Global Warming and Other Changes are NOT the End of the World

I am getting sick and tired of seeing all the foolish whining from folks who seem to believe the world is coming to an end due to global warming or the war on terror. What is wrong with people these days? They do not seem to be capable of thinking anymore. Use your brains folks - that's why Homo sapiens is supposed to be the most intelligent species on the planet. You are actually expected to be naturally smarter than your cat. I hate to say this but even my fellow Americans seem to fall short of this.

GLOBAL WARMING: Is it happening? YES! Will it affect our lives? You can bet on that and win. Will it affect the economy of our country - and the world? YES! Will people die because of it? YES! Is there anything we can do to stop it? NOT A CHANCE IN HELL! Are we the primary cause of global warming? Not exactly - the jury is still figuring out the cause. Actually, from what I did learn in the couple weeks I was in paleoclimatology class - we have contributed to it but are not likely the sole cause of it. To put it another way - it was going to happen anyway - we just acted as a catalyst and sped it up a bit.

Can we slow it down? Yes, but it's a bit too late for that at this point. The Northern Ice Cap is pretty much gone and nothing short of an ice age will bring it back. Can we reverse it? Very possible and likely if we work really really hard to do that - but maybe you want to think of the consequences of doing just that, first. Actually, maybe you all would prefer an ice age instead of global warming. Let's see...hmmm... Do you think we could invent a way to grow food on ice sheets in freezing temperatures? How about your house... Did you ever wonder what it would be like to live with a glacier in your yard? Or your house buried beneath one? Yeah, there would be more beaches to visit - albeit covered in ice. Basically, a full reversal of global warming would cover about half of the Earth with uninhabitable ice sheets. Maybe that's your idea of paradise - but it ain't mine. Did you ever hear the saying - when hell freezes over? I think you get the point.

Will all life on Earth, including all of humanity, cease to exist and die out in some cataclysmic mass extinction event from global warming? NO! Global sea level rise is not going to kill us off. Yeah, there will be a lot less islands and the coastlines will recede. So just get the hell off the island and don't own any beachfront property. Anyone who sticks around those locations is doomed - like the ninnies who stood and watched as the tsunami killed them. The animals had enough sense to get the hell out of dodge - but the humans were incapable for some unknown reason of following them. There was absolutely no excuse for that. Unless you want to argue the point that humans are just naturally more stupid than the other Earth creatures. Go ahead, go right ahead... be my guest.

Guess what's hiding under all that melting ice as global warming happens? LAND! Well, what do you know! Places to grow food and build houses and villages and cities. WOW! Imagine that! What rock have you idiots been hiding under that you are now just crawling out from? There is a lot of us Earthlings who actually knew that all that nice fertile land was under all that ice just waiting for the melting to finish up and the land to thaw out.

As for the beaches. Well, we'll have to move all the lighthouses as the coastlines recede. Yes, that will cost money. So, get off your lazy butts and make some big money so that we don't have a very bizarre remake of the Titanic tragedy - only this time the ship runs into a lighthouse submerged beneath the sea. Yoi! I think humanity can agree to save the lighthouses at the very least. To hell with the beachfront hotels - they can be rebuilt a lot easier than a lighthouse. As for the beaches themselves: Guess what! After they recede - they will naturally rebuild themselves . Yeah, beaches grow - and they even evolve - due to beachfront erosion. So, move inland far enough so that you will actually be owners of the new beachfront property. You all might want to start moving on that - you only got a couple years before...well...you know.

TERRORISM: Most likely, the crazy jihadi folks over in Iran will finish building one or two nukes and launch it at someone. The US or Israel! What do you really think the rest of the world will do when they do this? Worst case scenario - nuke Iran until it's a sheet of radioactive glass. And make sure the stupid bastards who built and launched the weapon(s) are trapped there when we hit them - preferably with every terrorist on Earth hanging with them partying to REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It. Hey, we already know that the terrorists are all suicidal - so all they have to do is say when and the world will oblige them and put them out of OUR misery. Actually, to tell the truth we here in the United States are indeed stalling on nuking anyone for the simple reason that we just don't like to do such a thing. Wiping out every living thing in an area is not a nice thing to do - but we will if absolutely necessary. We just don't have to like doing it. And we're giving the innocent bystanders a chance to get the hell out of there beforehand. Leave now or forever hold your peace!

POLARITY REVERSAL: Some liken this to the END OF TIME. If it is the end of time, it may just mean the years might start recounting - like when BC switched to AD. There will likely be some odd adjustments and a bit of inconvenience but not the end of all life on Earth, as some crazies like to think.

When the reversal happens we need to be prepared to deal with a lot of crazy things happening - like everything on Earth with a polarity ceasing to function. This includes the nuclear power plants of the world, as I mentioned once before. Anything that functions by battery or electric might also no longer work - this includes the cars and other vehicles - and yes, the computers. I am not saying that this is absolutely what will happen - but since we have not had a reversal since long before the technological revolution - it would be good to be prepared for the worst. Geomagnetic reversal is still too new of a concept for scientists to understand all the consequences to our technological world. Hey, scientists never claimed to be all knowing!

The field reversal - since it has to do with polarities - north south - positive negative - very likely will affect EVERYTHING else with a polarity. Try putting the batteries into anything upside down - it just will not work. What do we know runs by battery? The same for electricity - yes, electric currents have a polarity and when you reverse it - some things simply stop working and some explode. I do not know if the fact that we use Alternating Current as opposed to Direct Current will be any help. Hopefully it will. What exactly happens when AC is reversed or shut down completely? This is up to the physicists of the world to determine.

I once heard a saying: Assume the worst, and you'll end up pleasantly surprised. I may be a realist - but I am also an optimist. I do believe we can and will make the best of what's about to happen. Until next time... Or maybe better yet...maybe later this week. Ta ta!

Update and Issues

I have been out of commission for a bit due to a couple personal issues. I have literally been lying low for a bit. Down but not out. But I have not been idle neither. The Paleoclomatology class got withdrawn from - taking one massive issue off of my shoulders. All that has happened to me over the past few months reminds me of a character from one of my favorite novels when the enemies knocked part of a building down on top of him. I mean, really. What happened to my luck? It certainly went south - and me unable to do a damn thing to stop any of it. Yoi!

I did finally register for the Plate Tectonics class here at Pitt and am waiting to hear back from the professor about when and where we are meeting for class. This will be the third graduate level class I have taken so far. I did pass the other two, albeit one without the best of outcomes and the other almost did not make it at all - but turned out ok in the end. Wish me luck.

I am a bit undecided about whether to register for the department's colloquium class. It's only one credit and I do need it. I just wish it were still like it was years ago in my old geology days when it was not mandatory to attend and you did not have to register for it. I believe they changed it so that the department gets enough money to get the speakers - who are typically all from other colleges and other organizations. I wonder how other science departments handle funding problems for their seminar series. There's got to be a better way.

It reminds me of the last class I needed to take for my B.A. in History and Philosophy of Science right here at Pitt. It was also one credit and a seminar type class. We also had to write two research essays on the class topic and readings - which happened to be on Descartes - with Dr. McGuire presiding. It was not a series of lectures by speakers from outside, however. I do recall both our HPS and our Philosophy departments having colloquium type seminars.

I have also been going through all my old research paperwork on the Intelligent Design situation - a la the Discovery Institute. So far, I have only reread and organized into a file folder three old articles from back in 2002 about the Columbus, Ohio scandal. I have plenty more where that came from. I still cannot understand how that Guildenhuys ass of a grad instructor was able to say I was off topic on the essay I wrote for my first attempt at Intro to Philosophy of Science. That is one mistake I have not gotten on any paper since maybe grade school. Well, he got his comeuppance - he ended up on academic probation - on an unrelated issue. Why am I not surprised! I think he might need to take a class on ethics and maybe one on morality - since the "man" did not have any at the time. And not much in the brains category, neither. And Logic is a mandatory class requirement for a Bachelors in our HPS department. He apparently slept through those classes.

Gotta get to class. Till later... Cha Ching!

The Core of Geomag Reversals

I am reading an article from Nature about the geomagnetic reversal. Apparently, there looks to be a correlation between the cooling and solidifying of the Earth's inner core and the polarity reversals. The article is not very specific. It is likely that as the inner core solidifies a new layer, the planet's polarity reverses as a side effect. A nickel iron core could conceivably do this, in theory. But we also know that theory and reality are typically two different ball games. In science, the theoretical is merely the ideal situation and the ideal is rarely ever the reality - at least not exactly.

There was also mentioned the Cretaceous Normal Superchron [CNS] a long span of time when there were no reversals. Why this is the case, I do not know - but I believe comparing that time interval to times when reversals are normal might shed some light on the situation. It may even give us some clues about the cause of the reversals. Interestingly enough, the CNS ended around the same time as the K-T event. A possible correlation, perhaps?! Could a meteorite cause this no-reversal time to switch back to normal geomagnetic flip-flopping? If it was an iron asteroid, this would be likely. Like two magnets hitting each other. But what exactly started the CNS in the first place? Another previous iron asteroid meteorite - switching the field off?

Also, as I was skulking about on the Google Scholar site looking up solar forcing articles - I noticed one that said something about the reversals being correlated with glacial periods. Unfortunately, the article itself was not accessible - but I am hopeful that more are out there - maybe I can look at the references of that article and at least peruse the abstract. Just the info I was hoping for. Toodles!

Incoming Asteroids and How to Deal with Them

An interesting conversation w a friend of mine turned to the likelihood of an asteroid hit at some point in the future. What we were talking about was the larger - world altering asteroids - say, one the size of New Jersey slamming into Earth.

What are we to do when this happens? Yes, I said when! This is NOT an if scenario - it is reality - it WILL happen at some time. If folks are so unconcerned about this - may I remind them that this DID happen about 65 million years ago - killing off the dinosaurs. It happened before that time, as well. Granted, we are still unsure about whether it was an asteroid or a comet - but the situation is almost the same and the outcome certainly is.

So, whether we're talking about a giant dirty snowball from hell - or a giant rock made of iron, quartz, or carbon - the end point is still the same - WIPEOUT. This is for those greedy bastards out there more concerned about their wallets and their little fantasy world that they prefer to live in - like the jackasses who so kindly helped evacuate New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. Rules and laws are all very well - but they are there to protect people - NOT make it necessary for thousands of people to die - just for some politicians' laziness. And if I hear another religious nutter out there saying that God punished those poor folks for their sins - then I'll let them sit while a hurricane hits their sorry asses. Who died and made them God, anyway?!

OK, so what do we do about this situation when it becomes a reality? Well, how many nukes do we have? Yeah, yeah, I know they exist for one reason and one reason only - to kill our fellow humans with. My friend pointed this out by mentioning that all nukes on the planet are set to hit locations on this planet - not to go flying out into space to hit asteroids and comets. We need to alter their trajectories. It would also be nice to be able to make course corrections after launch if need be.

How exactly would this work? Well, it all depends on what is heading for Earth in the first place. If it is a comet - hitting it enough times to break it up into smaller fragments that will just burn up in the atmosphere - like a regular meteor shower.

With asteroids - this would be different. Iron and carbon asteroids would be a worse case scenario - because breaking them up would be realistically impossible. It would not matter how many nukes you hit it w directly - it won't be destroyed. Even silicate [quartz] meteorites might not break up w nukes - not into small enough fragments fast enough to avert catastrophe. It would be like trying to break a giant marble. Imagine a giant marble the size of New Jersey! By the time we see one of these puppies coming - we will not have years to break it up. Months maybe - if we are lucky. Weeks to days, more likely! Oh, and for those thinking that we could deal w a carbon asteroid - think again. Carbon asteroids are not just big charcoal brickettes - they're giant black diamonds. Think about it, folks - think real hard!

In the event that it is an asteroid - we will only have one course of action to take. The best way to deal w asteroids intent on crash landing in our back yard is to change their trajectory. If we can't move us out of its way - BAD IDEA even if we could do such a thing - then we have to MOVE THE ASTEROID so that it passes by without wreaking havoc on our home turf - we are the only ones allowed to do THAT. Anything we send to head off an asteroid would have to be done in such a way as to hit it from one side, so that its orbit is changed - enough to keep it from hitting Earth.

And we won't have time to take it up w Congress and the committees. Congress would have to ACT IMMEDIATELY! They'd likely say we can't afford to do this - then everyone dies because of their stupidity. We might want to think about educating those folks we put in office. It's apparent that their education is sorrowfully lacking - especially in common sense. Maybe the first order of business would be to force them all to take a good logic class - since that is where they need the most help. Common sense is definitely not every politician's strong suit - unfortunately for the rest of us who have to suffer for their lack. I am not speaking about all politicians - since there are a few - albeit only a few - who have enough upstairs to do what needs doing the right way when things like this come up. Unfortunately, they are in the minority - and I am not talking about majority/minority as in democrat/republican here. There are logical and intelligent guys and gals on Capitol Hill on both sides of the political divide - just not all that many compared to the ones who refuse outright to use the braincells they were born with.

With that being said, I will sign off...until next time...

WARNING: Magnetic Field Reversal is Coming

An update: While doing a bit of preliminary research for a possible paper to make up the work for paleoclimatology class, I read a relatively recent article that mentions that before a reversal - the Earth's magnetic field decreases by 10% - then reverses - and finally restrengthens in the south direction. The same article mentions that the field has decreased 10% over the past 150 years.

Scientists still do not know enough about what the consequences will be. Heck, we are not all that sure about what causes it, yet. Time is running out. One point made in the article mentions something about the field disappearing altogether - exposing us to cosmic rays. This cannot be a good thing. This phenomena must be researched and dealt with immediately - so that preventative measures can be taken.

Teachers Who Don't Teach and Don't Really Care

This topic is a real serious peeve of mine. I have had mostly decent and fair teachers all throughout my educational experience - but there have been a few who were absolutely awful. There are some who care nothing about their students' success. There are those who justify their lack of appropriate instruction as just the way professionals do it. They care nothing about the consequences of their actions. Then there are the teachers that reward students who kiss their backsides and reward those who do favors for said teacher rather than grading based on the work the student does in class. I have had my share of all three types and because I was expecting to get graded on my abilities in class with the material covered - I ended up getting burned - I failed or was forced to withdrawal when it was possible for me to do so.

In my Junior year in high school I started out with good grades - with some room for improvement. Then around November of that term - I came down w pneumonia and was out sick for about two weeks. When I came back - most of my teachers were considerate and understanding and gave me the chance to make up the work I missed, gave me extra time to study for exams/quizzes, or gave me extra credit to keep my grades up. In essence they gave me a chance to succeed. Unfortunately, two of my teachers were not nearly as decent or understanding. They refused to give me a chance because they could not be bothered and did not give a damn about a student who was initially doing well in their classes. Both of these teachers expected me to take the exams coming up at the same time as the rest of the class - claiming that I had as much time as everyone else to study for them. And my chemistry teacher downright refused to let me make up the missed lab assignments. Before I got sick - my guidance counselor was so impressed with how well I was doing she encouraged me to look into some good colleges and universities for after I graduated. However, because of these two teachers refusing to give me a chance - my guidance counselor changed her tune - saying that I'd have to make up the missed work, etc., over the summer - and that I might want to consider going to community college. So, in essence, I was severely punished for getting pneumonia.

Then there was the college English teacher who gave the good passing grades out to the students who did a special favor for her - and started flunking everyone who did not do so. I just thought the woman had it in for me only - and I could not figure out why - until I talked to another student who was in the same boat as me. My essays for the class started out w passing grades. First a C, second paper got a B, and the third an A. At this point, it was just past midterm. Then she mentioned that she needed some folks to help her paint her house if anyone was available. Those available decided to help her out - since she seemed like a decent and good teacher, giving fair grades, etc. After this event took place, she started giving all those students who did not show up to paint her house F's on every paper for the rest of the term. I ended up getting an F, and another girl got a D, only because she had straight A's since the first paper. That's how I knew the teacher was a fake. As a matter of fact, when she looked at the rough draft of the paper she gave me the F on - she said it looked really good and well written and that I would likely get another A. The rough draft was almost identical to the final paper.

Then there's the physics professor who just did not believe in teaching the material we needed to know in order to take and pass the exams. He actually said as much to the entire class - after most everyone in class failed the first exam. He even insulted everyone for being losers and for not studying - except we all studied what he went over in class and read the text as instructed to do so. The point is - he did not test on the material he went over in class. This makes no sense. Why teach a class in the first place - unless you're going to teach it in the best way for students to learn the material - so that they have a chance to learn and pass the exams. Again, a teacher who did not believe in giving students a reasonable chance at success. Very inefficient and ineffective teaching style. The most disturbing about this professor's teaching tactics is twofold. First, the head of the physics department later told us that unfortunately most physics, math, and chemistry professors at major universities teach this way. Secondly and the most disturbing, most engineering students are taking these exact same classes and are not learning what they really need to be learning - like gravity, tension, pressure, and other major natural forces and processes in nature. These engineering students get severely curved grades so the professor doesn't lose tenure. This lets the students pass but without the knowledge they took the class to learn in the first place. Now we have engineering mistakes and disasters that are costing people their lives because of the failure at the educational level.

Hey, if you don't want to be a teacher - then don't be a teacher. But, if you want access to the goodies - the perks - that come with the teaching position - like labs available for your research and experiments - then you may have to teach - but at least do it the right way. Students and their families are going into severe debt to pay for and take these classes. The least a college or university professor can do in return is teach the material that the students need to know for the exams and for their careers. The best professors I ever had - did teach this way - the right way.

Giving Honest Scientists a Bad Name

A couple posts ago I mentioned about the spam I was getting enticing me to buy a PhD. Yes, I was a wee bit upset - I have issues about this due to the fact that several years ago I had to do a research paper about intelligent design and the Discovery Institute - which I also mentioned. The thing that quite literally pissed me off so much was the fact that there were a bunch of guys over there in that so-called think tank who were parading around PhD's in Geology - a field that I know all too well - while at the same time claiming that evolution is not reality and other very obviously scientific theories, etc. I could not - for the life of me - figure out what college on this planet would award such out-of-touch-with-reality morons who do not even know what the scientific method is - PhD's in geology. So, I did a bit of background work on them - they had bought their PhD's and used them dishonestly to pretend they were real world scientists - so that Congress would take them seriously.

I am sure that those schools that give out these types of degrees are doing it for good reasons - to give some well deserved and serious folks who just have lots of other real life stuff they have to deal with - a leg up. However, thanks to the dishonest jerks at Discovery I. - they have given such degrees a bad name and a very ugly reputation.

The intended purpose was to give serious scholarly-minded individuals who might have some real world obstacles - esp. financial - or even a family to care for - a fighting chance at proving themselves worthy of that piece of paper. The D. I. "geologists" took advantage of this - but dishonestly so. They prove it by their arguments - if you want to call them arguments at all - in favor of I. D. Real scientists are very logical people - but the D.I. are extremely illogical - their arguments make no sense in any way. This is why real scientists won't waste their time dealing with them. Unfortunately, this hasn't stopped them from pushing their holy scriptural doctrine through legislature - against the separation of church and state - which is a firmly held part of this country's political and governing process. They are so anti-American and anti-science that it's hard to believe any American could or would ever give them any funding to keep their bullshit "think tank" running.

The Discovery Institute is the primary cause of the dumbing down of our American educational system and our society. They are akin to the monstrous Nazis - trying to infiltrate and destroy this country from the inside. Their degrees should be recalled by the schools that gave them out - esp. considering that they have not proven themselves as scientists by the rest of the scientific community.

Thanks Discovery Institute - for all your honest work - sincere concern for the state of our nation's educational standards - and your logical and realistic worldview.

Thank you, thank you very much!