WhirledView

When in the Course of human events...

by Cheryl Rofer

The Los Angeles Times has annotated the Declaration of Independence in today's mode, with hyperlinks.

Check it out. Even if you don't click on the links, it's worth reading again.

Tuesday Buffalo Gourd Blogging

by Cheryl Rofer

Last year, I bought a packet of buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) seeds. Buffalo gourd (which I've previously known as coyote melon) is a luxurious plant I've always wanted in my yard. It is a perennial curcibit, spreading its vines of leathery gray-green leaves over an area tens of feet across, with curcibit-yellow flowers, smaller than those of summer squash or pumpkin, that result in little yellow gourds.

I planted some seeds last year in a place that I particularly wanted my buffalo gourd vine: very sandy, overlooking my rose and lilac bushes, to cover an area that seemed unlikely to support much else. Nothing.

Earlier this year, I sprouted some buffalo gourd seeds and planted them in multiple places around the yard. Nothing. I planted a few in flower pots in the house. They didn't get enough sun and became very leggy and so soft that they died the first day in the sun.

I sprouted more seeds and planted them in pots outside. The cotyledons, those funny-looking leaves that first emerge from the seed, were bitten off, I think by the local towhees. But one plant survived. It is still in the pot during these dry days, basil below and parsley above.

I also planted a few seeds in an indoor pot and put it in the sunniest spot in the house. Two of them came up and did quite well. I put them outside to harden up, and they did well until the towhees found them. You can see the lesser damage to the cotyledons on the larger one; they were totally bitten off the smaller one. I suppose I could put this pot outside now, but I am wary.

It's been horrendously dry for at least a month now. I drove through a rainstorm yesterday that ended just north of my house. These two plants are doing reasonably well, and the third may come along. I'm going to wait until the rains come to plant them in that sandy place.

My googling shows that some think there may be all sorts of uses for buffalo gourd. I'll be happy if those gray-green leaves take over that area above the roses.

POW Experience and the Presidency

by Cheryl Rofer

When I heard Wesley Clark say, on Sunday, that while John McCain's behavior as a prisoner of war was honorable, it wasn't a job qualification for the presidency, I breathed a sigh of relief that at last someone was calling the McCain campaign, and possibly even more so, the media, on the unthinking conflation of things military with things civilian.

McCain's POW experience speaks to a particular kind of military discipline and honor. Those qualities have some relevance to the character traits we want in a president. But too often, McCain's POW experience seems to stand in for experience in foreign affairs, military command, and numerous other intellectual/managerial qualities we want in a president. I thought that Clark made the distinction nicely, and that it was a distinction that needed saying.

So ensues the faux outrage over any criticism of anything military. Andrew Bacevich has pointed out the militarization of our society, which includes putting military experience beyond criticism. Today he has an op-ed in the Boston Globe that speaks to other matters, but it has some relevance to the Clark furor.

The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict.

The problem with a lifetime of honorable service in the military, intensified by experience as a POW, is that it can produce a mindset that elevates that military. McCain's membership in today's Republican party and everything he has said so far on the Iraq war suggest that he shares this mindset, part of the militarization of our society.

So I'm joining others in the blogosphere in saying that Wesley Clark said nothing wrong. In fact, what he said could be a beginning of disentangling American security from mindless militarism.

Others commenting:

Ezra Klein

Kevin Drum

Jason Sigger

Cernig

Ron Beasley

Libby

Congregations Against Torture

by Cheryl Rofer

I drove past the Santa Fe Unitarian Universalist Church this afternoon, after viewing "Constantine's Sword," which is about Christianity and antisemitism and, I might add, power. The sign in front was covered with a black banner with white letters condemning torture. I commented to my passenger that the antiwar movement of the sixties and early seventies included more church people than the priests and nuns depicted in the movie, and it was about time to see the churches taking a stand on torture.

I was wondering about how much of a movement might be developing, so I checked for news stories. Apparently the movement is among individual congregations, mostly Catholic and mainline Protestant denominations, but including Jewish congregations and a few others for a total of about 300.

The Washington Times is one of the few newspapers bothering to cover this development, at least according to what I find in Google News. Papers in localities where the signs are going up are also covering the news. (Corvallis, Oregon; River City, Iowa; Atlanta)

Here's the Video

by Cheryl Rofer

via Barron YoungSmith and Kevin Drum.

But Kevin, Barron has it, well, not quite right.

It's not "largely irreversible." There are other possible ways to cool the Yongbyon reactor, as was pointed out not totally convincingly in the release of information about that Syrian building the Israelis targeted.

I know, we all like to think of those hyperboloid towers as emblematic of and essential to nuclear plants. But they just run cooling water through them to get rid of the excess heat a power plant produces. They're on coal plants as well, and sometimes industrial plants.

It would be more irreversible to fill the reactor vessel with concrete. That would be irreversible.

And any country can throw the inspectors out, any time. They're just people, not even armed.

But I hate to seem to be coming out on the side of John Bolton.

It's a good thing that this was done, in both practical and symbolic ways. Perhaps even more important that the North Koreans encouraged recording of the event. I've been looking forward to posting the video.

And hey! How about some positive coverage for the Los Alamos National Laboratory? They've been working on the disablement for some time now, the real stuff that can make this irreversible. Even wearing suits in hot summer weather -- that's really a sacrifice for Los Alamos scientists. (6/30 - I see that Jeffrey now says that that's not Kevin Veal in the suit. I don't know Kevin and I don't know who it is in the suit.)

Science Selections

by Cheryl Rofer

Science magazine frequently has good stuff in it, but it’s available on the internet by subscription only. So I pull pages out of the dead-tree version to make posts from. Sometimes Science's Eureakalert has short versions on line. Here are a few recent goodies.

The Lusi mud volcano on Indonesia’s Java Island is still going strong, despite the various attempts to stop it. (Last WhirledView post here.) Geologists disagree as to where the mud is coming from and what caused the volcano. Indonesian courts have ruled the volcano a natural disaster, absolving the drilling company Lapindo Brantas of responsibility. The mud has covered 750 hectares and has destroyed the homes of 30,000 people. (13 June)

Since I last googled that subject, a couple of new articles on the mud volcano have shown up. The photo is from Reuters, via The Guardian. You can see the scale of it from the trucks and earthmovers that are building the dams. Time Magazine reports here. Lots of satellite images from the National University of Singapore here.

Imagery from the LANDSAT satellites is being made available free on the internet. The data are of the whole world, in multiple spectral ranges. All newly acquired data will be made available, and the archives are being opened up during the rest of this year. This will be invaluable for following all sorts of changes over time: vegetation cover, city growth, bodies of water, probably Lusi as well. NASA LANDSAT site, USGS LANDSAT site (23 May)

Who’s got the biggest carbon footprint in America? If you guessed those car-crazy Californians, you’re wrong. The biggest carbon emissions per capita are all in the eastern part of the country. This report, from Brookings, tells why. And it makes some policy suggestions to lessen our carbon dioxide emissions. (13 June)

Deserts may be taking up some of that carbon dioxide. Measurements in western China and Nevada suggest that desert soils account for some of the good luck we’ve had so far, with more carbon dioxide disappearing than scientists have expected. It’s not clear whether the carbon dioxide is going into the soil itself or living communities that form crusts on the surface. I’ll suggest that in just a couple of years, watering some of the soils in my yard has produced some underground cementation. But I can’t say whether that’s calcium carbonate, let alone whether it’s from the air or it’s being dissolved and reprecipitated. But it’s the kind of thing you might see if moistened alkaline desert soils are taking up carbon dioxide. (13 June)

Where’s the Failure?

by CKR

David Ignatius must have taken an airplane trip recently. The airlines are in a downward spiral, he tells us. And one of the giants of the industry, Robert Crandall, former head of American Airlines, recently gave a speech outlining why he thinks the airlines should be re-regulated. He’s been opposed to deregulation all along, and some of his more dour predictions have come true.

Crandall makes a number of specific suggestions, but it’s his bigger points that are really important. He talks about goals for the aviation industry and goals for the country. He says we’re lacking goals. But, more precisely, we have allowed a set of ideology-driven fanatics to determine the goals for the country.

The goals we currently are working under are:

1) To maximize the “free market.” This means removing regulatory requirements and privatizing government functions.

2) To increase US hegemony through military power.

It’s becoming clear that these goals are doing far more harm than good, the disaster of airline deregulation being only one of many: crumbling infrastructure, Blackwater, lack of health care for too many citizens, alienation of our allies, and the list goes on.

Ignatius takes quick note of these ills and blames them on Washington gridlock. But he’s wrong. There is a specific ideology that insists on removing regulation, the devil take the hindmost. It is called conservatism, and Peter Scoblic has shown how it has undermined national security.

Some time around when the airlines were deregulated, politics became more of a popularity contest. Television showed us the five o’clock shadow, and politicans learned to be pretty and vague and attractiveness as a beer-drinking partner was added to the promise of a chicken in every pot or a Hummer in every driveway. The preparation for this sort of political career does not include the backbone to develop and stand by policies. It also allowed ideologues to put on a pretty face and promise lower taxes and ponies for everyone.

Crandall observes that we have neither a transportation policy nor an energy policy. Of course not! That’s not why these members of Congress were elected. Politicians proferring energy policies raising gasoline taxes or gas mileage or moving toward solar or nuclear power would have been beaten by those strong-chinned fellows offering the opportunity for every man to be a millionaire by the magic of unfettered free enterprise. Or offering their attractiveness as beer-drinking companions.

We like cheap airline fares, but not the increasingly crummy and cramped cabins. We like cheap gasoline until something happens and it’s not cheap any more. We like easy politicians, not the policy wonks. We don’t like recognizing that the cheap fares give us the cramped cabins or that reducing taxes reduces our ability to respond to changing conditions.

Presidential leadership would help. Like a leader who gave us a long-term energy plan on September 12, 2001, not just a demand for a quick fix by July 4. Like a leader who could recognize that American business depends on convenient, safe transportation, up-to-date infrastructure, and affordable health care. Like a leader who would put those things into enactable legislation, not just talk about them. And Congressional leaders could pitch in some leadership, too.

The United States used to be good at solving problems. These days, we don't seem up to the job.

That’s what Crandall said. I think that we can solve the problems if we focus our attention. We need leadership, and we need intelligent followership too. Here’s hoping voters recognize that in the November elections.

Update: Looks like some other folks were thinking similarly this weekend.

Our Nuclear Future

by CKR

John McCain wants to build 45 nuclear plants by 2030. Barack Obama says nuclear is worth considering. Even James Lovelock, associated with the Gaia hypothesis that says the earth is one big living organism, says we need nuclear power.

Public perception of nuclear power has been unfavorable since some time after I got inspired by the idea of power too cheap to meter. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had something to do with that, but anything that is associated with mushroom clouds and an element named for the god of the underworld via the outermost planet is going to face an uphill battle.

Several people have been urging me to write something in response to McCain’s proposal. The more I’ve thought about what to write, the more it has all seemed one big ball of wax, with strings and fuel rods embedded. So I can pull at whatever string or fuel rod and see what comes out.

Jane Harman provides a place to start (thanks, J.!). The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is obsolete. That’s a lousy place to start, actually, but let’s consider that an editor at the Wall Street Journal provided that headline, which is consistent with the rightwing allergy to treaties, and move on to what Harman actually says.

The NPT guarantees the nuclear fuel cycle to its signatories, which are all the countries of the world but four, and those four developed the nuclear fuel cycle anyway. Having the nuclear fuel cycle allows a country to build nuclear weapons with the addition of only a few bells and whistles.

So we need to internationalize the fuel cycle, with heavy safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

A more promising approach might be to create an international consortium of fuel centers that provide enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel, and end-to-end oversight of nuclear resources. Driven by market demand, private companies could operate facilities with IAEA oversight, and participating states would agree not to engage in independent enriching and reprocessing. Material would be purchased from the international market, thereby creating supply assurance for nations who fear being denied fuel.

I can quibble with Harman’s exact wording, but overall she’s got it right.

A private company is building a uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico. This could be a place to start internationalizing the fuel cycle. We’ve got to do more than just talk about it. Another private facility in one country, supplying that country’s needs alone, is business as usual. And if we’re serious about both proliferation and increasing energy sources, we’ve got to start now.

McCain, of course, is for business as usual. Harman doesn’t mention Eunice or Mohamed ElBaradei’s call for internationalizing the fuel cycle, which came before President Bush’s call for the GNEP, which she mentions and gets wrong. What is wrong with GNEP is not that Bush is “as a research and development initiative,” but rather that he put this US-centric initiative out as a competitor to ElBaradei’s initiative. And, yes, all us Amurricans know that our country is totally reliable and fair, but others might just have a different viewpoint.

That’s just one point relating to McCain’s 45 nuclear plants by 2030. Other questions abound. What about the waste? (I do think that Yucca Mountain is the answer to that one, but it’s the first question others come up with.) What about reactor safety? Is uranium available for fuel? Could a company break ground by 2030 if they applied today, given the permitting process? Will anyone want a reactor in their neighborhood? Does the construction capacity exist, or can it be developed, to build these plants?

And you can probably think of others. To be continued.

Meanwhile, on Mars

by Cheryl Rofer

That white stuff that the Phoenix's shovel dug into has disappeared. A few days ago, the scientists thought it might be sand or something else that would have indicated long-ago water, like the sand deposits around my house. But the fact that it has disappeared means that it was probably ice.

And here's the untold story of the first Earthling to set foot on Mars.

The Numbers, Please

by Cheryl Rofer

The $4 per gallon number has gotten people’s attention, but there’s more to petroleum than that. President Bush now wants to drill in lots of places that have been put aside within the United States, but that is a very long-range solution, if it’s a solution at all.

And one may wonder how much US influence on the Iraqi Oil Ministry has led to this. Certainly Iraq would like to take advantage of record oil prices, but more oil on the market would tend to lower those prices.

I’ve been wondering about a number of claims about petroleum prices. The only way to begin to resolve my questions is to look at some numbers, which I haven’t seen done anywhere in the media. Not surprising for a bunch that thinks water can be a fuel.

It’s not clear to me that any of the claims can really be verified. There are too many possible variables, and too much uncertainty in all of them. Qualitatively, I suspect that there is a war-fear premium on petroleum as long as Bush and Cheney are in office, which may amount to 25% of the current price. Speculation seems to be part of it too, but it is an easy excuse for the oil producers to use. And there does seem to be an increasing demand.

To start, I’d just like to get a sense of what the numbers are and how the various nations stack up. To that end, I’ve collected some of the numbers in a spreadsheet (Download petroleum_2008.xls), for those of you who want to look at or play with them. What I’ve collected is not exhaustive, and it may be somewhat incorrect, for various reasons. I don’t want to get into arguments just now about the accuracy of the data in detail. That comes later, if at all.