Do they still believe him, when Trump clearly lies?

Beyond the point that the President lies is the disturbing fact the many of his supporters still support a President who lies.

I have quickly developed a list of possible reasons.

1) - They don't perceive the lies. They evaluate the candidates on simplistic basis

2) - They are avoiding the truth by  The Dunning-Kruger effect, because they lack the training of self reflection and evaluation. 

3) - They like the lies better than the truth and wish to return to the child's belief in Santa Clause.

4) - Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. He was given a temporary pass on the lies, but he need to produce on his plan.

After a little review I find 1) and 3) dismiss the intelligence of the Trump supporter, I want to believe those who fall in those cases are in a small minority. In case 2) I hope those supporters will learn and grow. In case 4) I believe evidence will quickly turn them around, this is likely why the 2018 election was a big deal for Democrats and a large loss for the Republicans.

So to answer my own question is the 2018 election, they don't believe him.

Florida and Recounts

Florida!! Grumble Grumble

Elections are decided under the law while, election night is a media show. Election night is largely a media event created by radio, promoted by television, largely for ratings purposes. The long story boring legal story is largely covered by newspapers reporters in their quest for deforestation.

It is unavoidable that some election somewhere is going to be so close, that every vote must be counted. This is the cost of elections. All fifty states have a legal method for doing the counting, and unless  there are (or because of) court challenges those methods will be enforced.

This does not stop individuals from making political hay during the uncertain periods, this is their right as  Americans. But in the United States we respect the Rule of Law over the Rule of Men, the government must act under the laws of our nation.

Florida has been historically very close in statewide elections every vote counts, there will be grumblings from both sides, there may be court challenges, it will all end because we will follow the rule of law.

Enjoy the media fireworks as the boring counts and recounts proceeds, there is no quick answers to electoral counts in a large nation.

Goodbye title: The Myth of Fingerprints

Another few years another title...

I am changing the title of this blog to "Outside the Box" because it is another way of characterizing how I think.

Why? The Myth of Fingerprints is a reference to a Paul Simon song from the Graceland album. I used the concept to illustrate the conspiracy based chatter of the Internet, which is unfactual and ultimately, a waste of all our time. I wish to offer my opinion on topics to step back and view topics from a different point of view and perhaps help a few resolve their thinking.

A tale of two Pickles

My perspective is that both the Democrats and Republican Parties are in a pickle, that is caught between two choices each of which is unfavorable. Each party must deal with it's extremist wing. For the Democrats this is the Progressives represented by Bernie Sanders, while the Republicans must deal with the Conservatives best represented by Ted Cruz.

The big question for Democrats is how Bernie can bring his supporters back to the Democratic ticket. A recent Politico post claims it is Clinton "job to ask my backers," that is somewhat hopeful for the Democrats because history indicates that in 1968 Eugene McCarthy was too late in bringing his wing of supporters back to Democrat tent and Nixon became the president. In 2004, Howard Dean, brought the Progressive wing back to party and his supporters made efforts to convert his fundraising methods to the Democrats. In 2008, Hillary Clinton folded her more central tent in with the Obama camp. The Republicans have in my opinion a deeper long term pickle.

The Republicans have made majorities in Congress since 1994 historic loss of the House by the Democrats, only George H.W. Bush or George W Bush have been a Republican president since Reagan. The Conservatives voters defected to Ross Perot in 1992, electing Bill Clinton. In 2009 Republicans quickly attempted to bring the Tea Party movement within the Republican tent and have been able to regain both Houses of Congress but the 2008 Campaign and the selection of Romney. The rise of the Trump supporters is a sign that the rank in file Republicans want a in your face candidate. The anti-Trump forces are propelling the Republicans towards the chaos of an open convention, Is burning the tent to the ground really the conservative response to Trump?

I read Politico everyday, it covers national politics with fine grained day by day coverage of political campaigns, as well as longer term perspective from campaigns in the past.

Is SCOTUS ready for a do over?

Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International is being taken up by the United States Supreme Court. I read Eric Canton's  blog post Patent law’s deep questions and the government’s answers which it well thought out commentary on the entire process. The best metaphor introduced is the 

greased-up watermelon: a thing that looks like it has real heft, but is almost impossible to firmly grasp.

that is to describe the governments position. It is my position that computers are approximate implementation of the mathematical concept known as Universal Turning Machine. A Turning Machine has an "infinite tape" and that cannot be constructed in a finite space so a computer is an approximation.


The government has decided and the Supreme Court agreed in Bilski v. Kappos to dissollow the business method patents. It's reasoning hinges on software that  “disclose technological, scientific, or industrial innovations” which can't be patented and “improve the way computers function” which can be patented. This is a line drawing in the sand during a sand storm. In the world of mathematics this means nothing. The  Federal Circuit Court could not follow the line set by the SCOTUS. There is really no way to tell that a "improve the way computer function" is not also to "disclose technological, scientific, or industrial innovations".


It was a oft told story by Engineers and Science Majors as Lehigh about the treatment of Engineers by the English department. I learned later that English degrees were often a route for a law degree. I believe there is a bias in the legal profession about the superiority of English to represent all concepts. A school mate of mine remarked how the English Majors just didn't get an analogy based on concepts of Freshman Calculus. When you deal with the fine points about computers math is required real math.The distinctions of the software decided by SCOTUS is Bilski are only words with no real meaning. This confused the Federal Circuit.

In Alice the SCOTUS get a do over, don't mess it up this time!

Is renewable energy just a political term for an old problem?

Renewable Energy really means Reelection.

Energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed they are related by the E=MC2 equation. The term renewable energy is closely related to the concept of green energy. Energy can be transformed into mass and mass into energy but it can't be destroyed or created. Renewable energy has no meaning.

What is presented as Renewable Energy?

Lets examine the Wikipedia definition: Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished).

Sunlight

So by this definition Renewable Energy is naturally replenished. Of course this is really dependent on the time scales. Lets take sunlight:

 Based on the above graph we find that the Sun is about 4.5 Billion year old as of today and will expand to engulf the earth at about 12 Billion years in age. There is a limited although very large amount of energy available from the sun.  So for the next 5 Billion year that large by limited amount of energy counts as renewable.

Wind

Wind is the thermodynamic transfer of heat from the equator to the poles. Wind is a conversion of sunlight into motion. There is a finite amount of energy but until the sunlight stop there will be a limited amount of energy that counts as renewable.

Rain

Rain is cause by the absorbtion of  sunlight by water conversion to a gases and condensation of that gases into the atmosphere. The rain falls releasing that energy. Like wind, rain has a limited amount of energy and count as renewable energy.

Tides

Tides are the result of gravity on the fluid mass around our plant. The energy in the tides is that mechanical energy of the rotating solar system as it condensed from a large gas cloud. The large tides on earth are related to the moon, which is keep our earth axis at more or less the same tilt. There is an energy transfer from the Earth as it slows down, those leap seconds, and the Moon which is slowly moving away from the earth. This is a limited amount of energy that is classified as renewable.

Geothermal

Geothermal Energy is either heat left over from the condensation of the earth or radioactive decay of heavy elements that where in the original gas cloud that formed the solar system. This is a limited amount of energy that is classed as renewable.

BUT! Not being fossil is Renewable!

Coal is not renewable energy because it a fossil. It does not seem to matter that coal is produced from a biological process, what matters is that is was produced from this process a very long time ago. It requires geologic time scales to measure how long ago that it was biological. It seems that the definition of renewable energy is "not fossil".

Why? Atmospheric CO2 also matters a lot

The reason the timescale matters is that coal was formed when the planet has a large amount of CO2 in the atmosphere perhaps 20% today the concentration is 0.04%

And Risk to the Global Climate matters

Increasing CO2 is very likely to result in an average temperature increase of our planet. Renewable Energy is about using energy that will not release CO2.

Renewable Energy is based on the concept that  CO2 release should be limited.

This is a policy or political choice we must make.

Oh that's really Old Politics = New Term

During the first earth day I was in 7th grade and sat in the auditorium while a the high school science teacher handled questions on the environment. The teacher answered a question about electric cars by saying essentially you turn a large number of tail pipes into one large one at the electric plant. While pollution could be controlled better in one place we are still releasing the same amount of CO2 into that atmosphere. My conclusion was that electric cars would be marginally better.

In the decades since that time I have heard a series of warnings from the environmental groups many of them very alarmist. Most of those alarms did not come with a good explanation of the science. Some of them were bad science.

Politicians could not really solve the old problem so they need to call it my a new name to gain votes again. Renewable Energy = Renewable Votes = Reelection!