20 questions and species identification

Re the problem of how one would use the isopod image database to identify a given bug brought up from sea-bottom, and realized that unless looking at all the images in turn or simultaneously, it would be a random guessing game.

Perhaps a computer-guided back-and-forth bracketing in process could be done via satellite from aboard ship, done by the person with the specimen in hand. (Or maybe a digital camera could send a photo of the critter via satellite for initial evaluation by computer image analysis, then maybe a specialist could further help in the identification of the image.)

So maybe one needs to first start with a series of filters with which to view the found bug/isopod/specimen and first bracket in its morphological features to make better guesses at its taxonomy from the image database. Although, in future if on the spot "barcoding" can be done chemically, then use computer to match the DNA of specimens in database, then as a next step, now having some possible species names, access those in the image database to increasingly confirm its identification. But without that hypothetical chemical on the spot DNA barcoding, using the morphology through filters consisting of "20 questions" kind of activity, recalling the long verbal descriptions in the isopod literature with lots of long strange names of kinds of body parts and their variations, such questions seem to need to be used to be answered by the observer of the actual specimen in question. My boss had mentioned several times, to my almost un-hearing attention, that the sphaeromatid has seven sets of legs with each associated with its segment of the body of the critter. Actually, the set of questions needs to begin even earlier, with a given creature from the ocean, to determine if it is a fish or a seaweed-algae, sponge, worm-echinoderm, crustacean; the crustacean will have a exoskeleton, a hard shell but so does a turtle which is not a crustacean; the isopod is a hard shell critter thus possibly a crustacean per this process. Then count the number of body segments and the number of legs, antennae, location of antennae in relation to the eyes, if it has eyes. The shape of its tail, its pleotelson, could be selected by a series of images showing varieties of such shaped structures. The shape of the legs and the hair-like parts of the legs wold provide grist for more of the question set, ever refined by the computer to come up with ever more detailed possibilities as determined by the path of among possibilities, increasingly bracketing into a likely species, providing the then most likely species names and species ID for the image database, for the explorer to look at and make best guess through image comparison, another form of filter to answer the "20 question" activity, selecting among them for what looks to be the most similar to what the specimen in question is. And this process seems would be able to produce a bracketed set of characteristics that would place it even if it were a new, previously unidentified species.

Back to the DNA barcoding aspect, maybe there are other means for nondestructively examining its chemistry, another input source for computer-asked "20 questions" best-fit by the observer on hand on a boat out in the ocean, with the specimen in hand. Possibly Synchrometer-type biological resonance could scan with single frequency then build on found frequencies to add more simultaneous frequencies to increasingly characterize to specimen's chemistry through bioresonance processes, although right now the instrumentation for that requires considerable operator skill. In summary, it looks to me now that there needs to be prior steps of observation of filter-focused looking for things to examine, such as counting the number of segments of the exoskeleton outer shell, supplying that as answer to current "20 question" filter, then being supplied with another set of filtering questions composed of possibilities remaining from prior answers path reached so far, until all established filter questions have been reached, including that of comparing to the shapes in the image database of which I have been helping to make in my NHMLAC volunteer work.

Most profit in the fastest way from the consumer

The pressure from the previously ever-present energy of the folks out there obsessively following the "how to make the most profit in the fastest way from the consumer, doing the least work to do so" and the long guiding path of technological development resulting in a reached destination appropriate to that goal type, which is not the same as the end point of pure research curiosity to see what is there; then seeking useful applications of what found, based on the needs of human civilization, versus of the path that would have been reached if the guiding items were "what provides the optimum customer benefit for the least money and time effort of the supplier and customer, and in aggregate provides all the possible needs of customers."

Re the news of "bailout" financial stock market stuff

Re the news of "bailout" financial stock market stuff, thinking now that the "Free Enterprise" motto of present regime ought to assume that the market will find the true value of the stocks and resources. The interlinking of the value assessment transients is quite a complex issue, however, as the values are based on each others' functions.

Fashion police and business as usual

The ongoing financial shakeup is providing a time of opportunity for freedom from all the "business as usual and don't do even think of doing anything different" forces previously ruling. The oft-mentioned fictitious "fashion police" had, and surely still lurk out there, real counterparts in the "business as usual and don't do even think of doing anything different" forces.

A fantasy about the responsible use of money by the wealthy

Actually, this quip does not just apply to the "wealthy"; for example, a construction worker who had found himself in possession of a couple small houses when the real estate prices started rising rapidly; he soon found that merely buying houses, holding them for a few months and then selling them, he made more far money than from his construction job, which he was then tempted to quit. This would have changed him from being a producer (on his construction job) to something that I won't label but will say is one who takes money without giving comparable value-added in return.

We Aspies (those with "Asperger Syndrome" or "High Functioning Autism" per some more formal labels) apparently are characterized by non-Aspies (the vast majority of people) as "not knowing their place", "too smart for their own good", and "not smart enough to keep their mouth shut." So in that spirit, this Aspie is wondering (while dimly aware of the extreme irritation the very idea would cause the Powers That Be) what if there were a way that all people be allowed control over money (above and
beyond a comfortable middle-class income level lifestyle) and its uses only in direct proportion to their ability to use the money wisely? Wise use of money is only very indirectly linked to using money to make more money; so I would say that the wise use of money is only to improve the functionality, including resource management, of the overall systems in which one lives, of course along with one's loved ones, which could even include all humanity. That system would include linking into the ever larger interlocked systems, including the earth's whole diverse ecosystem, as well as all the other nations ... down the line; civilization in general, always having responsibility for its well being.

Making money just off of predation on the larger system, easy money as that has been, ultimately destroys the source of the prosperity if it has not been enabling the thriving of the source of prosperity all along. Those referred to primarily here are not just the "wealthy" but also the faceless folks who pull the strings on large corporations and even those with hands on government purse strings, local, state, and national. Not a bunch of folks I think is wise for me to poke with this sharp stick, however.... But, the "Aspies are not smart enough to keep their mouth shut" rule applies here.

Summarizing, the present thought is that a more perfect world would allow money into the hands of "wealthy powerful" people only in proportion to their track record of the wise use of money to improve the functionality, including resource management, of the overall systems in which one lives, along with one's loved ones. That system would include linking the immediate activity into the ever larger interlocked systems, including the earth's whole diverse ecosystem, as well as all the other nations .... down the line; civilization in general, always having responsibility for its well being so as to preserve and expand the whole chain source of the wealth involved.

This is analogous to becoming farmers instead of hunter-gathers; necessary because mankind has changed from being merely a flea on the back of the world dog, into a major player in the game of world life; and it is better to become friends with the dog, which could become "man's best friend."

My new Obama political blog

I recently started a political blog at Obama's community website, and thought it might be wise to put my posts so far over here, too. So here are all my posts up until now, all squished together into one post here:

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jedcline (Ephrata, WA)

Jim Cline's ideas for helping improve America through Obama's Presidency, primarily ideas on energy, earth resources, environmental responsibility, people's constructive interactions, education and telecommuting.

"I don't understand all I know about it"

By jedcline - Sep 21st, 2008 at 12:08 pm EDT

My rueful "I don't understand all I know about it" wry acknowledgment at times, reflects a rare understanding as well as a bit of humor at the play on words. Knowledge and understanding are somewhat synonymous yet have subtle and important distinctions, since one can have knowledge about something in detail, but still have little understanding of its implications especially in the larger context. If a can of vegetables has had its label removed, one can measure and weigh it but still not be aware of whether or not it is what one wants for the meal.

In politics, too, this rueful statement can be appropriate. One can read up on the issues in detail, yet if they are not viewed in the larger context of the needs of the nation, one can easily realize that "I don't understand all I know about it." Yet in politics, among lots of other complex life issues, one has to make decisions despite that.

Having the knowledge is an important start. Realizing that the knowledge is not enough for making wise decisions is the next part. Then seeking the awareness of where the knowledge fits into as large a picture as possible, is the next step. Insofar as this is successful, one can then assume understanding has also been achieved; an understanding which readies one to make best possible decisions.

Designing a fair value-added system for setting prices seems the way of integrity

By jedcline - Sep 19th, 2008 at 6:13 pm EDT

When prices go up simply by trading back and forth, there is no value added to the item being traded back and forth. The traders are reaping a profit merely by their game, holding an item to create scarcity; and when a real buyer acquires the item, a much higher cost has to be paid with no value added. If this is typical of transactions in a country, those who do this game become wealthy yet the value of the country has not increased correspondingly through value being added to it. Real estate is a major example of this game and its effects. Just like in the old "pyramid game," eventually the game fails and the current holders of the real estate and other items are left with high debt for getting into the game, but no buyers for the pricey no-value-added items are to be found anymore, so they cannot get out and make their easy money. This seems to be a scenario that could have produced the recent real estate and financial crisis in America.

If so, then the honest solution would be to have the country slip into a mode where price only rises as per value-added to the items, preventing the "pyramid game" from recurring. Only the work that goes into improving an item would add to the price of the item.

If this were to be done starting now, would prices start where they were at the last level of the "pyramid game" before the collapse? Perhaps, instead, using real estate as a prime example, the value of the real estate could be revalued at the price when it was built and then adjusted for the dollar value change in that time period, plus improvements to the property done in that time period and devalued for maintenance currently needed to compensate for the wear and tear since built.

What seems to be happening at the moment in the national financial activity, is that the taxpayers are going to have to pay to cover the losses due to accumulated price increase with no corresponding value added since built. Then most likely the "pyramid game" will resume.

Designing a fair value-added system for setting prices seems the way of integrity. Maybe the nation needs to learn the concept of price increase equals value added for all things; and the new level of deeply understood integrity could begin to re-build the great strength at the heart of the people of America, and also set a purer example for the rest of the world.

Change: A clearcut way to save 5,500,000,000 gallons of gas in 10 years

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 9:18 pm EDT

There are ways to greatly reduce the wastage in use of fossil fuels, that can make a significant difference and pay for itself; but takes some very different ways of looking at things, along with backing off of business egos a bit at times. Transportation is one area that looks quite promising for this approach. If we can look at a 10 year time frame for payback plus profit, some possibilities come to mind.

For example, let us imagine that "we" buy the design rights for the 1990 Honda Civic Hatchback from Honda, along with any tooling and assembly data they have remaining on that now obsolete vehicle, 18 years into history. So it ought to be potentially a cheap design purchase; obtaining working ones around the country ought to still be possible for examples. I owned one of them and it got 42 mpg on the freeway commute in the Los Angeles area, and handled great on the road; had a/c, cruise control and plenty of room inside; and the engine still did not use oil up at 160,000 miles when it was squished in a multi-car wreck from which I walked away. It did have some design flaws in the positioning of the alternator and electrical relays too near the driver, causing long terem EMF risks, which ought to take less than half a million dollars to modify. In this scenario the government (state or national) would provide loans and enough guidance for the project to re-create this proven vehicle in the context of the need. If they are produceable in multi-million quantities here in the US, cost probably would be maybe $10,000 each or significantly less, a lot less if all vehicles were identical. These new vehicles would be offered free in direct exchange for any vehicle which gets less than 18 mpg, regardless of age or condition of the gas hog. Thereafter, for each of these new vehicle's 10,000 miles of commute, at say average of 36 mpg, it has saved the consumption of 555 gallons of refined gasoline; at a cost of $4.00 per gallon, that is $2,220 saved per 10,000 miles driven. If the average vehicle is driven 100,000 miles, that is a savings of $22,200, so the vehicle has long since paid for its $10,000 cost to the nation, and produced a substantial profit of over 120%. Each individual who did the vehicle exchange has a new vehicle free (or remaining payments to yet make on the former old gas hog vehicle) and is saving $2.00 in gas for every 36 miles driven. But more importantly to the world ecosystem's climate, it has saved the use of 5,500 gallons of fuel per vehicle. For each 1,000,000 vehicles thus replaced and utilized, this is a savings of 5,500,000,000 gallons of refined petrochemical fuel to remain in the world's reserves becoming more precious with time for non-fuel uses; along with preventing its enormous amount of CO2 from being dumped into the atmosphere to add to global weather disruption and resultant sea level rise.

Surely this is a lot wiser than drilling offshore for more of the petrochemical reserve's early extraction and use and CO2 production. Can such a concept be integrated into a free enterprise system? Since it is overall a profit-making activity, that seems reasonable. All it takes is the government's overseeing that the overall purpose is being fulfilled and to provide the financial buffering for the long term 10 year investment in the world's ecosystem future upon which life depends.

James E. D. Cline
jedcline1@kestsgeo.com

(Ref http://energyideasjedc.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html )

Change, vs not rocking the boat in the storm

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 8:23 pm EDT

When times are tough, it is time to explore the potentials of change. Yet there is also urge to not rock the boat more in the sea of wild changes in the stormy on-goings; thus urging resistance to change. For example, what if a new kind of industry appears, risking a wipeout of one's job, one's way of making a living? Yikes! Not desirable. In the competitive world of business, one company appears and takes over, causing other businesses to perish, ending the comfortable livings of those of that now defunct company. So those employees are out on the street, looking for new jobs; tough row to hoe, but part of the way things have been. Another effect is that when established businesses see upcoming rival businesses, they can seek to undermine the newcomer, maybe even use various means to kill it before it is fully born into the business arena. This deprives the customer base of the benefits the new businesses would have provided. So, how about consciously managing technology change? Can government benignly facilitate the easy changes in the world of technology regarding the businesses involved? Businesses themselves cannot do it by themselves, for a number of reasons; so maybe a responsible government can lend a hand to convert trauma into ease for all concerned. For example, let's explore how an unbiased governmental overseer function could work in, say, the health field. Let's hypothesize that an upcoming technology has discovered that a micro-powered electrical type of device, retailed from between $25 to $300 and costing the nation $100 million overall, will eliminate the need for certain kinds of pharmaceuticals and medical services now costing the nation $100 billion annually. This saves the nation $99.9 billion annually along with far more prevention of use of sick leave; but the current flow of that $99.9 billion goes into the economy in established ways, including salaries for lots of workers and expected stock dividends for investors. Can the government act diplomatically in resolving this issue? for example, by providing job retraining for those who can easily fit into the new $100 million business manufacturing and distribution system. But what about all those highly trained and specialized folks doing the immense pharmaceuticals and medical distributions systems beforehand? A government who is benignly monitoring the health of the nation's systems, is likely to be able to spot areas where much new business investment needs to be done, where will the people come from to do the new jobs, run the new businesses? well, here we have a big surplus in one area and big need in another. Businesses themselves cannot deal with this all, they are not designed to do so. But the larger system of America just might be able to manage it, a base of skilled people over here and a base of needed skilled workers in another area, what is needed to re-educate or train from one skill set to a somewhat different one? With relatively gently means for managing change, it is far more likely to be acceptable to the American public and business system.

Let's rethink the American transportation system

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 7:31 pm EDT

Let's rethink the American transportation system so as to maximize time & energy efficiency while improving convenience to the people and businesses. Our transportation system has grown "like Topsy" from the horse-and-buggy days, and continues to do so; change needs to interface with existing transportation systems each step; but thereby has created quite a tangle. So how about let's imagine ways to provide the transportation function in the nation, for a much improved convenience to the users, much improved energy efficiency during movement from sources to destinations, while operating within acceptable time constraints with satisfactory user comfort and safety. Then merge such potential transportation system infrastructures with the currently existing systems, to shake out the more viable modes to target. What results, may surprise people. Given the requirements of shelter, safety and security while commuting from home to work: does it really require a 3,000 pound vehicle to move a 165 pound person to work, shopping and back to home? Enormous energy is saved if one does not have to start, roll and stop a 3,000 pound vehicle repeatedly during a commute; as well as shove aside the air speeding with its large frontal cross-section along the way. The opportunities are very diverse, if one allows the imagination to explore the problems and opportunities. Dedicated paths for transportation such as freeways are already common; they could be a bit different, too. The resistance encountered along the way costs energy, so looking into alternate means involving less path loss, such as steel wheels on steel rail have long been used for high rolling efficiency by railways; also air bearing surfaces, overhead tramways, and magnetic levitation systems are some of the potential kind of paths that come to mind right now. (I had developed a commute system concept called the "Pullband Commute System" many decades ago, for example, see http://www.escalatorhi.com/techscifi/groundcommute.html for a bit of info on that vision.) Also consider slow moving solar-panel electrical powered continuous conveyor belt canister systems, with low rolling resistance and low air resistance, utilizing standard size canisters, say three feet wide and 10 feet long, would be chain linked to a continuous series of similar canisters along the right of way, the weight of those going downhill would overall tend to balance out the weight of those going uphill including over mountain chains; moving along at maybe 5 mph continuously in loops, much of commerce could be moved in such canisters between cities and towns, greatly supplanting the trucker and train transportation systems for freight that is not too urgent for delivery, and can be loaded and offloaded while teh cannisters are moving along at 5 mph. There are an enormous number of possibilities for moving things in more desirable ways, and some of them surely can be incorporated into the existing transportation infrastructure in appropriate places, maybe ultimately to supplant the earlier very inefficient commute and transportation systems. The aim is to greatly reduce the energy usage for normal transportation in America, while improving its overall functional convenience to the users.

Hydroelectric power as renewable energy; and using fish escalators

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 6:19 pm EDT

A curious current discussion regarding renewable energy systems, oddly seems to consider the electrical energy from hydroelectric sources as not being in the "renewable energy" category. It is solar energy that has evaporated water and wind transported to higher elevations to rain down and fill the rivers that fill the lakes behind hydroelectric power dams; so their power is provided by renewable solar energy, in contrast to non-renewable energy stored from vast eons ago such as fossil fuel (400 million years ago) and nuclear energy (billions of years ago.)

Possibly the concern involved in the definitions of hydroelectric power is the disruption to the lives of fishes in the original rivers, such as salmon, a very important nutritional resource too, besides being part of the balancing diversity of nature in the world. So we could be investigating possible use of hydropowered continuous running small stream sized "fish escalators" bypassing hydroelectric dams to enable fish to travel upstream in a way that seems sufficiently normal to the fish, so the fish can resume their ancient routes back upstream to spawn the next generations of fish. THe relatively small portion of the lake's water flowing downward to provide lift energy for the upward moving fish escalator, could also be a safe means for the fish to head for the oceans again later. The downward moving buckets carrying water and fish would be completely filled, but the upward-moving buckets would be only filled partially, sat 80% filled with water and fish, so the weight moving downward is greater than that moving upward, powering the escalator.

Perhaps even a parallel set of escalator buckets could be used for scenic adventure recreational purposes by people; and the proceeds applied to paying for the fish escalator.

If this can be accomplished, probably it would enable fairly normal wildlife in the river path; while also enabling the systems of dams and lakes that provide clean renewable electrical power for America.

Solar panels albedo effect in the larger system, and possible solutions

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 6:02 pm EDT

Renewable energy: solar panels albedo effect in the larger system, and possible solutions, are the focus of this post. The use of solar electric panels to generate electricity seems ever more useful as the cost per watt goes down. In small installations, the environmental heating effects from the dark surfaces of the solar panels can be ignored, but when installations are contemplated for providing power to replace fossil fuel power generation, the scale of the endeavor needs to address the larger system involved. Let's look at an example of a large city in a desert area, such as Los Angeles, California. Electrical power consumption for air conditioners in the summer heat might seem to be provided by covering the roofs and walls of the buildings with solar panels; but lets look at the larger picture. the problem is that summer temperatures in the 90's requires means for cooling off their interiors for people to work in. Desert cities tend to be very light colored so as to reflect away as much of the solar energy as possible, keeping the temperatures down as much as possible. But if the roofs and outer walls of buildings and other structures are covered with solar panels to provide the extra energy needed by air conditioners in summer, the solar panels are dark colored and convert most of the sun's energy into heat on the spot, with maybe 5 or 10% of the solar energy becoming electrical power for powering air conditioners and other devices. However, the roofs and walls had been reflecting off maybe 70% of the solar heat, but now is only reflecting away maybe 5 % of the heat and the rest is heating up the city fast. The 10% added electrical energy from the solar cells is offset by the 60% increased heat trapped in the city by the solar panels, and the air conditioners have to work much harder and the outdoors becomes impossible to endure in the city. If we instead install these solar panels out in the remote desert and bring the electrical energy in via power lines, in the larger world environment the large desert albedo, once light colored, now is very dark colored, and the heating effects overall on the world environment raise the temperature on a noticeable scale, increasing global warming, when power levels are considered on a scale to provide much of the power needs of America. Possible solutions include using steam generators instead of solar panels; or using the heat sink capacity of the dark nights to radiate the infrared heat energy back out into space, by insulating the solar panels from contact with the air and using heat-pipe technology to move the solar panels heat into storage below them and then to radiate that heat back out into the darkness of space at night, circulated back from the heat storage to the dark surfaces of the sola panels now serving as heat radiators. The direct use of solar energy to power our industrial world needs to be designed with the entire environment in mind to provide energy responsibly.

Rethink the American health system

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 5:26 pm EDT

Rethink the American health system from foundation of maintaining optimum peoples health, instead of research guided solely by maximizing business profits. It clearly is not obvious that these are two are quite different goals, not always compatible. Alternative health protocols need to be correctly evaluated for efficacy, pointed out as already indicated by individuals who have independently chosen to test them on themselves and found them to provide desired benefits to maintaining and restoring whole-person healthy functionality. A bit of home education would be involved so as to teach people the rudiments of how their own body works and its needs, and how to monitor their own functionality for the nutritional and other health requirement changes needed for best living and living performance; compare this time spent with that spent uncomfortably sick at home or in doctors waiting rooms. Doctors know they can't heal a person; they can only provide an improved environment for the person's body-mind to heal itself. It has been amply shown that many other systems for maintaining an improved environment for maintaining the body-mind system; besides the conventional health system in control nowadays. The conventional allopathic health system is based on maximizing business income and profit, and that is not at all the same thing as maximum customer health; well people do not seek medical attention so much, which cuts into medical business, hard truth. The medical system is no different from other endeavors, one does not tend to work oneself out of a job, even if not done consciously. Yet surly there are better ways for people to utilize their talents instead of being caught in this loop. Since corporations cannot please investors by providing health products that make better health for customer but reduce the investor's earnings, some other means needs be created to make available the other health means. The existing "alternative/complimentary" well-being systems are doing this best possible, but is heavily suppressed currently; such restrictions need to be removed while being intelligently and benignly overseen byunbiased folks; and so allow honest evaluation by the folks in need proceed. If it works for them, they will be return customers for the easy maintenance of good health; that is the way the alternative health protocols work now, but unfortunately sort of "underground" due to the virtual franchising of the current medical-pharmaceutical system by governement and liability laws (which do not similarly control other customer-evaluated products so much). Many alternative modes of well-being which have proved very efficous in maintaining or restoring good healthy living include nutritional evaluation and vitamin/herbal supplements; the whole-person "energy" processes such as Reiki; and the micropower electrical techniques of Rife/Clark in worldwide use today, which need to be given credit for what they actually can do, and made fully available to the public along with proper usage training. Then doctors can go back to doing what they do best: repairing accidental damage to the body and mind. And overall the American peoples' health ought to be vastly improved while also greatly reducing the cost of health care, so as to boost the American system's performance quite nicely, if done beningly and for maximum efficacy.

Help Americans utilize math in their decisions in computer age

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 5:04 pm EDT

Attention to the need for clean efficient use of energy in our individual as well as our group lives, has highlighted the need for easy use of math on the spot for helping evaluate options for decisions. A curious effect of the "computer" at present is that one cannot easily write more than simple addition-subtraction-multiplication-division formulas on the computer, to evaluate the math for the immediate need, as well as to communicate to others and store our analysis for our own use later. Such math writing ability ought to be as easy on a computer as it is to pencil it on paper. The person would then need to focus on establishing the correct formula and values for the current decision requirements, and then let the computer do what it does best, do the math and provide the person with the results. This math means needs to be part of every computer's software, as supplied initially with the computer. Currently it costs about a hundred dollars for software to just write equations on the computer, and much more if their solution is needed; this greatly discourages use of math unless one can do it with pencil and paper where the math steps can be quickly written by hand; but not so easy on the computer. Such software needs to be part of word processors and portable texting devices too. Then home education needs to teach the usage of this math resource, not just to schoolkids but to all adults too, make it fun to learn and use applied to daily life as well as finding their small effects and contributions building in the overall enviroment and economy.

Addressing the subject of national resource management

By jedcline - Sep 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pm EDT

The subject of national resource management needs to be addressed. Those who profit by the sale of resources such as oil pumped out of the ground or iron mined from the earth, did not make that oil or iron; those are earth resources. Therefore, a tax on national earth resource depletion needs to be established, in a fair way; and the resulting tax monies be spent to enable more efficient recycling of the materials instead of dumping their discards into the ailing environment.

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.

Re knives and rumor-making

Am posting this from a hunch someone might need to know it.

Although my Asperger ways are unacceptably slow for normal social group interactions, those Asperger ways spend endless effort to make sense of it all in hindsight, hoping that will help in the future (but rarely does, people play endless variety of games socially.) Puzzling over people's behavior often does come up with viable patterns, however.

One such pattern that seems to have been consistently sifting out in my personal experience especially in my new home town of several years now, corralling enough commonality to provide a guesstimate that is well over the dividing line between paranoid eeks and real danger signs. A consistent pattern sifting out of the murk of people stuff ongoing for many years, seems to have to do with knives and my shirt-pocket, along with many people's quick reactions as if to implied threats to common folks per churning of deliberate rumor mill.

And a pivotal scene - with much context before and after that would take very long to describe - was when I was working in Colton, CA as a technician in test & repair of garbage dump vapor measuring instrumentation. Lots of prior context stuff leading up to the moment, but minimum would be to say that the technician I had been paired with for a long time, who everybody did not want to cross, kept taking the Xacto knife from my workbench; he had one assigned to his, no need to take mine. (I once found one of the xacto knives hidden in an instrument file folder, note.) Tony R. was his name; of boxer family genes, karate training and work experience in underground commercial security activities, why he was tech I don't know, but I had to learn my job from him insofar as he pleased, what a setup by the guy high in the Arco building in LA where I had to go for interview, desperate for a paying job.

There in Colton, Tony had a group personnel phone list tacked up in front of his workbench full of X-acto knife slashes, and he told me that he would throw it and stick me in the back, once when I walked past his bench. He was good at sticking it into things from a distance. But I needed an xacto knife to do some of the repairs on the electronic circuitry, an essential tool for a tech as well as for an artist.

Finally one day when shopping I bought a different kind of xacto knife, nice plastic handle with pocket clip instead of aluminum too, and found a ball point pen top that would fit over the blade and kept it in my shirt-pocket along with my other pens and notes. Tony even once asked to borrow it from me out of my shirtpocket, after disappearing the aluminum one I left unused on my bench. Tony also was at odds with the head salesman Jim McD.

So one day at work I was walking through the room as Jim McD too walking in my direction, and when he was about to pass me he suddenly reached over and grabbed my xacto knife out of my shirt pocket, pulled the cap off, turned and held it high toward what seemed to be just a wall, saying loudly to see it, apparently to no one there. Now I realize over there must have been a camera; and furthermore that very scene is likely to have been played to a large number of people who are now afraid of me (instead of afraid of Tony R., an Al Capone admirer.)

This would explain a huge number of things that have been going on for several years since then. People tend to consider Asperger people as "different" so are easily swayed by contrived appearance justified false rumor; and having the set-up video of shirtpocked X-acto knife - not knowing why it was there - might be the clincher for people. Rumor-making properly fanned, can get nasty.

Yes, this fits quite well with subsequent happenings much too many times and even following me to my new home area, even to the church I now attend, only one little church of that denomination exists here, easy to predict I would go there.

Of course, why go to all this trouble, by those who pull strings? Probably like salami, lots of ingredients. No need to go into them here to an already bored reader, if any; and even I know I would have to journey through paranoid-land in search of clues that seemed to fit with other pieces.

Meanwhile, life goes on; even though occasionally encountering people who look at me scared and furious, sometimes coldly calculating too. What fun, yuck.

Jim Cline 20080915

Embrace newly formed sub-branches of science

As I wrote yesterday, Science attempts to knit new knowledge with the old, providing connectiveness between the bits of knowledge. Then this framework is available for application to improve the human experience. However, science also historically has been of several branches whose spheres of focus slowly grew toward knitting with the other branches of science, such as physics, chemistry, biology, physiology, medical, sociology, psychology and political science. Each branch of science has its own terminology which helps form the concepts of the branch; such as physics has F=M*A but that is not normally used in the science of sociology; although analog parallels may be inspirational. Anyway, the point am trying to lead to, is that science is not one fully knitted cohesive whole at this point; and so it is conceivable that new sets of observations that do not seem to immediately tie in fully with existing science knowledge, may nevertheless form valid useful sub-branches of science; for example, the many protocols developed by Hulda Clark, Ph.D. In such an endeavor, it needs to form its own cohesive whole and produce repeatable results, and also reach out toward the current edges of more conventional science to begin the knit together process with the larger body of knowledge. For those of science to ridicule such sub-branches of science, simply because it was not taught to them in school, has some new terminology it uses to grasp special component concepts, and seems unconventional, is to blind themselves to potentially new and useful knowledge. When science paths are directed by the financial requirements of particular businesses, the urge to "blind" may even be stronger, especially if the new sub-science suggests protocols that would appear to rival your business base. Yet scientific knowledge surely ought to strive for the fullest reality; and thus needs to embrace newly formed sub-branches of science in the tentative manner of all scientific experiments' endless testing of the widest possible reality.

Who unquestioningly accept what they are told to believe

There seems to be a surprising number of people who unquestioningly accept what they are told to believe. Particularly if those "beliefs" acceptance, and parroting, are implicit requirements for their continued acceptance into membership of a support & companionship group; safety is in numbers.

Also, possibly this phenomenon is associated with education's compromise which converts learning into a competitive game of getting good grades to become accepted for opportunities, including desirable employment at the end of the education hurdles they have to pass. Without such compromise, the relatively few youngsters who, like I was, crave learning as a great adventure of exploration to see what is there, and what might be beyond. Science attempts to knit new knowledge with the old, providing connectiveness between the bits of knowledge. Then this framework is available for application to improve the human experience. Those attracted to such endeavors tend to focus on the larger world, of which people are merely small parts of it.

However, the majority of students and their adult resultants, seem almost totally obsessed with just other people. Theirs is not a world of nature which has people as part, but theirs seems to be a world of people which use nature as part of their gameboard on which they play their endless games of getting higher in the people hierarchy, the pecking order. The higher men climb up in the people pyramid, the more attractive they are to women looking for mates, thus it becomes a survival of one's genes struggle; no wonder it is totally obsessional to them - and no wonder why their kind has had so much reproductive success, the women tending to ignore the kind of man who are in relationship with the larger world of nature which only includes people as just part of, instead of being all of, that which is worthy.

So those folks who are intensely aware of the people world (all else being just props to be accumulated or ravished) have little incentive to learn about the discoveries of the vast relationships of nature - unless such learning is made part of the people path to success. Missing is the innate exploration of knowledge, of what is the nature of full reality; thus, have no mechanism for evaluating statements about non-people things. Such people apparently just learn schoolwork only as just things to parrot so as to gain jobs and status in the people world. And no wonder they continue to "believe" whatever the authority figure people tell them to believe; they have little practice or skill at checking out what is actually there through discovery in person.

And thus when it comes election time, this majority type of people just believe what is told them by their authority figures. And continue that when they get the authority figure pyramid elected in places of power. No wonder they have no inherent understanding of the effects of people on the environment that gives them life. The only way to get it at all into their mind is to re-format the subject matter into the gameboard kind of thing where people are pitted against other people, people team up to do better than the other team. Like, which team is proving better at enabling the best nurtured environment that gives them the stuff of life? And, no fair sabotaging the other team's proving grounds, because the whole world, and a bit beyond too, is the common proving grounds providing life stuff for all. Got to be converted into a game between other people, however, to get it noticed.

Aspies are always trying to join in the fun

An Aspie ("Aspie" is a nickname for those with Asperger's Syndrome, a perception quirk that leads to social dysfunction) - or at least this Aspie, anyway - is often trying to figure out their relationship with all those non-Aspies out there ruling the world. I've now lots of decades to ponder this question, and a general pattern seems to be sifting out of the murk.

Aspies are always trying to join in the fun, but they just don't quite get it; and soon are not invited to play. And Aspies need a mate perhaps even more than the average Non-Aspie does, so the women can also easily play tricks on the Aspies who are desperate for a mate.

As for non-Aspies, they tend to regard Aspies as nuisances; partly because they seem to be whizzes at schoolwork, making the non-Aspies look less good; and somehow Aspies seem to often be in the wrong place seeing things going on and can't be counted on to not say too much about it; but most of all they are irritating because Aspies just don't know their place, no matter how much hazing they get.

Aspies are useful to non-Aspies, however, because they are easily set up to take the rap for the mischief non-Aspies enjoy doing in their endless games of conflict to show who is better than whom (a subject quite mysterious to Aspies.) That shifts the blame off of the wrongdoers while also getting society to eliminate the Aspie nuisance at same time; and the non-Aspies are thus home free, another win. Another value the Aspie sometimes is, as being a natural source of creative unusual good ideas; so secretly watching the Aspie long enough, the non-Aspies can get ideas for starting new businesses or products, without having to pay for the ideas or even acknowledge the source.

So, now looking back from my senior status, what I can say is, that the women were absolutely delightful, the few that chose me for fun but for much too short a while; and I feel sad that my creative ideas for helping civilization, such as the Pull-Band Commute, Centristation and KESTS to GEO (these are benign ideas that tend to be too far off mainstream that they are out of most people's change-comfort zone), were not noticed enough by the non-Aspies, who apparently were too engrossed in playing their garrulous games of pin-their-crimes-on-the-Aspie to notice that which could have saved their good living ways in the near future.

Electing someone is actually hiring for the job

Electing someone, for example a President, is actually hiring someone for the job. If someone is elected due to popularity instead of job competence then how do they expect a good job to be done? And the job of President is an important job, needing much skill at responsibly enabling safe thriving of all the American people and their lands, all of them. However, not many voters have the experience of being a hiring manager; nor do they have the job application resume in front of them in the voting booth.