Equality: Myths and mirages

August 13, 2016

I got into a discussion/argument a few days ago about how the health services available were dependent upon wealth and about the need for “equality”. The motion was that “everybody should be equally entitled to the best care available”. But I couldn’t quite get my point across that the search for “equality of treatment” was itself based on a fundamental inequality. The fact that some people were sick and some were not, irrespective of wealth, was the underlying inequality. Provision of health services was, inherently, the unequal provision of resources to some (the sick) and therefore, the denial of those resources to others (the healthy). An unequal allocation of resources (more to the sick, less to the healthy) was being used to correct for the underlying inequality. It was “affirmative action” to help the sick. Admirable no doubt, but not an exercise of “equality”. In fact it was a manifestation of “unequal treatment” in the name of correcting a perceived “inequality”. All forms of “reservations” and “affirmative action” use discrimination against some to try and correct for some other perceived disadvantage of others. Campaigns for “equality” are nearly always about meting out unequal treatment to some to compensate for a perceived disadvantage in others.

They are all exercises in inequality rather than a pursuit of equality.

Concepts of equality are not real. They are merely “feel-good” excuses, a panacea for perceived injustices and a stick to beat political opponents with. All the various “forms” of equality are mirages. Absolute equality – of any kind – is a convenient myth. You cannot have both diversity and equality. “Different but equal” is a fine catch phrase but is a contradiction in terms. Difference IS unequal.

Justice and equality are quite different things. Justice demands inequality.

(I note in passing that “freedoms”, like equalities, are also convenient myths. The so called four fundamental freedoms (of speech, of worship, from want and from fear) are political nonsense. In virtually every human society “freedom of speech” is actually nothing more than “freedom of allowed speech”.  “Freedom of my worship” has become the “freedom to impose my worship” and is the cause of more atrocities and barbarism than any other. Freedom from want denies the fundamental driver of human development – to want. Freedom from fear is an empty platitude. Humans are capable of feeling fear because it, like pain, is a necessary requirement for survival. Elimination of fear or pain would require genetic manipulation and that would also eliminate happiness and pleasure.)

  1. “We are all born equal” – No we are not (and thank goodness for that). We each have our unique genetic make-ups (our natures). That, in turn constrains what any one of us is capable of physically or cognitively. Our environment (nurture) then determines how we behave. The very concept of being unique individuals precludes equality.
  2. “Equality of Opportunity” – This makes for fine political theatre but is meaningless. “Opportunity” is not a scalar quantity. It is vector which needs direction. Opportunity,  for what? I would have liked to run faster than Usain Bolt but I just wasn’t given the “equal opportunity”! Of course for the purposes of “equality” I would be entitled to an 85 m head-start (90 m might be better). Watching the Olympics it occurs to me that for true equality a handicap system is needed to ensure that everybody wins. It would be totally unjust, but it would be equal.
  3. “Gender equality” – This is politically very correct but has two parts. There are those fighting to ensure just treatment for women and that is wholly admirable. But there are also other idiots who believe the realities of gender difference can be denied. Femininity is denied in the name of feminism.
  4. “Equality before the law” is another nonsense phrase. The point of law and courts is to make a judgement based on actual behaviour against some “standard” (the law). What is meant, of course, is that different people not be treated differently for the same behaviour. That the rich man with a good lawyer not be treated preferentially. Yet, we also ask our judges to do exactly that. Juveniles or the mentally ill are treated differently. Past behaviour influences the penalty (or reward) for present behaviour.
  5. “Racial equality” – This phrase is also fatally tainted by the politically correct view that “races” don’t exit. Racial difference exists and is real. The “long distance running gene” is real and is more prevalent among East Africans. The “high altitude gene” is real and and is more prevalent among Tibetans. Skin colour genes are real, as are those for the shape of our eyes. Again, “just treatment” is wrongly presented as “equal treatment”.

Yesterday the women’s 10,000 m world record was broken by Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia (a fantastic run). The runners all started at the same time (equality). The finish was completely unequal with almost two laps between the winner and the last to finish. Ayana’s unequal advantages (nature and nurture) took her to the finish almost half a lap ahead of her nearest rival. For true “equality”, she should have had a handicap. With proper “affirmative action” maybe all the runners could have finished at the same time. But that would have been unjust. (Why is there no campaign for “gender equality” in the Olympics 10,000 m? I suppose for the same reason that flyweight boxers are not required to fight against the heavyweights.) The Olympics is a celebration of inequality.

The fundamental truth is that what is just is all about being unequal. Justness consists of “getting what is deserved”. The loose use of “equality” actually moves us away from what is just. We need to dump the deification of equality and focus on what is just.

Justice equality

 

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Reagan (and Pakistan) created the Taliban, Bush (and Saudi Arabia) nurtured Al Qaida and Obama/Clinton allowed ISIS to grow

August 12, 2016

Ronald Reagan (President from 1981 -1989) and Pakistan’s ISI created the Taliban,

From Politics 116 at Mt Holyoke College

The Creation of Taliban goes back to 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In 1973, The Soviet Union brought their soldiers into Afghanistan claiming to rebuild the crushing economy. However, the Soviet was resented by the Mujahidin (from whom the Taliban evolved from). At the same time, the Soviet Union and United States were engaged in a cold war. The U.S. was genuinely interested in counter power against the Soviet Union. Thus, Soviet Union’s entrance in Afghanistan signaled the Soviet’s increase in power and strength gaining more power and strength so the United States decided to intervene.Because the United States did not want to see the Soviet Union take control over Central Asia, the U.S. decided to fund troops to fight against the Soviet Union. These troops were called the Mujahedeen. The Mujahedeen were armed and supported by several countries including, the U.S., Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Under Reagan’s presidency Congress which was led by Democrats, decided to form a partnership with the ISI which would recruit the Mujahideen with the support of the Pakistani military extreme views of Islam, led the Mujahedeen to fight ferociously against the Soviet Union. these extremist succeeded in driving Soviet militants out (1989). This unforeseen defeat caused the Soviets to lose billions of Dollars, and led to the collapse of the Soviet Union After the war, Pakistan was left alone to deal with the problems associated with the post war. Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. declared a war against Afghanistan. at this point the U.S. realized the seeds they had sown. Taliban was a creation of the Pakistani intelligence agency (the ISI) but was funded by the U.S. The U.S. provided $3 billion to build this Islamic group by providing provided ammunitions, which they forgot to keep track of after the Soviet war. Thus, the U.S. was taken a back when the millions worth in weapons that they had provided were now being used against them. Since the Taliban was a creation of the Pakistani intelligence agency. Pakistan has been reluctant to fight them. It is said that a lot of Pakistani and other military personal were known to be siding with the Taliban. It has further been said that the U.S. is responsible for providing the Taliban with logistical and military advice, along with military hardware . Therefore the Unites States and Pakistan are accountable for the Creation of Islamic extremist Group called `Taliban’.

The success against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan and the need for further jihad gave rise to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida in 1989. George Bush Sr. who was already involved with Saudi support for the Taliban as Vice President under Reagan came into his own as a godfather for Al Qaida as President from 1989-1993. Through the CIA and its many arms, Bush Sr. and Saudi Arabia provided the money and the training. Al Qaida did not become an “enemy” of the US until 2001 when the campaign in Afghanistan was launced in retaliation for the 9/11 atrocities.

BBC (June 2004):

Al-Qaeda, meaning “the base”, was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads.

The organisation grew out of the network of Arab volunteers who had gone to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight under the banner of Islam against Soviet Communism. During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.

The “Arab Afghans”, as they became known, were battle-hardened and highly motivated. In the early 1990s Al-Qaeda operated in Sudan. After 1996 its headquarters and about a dozen training camps moved to Afghanistan, where Bin Laden forged a close relationship with the Taleban.

The US campaign in Afghanistan starting in late 2001 dispersed the organisation and drove it underground as its personnel were attacked and its bases and training camps destroyed.

It was the US occupation of Iraq and their support for the Shi’ite government of Nouri al-Maliki from 2003 – 2011 which provided the motivation for the Sunni backlash. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was leading an Al Qaida faction and, the Guardian writes, “after the US invasion in 2003, he was quickly drawn into the emerging al-Qaida in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, getting involved first in smuggling foreign fighters into Iraq, then later as the “emir” of Rawa, a town near the Syrian border. There, presiding over his own sharia court, he gained a reputation for brutality, publicly executing those suspected of aiding the US-led coalition forces – the same brutality that has become familiar to those living in Syria under his group’s control”. By various accounts he was detained at the US Camp Bucca as a low level prisoner from 2004 either for less than a year or upto 2008. 

Possibly he was in detention till 2008, since it is only after 2009 that ISIS takes off and it is only after 2011, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in place, that ISIS expands –  violently and explosively – in Syria and Iraq. Obama and Clinton lost interest in Iraq and dropped the ball on ISIS. They (and Saudi Arabia) were so focused on creating regime change in Syria and toppling Assad that they lost sight of the support (money and training) being provide by the US for anti-Assad groups which included ISIS affiliated groups. David Mizner writes:

“The August 5, 2012 DIA report confirms much of what Assad has been saying all along about his opponents both inside and outside Syria,” says “terrorism analyst” Max Abrams.

The report concerns a period in time when the escalating violence in Iraq had ceased to be a prominent topic in the US press and when its coverage of the war in Syria — mirroring the discussion in Washington — focused on the Assad government, not the forces aligned against it. This may be hard to imagine now that ISIS has become the US government’s favorite monster, but during these months President Obama and his team gave major speeches on Syria that didn’t even mention the group.

Even after ISIS took Fallujah in January 2014, discussion of the group in establishment outlets was scarce. It wasn’t until later in 2014 — after continued battlefield victories and heavily publicized beheadings of westerners — that Islamic State became Public Enemy Number 1.

American officials claimed the ascendancy of ISIS had caught American intelligence by surprise. Yet in the 2012 report — which was circulated widely through the US government — the DIA foresaw the creation of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria. It also said that Islamic State of Iraq could “return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi” and declare an “Islamic state” in western Iraq and eastern Syria.

More than that, the report says the creation of an Islamic state was precisely the goal of the foreign governments that support the opposition:

If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor) and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).

US Defense Intelligence clearly puts the cause for the rise of ISIS on the policy being followed by the US in Syria (by Obama and Clinton), and not primarily on what was happening in Iraq. Mizner again:

While American politicians and pundits have blamed the ascendance of ISIS on former Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki and Assad — or on the removal of American troops from Iraq — the DIA report reminds us that the key event in the rise of ISIS was the corresponding rise of the insurgency in Syria. Brad Hoff of the Levant Report, the first journalist to analyze the DIA report, says it shows that “A nascent Islamic State became a reality only with the rise of the Syrian insurgency . . . there is no mention of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq as a catalyst.”

Maliki warned that the war in Syria could engulf Iraq, yet the United States and its allies kept supporting the insurgency. The American bombing of ISIS, relatively light and sporadic, has only intensified the belief of many Iraqis that the United States doesn’t want to defeat the group.

The US has a well established track record now of creating the very monsters which then becomes their greatest enemies. Obama – in spite of his reputation of over-analysing issues – clearly did not foresee how his inaction in Iraq, and his misguided regime-change actions in Syria, would cause the explosive growth of ISIS. And Clinton, who had little understanding of the complex relations in the Middle East, couldn’t cover for Obama’s blind spots and had no real strategy of her own to bring to the table. Furthermore, Obama and Clinton (and later Kerry) have done little, if anything, to stop ISIS being financed from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

obama no strategy

While Trump’s claim that Obama and Clinton “founded” ISIS is not strictly true, there is little doubt that the Obama/Clinton inaction in Iraq, and their misguided actions in Syria, led directly to the growth of ISIS and the current miserable situation in the Middle East. The Obama/Kerry combination has continued with the Assad obsession and their strategies (or lack of strategies) have been largely ineffective against ISIS. It is only Russian intervention which has perhaps turned the tide.

 

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Murdered DNC leaker to Wikileaks is latest addition to the Bill and Hillary body count

August 11, 2016

The “Bill & Hillary body count” is unusually long. It is more reminiscent of that of a dictator of a banana republic than of a leading “democratic” country. Now one more joins the list.

The number of people from the Bill & Hillary Clinton “inner circle” who have died mysteriously is between 50 and about 80. It seems that potential “whistleblowers” who may have had information implicating the Clintons are particularly vulnerable. I recall the apparent suicide of White House Counsel, Vince Foster in 1993 and the strong speculation that, in fact, he was eliminated because he had found something incriminating while investigating Bill Clinton’s finances.

Seth Rich, a DNC worker, was murdered on 10th July, apparently the victim of an armed robbery. But now it seems – from what Julian Assange says – that Rich was the source of the leak of information from the DNC to Wikileaks. And, he implies, Rich was murdered to prevent his testifying to the FBI. The speculation continues that he had information about the Clinton campaign’s activities (via the DNC) against Bernie Sanders and his murder was to shut him up.

[Seth

Seth Conrad Rich

Inquisitr: 

Seth Rich Murdered For Leaking DNC Emails?

Seth Rich may have been the source of the DNC email leak, the founder of WikiLeaks suggested this week about the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer.

Rich, who was murdered in Washington, D.C., back in July, has been the subject of a number of conspiracy theories. There were reports that he was planning to speak to the FBI about potential election fraud being committed in the Democratic primary, a report that turned out to have no basis, and now there are reports that he was the one who supplied the organization WikiLeaks with access to tens of thousands of emails from the DNC.  

Speculation had started to build that Seth Rich could have some connection to WikiLeaks when the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, announced this week that he was offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in his death.

Assange took the speculation a step further, insinuating in an appearance on a Dutch television show that Seth Rich was a “source” to the organization. The Gateway Pundit had a transcript of Assange’s appearance and his reference to Rich.

Julian Assange: Whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. As a 27 year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.

Reporter: That was just a robbery, I believe. Wasn’t it?

Julian Assange: No. There’s no finding. So… I’m suggesting that our sources take risks.

The statements from Julian Assange kick-started a new round of speculation that Seth Rich may have been murdered for his role in uncovering fraud on the part of the DNC. While the allegations about election fraud during the Democratic Primary have been debunked as a misunderstanding about the nature of exit polling, the possibility that Rich was an informant opened up a new avenue for conspiracy theories.

whatreallyhappened.com is maintaining a list of the “Clinton body count”.

Their list has well over 50 names and they have the following entries about Vince Foster and Seth Rich:

Vincent Foster

Deputy White House Counsel

Died: July 21, 1993

Found dead in Ft. Marcy Park in Washington, DC, of a supposed suicide by gunshot. A suicide note was supposedly found a few days later, torn into several pieces, in his briefcase, after his office had been entered by White House staff and materials removed. The “suicide” note, (leaked despite official efforts to keep it from view) has since been revealed to be a forgery.

The gun which he supposedly used to kill himself was reported to be still in his hand, but the person who first found the body reports that there was no gun at that time. Many irregularities surround the death and the investigation of it. For one thing, neither Foster’s fingerprints or blood were on the gun he supposedly inserted into his mouth and fired. There was no blood on Foster’s hands.

Foster was also from Hope, Ark., like Clinton, and also worked for the Rose Law firm. Foster had intimate knowledge of the Clintons’ personal finances. Foster was involved in an investigation of their finances, and reportedly made a phone call to Hillary Clinton, in Los Angeles, just hours before his death. Foster had been called to testify to Congress about the records Hillary refused to turn over. Another possible motive for the murder relates to the Clinton Presidential Blind Trust, being prepared by Foster, but six months late. Testimony during the Whitewater hearings suggestsd the trust was fraudulent, with the Clintons retaining control over much of their finances, in order to profits from inside information.

Recently, the signed report of M.E. Dr. Donald Haut was uncovered at the National Archives, proving that Foster had a previously unreported gunshot wound to his neck.

Finally, an FBI memo surfaced dated the day after the date of the official autopsy, in which the autopsist informed the FBI that there was NO exit wound.

Seth Conrad Rich

DNC Voter Expansion Data Director

Died: July 10, 2016

Seth Conrad Rich was shot several times in the back a block from his home in D.C.’s neighborhood of Bloomingdale. The police declared it a roberry gone bad, but nothing had been taken; Seth still had his wallet, watch, and cell phone.

One possible motive for his assasination lies with the WikiLeaks dump of 20,000 DNC emails which proved the DNC was rigging the primaries to favor Hillary Clinton. The scandal forced DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz to resign. Although Hillary’s people tried to portray this as a hack by Russia, to cast Hillary as a victim of international intrigue, WikiLeaks, while not identifying the leak, denied it was Russia, and stated it was an “internal” leak. If Seth (who was in a perfect position to acquire the data) were the leak, that would be ample motive to murder him, as a warning to others inside the DNC not to blow any whistles.

Shortly after the killing, Redditors and social media users were pursuing a “lead” saying that Rich was en route to the FBI the morning of his murder, apparently intending to speak to special agents about an “ongoing court case” possibly involving the Clinton family.

A reward has been offered for information on this murder.

Whatever the truth is, it is clearly not healthy to be allowed into the Clinton circle and then try to leave.

 

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A “good” monsoon and approach of La Niña augur well for extended Indian growth period

August 10, 2016

Half of the Indian monsoon season is over and “so far so good”. There is a good probability that 2016 is going to have a “good” monsoon.  A uniform rainfall over the entire country and an excess rainfall of over 5% from the long term average and less than 15% in excess of the LTA is most desirable. (More than 15% excess will almost certainly give some very serious flooding, while less than 5% excess would probably leave some parts of the country dangerously dry). The El Niño is clearly over and weak La Niña conditions are developing. If La Niña conditions continue to develop, and are established before the end of the year, then there is a good probability that India will even have a good monsson during 2017.

The harbingers for an extended period of good growth in India look promising.

There is an increasing possibility of a hard winter ahead in Europe. In Sweden, autumn seems to have come early and it could be a long, cold winter.

IMD

  1. Rainfall over the country as a whole for the 2016 southwest monsoon season (June to September) is most likely to be ABOVE NORMAL (>104% to 110% of long period average (LPA)).
  2. Quantitatively, monsoon season rainfall for the country as a whole is likely to be 106% of the long period average with a model error of ±4%.
  3. Region wise, the season rainfall is likely to be 108% of LPA over North-West India, 113% of LPA over Central India, 113% of LPA over South Peninsula and 94% of LPA over North-East India all with a model error of ± 8 %.
  4. The monthly rainfall over the country as whole is likely to be 107% of its LPA during July and 104% of LPA during August both with a model error of ± 9 %.
Monsoon cumulative rainfall till 9th august 2016

Monsoon cumulative rainfall till 9th august 2016

The El Niño conditions over the equatorial Pacific prevailing since April, 2015 reached to strong level in July, peaked in December 2015 and started declining thereafter. The rapidly declining El Nino conditions became moderate in early April 2016, weak in early May and now have turned to neutral ENSO conditions. Recent changes in the atmospheric conditions over the Pacific also reflect the weakening El Niño conditions. Latest forecast from IMD-IITM coupled model indicate ENSO neutral conditions are likely to continue and turn to weak La Nina conditions in the latter part of the monsoon season. There is about 50% probability of La Nina conditions to establish during the monsoon season. Most of the other models also suggest development of La Niña conditions during the latter part of the monsoon season. 

Over Indian Ocean, the sea surface temperatures are warmer than normal over most parts except along the coast off central and south Africa. Currently neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are prevailing. The latest forecast from IMD-IITM coupled model indicates positive IOD conditions are most likely during early part of the monsoon season and same to turn to negative IOD during the latter part of the monsoon season.

image nirapadnews

image nirapadnews

 

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Can Trump withstand the all-out media onslaught?

August 10, 2016

If the media reports on Trump (starting in the US and then carried all over the world) are taken at face value, the Trump campaign has imploded and Trump is dead as a Presidential candidate. The November election is already being declared a walk-over for Hillary. The current media onslaught on Trump appears to be a “no holds barred” thing where the most tenuous arguments are used to support sensational conclusions (the latest being that Trump is encouraging violence against Clinton by gun owners).

But there is a fundamental disconnect somewhere. If Trump’s chance is already as dead as the media say it is, then they should be returning to the ridicule they showered on Trump a year ago when his campaign started. But the media “reporting” is, instead, getting increasingly strident, increasingly vituperative, increasingly vicious. It suggests to me that rather than being a reaction to Trump’s declining chance of being President, it is a reaction dominated by the fear that he might win.

The ingredient that the media are most scared of it seems is the US electorate. They are in fact terrified of what is my hypothesis – that the anti-establishment wave that has put Trump where he is, will turn into an anti-establishment tsunami come November. The media are trying, with their increasingly wild attacks, to get to an audience they normally cannot reach.

Get Trump

Right now the media are still living in the hope that they can pre-empt a Trump candidacy. I suspect they might be too late. Some of the more liberal media are enaged in such “over-the-top” attacks on Trump which reminds me of the desperate, crazed, suicidal tactics of berserkers or kamikaze. If Trump can withstand the onslaught and is still around in the middle of September, then, I think, the media’s survival instinct will kick in. If, with 6 weeks to go, Trump is still a potential President, the media will have to look to how they remain alive under a President Trump who might turn out to be quite vindictive.

The mentality driving some of the most extreme attacks on Trump is not so very different to the desperate, crazed, suicide attacks of an embattled terrorist group.

 

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Cricket at the 1900 Paris Olympics

August 9, 2016

From Espncricinfo

A handbill advertising the match. Note the lack of any reference to the Olympics and that the Great Britain team is referred to as “England” © PA Photos

In 1900, Great Britain won the only Olympic cricket tournament to have been held – but they were totally unaware they had even competed in the Games.

At the 1896 Games in Athens it was intended that cricket would be included, but a lack of entries meant plans were quietly shelved. Four years later in Paris, four teams entered – Great Britain, France, Belgium and Holland – but in the event, only one match was played, between Great Britain and France. Holland and Belgium had originally been touted as co-hosts for the second Olympiad but those plans faltered and the two countries’ entries went the same way. …..

The Great Britain cricket side was not a nationally selected XI but a touring club team, Devon & Somerset Wanderers. …….. The French side was anything but, formed largely of expat Englishmen, and was selected from two Paris-based teams – Union CC and Standard Athletic. …….. 

It was agreed by the captains that the game would be 12-a-side. ……. Great Britain batted first and scored a creditable 117, largely thanks to 23 from Charles Beachcroft, who opened for Exeter, and the Old Blundellian Frederick Cumming, who top-scored with 38. France were then bowled out for 78. The British scored 145 for 5 second time around, with fifties from Beachcroft and Alfred Bowerman, setting the hosts a target of 185. In the event, this proved way beyond them, and they were bowled out for 26, with Montagu Toller, who had played county cricket for Devon in 1897, taking 7 for 9.

The winners were awarded silver medals, the French bronze ones – both XIIs also received miniature replicas of the 11-year-old Eiffel Tower.

The Great Britain side… also known as the Devon & Somerset Wanderers © PA Photos

 

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Light blogging while the Olympics are on

August 8, 2016

The 5 hours time difference to Brazil means that the event finals are held around 2 or 3 am here.

Which means that during my normal blogging hours I am fast asleep.

 

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Something rotten in the state of the Olympics

August 7, 2016

That trainers in Russia systematically doped athletes they were training is probably true.

That the Russian sports Ministry turned a blind eye to this and even helped athletes escape detection is also highly likely.

That many Russian athletes are guilty of doping is almost certainly true.

That all Russian athletes have doped is almost certainly not true.

image americablog.com

Yet the International Olympic Committee (which is considerably more corrupt than FIFA) and the International Paralympic Committee (not very much cleaner) have decided to inflict a collective punishment on all athletes from Russia. It is quite clearly a “Collective Punishment” .

In times of conflict, Collective Punishment is a war crime and outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

Collective punishment is a form of retaliation whereby a suspected perpetrator’s family members, friends, acquaintances, sect, neighbors or entire ethnic group is targeted. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. –Wikipedia

The IOC is itself rotten and no matter how widespread doping was in Russia, there is no way in which infliction of a Collective Punishment – which by definition applies to innocents as well as the guilty – can be justified. It creates new innocent victims of IOC oppression.

As if the IOC was not rotten enough and oppressive enough.

 

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Sweden’s politicians protect their independent auditors (and what’s the quid pro quo?)

August 6, 2016

Oh dear!

Dagens Nyheter exposed examples of “crony corruption” within the Swedish National Audit Office last month The Audit Office which is supposed to be an independent audit body monitoring government and government processes is answerable only to the Swedish Parliament via its Constitutional Committee. I have written earlier about the revelations and the calls for all the three Auditors General to resign. One did but the other two – who were also implicated in Dagens Nyheter’s expose – did not.

Yesterday the Constitutional Committee held a hearing with the Auditors and came to the startling conclusions that the transgressions were not serious enough for the Auditors to resign. If that was meant to restore the integrity of the Audit Office, it fails spectacularly. In fact, the clear impression I have now is that there is a very cozy relationship between the politicians of the Constitutional Committee and the Auditors.

It does seem that even in Sweden, which prides itself on the probity of its government and governance, the ruling principle is “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”.

Dagens Nyheter:

The statement by the Constitutional Committee (KU) that there are no grounds for dismissing the Auditors general has upset the experts DN has talked to.

“This announcement is remarkable”, said Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the former head of the National Audit Office. and of the 
UN’s internal audit. She said earlier this summer that all Auditors General should resign after what had emerged. “It is strange that KU did not take the time to reflect on what has emerged during the hearing. I also find it strange that they chose not to inquire any further and question others such as the chairman of the FA (Association of Chartered Accountants)”, she said to DN.

Inga-Britt Ahlenius thinks that KU has obviously failed with its recruitment of Auditors General. “Had the right people been recruited this situation would not have arisen. They acted as if they were the bosses of a private consulting firm. Not the Auditors General of a constitutionally constituted National Audit Office”, she said.  …. 

Auditor general Susanne Accum had previously announced her resignation, but her colleagues Margareta Åberg and Ulf Bengtsson are set to remain. Inga-Britt Ahlenius believes that their situation will become unsustainable. “They have abused their trust of the authorities they are supposed to monitor and also that of the public and among their staff. Had the National Audit Office has been a private company they would have been dismissed long ago”.

Professor Olle Lundin is an expert in administrative law at the Faculty of Law at Uppsala University. He has reacted strongly to DN’s revelations. “If the National Audit completely ignore the basic principles we are in a pretty bad way out there. They should lead by example and be extremely effective, because no one examines them”, he told DN in early June.

 

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Elementary particle turns out to have been a mirage as CERN serves up more inelegant physics

August 6, 2016

Current physics and the Standard Model of the Universe it describes are no longer elegant. I have no doubt that the underlying structure of the universe is simple and beautiful. But models which require more than 61 elementary particles and numerous fudge factors (dark energy and dark matter) and an increasing complexity, are ugly and do not convince. Especially when they cannot explain the four “magical” forces we observe (gravitation, magnetic, strong nuclear and the weak nuclear forces).

I have a mixture of admiration and contempt for the “Big Physics” as practised by CERN and their experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. So, I was actually quite relieved to hear that CERN has just announced that, after much publicity, they hadn’t actually detected yet another elementary particle which was not predicted by the Standard Model. Since they found some anomalous data last December they have hyped the possibility of a new extra-heavy, elementary particle. Over 500 papers have been written (and published) postulating explanations of the data anomaly and fantasising about the nature of this particle. But the data has just disappeared. The postulated particle does not exist.

I remain convinced that 90% of modern physics is all about raising questions – some genuine and some fantasised – to ensure that funding for Sledgehammer Science continues. So not to worry. CERN may not have found another elementary particle this time. But they will soon come up with another unexpected particle, preceded by much publicity and hype, which will spawn much further speculation, and, most importantly, keep the funds flowing.

New York Times:

A great “might have been” for the universe, or at least for the people who study it, disappeared Friday.  

Last December, two teams of physicists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider reported that they might have seen traces of what could be a new fundamental constituent of nature, an elementary particle that is not part of the Standard Model that has ruled particle physics for the last half-century.  

A bump on a graph signaling excess pairs of gamma rays was most likely a statistical fluke, they said. But physicists have been holding their breath ever since.  

If real, the new particle would have opened a crack between the known and the unknown, affording a glimpse of quantum secrets undreamed of even by Einstein. Answers to questions like why there is matter but not antimatter in the universe, or the identity of the mysterious dark matter that provides the gravitational glue in the cosmos. In the few months after the announcement, 500 papers were written trying to interpret the meaning of the putative particle.

Science Alert:

CERN made the announcement this morning at the International Conference of High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Chicago, alongside a huge slew of new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data.

“The intriguing hint of a possible resonance at 750 GeV decaying into photon pairs, which caused considerable interest from the 2015 data, has not reappeared in the much larger 2016 data set and thus appears to be a statistical fluctuation,” CERN announced in a press release sent via email.

Why did we ever think we’d found a new particle in the first place?

Back in December, researchers at CERN’s CMS and ATLAS experiments smashed particles together at incredibly high energies, sending subatomic particles flying out as debris.

Among that debris, the researchers saw an unexpected blip of energy in form of an excess in pairs of photons, which had a combined energy of 750 gigaelectron volts (GeV). 

The result lead to hundreds of journal article submissions on the mysterious energy signature – and prompted many physicists to hypothesise that the excess was a sign of a brand new fundamental particle, six times more massive than the Higgs boson – one that wasn’t predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

But, alas, the latest data collected by the LHC shows no evidence that this particle exists – despite further experiments, no sign of this 750 GeV bump has emerged since the original reading. 

So, we’re no closer to finding a new particle – or evidence of a new model that could explain some of the more mysterious aspects of the Universe, such as how gravity works (something the Standard Model doesn’t account for).

The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator (Image: CERN)

The Higgs Boson that CERN claims to have found last year has turned out to be not quite the boson predicted by the Standard Model. So while the Higgs boson was supposed to be the God particle, the boson found only indicated that there were more bosons to be found. I dislike the publicity and hype that CERN generates — which is entirely about securing further funding.  (The LHC cost $4.75 billion to build and sucks up about $5 billion annually to conduct their experiments).

Constantly adding complexity to a mathematical model and the increasing use of fudge factors is usually a sign that the model is fundamentally wrong. But some great insight is usually needed to simplify and correct a mathematical model. Until that insight comes, the models are the best available and just have to be fudged and added to in an ad hoc manner, to correct flaws as they are found.

The Standard Model and its 61+ particles will have to be replaced at some point by something more basic and more simple. But that will require some new Einstein-like insight, and who knows when that might occur. But the Standard Model is inelegant. The LHC is expected to operate for another 20 years. But the very weight of the investment in the LHC means that physicists cannot build a career by being heretical or by questioning the Standard Model itself.

I miss the elegance that Physics once chased:

Physics has become a Big Science where billion dollar sledgehammers are used to crack little nuts. Pieces of nut and shell go flying everywhere and each little fragment is considered a new elementary particle. The Rutherford-Bohr model still applies, but its elementary particles are no longer considered elementary. Particles with mass and charge are given constituent particles, one having mass and no charge, and one having charge and no mass. Unexplainable forces between particles are assigned special particles to carry the force. Particles which don’t exist, but may have existed, are defined and “discovered”. Errors in theoretical models are explained away by assigning appropriate properties to old particles or defining new particles. Every new particle leaves a new slime trail across the painting. It is as if a bunch of savages are doodling upon a masterpiece. The scribbling is ugly and hides the masterpiece underneath, but it does not mean that the masterpiece is not there.

The “standard model” does not quite fit observations so new theories of dark energy and dark matter are postulated (actually just invented as fudge factors) and further unknown particles are defined. The number of elementary particle have proliferated and are still increasing. The “standard model” of physics now includes at least 61 elementary particles (48 fermions and 13 bosons). Even the ancient civilisations knew better than to try and build with too many “standard” bricks. Where did simplicity go? Just the quarks can be red, blue or green. They can be up, down, charm, strange, top or bottom quarks. For every type of quark there is an antiquark. Electrons, muons and taus have each their corresponding neutrinos. And they all have their anti-particles.Gluons come in eight colour combinations. There are four electroweak bosons and there ought to be only one higgs boson. But who knows? CERN could find some more. I note that fat and thin or warm and cool types of particles have yet to be defined. Matter and antimatter particles on meeting each other, produce a burst of energy as they are annihilated. If forces are communicated by particles, gravity by gravitons and light by photons then perhaps all energy transmission can give rise to a whole new family of elementary particles.

The 61 particles still do not include the graviton or sparticles or any other unknown, invisible, magic particles that may go to making up dark matter and dark energy. Some of the dark matter may be stealthy dark matter and some may be phantom dark matter. One might think that when dark matter goes phantom, it ought to become visible, but that would be far too simple.  The level of complexity and apparent chaos is increasing. Every new particle discovered requires more money and Bigger Science to find the next postulated elementary particle.

When CERN claimed to have found the God Particle – the higgs boson – they still added the caveat that it was just one kind of the higgs boson and there could be more as yet unknown ones to come. So the ultimate elementary particle was certainly not the end of the road. Good grief! The end of the road can never be found. That might end the funding. And after all, even if the God Particle has been found, who created God? Guess how much all that is going to cost?

 

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Posted in Physics, Science | Comments Off on Elementary particle turns out to have been a mirage as CERN serves up more inelegant physics

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