Odd Science

An article in a British paper is about "water mining," in other words drilling a well and pumping out water. The article, in the Telegraph, alleges that water pumped out of wells accounts for roughly a quarter of the the rise in sea levels.

I've always had an understanding that almost all of the water pumped from underground is replaced by seepage from rain, snow and surface water. I know of a home in CA that gets its water from a well which has been at the same level for over 20 years, strongly arguing for seepage replacement.

People do pump what is called "fossil water" which apparently is not replaced, causing wells to run dry. Such stories have been seriously rare except in unusual places like the Ogallala Aquifer, also mentioned in the article, where replacement appears to be substantially less than loss.

Can such places contribute non-trivial amounts to sea levels? The article reports research to be published which alleges this is true.

Explaining the Obama Phenomenon

Mike Potemra, writing for the National Review Online about how Obama became president:

In 2008, the American people approached this young chap and said, “We find your set speeches very charming, and even though you have next to zero experience with national challenges and have accomplished nothing besides authoring a couple of books talking about what an impressive person you are, it would make us feel ever so good about ourselves if you consented to be President.” What was he supposed to say? What would you have said? “No?"

COTTonLINE thinks Potemra is correct in this view, the fault is truly ours. We persist in electing presidents with training wheels.

There are other wise thoughts in this column, too. I particularly liked his use of the analogy about the dog which catches the car it's chasing and has no idea what to do with it.

Quote of the Day

Mary Kate Cary, writing in U.S. News & World Report about President Obama's policy:

He told a crowd at a Democratic campaign event to “stop sulking.” Gone are the days of “Yes We Can.” It’s become “You Better Not.” In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Funny how that approach never works.

Changing Sides

Pakistan closes the border to U.N. trucks carrying supplies to troops fighting in Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal reports that Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, is supporting the Taliban against the U.S. in Afghanistan, and Pakistan says it's our ally while acting like a country that doesn't want to take sides, or at least take our side. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military doesn't close off their northern border, claiming it is unable to do so.

I've been wondering what would happen if we changed sides, and sided overtly with India against Pakistan/Afghanistan? India has sufficient troops to occupy and subdue the region, with our supply, logistical and airpower support. Would India be willing? I don't know. Would Pakistan become more cooperative if we publicly speculated about the possibility? Perhaps.

Would a China that has problems with its own Islamic minorities side with Islamic Pakistan/Afghanistan against India? Another imponderable. I don't see Russia, yet another classic player in "the Great Game," taking the Islamic side as they battle domestic Islamic insurgents throughout their southern provinces.

Pakistan might have to look to Iran for a reliable ally. Even there they face the Sunni-Shia conflict.

More on Climate Controversy

Those of you following the climate variation issue, the relative impact of the sun on our climate, need to see this AFP article carried on the Breitbart website. The article is a summary of a report in the British science journal Nature.

In short, it says that we know less than we thought we knew about the impact of 11 year solar cycles upon climate. However, the naturally occurring climate variations, cited by those of us who doubt the impact of humans on global climate, run much longer than 11 years.

Quote of the Day

The late Joe Sobran complaining about big government, being quoted in Ann Coulter's column in Human Events:

Freedom has ceased to be a birthright; it has come to mean whatever we are still permitted to do.

I wish that were not true. On a happier note, Joe, no one is truly gone who lives on as you do in the memory of others.

Cavuto: Cut the Crap

Fox News' business anchor Neil Cavuto has a very to-the-point column about cutting government spending. I like it, maybe you will too. He talks about making every government agency and program spend 10% less - it's a place to start.

I'd add there are large government agencies we don't need at all. We had public education before we had a Department of Education, and would still have it if we closed that department.

Much of what the Department of Agriculture does would happen even if the department went away. Ditto the Department of Energy. Does anybody think we'd live in tents if there was no Department of Housing and Urban Development? Nonsense. The same would apply to many other departments, bureaus, agencies, and programs.

At the federal level we need a military, we need a State Department, we need border patrols and coast guards, we need a variety of serious regulatory agencies, probably more than anybody imagines without a careful survey. Somebody has to manage all the acreage and parks the federal government owns.

The federal government wouldn't go away, but it would be considerably smaller, employ many fewer bureaucrats, occupy much less office space. Some states would choose to replace certain of the lost services, others would not because some need them, while others do not. California would have an Environmental Protection Agency because they have smog issues. The Dakotas and Nebraska could likely do without, the difference being population density.

The mental exercise of thinking of federal agencies without which the nation could nicely survive is sort of fun, see what you can come up with. Go here to find the official A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies. I only find one of the first ten that I'd plan to keep, I figure the federal courts probably need an administrative office.

Is It Cultural?

The Associated Press reports on the USA Today website that the FBI is arresting Puerto Rico police and corrections officers on grounds of corruption. This is an interesting echo of the arrests and firings of corrupt police throughout Mexico.

All of this raises the question, is this an Hispanic cultural artifact or a result of the narcotics plague and the huge amounts of money associated therewith? Certainly the narcotics money explanation is the politically correct response.

If narco-dollars are the primary cause, shouldn't we be seeing similar arrests among police and prison guards in the mainland U.S.? I'm just saying....

More on California's Meltdown

Jennifer Rubin writes a wistful, sad, but well-researched elegy for California. The weather is still wonderful, the scenery still spectacular, but the human-generated mess that is state and local government is the pits. Her article appears in Commentary.

I believe the following is my favorite quote from the piece:

Employers and educated people can uproot themselves, and they have been, fleeing the congestion, the traffic, the crumbling infrastructure, and the deficient schools. Between 1990 and 2000, 2 million more left the state than arrived from other states.

I wonder what the exodus will look like when FedGov gets the 2010 census numbers crunched?

The Anglosphere Expands

On September 25 we wrote of "the Anglosphere," those nations where almost everybody speaks English. Here is further evidence of movement in that direction.

The Daily Telegraph (UK) reports that English has become Europe's second language - that is, the main "foreign" language taught throughout those parts of Europe where it is not the first language. The article concludes with the following sensible notion, which will drive the French crazy:

Last month, Pascal Smet, a Flemish-speaking Belgian politician outraged his country's French speaking community by calling for English to become Europe's "common language".

"I note that the engine of European integration is sputtering. One reason is that we do not speak the same tongue, hence my plea for a common European language," he said. "It seems logical to me that this is English, which is already the lingua franca of international economics and politics. French is not spoken anywhere in the world while English is now increasingly becoming a global language."

Smet exaggerates slightly; there are substantial parts of sub-Saharan Africa which speak French in addition to the tribal languages. On the other hand, he forgets to add that virtually all scientific journals are written in English, regardless of where printed.

More Potter Books?

Author J. K. Rowling has apparently told Oprah Winfrey that she will write more books, perhaps even books in the Potter "universe." This article in The Week, which reports the interview, takes the view that nothing more can be written about Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the crew.

I beg to differ. The Book Seven epilogue which says who married whom and who had what children leaves out many interesting details - careers of the principals and lives of many interesting secondary characters, like Luna, Neville, Cho, and most especially Draco. Are there monstrous off-spring of Hagrid and Maxime thundering about somewhere?

There are so many loose ends to tie up. Did the history-loving ice cream vendor of Diagon Alley resurface? Did the surviving Weasley twin continue as a successful merchant, or did his twin's untimely death in battle cause a change in life trajectory? Did Cousin Dudley become an adult friend of Harry, having at last recognized Harry as an equal? Did Hermione become a civil rights leader or is she a professor at Hogwarts? Speaking of which, why is the entire teaching faculty at Hogwarts unmarried?

The above-mentioned epilogue is a lapse into chic-lit cliche: who married whom, whose children look like whom, with whom will they mate? These are important life issues, but they are not the only important life issues.

Palestinian Realpolitik

Jonathan Chait, writing for The New Republic, has a very sensible article about the seemingly eternal conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He holds that neither side settles because neither side wants to settle - that makes sense to me. Check out his reasoning.

Deteriorating Air Power

Go see this article in The American Interest about the deterioration of U.S. air power. Author Richard B. Andres writes a very thorough and compelling argument for getting serious about fighter, bomber, and tanker aircraft that, for a change, would be younger than the men and women flying them.

I particularly like his rationale for U.S. airpower in a world wherein we are the superpower. Andres says:

Defense means something different for the United States than it does for other nations. While states usually build militaries to defend or, less frequently these days, to enlarge their territory, the principle purpose of the U.S. military is to defend the global commons and the open international economic order by ensuring peace among the major powers.

There is nothing passé about this purpose. When the military might of states like the United States begins to fail, the result is often global instability and conflict.

In other words, he identifies improving U.S. air power with global stability goals that the Obama administration has espoused. I wonder if he will convince anyone there?

Moynihan Remembered

George Will, who writes for The Washington Post, has read a recent compilation of the letters of Senator and Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan. His review of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary by Steven Weisman reminds us of the wit and wisdom of an amazing individual no longer with us. Will's review includes many choice Moynihan quotes, like these:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

Quote of the Day

Brit pundit Nile Gardiner, writing for the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph, about the prospects for the election which happens here on NOvember 2:

Although he won’t be on the ballot, the mid-terms will largely be a referendum on Barack Obama’s leadership. And by all accounts, The New York Times aside, the president is almost certainly heading towards a massive humiliation at the polls.

Given his track record to date, I predict Obama will blame almost everybody except himself.

Instapundit on Tea Party Power

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, writing about the success of the Tea Party for the Washington Examiner:

Both political parties are out of touch, and ordinary Americans are very unhappy about it, as they watch the Treasury being looted, the economy sink, and the political, journalistic, and financial ruling-class figures escaping the consequences of their ham-handed and self-serving actions.

Known for his blog Instapundit, Reynolds makes the point that the GOP, if handed control of the Congress in NOvember, has two years to demonstrate that they "get it."

If an empowered GOP fails to curb government spending, Reynolds expects to see serious third party candidates in 2012. COTTonLINE has made this same prediction.

Quote of the Day

Hugh Hefner, writing in The Wall Street Journal about how airline flying has changed:

Stewardesses used to look like Bond Girls; now they look like your mother.

Parker on Population Density

Kathleen Parker writes a column with a whole lot of sense in it about population density and the need for rules. As she says, places with high density need lots of rules to keep people out of each other's faces. Places with low density need relatively few rules because there is room between people. Her column appears in the Whittier (CA) Daily News.

This reasoning works for me. I am a resident of Wyoming, the fifth largest state in the Union, with the absolute fewest citizens of any state. Imagine what that means about population density. I suppose the only state with lower population density is Alaska, but unlike Alaska no significant portion of Wyoming "enjoys" permafrost.

Not surprisingly, Wyoming is one of the most rules-averse places you'll find. A couple of miles down the road from my home is a sign that says proudly, "Wyoming, the way America used to be." And in the county clerk's office where I go to license my vehicles, there is a sign on the wall that says "We don't care how they did it where you come from."

Both of those signs give me a warm feeling. I'll bet they go right up the nose of blue-state folks. There's the difference.

Now relate this concept to the piece below where Gallup finds only the northeast has a Democrat majority. Isn't the northeast where the population is most dense?

Quote of the Day

David Brooks, of The New York Times, waxing rhapsodic about the emerging style of the Republican Party's candidates:

The quintessential New Republican is detail-oriented, managerial, tough-minded, effective but a little dry. If Whitman wins her race, she’ll fit right in.

BTW, Brooks thinks Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, is the most likely Republican presidential nominee for 2012.

Gallup: Regions Differ Politically

Most of the reporting about this set of Gallup polling numbers focus on the fact that Hispanics are less committed to Democrats than they were a few months ago. I'm more interested in another set of findings.

The only area of the United States in which the Democrats have a lead is in the East. In the other three sections of the country, defined as the Midwest, the South, and the West, Republicans have the lead. Gallup doesn't make clear how they define each of those regions.

I'm suspecting that what Gallup calls "the East" is what you and I would call the Northeast - everything north of Virginia and east of Ohio. It is even less clear how the remaining three regions are delineated. They see the U.S. in four regions, I see a minimum of 5 regions with the mountain West being relatively distinct in my eye. Whatever....