MH370: Further indications of a deliberate event to prevent technology reaching Beijing

June 22, 2014

It has now been over 3 months since MH370 vanished without trace.

My theory from two months ago about the disappearance was that this was a deliberate, probably state-sponsored, very well executed and successful  action to prevent certain technology, some sensitive hardware and some particular technical people from reaching Beijing.

There were 20 Chinese software experts on board. They had been working for Freescale Technology in Texas on technology which could convert ordinary aircraft into “stealth” aircraft. Patents had been applied for but have not yet been granted. MH 370 was carrying a “large” package as a Chinese diplomatic package and was therefore not subject to any search or security procedures. The speculative, uncorroborated but plausible and most parsimonious explanation becomes:

  1. The Chinese software engineers “stole” technology on behalf of the Chinese government from Freescale.
  2. Freescale was slow in picking up the theft and alerting the authorities.
  3. US intelligence and security agencies were unable to prevent the engineers and their package from reaching Malaysia.
  4. They were also unable to prevent the engineers boarding MH370 bound for Beijing or the precious cargo from being loaded as diplomatic cargo.
  5. The operational arm of a US Security Agency took the decision – without recourse to their political masters – to prevent the engineers and their cargo from reaching Beijing, at any cost.
  6. ………. 

It is now reported in this “NextNews” video that the patent in question was granted 4 days after the flight disappeared!! The patent was in the names of 4 Chinese engineers and their employer Freescale which happens to be owned by Rothschild. All the 4 inventors of record were on board and with their deaths all the patent rights now revert to the company. While this report implies a financial motive, I don’t think that holds. In corporate patents all the exploitation rights are usually with the corporate entity and not with the individual inventors. The individual inventors may have had some little share in any eventual revenues but these would have been (relatively) quite small. What was actually achieved was that none of the inventors or their cargo or the knowledge in their heads reached Beijing. And that remains the most likely motive. The timing of the granting of the patent – 4 days later – when there could no longer be any question of ownership is also suggestive.

It still seems to me that the most parsimonious explanation for the vanishing is that somebody wanted to prevent the Freescale engineers and their diplomatically protected cargo  from reaching Beijing. They succeeded completely and also in obliterating all traces of their actions. All the other deaths were merely collateral damage.

 h/t: Nessan

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Climate and the butterfly in Brazil

June 22, 2014

You may think that the weather outside your window is a consequence of the prevailing climate. But that would be the cart before the horse. Without weather there is no climate.

Climate is to weather as evolution is to reproduction.

Evolution is just a label given to the result of many, many individual survival and reproduction events. Evolution is not a “force” which directs who will survive and who will not or which individuals will reproduce and who will not. Evolution is then the name we give to the resultant changes in the genetic make-up of species as individuals of that species survive and reproduce (or fail to reproduce where  the species goes extinct). The survival and reproduction of individuals changes as the environment they live in changes. Evolution is thus the global, net result of the millions of successful, local, individual matings, and of the many more millions of failures to reproduce. Natural selection is merely a record of those that manged to survive and reproduce and thereby “deselected” all the failures. Without environmental change first causing a change in which individuals survive and then reproduce, there can be no evolutionary change (except due to random mutations).  Similarly there is no great driving force called climate which determines the weather outside your window. Climate is the label we give to the summation of all the local weathers in a region or around the globe as being the climate of that region or of the world. Just as resulting evolution and evolutionary change is impacted by the local survival or failure of a species, so is resulting climate impacted by weather and by changes to local weather patterns. Climate is a calculated result, an average, of  myriads of local weather events

Without reproduction and consequent genetic change there is nothing to be called evolution. There is no evolutionary change if a species is genetically static – if it’s surroundings and its growth are unchanged.  Similarly there is no climate change if local weather patterns remain static. And without individual events of local weather there can be no average to be called climate.

The weather we each experience locally outside our windows covers a very wide range. Within a few minutes, on any day of the year we can experience temperature changes of  5 – 10ºC as clouds appear or it starts blowing or if it rains or if it snows. Winds can vary from virtually still upto over 100km/h in the midst of a storm. Every single day we see a change of around 10ºC between day and night. Over a period of a week it would not be unusual to have a temperature change of even 20ºC. Over a year a temperature variation of 60ºC (+35ºC on the warmest day to – 25ºC on the coldest) could be expected at my latitude.

Politically correct “climate science” today takes it for granted that any unpleasant warming of the earth, or uncomfortable cooling of the earth, or increased frequency of storms, or copious amounts of rainfall and any resulting flood, or no rainfall and any resulting drought, or any unduly severe hurricanes is – by virtue of its unpleasantness – due to man-made climate change. And man’s evil influence is all manifested by the emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide!

But in the meantime it is mid-summers day and a cloud has passed over the sun. And when the cloud has passed I will feel a lot warmer than by increasing the carbon dioxide around me!!!!

In the 1960’s Edward Lorenz developed his chaos theory and in 1972 gave his famous talk questioning if the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas. (Lorenz Butterfly 1972).

Lorenz 1972

Lorenz 1972

Without reproduction there is no evolution and without local weather there is no climate.

Blaming fossil fuel combustion for climate change is like blaming one poor butterfly in Brazil and ignoring every other bird and insect flapping its wings.

 

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Bouygues’ need for cash will make or break GE’s bid for Alstom assets

June 21, 2014

As I suspected it seems to be the share price at which Bouygues are prepared to divest their shareholding in Alstom which will determine whether GE will acquire Alstom’s energy assets or whether the rival bid from Siemens/MHI will succeed. It seems that if a share price of less than €30 per Alstom share is accepted by Bouygues then GE may win the deal with the governments backing. IF they hold out for €32 or more then it may be Siemens/MHI who get the nod.

It is a hectic weekend for Alstom, the French government and Bouygues. The French government’s acquisition of 20% of Alstom’s shares is integral to their backing of GE’s bid over the rival bid from Siemens/MHI.

It is Bouygues need to exit from their 29% shareholding in Alstom and their need for cash which is probably the main driver for Alstom’s divestment. For Bouygues the book value of their holding of some 89 million shares is at about a value of  €33 per share whereas the market price is currently only around €28-29. Clearly the French government would prefer to just pay market price but Bouygues could well argue that their shareholding was acquired at the behest of the French government in the first place. Without their “white knight” intervention Alstom would have gone to the wall.

If Bouygues holds out for close to book value and the French government balks at the price then the Siemens /MHI offer may gain traction – especially if it offers Bouygues not only a higher price but also a clean exit from their entire shareholding.

Reuters: Talks on an industrial tie-up between Alstom and General Electric entered a critical phase on Saturday, as the French government wrangled with Alstom shareholder Bouygues over a key plank of the transaction. Sources close to the negotiations said talks were continuing over the price at which the French state would acquire 20 percent of Alstom from Bouygues – a condition for government approval of Alstom’s alliance with GE in preference to a rival Siemens-Mitsubishi offer. ……

French President Francois Hollande applied more pressure to Bouygues, telling reporters in Paris he expected rapid progress in the stake purchase talks. “This is a major condition for the government’s acceptance of the alliance,” Hollande told reporters in Paris. “That’s why I believe we will make progress by the end of the day.” Without an acceptable deal on the Bouygues stake, he added, “it would be necessary to reconsider the alliance as it has just been announced”. …….

……  Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg finally announced state backing on Friday for a GE-Alstom deal valuing Alstom’s energy business at 12.35 billion euros ($16.77 billion). But the official green light remains subject to strict conditions agreed with GE as well as the government’s successful purchase of a 20 percent stake from Paris-based Bouyues.

Montebourg said the French state was prepared to pay only market price for the Alstom shares, which closed at 28 euros on Friday – about 20 percent short of their accounting value to Bouygues.

My guess is that if Bouygues needs around €2.8 billion and if they hold out for more than €32 per share the GE deal may fail and the scales may tip in favour of the Siemens/MHI bid.

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A perception of collective nouns

June 21, 2014

A quest of scientists

A babble of psychologists

A gaggle of poets

A rabble of (……….) – according to personal preference authors/actors/priests/…….

A fusion of physicists

A smell of chemists

A bushel of metallurgists

A parliament of speakers

An invasion of neocons

A cohort of politicians

A harem of coalition partners

A mamillion of mathematicians

A brothel of journalists

A twitter of modistes

A facebook of friends

A hack of spies

A matrix of nerds

A pride of gay people

A tick of lawyers

A bill of consultants

A cancer of bureaucrats

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Auction for Alstom develops as GE and Siemens/MHI up their bids

June 20, 2014

UPDATE!

The auction could be over. It looks like the French government is backing GE’s offer and will itself take a 20% stake in Alstom.

France to Back G.E.’s Bid for Alstom Assets

===============================================

Once upon a time I was recruited by ASEA in Sweden. Then ASEA merged with BBC and through no action on my part I became an employee of ABB. Some years later ABB sold all its Power Generation business to Alstom (along with me) and – once again without any action on my part – I became an employee of Alstom. In due course I retired but one of my last actions was to sell off part of Alstom’s industrial power generation business to Siemens as part of a global divestment. Whereupon I was recruited by Siemens in Germany to help with growing the business just acquired from Alstom. And then I finally did “retire” – insofar as “retirement” means that I can now reject engagements which do not interest me.

So the current battle going on between GE on the one hand and Siemens/MHI on the other to acquire all of Alstom’s power generation business is of particular interest. The Alstom Board which had -in principle – accepted GE’s offer, is now faced with evaluating two rival bids. During this week both have improved their bids.

Alstom’s Board will convene no later than June 23 to review the bids.

My personal view is that that the Alstom need for divestment is driven not only by their debt but – perhaps more importantly – by the desire of their largest shareholder to exit. Bouygues owns 29% of Alstom and came in – at the behest of the French Government – when Alstom were in dire straits. But now Boygues themselves are in some trouble and need to exit and they need to convert their 29% to as much cash as possible. With Alstom paying no dividend, Bouygues’ 29% holding represents about €2.5 billion locked up as a non performing asset. So in my view the critical points for Alstom in selecting a buyer will be

  1. ensuring that whatever is left of Alstom after the divestment is more than merely viable, and
  2. that Bouygues gets the maximum cash return for its 29% in a “clean” and lucrative exit.

In any event a good, old fashioned, “bidding war” between GE and Siemens/MHI is probably a good thing for all Alstom shareholders – including Bouygues. I recall – during my time with Alstom – when Alstom was forced to sell its profitable industrial power generation business. The final sale price ended up about 48% higher than Alstom’s internally evaluated value – just because an auction did develop between Siemens and Hitachi. And the auction did not just happen – it took much time and effort to promote.

Whether the Alstom Board can engineer a “good” auction to the benefit of the remaining Alstom train business and their shareholders remains to be seen.

Bloomberg: 

Immelt is in Paris to present new details of GE’s $17 billion plan to officials including Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg, according to GE. Negotiators for the U.S. manufacturer continue to refine specifics ahead of a June 23 deadline, including the structure of Alstom’s renewable energy, grid and transport businesses, the company said.

Seven weeks after unveiling its proposal for Alstom’s energy operations, GE confronts a counterbid by Siemens that seeks to carve up Alstom together with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011) and Hitachi Ltd. (6501) The Siemens proposal values the energy assets at 14.2 billion euros ($19.3 billion).

Immelt’s return to Paris underscores the stakes in a deal that would give Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE control of Alstom’s technology for electricity transmission and power-plant maintenance as Europe’s economy starts to recover. The acquisition would be GE’s biggest ever and bolster Immelt’s push to return the company to its industrial roots.

Reuters:

Siemens and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) raised their offer for Alstom’s energy businesses to compete with a revised bid by U.S. rival General Electric.

Siemens-MHI and GE have been facing off in a battle for control of Alstom’s power businesses that has seen the Socialist government give itself powers to block any deal in the name of protecting local jobs and influence over a strategic sector. 

Under their amended offer, Siemens-MHI would pay 8.2 billion euros ($11.2 billion) in cash rather than 7 billion and value Alstom’s power businesses at 14.6 billion euros, 400 million more than previously and still well above GE’s 12.4 billion.

……. The improved Siemens-MHI proposal still foresees Siemens buying Alstom’s gas turbine business. But MHI is now offering to buy a 40 percent stake in the combined steam, grid and hydro business of Alstom and bundle them in a holding company. It previously planned to create three joint ventures by acquiring 40 percent of the steam business, 20 percent of grid and 20 percent of hydro. The change will increase MHI’s share of the cash payment to 3.9 billion euros from 3.1 billion. Siemens’s contribution rises to 4.3 billion euros from 3.9 billion, with the company saying the increase was based on “a subsequent, more advanced opportunity/risk analyses”.

In addition, Siemens is offering to immediately enter into a joint venture for mobility management, including signalling, with Alstom.

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Noted in passing on Midsummer’s eve

June 20, 2014

Midsummer’s Eve in Sweden and we have a bright sunny day (so far) but rather cool (with a high of 16ºC expected).

Midsummer's Eve 2014

View from my kitchen window – Midsummer’s Eve 2014

The forecast is for sun in the south and some snow in the north. Snow at midsummer is unusual but not at all unknown in the north of Sweden.  No sign of either global warming or of an impending ice age.

Emotional contagion by Facebook could be a new disease. A case of the medium creating the new disease! Heightened emotions can apparently be transmitted by Facebook. The researchers find that “emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness”. And emotional contagion is what turns a crowd into a mob. And as this work from MIT shows, “Good people can do bad things. Belonging to a group makes people more likely to harm others outside the group.”

The wealth of bones found at the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain)  are revealing more about the predecessors of Neanderthals. A new paper now suggests that “the hominin-bearing layer could be reassigned to a period around 430,000 years ago. The sample shows a consistent morphological pattern with derived Neandertal features present in the face and anterior vault, many of which are related to the masticatory apparatus. This suggests that facial modification was the first step in the evolution of the Neandertal lineage… “. Initially these fossils were dated to around 600,000 years ago and thought to be related to homo heidelbergensis. But it is now believed that these fossils are younger, from the direct lineage of Neanderthals and a link to homo antecessor who lived in Europe around one million years ago.

Poor Ed Miliband. As if his failings were not enough, he has now taken to a new “owlish” policy for free owls for everybody. This is giving photo-shoppers new opportunities but is creating panic among the Uk’s mouse population.

Saudi Arabia has warned the US and the UK not to interfere in Iraq and oppose the largely Saudi funded ISIS. (Saudi Arabian funds have supported and are still supporting more terrorists than almost any other country. Saudi funds are also well represented in supporting some of the radical preachers around the world). “Hands-off Obama” has obliged by holding off with any air strikes and restricting US involvement to the supply of 300 advisors. But be assured that he is asking very “hard questions”!!

Diagram illustrating water's phases

The mysteries of water are still being unravelled. This time it is the low temperature properties of water. Between supercooled water and “glassy” water, there is a region of great mystery (a “no-mans” land). Researchers have now suceeded in making some measurements  at -46ºC.

Just a few days ago the vast amounts of water deep in the earths mantle – some 600 km below the earth’s surface – were reported. Here the water is at high temperatures (over 1000ºC) and very high pressures as hydroxyls trapped in the mineral ringwoodite. “There is something very special about the crystal structure of ringwoodite that allows it to attract hydrogen and trap water. This mineral can contain a lot of water under conditions of the deep mantle.” 

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Fossil fuel combustion at an all time high (but global warming is absent)

June 18, 2014

The BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014 is now out and the consumption of all fossil fuels has never been higher. Coal and gas consumption are particularly strong. And – even though many are in a state of denial about it – global warming has come to a stop over the last 18 years. In the last 10 years global temperatures show a slight downward trend.

There seems to be no purpose to the demonisation of fossil fuels other than for pandering to the religion of global warming. Consider the last 25 years. (I use 1988 as a reference point not only because 25 years should be enough to see some trends but also because the BP data is readily available from that date). During this 25 year period gas consumption has increased by over 80%, coal consumption by 0ver 70% and oil consumption by over 30%. The increased global coal burn since about 1999 is particularly striking. In the same 25 year period the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased from about 355 ppm(v/v) to about 395 ppm(v/v) – a rise of about 11%. And global temperatures have not increased at all for almost 2 decades.

Climate policy is policy without any objectives and without any means of checking any achievements. What exactly could we achieve by not using fossil fuels?

There is not a single climate policy proposed by the IPCC or by any government in the world  which has a definable and measurable climate benefit.

25 years of fossil fuel consumption

25 years of fossil fuel consumption

The global warming hiatus now extends to at least 18 years.

Global warming has gone missing

  • The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 213 months from August 1996 to April 2014. That is more than half the entire 423-month satellite record.
  • The fastest centennial warming rate was in Central England from 1663-1762, at 0.9 Cº per century – before the industrial revolution began. It cannot have been our fault.
  • The global warming trend since 1900 is equivalent to 0.8 Cº per century. This is well within natural variability and may not have much to do with us.

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Science needs some scienticians

June 18, 2014

Physic gave rise to physicians long before physics was practiced by a physicist,

Mathematics gives mathematicians, but who would trust a mathematist. 

A practitioner of an “ology” has an honourable profession,

So biologists, oncologists, archaeologists and geologists can be numbered by the million. 

Without the richness of an “ist” modern politics would be barren,

A politicist has a murky trade but he is not a politician. 

We have leftists and rightists and socialists and you can even find some libertarians,

But for all the mayhem in the world, you will not find any extremians.

Environmentalists and conservationists are politically very fashionable,

But their devious methods have now become – rather questionable. 

Philosophy was where it started but we rarely refer to philosophists,

And many of the scientists of today are little more than sophists. 

It was only in 1840 that scientists were one of Whewell’s inventions,

But they are now two-a-penny, and we could do with a few scienticians.

It should be quite clear that I think that there are far too many who claim to be scientists though they do no science. It then becomes useful to distinguish the real scienticians from the rabble. And perhaps the same could apply to the real economians among the multitude of clerks who call themselves economists.

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Is Hilary Clinton a secret neocon?

June 17, 2014

Robert Kagan, the American historian and political analyst would normally be considered a neocon though he prefers the term “liberal interventionist”. He sees the current events in Iraq as an opportunity for the interventionists. Hilary Clinton’s expected foreign policy is something neocons are quite comfortable with. Jason Horowitz writes in the New York Times:

…… He (Kagan) called for Mr. Obama to resist a popular pull toward making the United States a nation without larger responsibilities, and to reassume the more muscular approach to the world out of vogue in Washington since the war in Iraq drained the country of its appetite for intervention. ……. Mr. Kagan, 55, prefers the term “liberal interventionist” to the neoconservative label, but believes the latter no longer has the stigma it did in the early days of the Obama presidency. ….. 

But Exhibit A for what Robert Kagan describes as his “mainstream” view of American force is his relationship with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes. Mr. Kagan pointed out that he had recently attended a dinner of foreign-policy experts at which Mrs. Clinton was the guest of honor, and that he had served on her bipartisan group of foreign-policy heavy hitters at the State Department, where his wife worked as her spokeswoman.

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,” Mr. Kagan said, adding that the next step after Mr. Obama’s more realist approach “could theoretically be whatever Hillary brings to the table” if elected president. “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,” he added, “it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

Hilary Clinton has not yet confirmed that she will run for President in 2015 but being seen as a secret neocon will not be helpful – especially if the current mess in Iraq (and in Syria) will still be bloody chaos at the end of 2015. She must already contend with Benghazi being part of her baggage.

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US, Iran and Syria are now “allies” against ISIS

June 17, 2014

image: global security

ISIS now controls Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq near Mosul and Saqlawiya west of Baghdad. Fighting is reported in Fallujah, Baqubah and Samarra and within 50km of Baghdad.

But strange bedfellows are emerging.

Iran was once Evil Incarnate and the US was the Great Satan. But the “enemy of my enemy” can lead to once unthinkable alliances.

The US is talking about some form of military cooperation / coordination with Iran while Syrian planes have attacked ISIS convoys within Iraq.

Fox News: The Iranian government, which the White House is now looking to as a possible partner to help counter the insurgency threatening to split Iraq, was cited just months ago by the Obama administration’s own State Department as a prime instigator in that country. Counterterrorism officials warned about Iran’s meddling in Iraq as part of its report on state sponsors of terrorism. 

….. Further complicating the situation, senior U.S. Defense officials confirmed to Fox News that Syrian war planes struck two separate convoys belonging to the insurgent Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Saturday. 

According to sources familiar with the incident, the Syrian planes struck with the help of Iranian intelligence. There is no bomb damage assessment from the attack, but it is the first time there have been reports of Syrian warplanes having crossed into Iraq since ISIS fighters swept across Iraq beginning a week ago. 

The strike raises the prospect of the United States, Iran and Syria all battling the same enemy in Iraq. ….. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., ….. likened it to the U.S. aligning with Stalin during World War II, because he “was not as bad as Hitler.” 

In Iraq the government is banning access to social media like Facebook and Twitter which have apparently been very successfully used by ISIS in their little “blitzkrieg” last week and in posting horrific videos of their massacre of captured government soldiers.

Meanwhile the US has sent 275 military personnel to Baghdad to protect US interests.

And will the US come to support Assad against the Saudi supported rebel groups in Syria?

 

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