Saturday, December 10, 2016

Trump must now change his rapprochement with Russia or risk being arrested as an agent of a foreign power


"Of coarse a mass movement against the never-ending-war-on-whatever-it-is-this-week could go a long way to stopping all that ... ."


News Item:
WaPo - Dec 9, 2016 | Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

My Take:

NYT, WaPo reporting that at a CIA report to a secret briefing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee to aid the Trump campaign.

It should be understood that by saying this publicly the government of the US has stated that it believes that Russia has committed an Act of War against the United States.

Image via CrowdStrike Blog DNC public report June 2016 - https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/

So the same national security cabal that worked behind the scenes to derail Obama's agreement with Russia to fight together against the terrorists in Syria (and stop trying to overthrow the Assad government using the terrorists at the same time) is now pillorying Trump's stated foreign policy pivot towards the same idea.

Now that policy has Trump in an impossible position - he must now change it or risk being arrested as an agent for a foreign power with which the state he is about to ascend to the leadership of is ostensibly at war with.

It sounds very Roman ... Caesar-ish.

Russia is the pivot upon which all of this turns because they are the regional power in the way to the US Empire's expanded primacy in Western and Central Asia (oil, gas uranium, coal...).

With this American expansion Russia will loose hegemony over her access to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and the countries proximate - and thus be reduced from a dominant regional Central Asian power to a land locked Central European power. This at the same time will reduce the US reliance on Turkey as an ally as she will no longer be the western linchpin for western hegemony of the Eastern Mediterranean. Thus Turkey looses leverage, as does Israel (ironically), and Saudi Arabia (to a much lesser extent - as long as the light crude lasts).

Interesting Times.

So the take away is - these machinations reveal clearly for the first time, that the US Republic is de facto, over; it has been replaced by a powerful patrician class which runs an Imperial Empire from behind the vestiges of the Republic (Congress, Administration Judiciary) which could at any moment replace them all - without a functional hiccup - with an all powerful Emperor ...

.. And, we are about to go to war with Russia - likely in Syria, Iran and the Black Sea.

This Third World War will at minimum, result in destruction of entire regions of the planet with likely a 700,000,000 death toll before it's over.


Of coarse a mass movement against the never-ending-war-on-whatever-it-is-this-week could go a long way to stopping all that ... .



WaPo - Dec 9, 2016 | Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.27e62d5af138


WaPo - Oct 7, 2016 | U.S. government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with elections | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-government-officially-accuses-russia-of-hacking-campaign-to-influence-elections/2016/10/07/4e0b9654-8cbf-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html?utm_term=.10798f6794f3

CrowdStrike - June 15, 2016 | Bears in the Midst: Intrusion into the Democratic National Committee | https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/



mh

Saturday, November 12, 2016

@TheProgressive - bad online marketing - way past when it was necessary


This embed was offered in the context of a free issue of The Progressive, an old school progressive publication of some import.

Not having published, it kind of looks like a video ...looking at the code, it's a flash player embed - rather than the standard iframe.

Having no idea what it is, I like the Progressive's message, so I'll publish.

I just hate the that The Progressive - 10 years in - hasn't hired a social media expert.

Print Media.  :/

Oh - and Rogers Media is throttling this 79MB file. After writing this - 2 hours 40 minutes remaining (6.7kb/s).

+CRTC
(like that will work)

https://app.topspin.net/store/artist/19986?wId=249274&highlightColor=0x00A1FF&theme=black&w=400&h=300&src=tw

P.S. Yep - being throttled; watching my current binge - playing beautifully:

This Old House | Project with Purpose Begins (one of This Old House's Occupy Wall Street projects) | The Roxbury House, Episode 1 (2010) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Xq9J7gxY0




mh

Saturday, November 5, 2016

North of the Cinema District - I got played by a producer who was in fact - a Producer


I'm a writer.

I got played for 2 Pints and a JJ shot by a producer who had all the intention of playing me for just that.

But as a creative writer I did learn one thing: always trust your bartender.

@HitchLimited

:)



mh

Monday, October 31, 2016

Task Force report sees communications revolution as catalyst towards 'transformational change' at Toronto Police Service


Key Take-Aways:

  • Exercise is cost cutting to lower $1.005Billion Police budget 1%
  • Tasers to be purchased for all Officers - despite public concerns;
  • Hiring and Promotion Freeze - might cause labour pushback;
  • Division catchments bigger - less local policing?.
  • Selling land under old Division Headquarters - 70% of 'Savings';
  • New form 'Priority Policing' a red herring - already happening as per 2013 report.

After reading the entire document - I present a short review of the June 2016 report, "The Way Forward - Modernizing Community Safety in Toronto - Interim Report" - which is a report from the Toronto Police Service's Transformational Task Force, requested by the Toronto Police Services Board in Winter 2015, towards a generational remodeling of the TPS.

Also below is a reprint of a list of concerns about the report from the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition (Former Mayor John Sewell's oversight group).

In my opinion the report is a very progressive document. It visions everything critics of modern policing have ever asked for - with one exception - instead of achieving all the goals via local, democratic governance it proposes to achieve the ends via the revolution in media - specifically, that essential character of the communications revolution, the change from an in situ broadcast medium, to a mobile, two-way medium - as a catalyst for qualitative change.

I believe it is this qualitative change which the authors believe will drive all the institutional changes envisioned in the document. The service delivery change, the structural change, and the change in the qualities of the TPS's personnel.

The report visions the qualities of TPS personnel within a new service delivery model - powered by web phones:

"In the new service delivery model, all officers, including a new community specialist designation, will not only be protectors and guardians of public safety, but will also be recognized as facilitators, problem solvers, collaborative partners, and team members. Officers will have the skills, knowledge, experience and emotional intelligence to build strong relationships and facilitate local strategies to keep individuals and communities safe. They will be community members who are known, valued, and trusted."
- The Way Forward (paragraph 2, page 23 of 47)


Unfortunately the report does not sight reports or sources that would show this kind of transformation implemented anywhere; nor does it define markers of success towards any of the goals identified. I also note that this plan to transform of one of the largest institutions in Canada has been a very quick affair. The report was requested by The Police Services Board soon after last years' bad press about the TPS's over $1Billion budget which made the news at the same time as cuts to social services were being voted on. I note the report came out 4 months later, with no public consultation - except those individuals on the task force chosen by the Task Force leaders - and that the whole thing will have a total of 3 public consultations over 11 days - one in East York, one in Scarborough, and one at City Hall:

Please make special note of the details:
Date                     Time             Location                      Address
Wed., October 26, 2016   6:30 – 9:30pm    Danforth Collegiate           800 Greenwood Ave.
Wed., November 2, 2016   6:30 – 9:30pm    Mother Theresa High School    40 Sewells Rd.
Sat., November 5, 2016   1 – 4pm          City Hall                     100 Queen St. W

(Table via Google Search "The Way Forward - Toronto Police Service, Message from the Chief" -> Jun 17, 2016 - Message from the Chief - https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/TheWayForward/ - the content has no web address and no link in the tabs - installed onto the site via a secure style sheet i info can be found under tabs at TPSB website - http://www.tpsb.ca/items-of-interest)

The Final report will be written, I suppose, after the November 5th consultation and presented to the Board in December for consideration in January 2017.

What it seems to come down to is saving money. And the money saving is a three year freeze on hiring and promotions - while all these 'transformation' roll out.

Also they propose to close station houses and combine Divisions - thus saving on administration, and by 'returning property to the City of Toronto' worth 'up to $72 million' (totaling $100Million over 3 years).

Below, in John Sewall's comments on the list of recommendations - he warns about the combining Divisions idea (which appears to be the only idea in the report - aside from reducing the number of officers - this idea only reduces the budget by selling off property); here's Sewell's #16:

16.  City-wide divisional boundary and facilities realignment
This involves drawing new lines on maps, the amalgamation of some police stations, and a better system of dispatching resources to emergencies.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity to spend lots of money on consultants for studies that don't serve any good purpose. A better first step is to be clear about what police officers will be doing: will more of the force by assigned to work in neighbourhoods? Will random patrol be abandoned? What role will civilians play in the new policing model? How will police officers interact with social services in the city?

The report says that amalgamation of divisions will save money: experience with amalgamation in Toronto is that it costs money.

Until these questions are clarified the recommendations under this heading should be held in abeyance, including any amalgamation of divisions.

I submitted a comment to the process - I asked for better policing, not cost cutting. I posited that we need more station houses and more Officers doing foot and bike patrols - and reduce costs by decreasing the size of the patrol car fleets in Toronto and East York - where density his so much higher than in the sprawl-burbs. I proposed that Divisions have catchments that are walkable in size - so approximately the size of the existing Wards.

The freeze on hiring and promotion will likely necessitate in key changes in the collective agreement - so if the Police Board pushes on this - likely job action will ensue. So the end game in all this might just turn out to be: 'See! We (the Mayors Office and the 'no-new-taxes' Councillors*) tried to keep the $1.005 billion budget under control, but the unions are a bunch of entitled so-and-so's - so instead we'll have to cut schools and community centres again'.

[* I note that the report says TPS spending is only 1% higher that the increase in total city revenue increase (so instead of 10% of the total budget in 2002 - now 11% in 2016).]

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/TheWayForward/



Here's a list of concerns about The Transformational Task Force report from the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition - Bulletin No. 98, June 29, 2016 (Former Mayor John Sewell is on this group's board) - http://www.tpac.ca/show_bulletin.cfm?id=203.


1. The Transformational Task Force report

The interim report of the task force is titled `The Way Forward: Modernizing Community Safety in Toronto , and the 24 recommendations are a mixed bag with hints of new possibilities, but no firm conclusions about how the Toronto police force will be transformed. (For the full report, go to www.tpac.ca and click on Items of Interest.) The report proposes that the force will modestly shrink in size (less than 10 per cent); some functions which have little to do with policing (lifeguards on beaches) will be turned over to other branches of the civic government; some old chestnuts (such as two officers in a car and the shift schedule) will be revisited; and new technology will be purchased for purposes not entirely clear.

The biggest hint of change is about the role of officers in neighbourhoods but it is unclear exactly what it is proposed they will be doing and whether random patrol work will continue to be a major police function. Similarly, it is unclear how exactly officers will relate to other city services. Will these issues be clarified in the final report expected at the end of the year, and if so, in which direction?

The Board is holding a hearing on the recommendations on July 19. Perhaps public reaction will help to clarify what directions the Task Force should be taking to improve policing in Toronto.

What follows is commentary on each the recommendation. The report itself adds very little information to what's in the the five pages of recommendations.


1. Connected Officers:
This recommendation proposes that each officer has a smart phone. Apparently this will support officers working `in their assigned neighbourhood every day, 'and is a result of `focusing officers on local problem solving' but no further explanation is offered.

There is no recommendation which says that officers will be re-assigned from patrol to neighbourhoods or for what period of time, so it is somewhat unclear what is being proposed. We know that neighbourhood teams have been working in several neighbourhoods for a couple of years but that is not mentioned in the report, and thus it is unclear what might have been learned from this experience.

If the report said that patrol work is a waste of time and that anonymous policing (currently the foundation of patrol work) should stop, that would be a very good change. But there are no such statements.

Accordingly, this recommendation needs much more explanation. And even if the signal being given is to move to the neighbourhood model of policing, useful change will not come about just because officers have access to expensive new technology.


2. Improved capabilities related to data, information, and analysis, including big data
No one can quarrel with better analysis. But there is good reason to question why the police department should rely on `big data'. A recent report in the New York Times shows that big data is extraordinarily prejudiced in favour of wealthy white men, and is prejudicial to women, blacks, yellows, browns, and the poor. See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligences-white-guy-problem.html?_r=1

And do police need even more information when they do so poorly with the info they now have? It sounds as though the police service is moving into even broader surveillance as though that will begin to resolve problems, and that is a very questionable direction. Police surveillance demands better public oversight, of which there is no mention.
This recommendation needs much more explanation and discussion. There are also very serious concerns about the cost of this and the first recommendation. Technology always comes with costs higher than imagined.


3. Disbanding TAVIS.
This is a good recommendation. Any gains in information coming from TAVIS is far outweighed by the damage done to relations with the community.


4. Risk assessment for priority response
This has to do with determining which calls for service the police should respond to (including which are emergencies), and which calls other city services should respond to. It probably also involves a replacement for 911 calls, which now is one of the only useful ways of making contact with police, although one is often put on hold.

The report suggests there are significant savings with these changes, but it is unclear exactly how they will occur.

What's needed is some analysis of what happens now. Police do not respond to about half the calls they receive because responses are not needed. But the calls they do respond to only amount to two or three calls per officer per shift. And often more than one officer attends at a call, sometimes four or five or six.

If the police service is moving into a neighbourhood service model, it's reasonable to believe (or to hope) that many calls will be made directly to the officers in that neighbourhood rather than to a central office. That would mean that only calls involving imminent violence or danger would go to a central office. How many such calls are there presently?

This raises a larger question: what do police officers actually do right now? How do they spend time on their shifts? Before agreeing to allocate resources on risk assessment, or virtually any other recommendation in this report, we need to know this. The last study in Ontario on this was done almost 40 years ago by Richard Ericson in `Reproducing Order: A Study of Police Patrol Work, and it basically concluded that in a regular shift an officer would generally spend no more than 90 minutes dealing with the public. We need a good study looking at how Toronto officers spend their time, how much time is spent doing work that civilians could do, and so forth. That will help determine how many police officers are needed.


5. Alternative reporting and follow-up for non-emergencies
This proposal also includes using civilians, and suggests reporting in person, on line and by phone. This makes good sense.


6. Improved public safety response
It is unclear how this will differ from the existing Emergency Task Force.


7. More efficient scheduling.
This recommendation says the shift schedule will be reviewed, which is the same recommendation which has been made for the past eight years. The current shift schedule has the same number of officers on duty throughout the 24 hours which means there is no match between demand for services and police personnel; that officers serve for a week and then are off for a week so there is no continuity; and it also pays for a four hour overlap of officers.

Changing the shift schedule will require some useful studies of other police forces in order to put the Board in a strong positon to bargain with the Police Association. We need to see how the Board will address these studies.


8. More effective deployment in vehicles.
Two officers in a car - an extreme example of featherbedding - will again be reviewed as it has been for the last eight years. The only way to ensure there's a different outcome this time around is with studies showing that other forces in Canada operate perfectly well, and probably more safely, without requiring two officers in a car.


9. A risk-based response to special events
This recommendation proposes that officers may not be needed at every special event and some criteria is needed to determine which ones. This makes sense.


10. A more efficient retail response
The proposal here is to use special constables in shopping centres (just as special constables are used at universities) rather than police officers. It makes sense, but the report estimates it will save 5500 hours of policing services, that is, about three officers. So there is not much money being saved.


11. Disband the Transit Patrol Unit
Finally. This was a real duplication of the TTC's own constables, and a waste of public money. How much money? We don't know because the Board only released a six page budget for 2016 and it simply didn't get into the detail of the cost of any program involving officers. One transformation would be to require a full budget showing exactly where the one billion dollars a year is spent. There are probably 75+ officers assigned to travel transit so they will all be re-assigned.

What the report does not suggest, and it should, is disbanding the School Resources Officers, the police officers in schools program. Schools are better managed by school officials, not by police officers, and the 30+ SROs now in schools should be re-assigned.


12. Alternative delivery of the Lifeguard program
This makes sense and will free up civilians who now manage it but of course there is no saving to the public since some other branch of the city will pay for it.


13. Alternative delivery of the School Crossing Guard program
This makes sense. The use of officers in this program is relatively minor, so there is no considerable savings by shifting this to some other public body.


14. Using traffic enforcement technology to improve community safety.
This is about using a lot more 'red light cameras'. They are expensive - no cost estimate is given - but they provide good traffic enforcement and raise more than enough money to pay for themselves. Will the number of officers be reduced by using these cameras to give tickets? No information is given about this.

This probably makes sense, but more detail is required of what is actually proposed.


15. Overhauling Paid Duty.
Again this is something that has been suggested many times in the past but little change has taken place. How can anyone be assured that this time something good will happen?


16. City-wide divisional boundary and facilities realignment
This involves drawing new lines on maps, the amalgamation of some police stations, and a better system of dispatching resources to emergencies.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity to spend lots of money on consultants for studies that don't serve any good purpose. A better first step is to be clear about what police officers will be doing: will more of the force by assigned to work in neighbourhoods? Will random patrol be abandoned? What role will civilians play in the new policing model? How will police officers interact with social services in the city?

The report says that amalgamation of divisions will save money: experience with amalgamation in Toronto is that it costs money.

Until these questions are clarified the recommendations under this heading should be held in abeyance, including any amalgamation of divisions.


17. More accessible and transparent information and services
This is a repeat of recommendations 1, 2 and 5. The big concern here is the use of expensive technology.


18. Moratorium on hiring and promotions
This recommends generally not hiring new officers in the next three years, and states this will save $60 million over the next three years. It certainly makes sense to shrink the size of the police force. Whether reducing the force by the 350 officers which this recommendation proposes is the right number or not remains to be seen. Getting a better shift schedule and getting rid of the requirement of two officers in a car after dark can lead to the need for many fewer officers. This moratorium should be seen as a start to determining the number officers needed for excellent policing in Toronto.


19. Assessing Information Technology requirements
The police service has spent extraordinary sums in the past few decades on technology, some of it very foolishly. No studies should be undertaken until it is clear what the new policing model will actually look like, and then there must be very careful monitoring of what studies will be undertaken and for what purpose.


20. Alternative or shared service delivery of Court Services
This is simply a study of how court services may be delivered more efficiently. Providing the study has reasonable terms of reference, it probably makes sense.


21. Alternative or shared service delivery of Parking Enforcement.
This is yet another study of something reviewed in the past. How can it be assured that this time the study will amount to something?


22. Alternative or shared service delivery of background screenings of new recruits
This probably makes sense, but if police are not going to be doing much hiring in the next three years, there is no reason to spend energy on this now.


23. Investment in 911
This proposes a cost recovery program of some kind. But it doesn t seem reasonable or equitable to charge people who call 911, and in any case other recommendations suggest alternative contacts for non-emergency situations. This recommendation should be held in abeyance until recommendation 5 is implemented.


24. Comprehensive culture change and human resources strategy
This includes a number of ideas which will be detailed in the final report:

a) benchmarks for measuring culture change.
The best benchmarks should be dealing with performance, since that's the one thing which will measure any changes in police culture. If the benchmarks simply deal with culture as attitude, it will be useless. TPAC has developed a comprehensive list of 43 benchmarks to measure police effectiveness.

b) better management
This looks really mushy. Why can't the police force hire good managers from outside policing? Why does hiring always have to take place from within? Hiring managers from other organizations who might not know much about policing but know a lot about good management should be a recommendation but it is not mentioned.
Another good management tool is a detailed budget. That is not something which the Police Service created this year. It is required.

c) partnering with an academic institution to professionalize policing.
A better approach would be to hire new police staff by job descriptions rather than taking officers at the bottom of the organization and then trying to retrain them.

d) more innovation.
The idea is to have a staff group responsible for fostering innovation. Thinking about innovation in a systemic way is a good idea for an organization with spends one billion dollars a year.

e) redesigned training for officers
Not only will they have new training for young recruits, but they will require all existing officers to be retrained. This is an extraordinarily expensive way of doing things, and it does nothing to counter police culture. The training of officers for the past twenty years to better respond to those with mental illness has had precious little impact on the police force. How can we assure that the training will be more effective? Perhaps after training, officers need better supervision and mentoring by those skilled in particular areas. As well, hiring people with the needed skills through job descriptions - not hiring at the bottom and having people move up - is more sensible than trying to get existing staff to learn new skills.

f) better performance management for officers
Sure, but if you don't hire the right ones, does it matter?

g) program of rewards
A program to reward officers for doing terrific work is a good idea, as is disciplining officers who do bad work.








mh

Sunday, October 30, 2016

What's so funny about peace love and understanding? * - World War Three series



In an article last week I talked about the roll out of World War Three and how are people dealing with it.

World War Three is rolling out; How are people dealing with it?


Recently I meet an old friend and we talked - in essence, about the nature of human beings.

I am much enthused. Thanks.

It went something like this:

People are good; rely on sign posts from the people.


* Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding (1979)



For reference:
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Pump It Up (1979)





mh

Friday, October 21, 2016

World War Three is rolling out; How are people dealing with it?


  • Southern Europe, North Africa, The Middle East are on fire; 
  • The US and China are testing each others resolve in the South China Sea; 
  • New strategic alignments are separating the world into two camps: 
    • The US and her allies;
    • Everyone who won't bow down to it.

The world has never been closer to total destruction than it is right now.

How are people dealing with this fear that Corpse Media won't talk about?

The current global state of affairs:
  • The U.S. hawks ascendant in the US government;
  • Militarized Policing of peaceful protest;
  • NATO waging war in Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East;
  • The Trump Campaigns has opened the Pandora's Box of racism:
  • Presumptive next President, Hillary Clinton Campaign, DNC, State Depatment's escalating Slavophobia.

Usually in times of great war, society deals with it by acting on their fear collectively:
  • City's install Air Raid sirens in neighbourhoods (on top of schools);
  • Practice air raid drills;
  • Community announcements telling people how to cope with air war (how to turn your basement into shelter).

As an historian - In this time of war and revolution (Anonymous - October Surprise) - at the same time - here are some lessons I gleaned so far:
  • Shit will happen everywhere and at a scale we're not used to;
  • Trust no Corporate Media source (with a tiny # of exceptions - this may change after heads come out of the sand);
  • Great Wars start gradually and expand until they encompass the globe - it's not like an end-time dystopian movie - battles can be raging 10km away, but in your neighbourhood, no one dies;
  • We need to talk about this - the propaganda is stifling; 
    • So let's try to loose the paranoia - caused by the lack of trusted sources (the demise of the 5th Estate - and by the current level of harassment trolling, quality of the food chain, too much caffine culture) by talking with our friends and neighbours - and their friends and neighbours;
    • Exponentially network your existing online network on this topic, to include anyone who can see the reality of what's going down / doesn't have their head in the sand.


mh

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Human caused global warming coastal flooding is definitely 'on'


Imagine the 'position' of the mouth a river - it's position is determined by the level of the body of water that it flows into - the higher the level of that body of water, the further inland - and upland - will be the mouth of that river.

Now consider a torrential rain in the catchment of that river. As the river floods it reaches it's historical high level much quicker because the river is actually higher at it's 'base' than it was before the level of the body of water that it flows into, rose.

Now consider the August 2016 1,000 year #laflood - and the topography of southern Louisiana - much of which is the delta of the ancient Mississippi River. The cities of New Orleans & Baton Rouge, are, for lack or a better word, 'over'.

An element missing in the linked article - a tour of recent American Atlantic Coast flooding - notes that sea level rise related flooding is less apparent in northern States - but the article does not comment further on this anomaly.

Missing is this likely cause:

Consider that the spinning of the planet creates a bubble in the ocean that rises in slope the closer you get to the equator - and that when one increases the amount of water in the ocean, the increase in the bubble's slope is not simply a lineal one - the increase in the rise of that slope will have an exponential character due to the functioning of the increase not only in the level of that water but also the weight of that water which is massing at the equator due to the spin of the planet.

Thus this 'canary in the coal mine' flooding in the southern states will slowly work it's way north, but long after it has 'disappeared' the coast line of the southern States that we know today.

That said --- ALL rivers find their level as a function of the bodies of water which they flow into - and increases in extreme weather events will create 1,000 year floods in all river basins that flow into the globe's oceans - including the St. Lawrence River - which will in turn, raise the level of Lake Ontario and the Niagara River all the way to the Niagara escarpment at Niagara Falls.

Take note Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton ... .

NYT - Sept 3, 2016
Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun
By JUSTIN GILLIS

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html


Originally written and posted in Facebook - which doesn't allow you to share: https://www.facebook.com/michael.holloway.90281/posts/10155072182821002



mh

Sunday, August 21, 2016

2016 a Global Warming 'turning point' as new normal becomes Thousand Year Events


A "thousand year event" means that --- according to the scientific data that we have accumulated over the past 200 years; plus a data base of all accounts of weather events that have been written down since writing was invented --- mathematicians have calculated a complex function that derives the probability that this or that weather event is likely to happen at this time and place. The result is a probability percentage.

Climate scientists use this formula to calculate the rarity (or not) of specific events by loading into this formula, weather data from the area in question over a specific period there ... and out pops the percentage chance of this sort of event happening there.

So in an event like that which happened in West Virginia June 23-24, 2016, it turned out to be likely to happen 0.001% (one, one thousandth) in any given year. So that adds up to the event probably happening once every thousand years. The percentage is predicated on the time spread of the data imputed (in the West Vierginia event described below, the meteorologist used a 30-year local data set spanning 1976 to 2006).

So ... as 1,000 year events happen more and more, climate scientists may be tempted to add data sets that include more recent data - and the algorithm will begin to pop out percentages that will reduce the improbability of these specific events happening - so this sort of events might slowly (based on what data set is used) become '500-year events'.

We have to be careful that we 'stay' the model at the point where this kind of weather started to become the new normal. And the new normal (for now) appears to be the kind of weather events that we're seeing this year - this year we have seen 3 of these 1000-year events in North America1,2,3 (so far).

I believe that Climate Scientists - starting now - should not feed current data points into the model to refine it's accuracy - keep using the pre-2016 data sets with regard to calculating the effects of global warming - because this is the Turning Point.

2016 is the turning point - the point at which the current record separates from the existing 'normal'.

This needs to be done so that over a person's life-time we will have a base-line from which to understand what is happening. So that in 20 years we will have within the popular zeitgeist, an understanding of the increase in 1,000-year events - and thus civilization as a whole - in the populist sense - will have the information to help them make informed choices (because we're obviously not making those kinds of choices now).


West Virginia 1000 year flood event - June 23-24, 2016
Via Climate.gov 2016/07/08 West Virginia 1000 year flood June 23-24 - 24 hour accumulation map by Charleston, WV Forecast Office meteorologist, Nick Webb | https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/1000yr24hrRainfall_nwebb.jpg


Ellicott City 1000 year flood event - July 30, 2016
Baltimore Sun - 2016/07/31 | Ellicott City gets rainfall expected only once every millennium | http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/weather/weather-blog/bal-wx-ellicott-city-gets-rainfall-expected-only-once-every-few-hundred-years-20160731-story.html


Louisiana 1000 year flood event - August 9-14, 2016


___________



1 Climate.gov - 2016/07/08 | 'Thousand-year' downpour led to deadly West Virginia floods - by Tom DiLiberto | https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/thousand-year-downpour-led-deadly-west-virginia-floods

2 Baltimore Sun - 2016/07/31 | Ellicott City gets rainfall expected only once every millennium | http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/weather/weather-blog/bal-wx-ellicott-city-gets-rainfall-expected-only-once-every-few-hundred-years-20160731-story.html

3 The Real News - 2016/08/19 | Devastating Floods in Louisiana Are the Sign of Things to Come | http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=17031



mh

Monday, August 8, 2016

U.S. Empire's dysfunctional global economy is twisting into an Imperial War Economy


I think renowned Australian journalist and film-maker John Pilger is watching the US economy move from one driven primarily by consumerism backed by global military dominance, to one driven more and more by Imperial War.

He doesn't say it; that's what I've come to in thinking about these things.

JOHN PILGER - A WORLD WAR HAS BEGUN: BREAK THE SILENCE


I've always wanted to record the history of a civilization as it evolved towards monumental moments in it's history - like is recorded in some pre-WWII history writing that posited that humankind presupposes it's history - the idea by,
".. German historian, Wolfgang Mommsen, argued that the cascade of crises, from partial mobilizations to regional wars to popular panics since the start of the century, had, by 1914, reached a kind of critical mass. Describing what he calls “a topos of inevitable war,” "

A culture begins to live the history it most fears will come about; and in doing so creates the very future they most fear.

Not that any informed or sane, person would wish for war to come to their family, their neighbourhood - but within a mind set of undoubted belief that it IS coming - thus they 'believe' it into being.

You can see an example of this in the increase in inequality in America (and the liberal democratic capitalist west generally) since 1980's. From then until now, fear has driven the American Economy more so then it usually does.

Fear of all kinds - but originally and most importantly I think - fear of the imminent collapse of the American global economy project; combined with a great fear about the collapse of the functioning of the Earth itself - due to climate change.

This fear has lead led to voracious greed amoungst the politicians, the bureaucrats that run the corporations, and the pretenders on the stock market trading floor - a race to become a sort of "Dr No - or a Mr. Goldfinger" - a narcissistic fantasy where ruthless capitalists compete to become Nations unto themselves.

I write the outline for the screen play:
An Options Trader holes up on an tropical island with his vast wealth, ruling over a city of servant-slaves with his secret weapon technology and private army ... living a long life of sloth and grandeur riding out a global apocalypse and emerging as Earth CEO - the richest, most powerful (and most at-ease?) gentleman to have ever lived.
Should be a blockbuster.

The America Empire, it turns out, is a Freudian Oedipus complex myth! And, I'm getting my wish to record a societal slide into unreality, and perhaps a good record of the ultimate 'monumental moment of history' ... the end of it.

We all have an interest in peace - even the 1% - and so it is our last, best hope. In 2003 the people of the planet rallied in their 10's of millions against the Iraq War (and later found out, were absolutely right to do so)
"According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war."[1]
.. and despite the collapse of the mass media in the post-9-11 psychotic war delirium!

It's time to try again.

There is no choice in the US election - corporate America aims to solve their economic crisis with wars.

Drop your voter registration cards and grab a placard.

Stop the endless war on drugs - redirect police spending to public schools.
Stop the endless war on terrorism - redirect spending to infrastructure jobs and international development.

Dr No - Original Trailer


007 James Bond Goldfinger 1964- Trailer Recut HD 720p




[1] Wikipedia - Protests against the Iraq War | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War



mh

Friday, July 29, 2016

DVP Floods Again ... and so did my basement apartment

As soon as they built the fun hill at Corktown Common, the DVP started flooding after every torrential rain.

Dundas from the east side of the Don Valley looking south (camera swivels, so sometimes shows north view)
[07/31/2016 - Correction from an earlier edit where-in I mistakenly wrote that this feed was not being managed well]

That's because the flood plain at the bottom of the man-made canal used to egress southwest. Now it doesn't have the room.

But why do we have torrential rains all the time now?

Climate Change?

NO! - Say it ain't so!

It is so.

The City of Toronto has not addressed the issue - they minimize and obfuscate.

The last time this hit the media, sources idea-ed that we raise the DVP ... but that would make the maximum high crest higher than it is now!

The issue is - stop draining our streets into the f*king valley!

(Oh ... but that means we're going to have to change!)


mh

Monday, June 6, 2016

Identity in a MOST Dynamic World


We all begin our search for identity when we are approximately 2 years old. At about 45 years of age we stop that process and begin act upon the world as if our identity is fully formed; as if we are comfortable in our own skin - or put another way - as though we don't care what others think of us.

This last way of putting it is tricky - when said to another adult, they get it; but when said to young adults this way of putting it can create a false impression of the intended meaning.

It means that we are at peace with who we are - and can back it up with words and ideas. In my case for example, I know I'm a good person: I don't steal from people; I don't hurt people on purpose - and when I make mistakes I admit it to myself and to those who may have been effected by my error. And so on.

In this era of rapidly changing communications technology - and a rapidly changing democratic form of governance to one representing more and more the interests of a monopoly capitalist elite --- right now in the early stages of a change from a limited capitalist democracy (marked by an incessant and powerful pressure from a class-based private interest organized together organically by their common interest), to a system where the vestigial remnants of the institutions of democratic functioning take the place of actual democratic functioning - if fact a plutocracy --- reflections of ourselves from mass media have gone from nuclear war based fear (the Cold War) lies - to empire lies, imperialist lies, continuous war lies.

At the same time as this morphing from republic to empire is happening - how we get our news has shifted from one-flavour-for-all broadcast 11 O'clock News, to real time sharing of news (items often produced by those experiencing a newsworthy event) using ubiquitous world wide web connected devices we carry around with us every waking hour.

So the Millennials (young adults born after 1980 - coming of age at the turn of the century) are stuck between a rock and a hard place. As they strive through the process of creating identity they are all alone (although the 60's generation was aware of the coming change and attempted to stop it) no other generation in living memory has experience this kind of dynamic change.

They'll have to (and are) make it up as they go along.

One example of this is a series of short documentary videos taken by a couple who decided to end the lease on their apartment, sell everything they owned, and head out on the road in a van out-fitted for travel - on an Odyssey in which they would try to create a life without consumerism, without the rat race of large city grind; and work to build a sustainable lifestyle, rather than creating a lifestyle of work. ...

I give you, the 127 part video series, Shelby and Simon's first North American tour, "The Van Life".

Shelby and Simon - The Van Life (the trip: episode 1 to 127)


Aside from the unsustainable Eating Out too much (way too much) - and all the gas guzzling driving - these two are very cool (as they might put it). Thumbs up for a great big try.

Next Odyssey might be to go camp cook style, on bicycles.

Shelby and Simon Youtube Channel (playlists): https://www.youtube.com/user/shelbyandsimon/playlists

Channel Description
We're Shelby and Simon and our Youtube channel is mostly about our adventures living in a 1992 Dodge Ram camper van with our black lab Champ. We're two Canadian photographers taking the long road and trying to figure it all out.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ShelbyandSimon?ty=h
PayPal: paypal.me/ShelbyandSimon
Twitter: @shelbyandsimon
Instagram: @shelbyandsimon
facebook/shelbyandsimon
www.shelbyandsimon.com



mh

Friday, April 1, 2016

Exiled MLB pitcher Bill Lee on Bernie Sanders:


Via Wicked Local Waltham - Needham, Massachusetts - October 14, 2015

At SouthCoast Business Expo, Bill 'Spaceman' Lee gets down to business — eventually

By Kevin P. O'Connor, Herald News Staff Reporter

http://waltham.wickedlocal.com/article/20151014/NEWS/151017917



Exiled MLB pitcher Bill Lee on Bernie Sanders:

He was asked how he thought his neighbor, Bernie Sanders, did in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate.

“This is going to be taped for the second Democratic debate,” he said. “I’m going against Hillary.”

Sanders, he said, is a hippie who migrated to Vermont in the 1960s and stayed.

“Bernie came up from New Jersey,” Lee said. “I guarantee he was hiding from something.

“When you are a Republican, you are born with really short arms. Sort of like a Tyrannosaurus rex. Your arms are too short to reach your pockets.”

He just called Hillary a dinosaur. :)



mh

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Quantum Probability Revisioned + Complex Fields + Entropy at what Time?

In the classic Double-slit Experiment light seems to behave both as a particle and as a wave.

A beam of light aimed at a barrier with two slits in it creates a pattern of light and dark bars on the screen behind it. In the GIF below one can see how the light passing through the two slits creates a wave interference pattern which results in the light and dark bar pattern on the screen (on the right).

GIF showing a mathematical function of two waves colliding, creating an interference pattern signature on the right hand side of the image.


If light was a particle (called photons) we would see just two bars, a conglomeration of specks on the recording surface - instead we see a long line of bars.

So - in the interference pattern created when one electron is fired at a series of slots is actually a field fired at the slots, and thus the electron's field passes through both slots.

So light must be a wave - right?

More proof of this is added when the same experiment is conducted using individual particles (electrons for example) - where only one particle is fired at a time, one at a time, over and over and over, at the barrier with two slits - amazingly the same interference pattern of light and dark bars eventually is created on the detector screen!

After watching one of those science specials where some Physicist tries to explain Quantum Physics, here's how I, just now, imagined a solution to the problem:
All particles have a degree of energy; thus a corresponding field. Thus one could say that particles are actually not particles - they are fields.

As the particle (and it's surrounding field) travels through the background frequency of the universe (or through the frequency of the light in the room where the experiment is occurring), the interaction of the two fields creates a resonance pattern which is a function of the interaction of the two fields; which creates a sympathetic resonance wave - which determines where the particle arrives on the observation plain (the detector screen).

Speed is a form of matter - in that it has energy. So, separate from (but integral to) the field created by the frequency of the electron, is the field created by the speed at which the electron is traveling.

[Speed is a dynamic quality - as any mass in motion loses speed over time (entropy) - thus the electron slows down over time; and thus - the field created by the particle changes; and thus - it's interaction with other fields it is passing through also has a dynamic quality. Thus the entire universe is a dynamic algorithm - an unknowable function (because we don't have enough information - the problem is too complex; we don't have the interments to measure the medium that will reveal the function).] 1

More interestingly, the field of the electron (based on it's vibration), is accompanied by another field associated with the speed of the electron created in the act of firing it. This 'temporal distance traveled field', plus the electron's 'vibration rate field', creates an complex field which, creates a functioning of two fields that creates a field of it's own (with-in the boundaries of the functioning fields) and determines the actual position of the electron with-in the functioning of the two fields. Then add the field associated with the medium through which the electron is fired - and you have an seemingly unpredictable path to the observation surface.

Thus the seemingly random position of the electron, and the probability calculations that is the basis of Quantum Probability.

Based on the decaying speed of the electron over time (which in itself is a temporally changing interference pattern)...and then the interaction of the frequency of that electron and the medium through which it is traveling - creates a interference pattern - which changes the direction of the electron. We thus have the seemingly improbable functioning of the nano-universe.

The model is correct over time - but not at one time; thus the probability equations that work in applied science.


Entropy


I've been thinking about the nature of entropy for about  a year now, and I have created a thought experiment that concludes the continuing expansion of the universe is the 'finishing out' of the initial big bang. What we see on earth - and in the solar system - is an increasing complexity (not a simplification, a resolution down to the simplest form); so therefore, our micro-view of the explosion may be the function of the dissipation of the original explosive force (the snowflake algorithm - the fractal pattern of the explosion (our 'Rumsfeldian slice' 2 view of a temporal function - that has a life-span of 14 billion+ years).



1 Mediums that might reveal the function of waves are beginning to be understood now - see gravitational waves discovery - AAAS Science - Feb 2016 | http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/gravitational-waves-einstein-s-ripples-spacetime-spotted-first-time

2"Rumsfeldian slice" describes perception within a rapidly changing complex function. See Rumsfeldian slice defined by current use in Twitter Channel "@kgcentral" description | https://twitter.com/kgcentral




diplomattitude
@kgcentral

political economy, governance, diplomacy, culture, tech, design / innovation, provocation / progressive meta-analysis, rumsfeldian neo-epistemology / RT≠agree
#complexity
Joined October 2009



mh