I’m watching a show on the History Channel about the early Christian church. They are talking about writings by, or about, some of the Apostles, like Peter and Paul, that were excluded from the New Testament for one reason or another. A section of the show is on celibacy and how it came to be part of the doctrine of the early church. Which it didn’t. It became doctrine for a few of the churches but not most, until the Nicene Creed, by which time the practice was so entrenched and protected by special interest groups that it was retained.
In one of the apocrypha, something attributed to Peter, the experts explain that while Paul’s admonition in the New Testament to separate from one another for a time for prayer and meditation, then return to intimacy, Peter advises us to “remain chaste and avoid the [putrefaction] of the flesh.” (Brackets indicate I don’t remember the actual word, but that one is close).
It is assumed from this that Peter is demanding we all be celibate to be counted as serious Christians, and that this is the genesis of the practice in the early church and later Catholicism. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the same misunderstanding Paul suffers from. Chastity is not the same thing as celibacy. Celibacy is the total abstinence from sexual activity. Chastity is maintaining ones purity and virtue, but does not (necessarily) involve abstinence. Chastity is being true to marriage vows, remaining faithful to a spouse, and keeping sexual appetites and activity set within the bounds God gave us. Thus a married woman (or man) who is sexually active and maintaining fidelity, is being chaste. A person maintains his or her virtue through fidelity, not abstinence. Peter was telling the church (assuming the document is authentic) to be chaste in the sense of keeping vows. If they were to stray, they would be subject to the sins of the flesh. Paul was saying the same thing by the way. Neither Christ nor the Apostles ever preached any form of abstinence other than abstinence from adultery and fornication—which are defined as extra-marital sex and pre-marital sex. Indeed, marriage is one of the saving ordinances given us by God. Remember, He didn’t tell Adam and Eve to reject one another, He told them to multiply, and replenish the earth. These days sex is so mundane, promiscuity so common, that it no longer occurs to anyone that the Apostles might have been speaking about pre-and extra-marital sex. Society can now only imagine they must have been talking about no sex at all, because these days the only realities are sex or no sex, nothing in between. It’s too bad really. Makes God’s job that much harder.
Monday, December 24, 2007
open letter to Govenor Gibbons and Citizens of NV
December 24, 2007
Governor Jim Gibbons
Carson City, NV
Wayne Leavitt
Las Vegas NV
Dear Governor Gibbons,
I am writing concerning the continuing Yucca Mountain situation which faces the state of Nevada. I have a serious proposal I wish to present to you and the other lawmakers of the state.
While I empathize with those who are concerned about the health, safety and security issues surrounding the storage of nuclear waste, I am equally empathetic with the need to keep this long-term radioactive residue in one, relatively safe place.
There is no doubt that Nevada has seen more than its share of the nuclear age. I was born in Las Vegas and have seen home movies, filmed from the heart of the valley, of the mushroom clouds of above ground tests rising over the city. I have seen the effects working at the test site had on my uncle and others. I have lived in Cedar City, Utah and seen the radiation detector station in front of the high school and I have spoken with many of the “Down Winders” who were anxious to tell their stories—recollections of thousands of sheep dying en mass, stories of cancer clusters, etc. As a result, while I am far from a nuclear physicist, I am not unaware of the problems associated with the use of radioactive material. I understand the attitudes of those who wish to keep all such things out of our state, claiming (rightfully so) that Nevada has done its duty to the country and should be spared more involvement. I have little sympathy however for the people who are reacting with the irrational fear of the ignorant; those who know nothing about the nature of the material, of the storage facility, of the actual proposals or the consequences if all the nuclear waste in the country is left where it is.
I submit that the problem of safely storing the waste must take precedence over the concerns and fears of the people of Nevada. While I may not like it personally, this seems to be one of those situations where the common good outweighs personal considerations.
I believe it is time we stop fighting the Yucca Mountain project and take advantage of the reality that it is here. Following are my reasons for this position and a plan to make the situation palatable for Nevadans:
It is time we realize and admit to ourselves that “the fix is in”. As soon as construction started on the facility the fact of its location was a foregone conclusion. The Federal Government is a juggernaut; once the machine starts rolling there is no stopping it and no turning it. Yucca Mountain has been the chosen location for national nuclear storage for years. It should be evident to everyone by now this is not going to change. I realize our politicians and other concerned citizens claim to be fighting Yucca Mountain and I do not doubt their sincerity, but ultimately their efforts will be in vain. I say this because I do not believe the government will simply pull up stakes and move after they have spent years and billions of dollars on the facility. Any reasonable person understands this.
Let us suppose the foregoing is an accurate assessment. Is there anything we can do to mitigate the situation? Is there a way to somehow give ourselves an advantage, assuming that Yucca Mountain is here to stay and that nuclear waste will be traveling through-out the state and city on a regular basis? I believe there is. At this point the Federal Government must be very annoyed and frustrated over all the efforts to close Yucca Mountain down. I’m sure they wish we would all just go away and acquiesce. Why don’t we, as a state, make them an offer to compromise?
Let’s tell the government we will stop the fighting and the court battles, stop the press conferences and the protest marches under the following conditions:
1. When Yucca Mountain is finished 90% of all employees (including management) must be citizens of Nevada.
2. Two independent watchdog groups must be formed besides the normal government oversight. One would be made up of qualified Nevada citizens and the other would be a team of international experts, possibly under the auspices of the UN. Both groups would have regular and unlimited access to the facility and would report directly to the governor and the president.
3. Recommendations which came independently from two (or all three) groups must put into action.
4. The US government must agree to enter into a lease with the state of Nevada for the property and for our willingness to yet again sacrifice for the rest of the country.
5. The money from the lease would be divided in two; one half to the state general fund to be used for environmentally-related projects such as clean up, enforcement and funding state parks and other recreation areas, and one half to state education with the caveat that the money could only be spent on salaries, supplies and equipment. Normal state funding and bonds would continue to pay for other requirements, such as construction of new schools. I don’t know what kind of money this might involve but I suggest a starting bid of three billion dollars per year with automatic increases figured in to reflect inflation, cost of living and other factors. More if we can get it. This would substantially increase the education budget and hopefully bring our schools up to parity with the best in the nation. (Obviously, legislation would have to be in place requiring the state to continue all traditional funding to education or they would simply use that money for something else.)
6. The federal government must agree to build new, restricted access roads to Yucca Mountain which would allow all waste being delivered by truck or rail to bypass the Las Vegas valley. (This would have to be negotiable; I am not a civil engineer and am ignorant of the feasibility of such an undertaking.) I do know this would be an expensive endeavor. To quote Buckminster Fuller; “Nothing that has to be done ever costs too much.” It seems to me if we are willing to accept the risk and the facility which will house radioactive material for several thousand years these compromises are the least the rest of the country can do. A marketing campaign stressing this plan as a willing sacrifice by the state of Nevada and its citizens, for the benefit of the nation, would, if done correctly, turn the hearts of the nation to sympathize, thus causing pressure to accept the proposal.
7. Nevada should immediately apply for the construction of a major, multi-reactor, nuclear power-generation facility at or near Yucca Mountain. We need the energy and could generate income by selling our excess. Yucca Mountain is a logical place for such a facility. The reactor should be one of the new generation designs such as HTR (high temperature reactor, ALWR (advanced light water reactor) or the PBMR (pebble-bed modular reactor). The new designs, based on cutting edge technology, are far more efficient and safer than the old designs.
As citizens personally involved in the reality of Yucca Mountain we Nevadans need to realize there are no guarantees. No system is perfect, no plan can anticipate every possible contingency, and no one gets everything the way they want it to be. At some point we have to trust others to have our best interests at heart; that designers will do everything they can to engineer a safe facility, that construction workers will do their best and not cut corners and that inspectors will find any problems. We can neither ask nor expect more. Those of us whose fear is potent enough to interfere with our daily lives may have to relocate. It is unreasonable at this point (in fact it is irrational) to believe that our fears and apprehension will cause the government to relocate the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility. It is important to remember (in light of the anxiety many of our citizens feel concerning the transportation of radioactive materials) that nuclear weapons—or at least components of such weapons—have been stored for years here in the valley at a facility near Nellis AFB. Consequently, we can assume these things have been traveling through our valley unnoticed for at least fifty years.
While I applaud the sentiment of “NO YUCCA MOUNTAIN” being broadcast by so many of our representatives I believe it to be nothing more than political posturing. They know it is inevitable. It is their hope, I suspect, that their protests will stand them in good stead in the future. They need not be successful to achieve their goal of re-election as long as they can say “look at the record; I opposed Yucca Mountain to the end. Alas, the government was just too strong an adversary, but I tried. I fought the good fight!” Their sincerity—or lack thereof—is irrelevant. In the meantime the crisis increases and large sections of the country remain in jeopardy.
I call on all Nevada citizens to take a leap of faith. The science behind the facility is all we have. There is no place 100% safe. And in the end, the waste must be put somewhere. The helter-skelter storage going on now is far more dangerous than the alternative.
It is important to consider that all radioactive materials decay at a steady rate. While these processes are very lengthy in some cases, most take only a few decades. As an example, at the Hanford Washington facility (where enormous amounts are currently being stored in less than optimum conditions) over the last thirty or so years 50% of all the cesium-137 and strontium-90 has decayed into non-radioactive products. 100% of the iodine-131 and 85% of the low-energy radioactive tritium have decayed into non-radioactive materials as well, and all radioactive material continues to decay at a steady rate. [21st Century Science & Technology, summer, 2004 issue]. In other words the radioactive waste will slowly but steadily become less dangerous. We must remember too, that at some point in the future we will learn how to store the material with “total” safety, or render it inert or even find a way to recycle it and make it both useful and benign. We always do. The fear that the waste will always be with us is unfounded. It will decay over time. And we will discover methods of producing energy, medical testing, and other processes that do not require radioactive materials.
There can be no completely positive outcome to the Yucca Mountain debate. This proposal would at least benefit Nevada in meaningful ways, and keep the federal government honest with on-site, independent inspections.
Sincerely,
Wayne A. Leavitt
Cc:
Senator Reid
Senator Ensign
The Review Journal
Governor Jim Gibbons
Carson City, NV
Wayne Leavitt
Las Vegas NV
Dear Governor Gibbons,
I am writing concerning the continuing Yucca Mountain situation which faces the state of Nevada. I have a serious proposal I wish to present to you and the other lawmakers of the state.
While I empathize with those who are concerned about the health, safety and security issues surrounding the storage of nuclear waste, I am equally empathetic with the need to keep this long-term radioactive residue in one, relatively safe place.
There is no doubt that Nevada has seen more than its share of the nuclear age. I was born in Las Vegas and have seen home movies, filmed from the heart of the valley, of the mushroom clouds of above ground tests rising over the city. I have seen the effects working at the test site had on my uncle and others. I have lived in Cedar City, Utah and seen the radiation detector station in front of the high school and I have spoken with many of the “Down Winders” who were anxious to tell their stories—recollections of thousands of sheep dying en mass, stories of cancer clusters, etc. As a result, while I am far from a nuclear physicist, I am not unaware of the problems associated with the use of radioactive material. I understand the attitudes of those who wish to keep all such things out of our state, claiming (rightfully so) that Nevada has done its duty to the country and should be spared more involvement. I have little sympathy however for the people who are reacting with the irrational fear of the ignorant; those who know nothing about the nature of the material, of the storage facility, of the actual proposals or the consequences if all the nuclear waste in the country is left where it is.
I submit that the problem of safely storing the waste must take precedence over the concerns and fears of the people of Nevada. While I may not like it personally, this seems to be one of those situations where the common good outweighs personal considerations.
I believe it is time we stop fighting the Yucca Mountain project and take advantage of the reality that it is here. Following are my reasons for this position and a plan to make the situation palatable for Nevadans:
It is time we realize and admit to ourselves that “the fix is in”. As soon as construction started on the facility the fact of its location was a foregone conclusion. The Federal Government is a juggernaut; once the machine starts rolling there is no stopping it and no turning it. Yucca Mountain has been the chosen location for national nuclear storage for years. It should be evident to everyone by now this is not going to change. I realize our politicians and other concerned citizens claim to be fighting Yucca Mountain and I do not doubt their sincerity, but ultimately their efforts will be in vain. I say this because I do not believe the government will simply pull up stakes and move after they have spent years and billions of dollars on the facility. Any reasonable person understands this.
Let us suppose the foregoing is an accurate assessment. Is there anything we can do to mitigate the situation? Is there a way to somehow give ourselves an advantage, assuming that Yucca Mountain is here to stay and that nuclear waste will be traveling through-out the state and city on a regular basis? I believe there is. At this point the Federal Government must be very annoyed and frustrated over all the efforts to close Yucca Mountain down. I’m sure they wish we would all just go away and acquiesce. Why don’t we, as a state, make them an offer to compromise?
Let’s tell the government we will stop the fighting and the court battles, stop the press conferences and the protest marches under the following conditions:
1. When Yucca Mountain is finished 90% of all employees (including management) must be citizens of Nevada.
2. Two independent watchdog groups must be formed besides the normal government oversight. One would be made up of qualified Nevada citizens and the other would be a team of international experts, possibly under the auspices of the UN. Both groups would have regular and unlimited access to the facility and would report directly to the governor and the president.
3. Recommendations which came independently from two (or all three) groups must put into action.
4. The US government must agree to enter into a lease with the state of Nevada for the property and for our willingness to yet again sacrifice for the rest of the country.
5. The money from the lease would be divided in two; one half to the state general fund to be used for environmentally-related projects such as clean up, enforcement and funding state parks and other recreation areas, and one half to state education with the caveat that the money could only be spent on salaries, supplies and equipment. Normal state funding and bonds would continue to pay for other requirements, such as construction of new schools. I don’t know what kind of money this might involve but I suggest a starting bid of three billion dollars per year with automatic increases figured in to reflect inflation, cost of living and other factors. More if we can get it. This would substantially increase the education budget and hopefully bring our schools up to parity with the best in the nation. (Obviously, legislation would have to be in place requiring the state to continue all traditional funding to education or they would simply use that money for something else.)
6. The federal government must agree to build new, restricted access roads to Yucca Mountain which would allow all waste being delivered by truck or rail to bypass the Las Vegas valley. (This would have to be negotiable; I am not a civil engineer and am ignorant of the feasibility of such an undertaking.) I do know this would be an expensive endeavor. To quote Buckminster Fuller; “Nothing that has to be done ever costs too much.” It seems to me if we are willing to accept the risk and the facility which will house radioactive material for several thousand years these compromises are the least the rest of the country can do. A marketing campaign stressing this plan as a willing sacrifice by the state of Nevada and its citizens, for the benefit of the nation, would, if done correctly, turn the hearts of the nation to sympathize, thus causing pressure to accept the proposal.
7. Nevada should immediately apply for the construction of a major, multi-reactor, nuclear power-generation facility at or near Yucca Mountain. We need the energy and could generate income by selling our excess. Yucca Mountain is a logical place for such a facility. The reactor should be one of the new generation designs such as HTR (high temperature reactor, ALWR (advanced light water reactor) or the PBMR (pebble-bed modular reactor). The new designs, based on cutting edge technology, are far more efficient and safer than the old designs.
As citizens personally involved in the reality of Yucca Mountain we Nevadans need to realize there are no guarantees. No system is perfect, no plan can anticipate every possible contingency, and no one gets everything the way they want it to be. At some point we have to trust others to have our best interests at heart; that designers will do everything they can to engineer a safe facility, that construction workers will do their best and not cut corners and that inspectors will find any problems. We can neither ask nor expect more. Those of us whose fear is potent enough to interfere with our daily lives may have to relocate. It is unreasonable at this point (in fact it is irrational) to believe that our fears and apprehension will cause the government to relocate the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Storage Facility. It is important to remember (in light of the anxiety many of our citizens feel concerning the transportation of radioactive materials) that nuclear weapons—or at least components of such weapons—have been stored for years here in the valley at a facility near Nellis AFB. Consequently, we can assume these things have been traveling through our valley unnoticed for at least fifty years.
While I applaud the sentiment of “NO YUCCA MOUNTAIN” being broadcast by so many of our representatives I believe it to be nothing more than political posturing. They know it is inevitable. It is their hope, I suspect, that their protests will stand them in good stead in the future. They need not be successful to achieve their goal of re-election as long as they can say “look at the record; I opposed Yucca Mountain to the end. Alas, the government was just too strong an adversary, but I tried. I fought the good fight!” Their sincerity—or lack thereof—is irrelevant. In the meantime the crisis increases and large sections of the country remain in jeopardy.
I call on all Nevada citizens to take a leap of faith. The science behind the facility is all we have. There is no place 100% safe. And in the end, the waste must be put somewhere. The helter-skelter storage going on now is far more dangerous than the alternative.
It is important to consider that all radioactive materials decay at a steady rate. While these processes are very lengthy in some cases, most take only a few decades. As an example, at the Hanford Washington facility (where enormous amounts are currently being stored in less than optimum conditions) over the last thirty or so years 50% of all the cesium-137 and strontium-90 has decayed into non-radioactive products. 100% of the iodine-131 and 85% of the low-energy radioactive tritium have decayed into non-radioactive materials as well, and all radioactive material continues to decay at a steady rate. [21st Century Science & Technology, summer, 2004 issue]. In other words the radioactive waste will slowly but steadily become less dangerous. We must remember too, that at some point in the future we will learn how to store the material with “total” safety, or render it inert or even find a way to recycle it and make it both useful and benign. We always do. The fear that the waste will always be with us is unfounded. It will decay over time. And we will discover methods of producing energy, medical testing, and other processes that do not require radioactive materials.
There can be no completely positive outcome to the Yucca Mountain debate. This proposal would at least benefit Nevada in meaningful ways, and keep the federal government honest with on-site, independent inspections.
Sincerely,
Wayne A. Leavitt
Cc:
Senator Reid
Senator Ensign
The Review Journal
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Water Water Everywhere
Water. Have you noticed how everyone is saying we’re running out? At the exact same time all the ice is supposed to be melting. Georgia is in the middle of a severe drought, Atlanta is worried about running out of drinking water. That’s scary. We live in Las Vegas, which is perpetually in a drought because, well, you know, it’s a desert.
Personally, I don’t think we’re running out of water, but let’s examine the situation just in case. We live on a planet that is, on the surface, 7/8ths water. Some water vapor is lost escaping the planets gravity, but not much. More importantly, scientists now believe that the building blocks for water are constantly being replenished by capturing cometary fragments and dust as it collides with our atmosphere. But for all practical purposes, ours is a closed system; we maintain the same amount of planetary water over geological time periods. Back in the 70’s Buckminster Fuller coined the phrase “Space Ship Earth” in order to help us understand the idea of a closed system, like a terrarium, or the space shuttle. He wrote a book called Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, explaining his concept about natural resources and how to husband them. But he took the opposite view of the then neophyte environmental movement, which was bent on taking humanity back to the stone age, or eliminating humanity altogether in order to safeguard nature. His view, as I’ve mentioned before, was to do what we do best. Produce more of everything while using less of everything.
Some places seem to have more water than they want while others don’t have enough. Here in Vegas our favorite past time is yelling at the city planners for not planning anything while they let the developers build whatever they want, regardless (in some minds) of whether or not we can support the ever-increasing number of people and demands for scarce resources. We have a million golf courses here. Dancing fountains the size of football fields, a billion hotel rooms, each with its own tub and sink, thousands of luxury suites with tubs capable of holding fast-attack submarines, and more swimming pools than people. Not to mention shark tanks you can walk through, the world’s densest collection of restaurants and a Cirque de Soleil show called O, which is performed entirely in water. But the truth is the resorts conserve huge amounts of water. They use grey water for their golf courses and fountains, they recycle water like crazy—they do a good job with conservation. The problem is there are over a million of us now and dozens of hotel-casinos, all of which use huge chillers for air-conditioning, etc., etc.
We have drought in Sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of China, Washington DC (but that one is not so much a water problem as a shortage of brains and common sense) and dire predictions of things getting worse as rapid climate change continues, assuming it is happening at all and who cares of it does? Other places are being hit with way to much water. Wait till the spring thaw hits and let’s see how much flooding occurs. Has anyone heard any reports about the monsoons disappearing? As far as I know, half of the Amazon basin is still under a few feet of water during the wet season, and Holland is still having to maintain dikes to keep the ocean out.
But—and this is important—we have as much water in and on the planet as we ever have, maybe more. The problem is one of logistics, not shortages. We need to figure out plans for continental water transport systems because that is something we can actually do, if we really want to, as opposed to the idiotic idea that we can effect, alter or control the climate. No one knows how much water is in the deep crust and mantle of the earth, but there is a lot. We have the oceans, which are handy, and very convenient storage reservoirs—except they are a touch salty. So, we might need to invent efficient methods of desalinating large amounts of water. Which means coming up with substantial increases in energy in the form of electricity, which means—for the time being anyway—nuclear power plants. We also have the ice caps which have the advantage of being solid and fresh water. But they are a long way off and cold. Still, we lay cables and pipelines across continents and oceans, I’m sure we could pump ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica wherever it needs to go. Or just wrangle ice bergs into holding pens on coasts around the world and pump the water out as it melts—or as we melt it. And we can transport water in pipelines from the great rivers of the world to other areas. We’d have to be careful with that lest the rivers dry up. Maybe we need to rethink how we farm, who knows? And as we get better at going deep with wells, we should be able to bring up lots of water from the deep. That has dangers of its own—no one is sure what that will do to the stability of the crust and continental plates, but if we have to we can pump our carbon dioxide back down the holes to fill gaps. Or really big batches of epoxy. That should hold things together. There is an aquifer under New Mexico which, I am told, has more water in it than the combined Great Lakes. It’s brackish though, and would have to be purified; desalinated. Which is just a matter of deciding to do it. And remember, the water doesn’t disappear—it just moves around. It’s all always here. Over time aquifers will fill up, rivers will get healthy again, the ice will come back. Never fear. (Geologic time, of course, but whose counting epochs?) The problem, as usual, is mostly political and territorial. Nobody wants to share. Let’s ask Nevada to make a deal with some other states; tell them we’ll store their nuclear waste (because c’mon, get real, it’s gonna happen anyway) if they’ll let us borrow some of their river water. The Snake, Columbia, Salmon. Idaho has so many big rivers, with more water than I knew existed, I’m sure they could spare a few billion gallons. Washington has even more—and lots of radioactive waste sitting around in rapidly decaying barrels. And don’t even get me started about Canada and the Yukon! We could pump it down here during the peak runoff seasons, store it in our massive reservoirs (lake Mead, Lake Havasu, Lake Powell, just to name a few), then cut back a little in the dryer season and rely on the storage.
Eventually we may have to go off-planet to get water. No big deal. Grab some comets from the Kuiper Belt, sling them from some rail-gun type machines, or attach computer-controlled boosters to them, send them into a sunward orbit and then chop them up into little pieces and bring them down on the space elevator (which is in the design phase as we speak.) Piece of cake. We’ll be out there eventually anyway, mining the asteroids for important minerals and metals—may as well grab some water too.
The point is, this is doable. It would take lots of money and time and material, but once the infrastructure was in place it wouldn’t cost much (comparatively speaking) to maintain. I really like the iceberg thing. Stick motors and props on them—controlled by a GPS-rigged computer, and send them on their way. We could probably put modular structures on them and charge top dollar for exotic vacations on a melting hunk of ice. Just imagine, puttering along at three knots, whales swimming by, penguins jumping on and off (in the southern climes), sea birds pooping on your heads. Awesome! Think of the fishing you could get in. And yes, I know bergs shift and roll as the melting changes their shapes and centers of gravity . . . but that’s part of the fun! The modular housing would be designed to compensate, crawling around the berg, trying to find a new stable foundation. And you’d never run out of cold drinks. I hate when that happens, don’t you?
Personally, I don’t think we’re running out of water, but let’s examine the situation just in case. We live on a planet that is, on the surface, 7/8ths water. Some water vapor is lost escaping the planets gravity, but not much. More importantly, scientists now believe that the building blocks for water are constantly being replenished by capturing cometary fragments and dust as it collides with our atmosphere. But for all practical purposes, ours is a closed system; we maintain the same amount of planetary water over geological time periods. Back in the 70’s Buckminster Fuller coined the phrase “Space Ship Earth” in order to help us understand the idea of a closed system, like a terrarium, or the space shuttle. He wrote a book called Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, explaining his concept about natural resources and how to husband them. But he took the opposite view of the then neophyte environmental movement, which was bent on taking humanity back to the stone age, or eliminating humanity altogether in order to safeguard nature. His view, as I’ve mentioned before, was to do what we do best. Produce more of everything while using less of everything.
Some places seem to have more water than they want while others don’t have enough. Here in Vegas our favorite past time is yelling at the city planners for not planning anything while they let the developers build whatever they want, regardless (in some minds) of whether or not we can support the ever-increasing number of people and demands for scarce resources. We have a million golf courses here. Dancing fountains the size of football fields, a billion hotel rooms, each with its own tub and sink, thousands of luxury suites with tubs capable of holding fast-attack submarines, and more swimming pools than people. Not to mention shark tanks you can walk through, the world’s densest collection of restaurants and a Cirque de Soleil show called O, which is performed entirely in water. But the truth is the resorts conserve huge amounts of water. They use grey water for their golf courses and fountains, they recycle water like crazy—they do a good job with conservation. The problem is there are over a million of us now and dozens of hotel-casinos, all of which use huge chillers for air-conditioning, etc., etc.
We have drought in Sub-Saharan Africa, in parts of China, Washington DC (but that one is not so much a water problem as a shortage of brains and common sense) and dire predictions of things getting worse as rapid climate change continues, assuming it is happening at all and who cares of it does? Other places are being hit with way to much water. Wait till the spring thaw hits and let’s see how much flooding occurs. Has anyone heard any reports about the monsoons disappearing? As far as I know, half of the Amazon basin is still under a few feet of water during the wet season, and Holland is still having to maintain dikes to keep the ocean out.
But—and this is important—we have as much water in and on the planet as we ever have, maybe more. The problem is one of logistics, not shortages. We need to figure out plans for continental water transport systems because that is something we can actually do, if we really want to, as opposed to the idiotic idea that we can effect, alter or control the climate. No one knows how much water is in the deep crust and mantle of the earth, but there is a lot. We have the oceans, which are handy, and very convenient storage reservoirs—except they are a touch salty. So, we might need to invent efficient methods of desalinating large amounts of water. Which means coming up with substantial increases in energy in the form of electricity, which means—for the time being anyway—nuclear power plants. We also have the ice caps which have the advantage of being solid and fresh water. But they are a long way off and cold. Still, we lay cables and pipelines across continents and oceans, I’m sure we could pump ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica wherever it needs to go. Or just wrangle ice bergs into holding pens on coasts around the world and pump the water out as it melts—or as we melt it. And we can transport water in pipelines from the great rivers of the world to other areas. We’d have to be careful with that lest the rivers dry up. Maybe we need to rethink how we farm, who knows? And as we get better at going deep with wells, we should be able to bring up lots of water from the deep. That has dangers of its own—no one is sure what that will do to the stability of the crust and continental plates, but if we have to we can pump our carbon dioxide back down the holes to fill gaps. Or really big batches of epoxy. That should hold things together. There is an aquifer under New Mexico which, I am told, has more water in it than the combined Great Lakes. It’s brackish though, and would have to be purified; desalinated. Which is just a matter of deciding to do it. And remember, the water doesn’t disappear—it just moves around. It’s all always here. Over time aquifers will fill up, rivers will get healthy again, the ice will come back. Never fear. (Geologic time, of course, but whose counting epochs?) The problem, as usual, is mostly political and territorial. Nobody wants to share. Let’s ask Nevada to make a deal with some other states; tell them we’ll store their nuclear waste (because c’mon, get real, it’s gonna happen anyway) if they’ll let us borrow some of their river water. The Snake, Columbia, Salmon. Idaho has so many big rivers, with more water than I knew existed, I’m sure they could spare a few billion gallons. Washington has even more—and lots of radioactive waste sitting around in rapidly decaying barrels. And don’t even get me started about Canada and the Yukon! We could pump it down here during the peak runoff seasons, store it in our massive reservoirs (lake Mead, Lake Havasu, Lake Powell, just to name a few), then cut back a little in the dryer season and rely on the storage.
Eventually we may have to go off-planet to get water. No big deal. Grab some comets from the Kuiper Belt, sling them from some rail-gun type machines, or attach computer-controlled boosters to them, send them into a sunward orbit and then chop them up into little pieces and bring them down on the space elevator (which is in the design phase as we speak.) Piece of cake. We’ll be out there eventually anyway, mining the asteroids for important minerals and metals—may as well grab some water too.
The point is, this is doable. It would take lots of money and time and material, but once the infrastructure was in place it wouldn’t cost much (comparatively speaking) to maintain. I really like the iceberg thing. Stick motors and props on them—controlled by a GPS-rigged computer, and send them on their way. We could probably put modular structures on them and charge top dollar for exotic vacations on a melting hunk of ice. Just imagine, puttering along at three knots, whales swimming by, penguins jumping on and off (in the southern climes), sea birds pooping on your heads. Awesome! Think of the fishing you could get in. And yes, I know bergs shift and roll as the melting changes their shapes and centers of gravity . . . but that’s part of the fun! The modular housing would be designed to compensate, crawling around the berg, trying to find a new stable foundation. And you’d never run out of cold drinks. I hate when that happens, don’t you?
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Computer Modeling
I read a lot about science and technology. I have several websites bookmarked that I visit almost everyday, I have stacks of books I have read and that are patiently waiting to be read and I watch the Discovery Channel and the History Channel incessantly, not to mention all the sci-fi shows available (yes, that includes the Saturday Sci-Fi Channel Movie Premier of the Week, everyone of which are absolutely terrible.)
Over the past few years a new research tool has gone from fledgling enterprise to mainstream bandwagon, the new ‘must have’ item for the sophisticated researcher. I’m talking, of course, about Computer Modeling. As computers became smaller, faster and more sophisticated, a few mad-scientists discovered they could write their own code and build programs that would mimic real-world applications of whatever they were studying. Things like earthquakes, climate, high-energy particle behavior, mass-transit, volcanoes, ocean currents, population, supernovas, galactic collisions, tumor growth, what dinosaurs looked like, well . . . . you get the idea. Suddenly computer modeling is everywhere.
I don’t remember when I first began to be skeptical of the idea, but I do know it was when people began making dire predictions concerning the global climate based on models of earths atmospheric systems. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. “The climates of the planet are some of the most complex, dynamic systems of which humans are aware. They involve millions of permutations (think the Butterfly Effect), conditions, combinations and the like, all of which are constantly changing.” Are these guys really that good? What is computer modeling exactly? Here’s my best guess (because, you know, no way am I going to go out and research all this).
A person or group of persons wants to study something that, for whatever reason, they are not able to study. (Say, what do you suppose goes on in the deep mantle of the earth?) So they write a program describing what they know about the topic and what they think they know, based on the bias of whoever is in charge (what can we allow, what is too controversial to allow) and whatever past research has shown them. The program is designed to allow all kinds of data to be plugged into the design—“let’s add a few more metric tons of magma, just to see what happens”—and let the program run. Based on all the information they put in, and the starting parameters, they will get a picture of what the mantle might be doing—in their computer. Because see, the program isn’t the mantle. It can’t be; we know almost nothing about the deep interior of the earth. We think we do, but no one’s ever been there to take samples, to watch what really happens, to take measurements etc.
Then it occurred to me . . . . these models are very familiar. Has anyone ever played Sim City? Or any number of other games for computers?
I am going to take a stand, here and now. I’m drawing a line on the carpet (Nita’s going to kill me) and daring science to step over. Here it is: Computer modeling is not real science. It is gaming. What these guys do has much more in common with game designers than research. This isn’t research, it’s playing guessing games based on personal bias, incomplete data, speculation and hubris. I realize scientists are serious people, sincere, hard working, often brilliant. But they are subject to the same foibles and myopic vision as the rest of us. Sure, some models are helpful. But if you look at the record (which I did not) I think you’ll find that the best use of modeling is in the field of engineering, not science. And games, obviously.
We are decades away from being able to do any real science by mimicking nature with computers. Maybe longer. They should keep trying, get better at it, learn more, gather ever more data. But they should not expect us (me) to take them seriously until they can prove that their programs are sophisticated enough, complex enough and open-ended enough to reveal actual, real scenarios. Sounds a little like God, doesn’t it?
And they should absolutely not rely on their efforts, or reveal them to the public, before they know what they’re doing. Which, to a large degree, they don’t.
So remember, you heard it here first. When I am proven completely wrong I will have changed my e-mail address so don’t bother with the whole nyah-nyah-nyah thing.
Over the past few years a new research tool has gone from fledgling enterprise to mainstream bandwagon, the new ‘must have’ item for the sophisticated researcher. I’m talking, of course, about Computer Modeling. As computers became smaller, faster and more sophisticated, a few mad-scientists discovered they could write their own code and build programs that would mimic real-world applications of whatever they were studying. Things like earthquakes, climate, high-energy particle behavior, mass-transit, volcanoes, ocean currents, population, supernovas, galactic collisions, tumor growth, what dinosaurs looked like, well . . . . you get the idea. Suddenly computer modeling is everywhere.
I don’t remember when I first began to be skeptical of the idea, but I do know it was when people began making dire predictions concerning the global climate based on models of earths atmospheric systems. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. “The climates of the planet are some of the most complex, dynamic systems of which humans are aware. They involve millions of permutations (think the Butterfly Effect), conditions, combinations and the like, all of which are constantly changing.” Are these guys really that good? What is computer modeling exactly? Here’s my best guess (because, you know, no way am I going to go out and research all this).
A person or group of persons wants to study something that, for whatever reason, they are not able to study. (Say, what do you suppose goes on in the deep mantle of the earth?) So they write a program describing what they know about the topic and what they think they know, based on the bias of whoever is in charge (what can we allow, what is too controversial to allow) and whatever past research has shown them. The program is designed to allow all kinds of data to be plugged into the design—“let’s add a few more metric tons of magma, just to see what happens”—and let the program run. Based on all the information they put in, and the starting parameters, they will get a picture of what the mantle might be doing—in their computer. Because see, the program isn’t the mantle. It can’t be; we know almost nothing about the deep interior of the earth. We think we do, but no one’s ever been there to take samples, to watch what really happens, to take measurements etc.
Then it occurred to me . . . . these models are very familiar. Has anyone ever played Sim City? Or any number of other games for computers?
I am going to take a stand, here and now. I’m drawing a line on the carpet (Nita’s going to kill me) and daring science to step over. Here it is: Computer modeling is not real science. It is gaming. What these guys do has much more in common with game designers than research. This isn’t research, it’s playing guessing games based on personal bias, incomplete data, speculation and hubris. I realize scientists are serious people, sincere, hard working, often brilliant. But they are subject to the same foibles and myopic vision as the rest of us. Sure, some models are helpful. But if you look at the record (which I did not) I think you’ll find that the best use of modeling is in the field of engineering, not science. And games, obviously.
We are decades away from being able to do any real science by mimicking nature with computers. Maybe longer. They should keep trying, get better at it, learn more, gather ever more data. But they should not expect us (me) to take them seriously until they can prove that their programs are sophisticated enough, complex enough and open-ended enough to reveal actual, real scenarios. Sounds a little like God, doesn’t it?
And they should absolutely not rely on their efforts, or reveal them to the public, before they know what they’re doing. Which, to a large degree, they don’t.
So remember, you heard it here first. When I am proven completely wrong I will have changed my e-mail address so don’t bother with the whole nyah-nyah-nyah thing.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Roe V Wade
Let’s revisit Roe V Wade, shall we? As you know by now, I am the shy retiring sort who is loathe to invigorate any sort of controversy, which is why I stay away from subjects bound to foment passion or animosity. Over the years this particular topic has remained at number one with a bullet for a very long time—sort of the Dark Side of the Moon of touchy subjects. Rather than increase the bad feelings and polarize sides to even more outrageous extremes, I have decided to set the record straight, put the heart of the debate where it belongs, and thereby remove the animus from this long-standing question. Cool, huh?
First I suppose I’d better see if I have the argument straight. If at any time you think I have erred, veered from the salient points or made a mistake, feel free to stop me and correct whatever faux paux I may have made.
So, in a test case of epic proportions, a woman (Jane Roe) challenged the laws of
Tough call. The constitution doesn’t specifically mention abortion—or a lot of other things. We always hope the answer is in there somewhere, but it is usually best to err on the side of caution when it isn’t. But I’m in favor of letting a woman make that choice when a rape or incest is involved. Not that it’s any of my business, other than a vested interest in civilization.
The simple answer is as follows: Of course a woman has the right to choose. How could it be any other way? And of course choosing an abortion is the wrong choice 99% of the time. How could it not be? I’m not going to go into all of that “viability” stuff, or “it’s a human life” or “it’s my body and I can do what I want.” Well, maybe that last one. But those aren’t where the real answer lies.
The real answer lies in the nature of the choice, and under what principle the question of abortion is rightly embedded.
Is the right to an abortion vs. the right to life a political question or a moral question? If it is a political question then we stop the debate right here. The state has the right to rule. If it a moral question, the debate becomes a little more complicated. Now we have to decide what morality is, how it is created, and whose morality will hold sway. Dicey, at best. And we have to decide if moral precepts are immutable or changeable. Personally, I’m in the immutable camp. I accept the idea that morality is one of God’s creations, given to us as one of the tools to perfect our lives. Unfortunately, I can’t prove it, which puts a damper on my credibility. But let’s assume I’m right for a moment. What did God have to say about abortion? Nothing that we know of, at least not directly. It does say “Thou Shalt Not Kill” or “Thou Shalt Not Shed Innocent Blood,” depending on which version you look at. This commandment is used as the case against abortion, and it is a good one, if we accept the idea that abortion is killing a viable human being. Many of us don’t. But abortion isn’t the causal sin. It is a smoke screen, used to distract us from the real issue, which is, and always has been, personal chastity. And that the Bible does say something about. Oh, sure, I think abortion is a sin, but nobody cares. It just isn’t the big sin. The Pro Choice camp—if you haven’t noticed by now—is adamant, shrill to the point of frenzy, in their crusade to defend choice. How could anyone object to that, right? I mean, free will, the ability to choose, is the foundation of Christian theology. Unless you’re a Calvinist. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. This is universally interpreted as a commandment against sexual impropriety of any kind—pre and extra-marital sex, in other words. Fornication and Adultery. Once upon a time people paid attention to that idea. A lot of us may have fallen short of the ideal, but we were serious about trying, and remain so after the fact.
So, God told us—commanded us—to only have sexual relations with our spouse and within the covenant of marriage. The sin, the one no one wants to talk about because it would be too restricting to their lifestyle, is unauthorized sex. God told us to keep sex within the bounds He set, in order to insure the health of the family and the purity of the human body—a
But here’s the thing. The choice everyone is arguing over is the choice to have sex—not an abortion. The desire for an abortion stems directly from the first, causal choice, not the other way around. We demand our freedom to choose sexual promiscuity, then balk at the consequences. One of which is pregnancy—a baby. Once a woman is pregnant—except in the very rare cases of rape or immediate danger to her life—she has used up her freedom to choose. Sure, she can pretend otherwise, but the dilemma remains. She has “sinned” (and so has he) and now faces the consequence, demanding to exacerbate the situation by sinning again. The abortion is anti-climactic. It’s easy to hide the sexual impropriety, but not the pregnancy, which is why all the effort was focused on the latter; freedom to choose the abortion. Hide the evidence. It reminds me of Adam and Eve putting on aprons of fig leaves to hide their nakedness. Duh . . .
But what does any of this matter to all the secularists out there? The atheists, agnostics, the don’t-give-a-damn hedonists? Not much, I’m sure. Many people now believe that humans are just another animal, an organism and nothing more, making procreation nothing more or less than what any other living thing goes through as a matter course. Welcome to the Monkey House. (If you are one of those, why are you reading this at all?) If that’s the case, language is nothing more than evolutionary adaptation, a matter of survival, signifying nothing beyond marks on a page.
“It’s my body and I am the only one able to make decisions concerning it.” That’s how I feel too. Except it’s not true. It’s God’s body. The life force, the spirit, the physical ingredients—all belong to Him, were organized by Him, for the express purpose of allowing us to have bodies. Thus, any woman who professes the acceptance of Christian beliefs, really doesn’t have that total ownership she things she does. The same goes for men of course. And I would argue (along with thousands of others) that it’s our body until another body starts to grow inside it. A unique ability only women have and for which I am eternally grateful. Does the fact that a fetus cannot, as yet, make choices for itself negate the sure knowledge that it will be able to eventually? We have no problem with the idea of “eating for two” or filing two homicide charges against Lacey’s husband for killing his wife and unborn child . . . so why do we have such a problem with the idea of “existing for two?”
Now all we have left is the idea that abortion is murder, killing a baby. Once again, the whole thing is misdirection, sleight of hand. It’s not the abortion, it’s the misuse of the procreative powers. Look at it this way. Say life is a coin, minted by God, with death on one side and life on the other. He owns the coin. We all understand the death side of the coin. It is wrong to kill, to murder. Under special circumstances, the State has the authority to take a life, but even there many of us disagree with the process of capital punishment. But killing is wrong—this is a universal standard. Yes there are exceptions, like criminals, psychotics and the like, and war, which is another topic altogether. By and large however, we agree that killing is wrong, even if we don’t believe in God. I’m not sure why—no God no rules, right? Those of us who do believe in a Supreme Being understand that death belongs to God. He takes whom he takes. Accidents happen, people break and do something rash . . . whatever. No one has a problem with the concept.
The other side of the coin is life, which also belongs to God. He made the coin. This one we don’t understand as well. I believe (and this is a personal belief, not necessarily a Christian tenant, as far as I know) that God views life and death as the same thing. He made us. Life belongs to Him in exactly the same sense that death does. We know it’s wrong to kill in an unauthorized manner. But we are having a great deal of trouble with the idea that the creation of unauthorized life is the same sin as killing—just the other side of the coin. In other words, we don’t have permission to create life outside of marriage. The fact that we ignore that doesn’t change the reality of it. And the reality that we often choose to abort the life we create, only makes the whole thing worse—but the damage is already done. I don’t believe any life is born into sin—that’s not what I’m suggesting. The concept is just wrong. Pernicious. God is sending us here for a reason. That reason must be compelling because He lets us make kids under just about any circumstances at all. Freedom of choice again. But we are not cooperating. We keep killing the new people He sends. I wonder how that makes Him feel? I know how it makes me feel.
For the record, I am not condemning anyone. My heart goes out to all those who are faced with decisions like these. I understand the fear and guilt; I certainly understand the overwhelming urge that starts the whole thing. I’m no judge of the human heart. I love humanity, the very idea of it. I love infants, regardless of their origins. I love my daughters, all of whom could have had to face this situation but didn’t. And I would have loved them right through it all, stood with them, and honored whatever decision they made. After all, sin is a useful and necessary tool on the way to perfection. It teaches us what perfection might be like, it gives us experience, wisdom (if we’re lucky) and resolve.
Now, aren’t you glad you stuck it out to the end?
So long Harry
Gosh. This is a tough one. I’ve thought long and hard about this one (not really; it took about ten seconds after a read the latest quote) and it makes me sad, but I am going to have to call for the forced retirement of one of our Senators. Consider this an official grass-roots movement—and you’re in on the ground floor. Pretty keen, huh?
It’s about poor Senator Harry Reid. We have to get rid of him. I think he should be impeached. We need to make him an example. Hold a special vote of no-confidence, ask him to move to Mexico, or Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, or some other country so corrupt his presence won’t be noticed. I don’t know him, or much about him. I’m in no position to pass judgment on what kind of a man he is, and I won’t. But I am in position to pass judgment on his professionalism and quality of work as well as his report card as a Senator for Nevada. He sucks. Ever since he became Majority Leader, it has gone straight to his head. Everything he’s said in the last two or three years has been misleading, disingenuous, spurious, often bordering on slander, mean-spirited, stupid, ignorant, and dead wrong. He is an embarrassment to this state and the country. He has become a laughing stock, negligent, incompetent. Truthfully, I suspect he never really had what it takes to fill the job. He has become the worst kind of party hack, a trained attack dog for the Democratic party. If I were a Dem, I wouldn’t want to claim him, anymore than I want to claim Bush. (He’s mine though, dammit.)
Every public word out of Senator Reid’s mouth has been petty, callous, personal, and disrespectful. He’s wishy-washy. The perfect collaborator, a weather vane, a poll-worshiping demagogue. The worst kind of hypocrite. Far worse than me, and I can be pretty hypocritical. He appears to have no sense of propriety, no common decency, no respect for the rules of the Senate, any office, or himself. He has become an ineffective, doddering, cantankerous, old fool. I’m sure he’s a great dad, grandfather, husband, does community service (if the cameras are rolling), has friends, tells jokes, carves the turkey, and teaches a good Sunday school class. But it’s time he sticks to what he can do well, and being a Senator ain’t it.
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