey you politicos - the party at our expense is over.

EH - 82 : Resistence

Szechwan Death goes deep into the heart of anarchism in today's STR post. Guest editor Ali always gets the good ones. After viewing V for Vendetta last night and reading this morning's news at LRC, i am fit for a day of action against inaction. The problem, however, is that limits need to be respected and i spent my quota of exasperation yesterday.

Interesting how the grubbermint bureaucrats will go out of their way to not hold each other responsible. We cannot allow federal agencies to have any responsibility locally when they are bound in service to the state and need to liquidate our assets to pay for the debt. But can they liquidate the entire biosphere - or will they liquidate all the people instead? Fortunately - neither. The length of reach extended is shortening and Rome on the Potomac is withdrawing it's legions and leaving mirage. Two can play at that game - smoke and mirrors provide a distraction from what is going on. Pay attention, the wise wizard knows when the curtain opens.

March 21, 2006

verbal images

Diversity of approach builds a redundency into the system that ensures that various aspects of system business are covered. By limiting the scope of the 'alloweds', we subtract valid methods of addressing challenge. Initiative appears to be the bane of the 'ruling' class as exemplified by the education system. The middle managers, assertive as sheepdogs to their flock, push paper and chant slogans of why a 40-hour work week is necessary to accomplish 5 hours of productive work. Artificial 'needs' with artificial supports provide a scaffolding that tethers thought into preconceived patterns - which fortunately appear to diminish visibly, like the end of waves petering out upon the beach.

Change brews, creating antz in pantz - people edgy to do, to think, to break the mold, without quite knowing how. It may be that the best way to accomplish something worthwhile toward accumulating value is to ignore and walk away. The current focus of attention acts as a spotlight to the people drawing the cards - who seem to be in the last vestiges of the power grab for 'ultimate' control. Fukiyama's End of History, so to speak. Patience counciled, this form cannot sustain. Keep your head down, your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. After all, we were given two eyes and ears, but only one mouth and one head. (cept Zaphod)

And Vache is right : To all my honest republican friends - perhaps it is time for a bit of outrage from inside the Republican party. The constitution is a document that you all appreciate, how about getting your elected members to stand up for it. Today. Just give a listen to Ron Paul (R-Tex)

people R strange

people tend
to always be
people avoid
decision making
until the very
last possible
moment before
addressing an
irrevocable
situation
which tends
to always be
important
to any
individual
but not
ever important
to every
individual

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

PUR strings

The Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers watershed council held its monthly meeting this morning. Our council hosted the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board Meeting last week and received kudos for the tour of on-the-ground work that this council is noted for. Due to the nature of watershed work, solid partnerships that share the responsibilities and costs have enabled the PUR to open miles of salmonid habitat, place over a thousand structures (logs and trees) into streams for refugia and continue to monitor water quality parameters.

Today, we approved a plan to draft a business plan to commercialize the WQ testing - both training volunteers and other watershed councils, and doing the testing for a fee. We also found that our efforts will place 7 smolt traps into the water this summer to catch out-migration, plus five more on the way soon. For accurate quantitation of water, our Partnership is the place.

Myrtle Creek - last summer

March 19, 2006

March Madness

The first weekend of March Madness is over and the water-coolers will be buzzing first thing in the morning. I picked eleven of the sweet sixteen and seven of my final eight are left, but my overall runner-up North Carolina is gone. Shoulda known better than to ride last year's horse. But i'm on Roy Williams' team - i had N.C> losing to Duke & coach K in the finals.

For next week, i'll take Georgetown over Florida as upset number one and the UCLA-Zag winner to beat Memphis as upset number two. Zona with their guard from Philly sure gave Nova a run - the only spring thing better than this weekend is opening day. Baseball! - Coming soon to a ball-park near you; but not near me, since i live in the boondocks.

March 18, 2006

Take this

I like media games so i am going to play this one called The Indie Virus. Read about it at Blair's Crooked Wisdom blog. The goal is to get people reading the small blogs - the new news media of the whirled. Doctor Lenny's goal is to have people thinking about what they are thinking about - cooperative competitions for the enjoyment and betterment of all involved. Fun with learning, learning to have fun.

The paper on Redile that Drs. Geranium and Lenny submitted to the American Chemical Society was accepted for presentation at the Green Chemistry Conferences at Purdue University this August. The topic area is applied technology for teaching chemistry to high school students. I guess that it will be difficult to sail to Indiana, and i prefer not to fly (wings are supposed to flap), so i guess i'll check up on the train schedule (Amtrak - not on your life!!!!!) Or rent a rig and road trip.

Cargo Herd

Ah, the wisdom of Feynman. to herd or not to herd has a reprint from one of the best physics humorists of all time - this one on Cargo Cult Science. For a beautiful visual explanation, the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy is well worth the effort.
I agree with Jomama, that with all the discussion of science, we are ripe for many new discoveries. The old paradigm of life has broken down, but the imposed order of the past is keeping chaos from reigning. The more chaotic depth we attain, the more natural the next order will appear once somebody specifies it. With as many people working on the problem as there seems to be, it is only a matter of time.
Of course, time is a concept that i don't think we understand properly either...

Vibration Fractals

my audio migrane is now on day three and the relevation that loud has little to do with the pain means that i can rethink how wave mechanix work yet again. It seems to me that vibrations must occur in three dimensional space, but that loud an amplification of the volume, must not be a factor to the wave form. as we cut from big size to smaller and smaller, the vibrations have vibrations on them that cause perturbations of the system. These have to fall off in macro-effect very rapidly with size - if the perturbation affects two orders down, it is likely to be very specific.

so if my brain functions at say 8.00 Hz, then any multiple of 8 will have pattern sets that my mind feels comfortable in. Any fraction that sets in-line with the 8 Hz wave (ie, 2 and 4 Hz waves) would have more intensity of effect than any other wave that has destructive interferent mechanisms allowed. If sound volume doesn't factor, then something is tweaking the pattern of the thinking by having a grating at the pitches where my 8 Hz brain resonates. does this make any sense? I do not know that 8Hz is the proper frequency, nor do i think that it need be whole numbers or integer values. my math sense says that this is very important - it may cause us to need to redefine some chemistry to explain phenomena better (by better i mean a sharper fit).

Here is a lemme offering:

Waves sweep through time

emitting thoughts
that disrupt the universe.

Annointed princelings
chatter simultaneously
signifying nothing.

Science breaks the mode
and in turn, yet again
is broken by technology.

Just the way
the world works (or not)
my brain hertz.

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

EH - 81 : Agenda Science & Politics

... scientific truth is not determined by consensus.

A New Zealand geologist Gerrit J. van der Lingen calls upon geolists to step up and demonstrate with their science the consistency of the anthropogenic global warming AGW debate. As a chemist, Dr. Lenny is one of the doubters of the theory - but Dr. Lenny does not doubt that climate is changing - it always has, it always will. If it's not warming, it's cooling : gotta be doing something.

The politicizing of science in the second half of the 20th century, with the mil/ind complex control of both money and research direction, have made it tough for independent scientists to function. Bail howdts of just tenured faculty can be attributed in part to the fact that this is the only chance during the entire career of the scientist that he can actually pull the plug on mirage and turn off the holodek - the fiction that he is vested and sold on to build his career no longer requires the artificial support to maintain the lifestyle - too bad old dogs hardly ever learn new tricks. It would revive the American economy after the collapse if some of these bright old dogs started thinking of themselves as young dogs and studying up in order to learn some new skills - paper pushing is of very limited value when you are trying to find what to eat. I got mine, I don't care is a nasty personal attitude.

How time is invested and leveraged would make a good study for a young eager mind. Documenting hours at tasks and noting progress by incremental means, with benchmark time goals helps keep focus on the immediate task. When several balls are in the air simultaneously, there is lots of idle time, waiting to see what transpires. You cannot launch new tests, you cannot interfere with the existing tests and you should not broaden your fields too wide, too fast. Leverage comes about when you share your excitement with others and have them taking on sub-tasks, to find out a micro-situation to refine one of the variables.

These variables have to be held constant, according to current pc science theory. But change is continuous and not static. By defining a range and limits for the variable, you can note the effect and the influence in the extremes and use the criteria of the range as an analytic tool. Noting all the variables and their micro-effects in the specific environment, with enough repetitions to establish significance, would establish a specific library of information. Technical publications in science should be informative and reproducible by any reader, with as limited an equipment budget as possible. Universal truths will become self-evident, and political scientists will be able to use science as a guiding hand, rather than a weapon of mass destruction.

March 17, 2006

new age youth

they come, they eat
they say, we'll work
they eat, and eat,
as work awaits
until cut-off, then
ill will allows them
victimhood to eat
while passing blame
while passing salt
upset at us
for denying them
leisure to do nothing
but come and eat

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

March 16, 2006

Educated Worker Bees v Thoughful Expertise

"The basis of education seems to have some serious orwellian fantasies embedded in our belief system. To get a true professional degree requires lucidity of thought and the perserverence to continue on down the depth trail. People all do this anyway, when the focus on whatever it is that they focus on. If you document the hours spent on a task, when you hit 500, you know something about your topic. It takes observation - and most people cannot pay attention focused for that long. But colleges don't give out true professional degrees - the sheepskins are as the author speaks." Dr. Lenny

Disciplined Minds cost a physics editor his job - guess he got weeded howdt. The book is reviewed at the link and i will definitely look into it further. One of the orwellian fantasies i refer to is that despite the dual nature of chemistry as particles and waves, all synthetic and mechanistic chemistry is explained in particle theory only. The boys at DARPA keep the wave stuff close to the chest and HARRPoon anybody that discusses the details. As a salaried professional, i could get in trouble with the boss, but since i pay myself my own salary (as an accounting practice to jump thru the hoops - i really resent having to keep track of something as useless as today's fiat money), i only report to mrs. howdt

Zone Welcome to the Pox

Another independent blog site worth a peak is Adem Kupi's A Pox on All Their Houses. The wisdom delivery is similar to the zone format - but the perspective is skewed from our natural resources POV here. Adem fits well with Kevin, Vache, Jim, Ali, Wally and all the other personal responsibility bloggers that populate the zone crosslynx.

If you haven't started your own blog and think you have something to say that can stand up to the filter of thought - now is the time to get cracking. But rather than catch up in the bloggosphere, develop a different newer techno-forum, like i-pod or EVGMs. Doctor Lenny and Lemme have been here daily for nearly 18 months - i got a peek at some web stats the other day and we have 400 hits per day average. I figure the 100 monkey level is 10000 --> Jeff's Warrior count hit 1000 for the turn of the year and has 3000 targeted, but that is a different measurement and may be comparing tangerines to oranges. I can see the forest and i can see the trees - weather forcast is for stormy conditions as March continues to be a lion.

Rural/Urban Enviro Issues

Last night, Dr. Lenny got to attend a social gathering with the policy makers of the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, the agency that allocated watershed money to the restoration community. In discussing the environment with the director of communications, he was struck by the difference of intensity of the meeting of rural folk. Cocktails with the blue jean crowd.*

The local intellegence in rural community is similar in scope and scale to the localintellegence of urban community - it just is logistically more difficult to assemble. Just because people don't have ready access to anything, doesn't mean that they don't have a knowledge and understanding of the same concepts, they just don't have the access to the learned words that exemplify their point of view. Nor do they have access to lobbyists with agendas and access to the media, nor the backdoor channel to the book publishers. The prevailing view in urban areas travels fast and bad ideas are sorted out rapidly. It takes longer in rural areas, and the fat gets chewed and digested in point source meetings after the information gets out. Until the internet.

Now, the right words are very important and people do not communicate in the same language between rural and urban. Where food comes from is very much a security concern - especially with prion diseases kicking around in red meat and avian influenza for fowl. If we believe the media and these epidemics are truthful. (Hint - ignore mad cow/CJD at your own risk - Dr. Lenny knows his meat personally if possible, second hand at worst.)

The problem with environmentalism and nanny government is the concept of protecting us from our own discrimatory choice, when to make a choice is discrimination. So enforcing something like the precautionary principle (nobody do anything thay may be gasp unsafe) with an EPA/DEQ command and control structure, doesn't allow the minutae of any problem to be addressed without the gang up group lemming approach. And this gets repeated in every other areas of anything anybody does, except the favored few that write the rules. So the minutae of the rules dominates the minutae of the details of the practice. Which is important to solve the real problem?

If you are a serious urban environmentalist - send your donation to a rural watershed council - a non-profit cooperative doing actual work - opening fish passage, or monitoring water quality, or educating people on what they can do. No bulk mailings, glossy phots and lobbyists. People addressing facts with action, rather than addressing envelope opinions with more paper. Plant a tree?

In fact, in talking to Susan Morgan (R-Green), our local state representative last night about the functional Partnership for the Umpqua Rivers as a model for other organizations - Dr. Lenny pointed out that perhaps the state legislature only differs from the watershed council in ability to function by the fact that no lobbyists bother to bother us with their opinions, while no lobbyists ever leave our representatives alone about theirs.

* former Oregon governor Dr. John Kitzhaber was a local physician - for years, his cowboy boots and jeans approach to politics caused a stir in formal political circles and undercut his effectiveness on rural issues.

EH - 80 Enviromentalism

(This epistemological breakdown, I might add, radically accelerated starting practically on the very day in the 1960s when the government took over most of the scientific research in the United States and began the large scale financing of statistical studies as a substitute for the discovery of causes.)

To accomplish this cleanup, only the most powerful, industrial-strength, philosophical and intellectual cleansing agents will do. These cleansing agents are, above all, the writings of Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises.

George Reisman stretches the imagination in this very long winded rant against the parts per ten toxicity level of radical environmentalists. Recall Dr. Lenny's basic tenet - do not take the facts presented at face value. But reading this helps to address some of the points that Dr. Lenny has been making about the environmental industry all along. Which will be the subject of the next post.

March 15, 2006

The Ides of March

All you Caesars's howdt there, be wary.

March 14, 2006

What is a law?

Ali - help me here - in the specialization blog, did they really use the terms economic and science together? I understand austrian economics and money, i just would prefer that i didn't have to bother. I understand chemistry and try to apply the chemistry i know to other fields, to assist making those mundane tasks easier/safer/whatever. I've never questioned my own motivations, but hedonism without money seems like a good anarchical place to start.


But i have never thought that the laws that govern economics were any different than the laws that govern science as long as they follow natural law. shouldn't the laws that govern men follow this natural law in spirit, as well as practice? The second law of thermodynamics - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. seems to me it's time to galt's gulch the world and just quit doing anything except whatever we as individuals wish to do - very little called productive work until dagny arrives on the scene


The first YC.C student that can tell me the literary reference here get a bonus hour.

EH - 79 Government Science

"Science, like anything else, is just a tool; like anything else, it can be wielded for the good or for the bad. It requires a market in ideas to keep the process discovery moving in the right direction toward truth. As Murray Rothbard wrote more than half a century ago, science "is solely the job of the free market economy. Any government meddling with this job can only distort and disrupt the economy, injure the efficient workings and development of science and technology, and substitute unwanted coercion for individual freedom." Getting government out of the funding business is the only way to discover what amazing contributions medical science in particular, and scientific inquiry in general, can make to our quality of life."

Brad Edmonds at the Mises Institute reviews the case history of several medical science concepts that weren't quite true. I lost trust in the medical profession long ago - when as a freshman pre-med in college, i looked at all the other freshmen pre-meds and thought - gads, I coundn't possibly spend the next dozen years hanging out learning medicine with these people. Now they are all government doctors and there are rules against self-medicating. Pills will kill ya.

March 13, 2006

Which Whirled World

where will we land
when it all crashes down
look up once illusion lifts
does our landscape resemble
torched, scortched
beaten, brutal
bombed exploded
twisted wreckage

or nothing changes
soviet style
central planning
paper pusher
rules vacate space
logistics crumble
exchange solely barter
values return as values
when it all crashes down
as indeed it must, it must

can we construct a place
to support minimized use
to build capacity to
listen, to listen, to listen
people are the wisdom
when unshakled from jobs
make work means of support
to sink or swim simply
incoercible from outsiders
consensible from insiders
with inside out and outside in
looking to build resource
based on commons interest
of local community
that calls policy shots

policy shots - rifle shots
coming at us from
the barrel of a gun
incediary device
boom boom stress explosion
time collapse
XXtime collapse
XXXXtime collapse
XXXXXXtime collapse
slow down, ya move too fast
gotta make the morning last

but why make Monday morning last
when forty hours later
all you've got is tired
perhaps our frame is skewed
work for dollars, slave for bread
to get nowhere faster, faster
more to do, bouncing
from cubicle to burger king
a hollywood video, then bed
another weekend waste
til Monday morning again

the main stream media message
pumps: do it for you
me for me, competition
boys versus girls
us versus them
muslims versus christians and jews
fight boom fight ack
send our girls to war
send our boys to war
send our congress to war!!!!!!!!!!!

stop the group think
people are not lemmings
people are not lapdogs
people are not oxen
unleash the yoke today
no justice without thought
no thought without justice

when is a door not a door
when it is a jar
when is a crime not a crime
when the rule change retrospective
when the elite believe they are elite
when the people believe they are elite
when natural law is arbitrary
Katrina rules and elite drown
just like everybody else

choices to be made today
where will we land
when it all crashes down

(c) lemme howdt 2006
for free reprint with cite

March 12, 2006

Pix

More Photos - Flower Bed : Yum Snow : Scottsburg Bridge


Grass Roots Politix

Dr. Lenny likes to complain about the political system. He doesn't like the Republicrats and he doesn't like the Democricans, so that leaves only independents - as in free thinkers. To this end, Dr. Lenny is an organizer and participant for CUIP. The one party system is now taking liberties that infringe on rights of african american voters in New York and Georgia and white rural voters here in Oregon and in the midwest. In order for constituencies to speak howdt - i offer this blog as a post to post posts from, concerning people taking back the system of grubbermint. It can be like an on-line political talk-show. Just remember to take a daily dose of McCain/Feingold reality pills (which i'll sell you for the cool price of $19.95 + S/H).

Ear Glasses and other science errata

Yesterday - i needed the quiet to get rid of a migrane headache. i was oversensitive to all audio - pitches and volume. i need to invent ear glasses - something like eye glasses designed to fit the persons hearing correction. i need a filter to remove certaint pitch: the very high pitch that my telephone puts out as interference, the real low barrelling base on some of the heavy metal rock of the 70s and 80s, and the newt voice pitch of certain ladies like my aunt gladys, who i haven't seen in years.

Wavelength is a mystery phenomena that the physicists have hoarded into the military-industrial secrecy complex. Both light and sound are wavelength based - the frequencies are vastly different. Nikolai Tesla was working in the area about the same time as Thomas Edison. The fables talk of the thousands of concurrent experiments that edison had going on in his laboratory - imagine ol Tom playing with a visit from his local OSHA inspector about laboratory safety.

When we lose the capacity to generate bulk energy via carbon conbustion, we will have to look toward inorganic means for generating energy as well as carrying it. Although fiber optic provide a channel for light, they don't generate the light that they carry. However, putting two metals of different dielectric capacitance together generates energy - thermostats use this technology for temperature based switching. There is a reason why wire is always metal.

You cannot get something for nothing in physics - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But when you change the scale of the playing field, you find that there is an inherent inconsistency between newtonian physics, which explains our scale, and quantum/astro physics which explain both the very minute and the very large. energy doesn't work the way they teach us to believe in school.

Speaking of school - this article was found by Michael Van Winkle at the new From the Heartland blog.

Dr. Lenny has been journalizing my commentary for quite a while, and will start a series explaining chemistry to people in terms that they can understand and apply. i have written some pieces on mercury and fluorine in the past, but I don’t wish to just single out the baddies – there are an awful lot of good chemicals that get short shrift. I will be looking for an outlet – or a gross of outlets. Perhaps I can trade articles for advertising, crosslinking or some other mutually profitable barter. You know how to reach me - just respond to this blog.

March 11, 2006

Quietude

noise levels change
as we become aware
audio wavelength control
warps minds through
wave triggered vibration
focusing thought function
like video glass
achieving silence, yet
when is all really ever quiet
never...?

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

March 10, 2006

Benostrophy

Perhaps what the world needs is a cataclysmic event that is so big and good that it is the complete opposite of a catastophy. Like the third sticking snow event at home here under 1000 ft sea level near the pacific coast. The horse (she's 28) is licking the snow - this micro-local scenery is awesome.

Meanwhile, Rep. R. Pombo and his cronies plot to sell the national forest to the timber industry. They wouldn't do that, would they? Read
this. Definitely not good for those of us who believe that the forests are part of the climate support system.

Heavy Science Warning - danger , danger - not popular opinion.
Since respiration is a continual function (in animals, we call it breathing), it seems to me that the total surface area is the key factor in oxygen exchange, not the bulk growth. If you could sum up both the leaf area and the bolus surface area, they probably each function at a different rate, complementary to the season and availability of sunlight energy. If you do the math concerning the rate of flux, the has to be a much higher flux for older trees in both areas - more leaves and more bark surface area - because old trees have porous bark that is not smooth. Forestry math in the first approximation treats a bolus as a cylindrical sphere - great for volume calculation, but grossly inaccurate for surface area.


Balderdash - just add water

I love it. The economists of the Wall Street Journal are now informing their public readership that well, science doesn't know jack sh*t about water, the most basic substance on earth. The Structure of Water Isn't Certain After All; Marketers Take Note March 10, 2006; Page B1. I would bet that 1) the conventional wisdom is wrong, 2) this article is wrong, 3) water is versatile and can do things many ways, depending on the surroundings. But it is a different concept for most people that it can be anything other than what they were taught in chemistry class. I believe that ‘bound’ water has much different properties than a glass of water and that the first modicum of salt added to the water changes the physical chemistry completely. I would post the entire article on my blog, but no reason to mess with copyright law.
I find the arrogance of the WSJ journal to be astonishing. Nobody should give this article a lick of credit - it is on a topic they are unfamiliar with in a source that has no science readership, per se, and no peer review. I would bet that the science writer has a BS that required half a dozen chem courses and feels she is an expert on the topic. Remember, ex means former and you know what a spurt is.

March 09, 2006

Honest State Mottos

I was perusing High Country News and got a chuckle out of their honest state mottos. My state Oregon had quite the battle - the winner first, then the close second:

Oregon - If the rain don't kill ya, you can kill yourself!

Oregon - No, that's not how you pronounce it.

Roadside Attraction

Corporations? why?

Corporations are not people, they should not have the status in the courts to be seen as people, and the people that make the decisions should be held responsible for those decisions. Insurance corporations are legal extortion factories when force of law requires their use.

March 07, 2006

EH - 78 : Testing 1,2,3

"... the test fails to measure performance and is not a valid indicator of success is that not all students were created equally before they started their progression through the education mill. The very qualities that make us all different – whether it is a gift or a learning disability – destroy the cookie cutter efforts of paper tests. I happen to be one of those weirdo teachers who believe that perhaps college is not for everyone and that people can live successful, happy lives in non-professional careers. I further believe that success or failure can not be directly tied to bubbling on answer sheets. "

Miles Woolley is an educator is Florida teaching middle school children. While he is located in Florida, as a peripheral to the school system, i see the same quandary in Oregon schools. Plus, our best local school rated lowest, due to being bracketed with larger schools acroos the state, while aour poor rural schools all end up average as they are compared to each other. Big fish in a little pond syndrome.


While here - Tricia Shore places her two cents in on mommy teaching at home and Bill Bonner has another look at our economic world. LRC rocks!

March 06, 2006

EH - 77 : Agriculture

Jim Bovard spins this tale of agriculture circa 1920 - and how the feds got involved at the expense of the farmer, using jobbed statistics and helped run the costs up with artificial price supports with added expenses, but no savings. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned today.

March 05, 2006

short poems

how can we think
when the onslaught
of insipid endeavor
lurks on the backdrop
of meager existence

she spreads her mind
too thin and her legs
too wide when reality
requires the converse

time is
of the
essence
except
when
time is
naught

ne'er will i
re-enter
the mindset
distruction...
morality
is a string
but being
is a fibre, too...
forgive me
but needs
must be met
elsewhere

(c) 2006 lemme howdt

Cricket - Teddy Cavy

R Tickle 8 - 1 Articulate Articlette

If I had an editor to take my writings and frame them better (my tongue in cheek humor is often missed and taken too seriously), I'd bet that Doctor Lenny could assume a Carl Sagan role. But I have my intent set higher in scope - to Linus Pauling/Albert Einstein level. To do that, I still have to synthesize my new learning into a technical publication, and bring the delivery system up a notch to make the learning take place by intention rather than coercion.

After I read this article,
http://www.counterpunch.com/roelofs03042006.html about rural non-capitalist economics, I know how to approach this problem. We should not publish a regular rendition for the people that have no access or desire to reach us. We should develop a system that when people find us, they reach out and contribute their skills toward building things beyond their own skill level - locally by doing.

Social justice movements do not grow by written theology, the theology is written by the victors after the fact, in retrospect. If any young folks out there are thinking about building a party to change our society from greed-based to egalitarian, bear in mind Denney's Law: Real movements get built person-to-person. Gardner
http://www.counterpunch.com/gardner03042006.html

Our local bio-energy co-operative has serious potential to unite the community in a similar vein to the Partnership for Umpqua Rivers – but with a completely different sphere of influence. If we look at pieces that we have launched as birds, some of them will set forth other birds that hatch other ideas and grow. As we look at the resources available that each person brings, we can channel the most productive resources to the people that can apply them best. As Anna Slemmer can tell you – some birds get out-competed from other birds. The more baby birds, the better chance that one will survive.

In a zero sum game, space is a resource – we have lots of that. Time is a resource – seems to be in good supply. People, no sweat. Money as a resource is weak, but it lubricates the current engine. What if as we change to a Wankle motor for running bio-oil, we find a currency in our lubricant? What if we create that local currency for internal dealings that can be redeemed for people’s time? We may need to be creative, as dollars and other forms of money may hyper-inflate, leaving us with no access to tradable commodities on the short scale.

As Dr. Lenny, I am willing to take on students for a simple one hour for five hour time trade – and I will allow them to include the one hour with me as one of the five. Plus the nominal course fee at YC.C . But people have to either pass my tests or supply manual labor. As the courses advance in stature, I’ll get more value from the student and lower the in-debt time to four or three or two hours. But I wish no responsibility at all for tracking time and payment and the right to drop students that don’t perform.
The goal is getting people up to speed on the science of an application that we need. I’ll have ONRRI as a hypothesis tester for teaching methods that we create. The teachers at DHS and REC control their own focus, we supply their students that want the challenge with interest to match their interest. And interest builds value, simple economics, right?

So we might think – what do we currently not have locally, that we may need. A Lomakatsi type camp/school for youth that substitutes for a high school Certificate of Advanced Mastery program, for vocational rather than academic training? After showing a basic mastery of stuff, students direct specific interest into future employable skills training. Can we set up a cooperative that makes clothing, perhaps from hemp, or broom (gorse panties might be the rage in punk land – SM/BD has their perversity). Why not feed and encourage, rather than penalize and crack down? Can we call a truce in the drug war and stop sending people to jail for crimes that aren’t really crimes. Send people voluntarily to our training camp for skills. Fear does strange things, people fear change – but man, a lot has changed while we weren’t paying attention.

On another note - I am on a national conference call a week from today, Sunday at 4:00 pm sponsored by CUIP – Committee for a Unified Independent Party. Based in New York, they have Shumer and Clinton on the run, so we must be doing something right. The idea is trying to bring people together – let CUIP know if you or someone you know might like to join me on the call. The facilitating speaker is Jackie Salit of Salon Magazine, runs about an hour every other month. http://www.cuip.org/main.html

Dr. Lenny is a freelance scientist, a bard, and a game-player. All reponses to the article can be presented as a blog response at The Zone, and the realm of ideas will bear judgement on the revelation. Sit back, deep breath, laugh ...